Is there any such thing? Let's investigate—for good or ill. A blog about fiction and literature, philosophy and theology, politics and law, science and culture, economics and ethics, and any thing else that strikes our fancy. (Apologies to Bertrand Russell)
"What kind of world are we living in when it is the jesters of our society (Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Steven Colbert, The Onion, etc.) who are calling bullshit and the 'serious' professional journalists who are essentially taking dictation from the powers-that-be? What happens to the virtues of truth and questioning when the journalists who are not openly biased (as are Fox News, NY Post, Wall Street Journal editorial page, The Weekly Standard, etc.) only report the controversy, not the facts much less the context…?"
The jesters are at it again, and this time they mean business. In the wake of the outrage that was the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, comedian Steven Colbert set up a Super Political Action Committee: 'Stephen Colbert's Colbert Super PAC: Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.' He demonstrated how Karl Rove was using his own American Crossroads Super PAC and 501(c)(4) corporation, Crossroads GPS, to, essentially, launder money from anywhere and anyone into the Republican campaign. Fact is, Rove's funny money could come from the Communist Chinese or the Russian Mafia or the Nazi-spawn Koch Brothers. Anyone who wants to influence our government and politics but wants to remain anonymous. Oh yeah, and has buttloads of money.
Here's a couple of telling clips from The Colbert Report:
Trevor Potter is a real lawyer, a heavy-hitter, a former FEC official. Karl Rove objected to the besmirching of his otherwise spotless sterling reputation and Colbert responded here:
[Poppa' Squat!] [Of course, to Wisdoc, there's not much that's funnier than Ham Rove.]
Colbert's Super PAC reported contributions close to $1 Million dollars as of Jan-30-12. That's real money and a real Super PAC. In fact, it bought political ads in the South Carolina Republican primary, even though the Super PAC was definitely NOT coordinating with Stephen Colbert's candidacy. They were run on TV there, but, more to the point, they got replayed over and over on the cable political talk shows. Chuck Todd, NBC's political director, apparently didn't get the point and caught a case of the vapors. [Here's a clue: Yes, Chuck, he's mocking you and the lameness of your reporting that gives credibility to self-promoting, conmen, joke candidates like Herman Cain and Donald Trump. And, yes, with unlimited, anonymous monies, anyone can disrupt any party with, GASP!, or without satire. That is precisely the problem. It's called 'dramatization'.]
At least somebody gets it. Here's Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-Cal) own Stop Colbert video:
Stopping Colbert means stopping the pernicious role of Super PAC funny money in American politics. He's even been giving clues by running an ad saying how dangerous his own ads are.
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The lineage of this form of RealKomödie goes back, in my lifetime and memory at least, to the sad-sack Pat Paulson on the old Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
[Is that Henry Fonda narrating? You'll have to search out the remaining 5 parts on The YouTubes.]
Then, of course, there's this absurdist chestnut from the Pythons lampooning media coverage of the same:
For you ski bums, this may have something to do with the path's difficulty:
Bustin' out all over. Seems like we skipped an entire season here in the ATL. Normally, by this time of year we've had several weeks of freezing temps, and the weather's about to turn. This year? Two days. That means a bad summer for 'squitos. Now, the first of February, the perennials are starting to bloom. As much as I enjoy being able to go out running in shorts and tee-shirts all year long, I'm somewhat disturbed—especially if this is a long-term trend and not simply a La Niña effect
BDR reminds me that this is Blogroll Amnesty Day. I'm not sure I know what that is, though I think it has something to do with linking to blogs smaller than this. As, I'm sure you know, there are truly very few blogs much smaller than this, I may be exempt. For example, my Alexa Traffic Rank is 25,805,937. Know anybody lower? Still, in the spirit of the meme, I'll throw up some links to a few blogs (and other similar sites and fora) I visit.
