It's been a long time since I rock and rolled

Now, many people have been wondering what the hell has happened to my blog. Good question. They say, "Monstro, we rely on you for hard hitting commentary on Vin Diesel, and you simply are not coming through. What the hell is wrong with you?" Again, good question.

I wish I could say that it was school work that has kept me off the writer's market, but such simply is not the case. I may comment more on that later, but as of now, let's just say no, and leave it at that. Shock Tea? No. The novel simply has fallen by the way side as it does from time to time, though more time off than on, but here again, that too surrounds a sense of guilt that perhaps stifles a bit. But I can't blame that either. Half Life? No. I've now beaten Half Life, and Blue Shift, and Opposing Force, so I can't blame the video games for my general "not writing." But then what's left. Ennui? No. Not Ennui.

I'll blame Avram.

You see, many moons ago, I read Avram's old writing sample concerning Conrad and Ellison and Doestoevsky, and in repayment, he went above and beyond the call of duty and bought me a Land Raider. Now, for those of you who do not know, this is a really big purchase, and certainly more than I deserved for having read a paper of his, which I would of done without payment. Regardless, I could only thank Kyle, although, secretly in my heart, I knew that this was his attempt to get me to start playing Space Marines so that he could finally have a victory over me. Who knew that months later, that victory would be achieved not by my embracing the Imperial Cult but rather by putting my faith in some polychromatic clowns known to the universe of the forty first millenia as Harlequins. But enough of that. I'm pretty good with Space Marines too, and a Land Raider is nothing to scoff at.

Regardless, at the same time, Avram purchased an Eldar Wraithlord which he hoped that I would paint in order to commemerate my soundly destroying him time and time again with the ancient forces of the space elves. But here's the thing, in the absense of any real Avram around to keep reminding that I had a damn Wraithlord to paint, the miniature in all of its glory was put on the back burner as I selfishly decided what color scheme to paint my chaos army. Orange, for those interested, I'm playing The Pyre--so, orange and black. Anyway, having finally the good sense to put my "vision" of this oversized Eldar miniature into practice, I've recently begun putting together and painting Avram's Wraithlord. That's right Avram...and damn, does it look good!

Now, before I hear complaints that it took me long enough, I want to say this. The technology to bring my vision for Avram's wraithlord to life simply did not exist back when I was handed the miniature. No. If I had begun the miniature back then, I would have begun in earnest because, to be quite clear about this, I lacked a dremel--which I now have. Pictures of Avram's Wraithlord are forthcoming. I have to finish painting, but when that happens you may bet that "Treebeard"--my name for said Wraithlord--will be posted right here on this blog the day that it is put into packaging and sent to California for Avram so as to always have a little icon of the army that he hates so dearly.

All The News That's Fit To Print

Evidentally the blogger community is being suffused with power that I would never have guessed that we would have. People, in the absence of a reliable news report, are turning to bloggers as underground journalists...and more power to them.

However, and here's the part that disturbs me, I blog, and I am not an underground journalist. More to the point, my friends blog and they really aren't underground journalists either. I've always thought of this thing more as a diary. At most, a Montaigne style treatise, but believe me, journalistic integrity is not one of my prime concerns. I commonly don't get my facts straight. I'm always subjective. I'm not a journalist. Not that the people at Fox are journalists either. The difference between me and those so-called journalists is that I freely admit that I'm not reporting the news. They receive money from Bush's administration to scew their stories, and yet, they still have the gaul to call what they do journalism. But...that's beside the point.

My point here is that the idea of a blogger as an underground journalist is proposterous. Nobody's leaking any stories to blogs in order for the stuff to get out. The average blogger is NOT picking up a lead out of thin air or doing any sort of investigative reporting. That's not what we do, and that's not what I do. The assumption upon which this claim rests is that the news is routinely not telling the story, and the bloggers are picking up where the news failed to go. For the most part that simply is not the case, and I think we need to address what the blogger actually does, why it's effective, and what all that means.

Here, for instance, is what I do when I want to make a blog that's quasi-journalistic. First of all, I look at the news stories that are out there. Secondly, I comment on them. That's what I do. It's all second hand. The stories which I'm spinning are not my own. Furthermore, they are not drawn from grey areas where the news failed to go. They went there. If they hadn't, I wouldn't have anything to say on those blogs.

The thing is though that they only kind of go there, and well they should. They are supposed to be objective, and in this case, I think they are actually doing just that. An important story is put on page 10 of the newspaper. In other words, they are not telling you that the story is important. I read that story 10 pages in and I think about its significance to other stories that I've read recently. The newspaper will not do that for me, and for this they are being criticised, but really, the story's there, you can read it, you can figure out what it means in the grand scope of things, and you are free to react any damn way you feel.

The crux of the complaints about the news is that they are not blatantly telling the public the context in which the story should be read, they are not telling the public how they should feel, and when they are, they are drawing the wrong conclusions. But still, isn't this the public's fault? Should they really be pitied because the media will not spoonfeed them opposing view points.? The view points exist, they need just go, find them, and figure out for themselves what it all means. That's all I do. It's not a magic trick.

So, for instance, the American audience hears that Russia doesn't believe that Iran has any nuclear weapons. Okay, there's a news story. Now, the media doesn't do anything with it. They say the tid-bit but what they don't do is say this means that if we attack Iran, the rest of the world, and especially one of the permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council will be against us. In other words, such attack will not only not have the support of the rest of the world, they will actively be taking a stand against such action. But to process this, the audience must have some common knowledge of what has been going on in the world. They have to be on top of things. If they aren't the implications slip past them, and who do they blame for their lack of insight? The news--the very same people that they criticize for telling people what they should think. And so where do they go to get their opinions spoon fed to them? The blogs.

Part of me wants to say that the news blog is essentially very democratic and that it returns the idea of a free market society back to journalism in order to correct the corruption that the news monopolys have suffered due to lack of competition--and yes, I in fact do believe that news blogs are a good thing. My problem is a question of why they are working in the first place. If the American public wants to know what's going on, it's really not that hard to do without having to go to a blog to figure it out. Come on America, not being told the story is different then having to read to the 10th page of a newspaper. These stories are there, you just have to read them.