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January 08, 2005

The Impervious Zone of Happiness

I once wrote of the chatting class:

The issue is issues and issues issue forth.

I have had an extraordinarily sweet Christmas and Kwanzaa this year, and I still haven't descended from the zone. I'm actually happy about football games. I'm satisfied that the world's attention is focused on a real disaster and I'm watching intelligent movies again. In other words, there's no bug up my butt forcing me to deal with issues.

I'm satisfied and not out looking for trouble. I am not engaged. Instead, I'm holed up with the Nuke, roughhousing on the bed in our pajamas at 11 on a soggy Saturday morning.

I drug myself to the business end of the computer because, at the moment, mixing *anything* with AWB just doesn't seem to work. Aside from that, I'm having a very difficult time feeling offended enough to assume causality.

I mean take this social security issue. The worst case scenario is that it goes broke in 20 years. So that basically gives the loyal Bushie opposition at least four chances to elect a president who will fix it, if indeed it is this president who is breaking it. The interesting thing is that this is the only long term issue on the plate, aside from the putative rise of China and the Oracle-Peoplesoft merger. (heh). The only other long term issue of note is environmentalism, and as Michael Crighton has so deftly demonstrated, most of those woolly heads are out of their minds.

But what has really knocked the daily grind on its ass is the still-unnamed tsunami. I mean will somebody please identify the name of the fault that slipped so we can give this thing a moniker? I think this is the longest time in modern media history that anything that has killed more than 10 people doesn't have a name. Aside from all that, Sue has put most everything else into perspective, and I think most clearly, the environment.

So an island moves 10 meters. The planet is fine. So the ozone depletes. The planet is fine. As for the rest of us maze mice, what is there to occupy us? Differences of opinion? Yawn.

I've never been into presidential politics much, and so I'll continue with my theory and whatnot, but a couple friends are launching groupblog / opinion sites from the black hand side. (I have a perfect name 'Ebon Flow'), and so I may very well soon be winding down the political aspect of Cobb and repurposing it to be more on the China immersion, which won't be nearly as political.

All this is saying that 2005 is feeling distinctly different, and I'm having to invent new reasons to do the blog thing. It is sudden and surprising. Chances are that I will go deep into the Critical Theory mode and leave Domestic Affairs and Local Deeds alone. Matters of the Spirit will probably get more play.

But right now I smell bacon from the kitchen.

Posted by mbowen at January 8, 2005 12:19 PM

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Posted by: memer at January 10, 2005 07:06 AM