"The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between this profusion of matter and the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux, Les Noyers de l'Altenburg
"Humanism does not consist in saying: ‘No animal could have done what I have done,’ but in declaring: ‘We have refused what the beast within us willed to do, and we seek to reclaim man wherever we find that which crushes him.’" Andre Malraux, The Voices of Silence
To recap: The Mosaic sadness is too much with us. It is the condition of our being. It defines us, whether we choose to acknowledge its prevalence. Yet, we would be paralyzed by depression if we let the consciousness of the abyss—the limitation of our vision, the mortality of our souls, the inevitable failure of our aspirations, the delusion of our ideals—pervade our day-to-day lives. So, we repress it. We seek distraction. We obsess about things of no consequence. We "rage, rage against the dying of the light." We accede "what the beast within us will to do." Some look, e.g., to religion for a salve, a savior, if you will, transcendence. Some look to literature (and the other arts) to see how others with whom we can identify have dealt with the situation.
This is realism about who we are and our place in the universe. Or, at least, this is my own understanding of the truth about who we are and our place in the universe. But what if my understanding is wrong? What if it is limited by, say, my ignorance? What if what the human condition is not a condition at all, but merely a temporary situation? What if mortality itself has a shelf life? Smarter people than I are asking this question in scientific ways that weren't possible even 20 years ago.
Michio Kaku, whom I've noted a number of times here on WoW, believes we are only a few decades away from decoding the aging process:
Aubrey de Grey, he of the really out there ZZ Top beard and odd voice and mien, believes he's identified the seven key factors involved in aging, and has devised specific strategies for attacking each of them:
de Grey seems to be convinced that people living today will be the first to extend their lifespans to 200 years or even more. Maybe even people in their 40s and 50s now. Aging and Death, he thinks, are not necessarily inevitable.
You can find out more about de Grey here, here, here, and here for starters.
de Grey may be delusional and a crackpot, but he's got me (us) asking fundamental, existential questions. He has stirred up something like, dare I say, hope in an otherwise jaded breast. Mine may be the last generation subject to the historical, existential human condition or the first to experience something like physical immortality.
Then, I look at my kids—aged 22, 20, & 16. I wonder if—as de Grey and others who are seriously pursuing this start-up "big science" project—I wonder if my kids might, indeed, be part of the first generation to live healthily and productively for 1,000 years. And then the Mosaic Sadness returns with a vengeance as I, like Moses on Mt. Nebo, look across into the Promised Land, prepared to die unfulfilled and alone knowing I cannot go there with them.
Sorry about the length of the previous post. I wanted to put up the entire chapter. I'll try to keep posts in this series shorter going forward.
So, to recap: Josh has S.A.D. [Seasonal Affective Disorder], though it is unstated. An unstated pun. Sadness, unacknowledged, is likewise a specter hanging over him—which appears, literally, in an earlier ghostly visitation (dream) scene.
How does he deal? He starts by questioning who he is—the right move philosophically: "differential man" whose ultimate end, of course, is perfect integrity, pure identity, ultimate aloneness, and death. He negotiates his way through the bustling humanity of Grand Central Station. He mourns what he perceives his condition to be—short daylight, overworked, over-stressed, confused, etc. Then comes the crucial question: "Where is the light?" Of course, true to the rules of comedy, the answer comes in the form of something woefully inadequate: the full spectrum lamp. And, ditto, it burns him. Slapstick, yo.
Josh then experiences a natural run of emotional reactions to this grievous situation: denial, anger, mindless busy-ness (running aimlessly around the halls kicking trashcans), etc. He even has an authoritarian impulse when he sees how certain associates leave their lights on and their coats on their chairs to make their bosses think they're burning the midnight oil. But then, he comes to himself; he collects his wits and sets into the task before him, despite his serious exhaustion. Even though he is not yet aware of his ultimate Mosaic sadness, he has a taste of it. His is the response of the healthy psyche: just get myself through one more day and do what I have to do to go on.
Then, in a true revelation of Josh's character, he exercises what a lot of us here on internet refer to as 'the Kind': even though he's furious at his associate for her shoddy work and for abandoning it to him and for putting this additional burden on his already stressed out life, he recognizes her limitations—her personhood—and bites back on his instinctive inhumanity. He is, to my mind, a paragon here—even though he has yet to experience the great epiphany that is central to the novel w/r/t (a) the psychodynamics that have shaped his current trajectory, (b) the true ground of his being, and (c) what I'm calling here the Mosaic sadness.
