Sunday, February 6, 2011

The first post of the year

I think that I will forego my fatuous need to post my predictions for the year. They have an unfortunate habit of being wrong and the ones that I wish to have be proved false coming home to roost.

So I am pondering what to write about during the course of the year and how I wish to approach this little bit of self-righteousness that I call a blog. It doesn't seem likely that I will write every day. In truth, I have chewed up and spit out just about every subject imaginable in the little spate of biliousness that has occurred on these pages during the last four years. So I am sitting down at 04:50 in the morning figuring out what it is that is important enough for me to spend the time needed to half-bake the ideas you and I have become accustomed to seeing in these pages.

So what I think that I will do is spend some time every morning, while I sip my java and try to acquire some blood flow in my frontal lobes. I will publish on a regular day hopefully, then I will link on a random basis to something worth reading/watching/listening to. Who knows, this just may be another of my episodes of intellectual constipation (of course Locutius, in those moments of empathy and sensitivity he is so known for, has oftimes referred to this entire operation as such).

So, since it is time to write, I think tht I will speak of living standards, and the human desire to move up into the nobility. That is what I see here folks. There is nothing new under the sun.

What is happening in the West is that, through the miracle of the media and Martha Stewart, the hoi polloi saw the way that the aristocracy lived and wanted a piece of the action. Now, in most cases this has had desultory effects. After a while living beyond ones means were quickly rooted out and everyone went back to getting by. No harm, no foul. But when you listen to the blogs and listen to the news and listen to the politicians, this time it appears that the changeover that will allow us to revert to being "just folk" will in fact be the end of western civilization.

3 comments:

Mayberry said...

Ah, it is possible to climb back aboard after falling off the edge of the earth! Ha ha.

Yes, it seems that some folks have realized that champagne tastes and beer budgets don't coexist very well. The empty McMansions and used car lots full of repo'd Navigators stand as monuments to a failed societal model. Those still clinging to it may find themselves wishing they could swap for a few acres and a John Deere.

Or, one might find success buying McMansions for pennies on the dollar, then dividing them up into 4-plexes. 'Tis a slow decline. I expect savvy individuals will find ways to work the system 'til it's gone...

Phil said...

I have been wondering what you were up too.
Thought maybe you said fuckitall for a bit.

Still up at my girlfriends for the time being.

russell1200 said...

I missed that you came out of hibernation! LOL

Well there was a western world prior to the industrial revolution, and the unlimited expanses of colonizing on other peoples land. It just wasn't a whole lot of fun for the common folk. About the only thing that was cheap was people.