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An entire commentary on the recall just got eaten by Blogger.

Have I mentioned how much Blogger sucks?

Maybe I ought to give Moveable Type another chance. Last time, it refused to install properly, refusing to "see" the index page. No matter what I did, no dice. I gotta take some time and try and get it to work.

Anything's better than this.

And maybe I'll learn to type the things in another program first.

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As noted below, I wrote a column on the recall.

Another column on the recall.

Yet more on the recall.

Recall.

Believe me, maybe it's better that Blogger ate the column, never to allow it to see the light of day. (I wonder if it was posted to someone ELSE's blog. I hope so. I hope it posted to a totally unrelated, apolitical blog, maybe a Britney Spears Fan Club blog. Confusion is king.)

I'm in one of my moods again, suffering from news overload. The New York Times had an article this morning suggesting that as a reason that network news ratings are in the toilet, but I don't think that's quite right- it underestimates the impact of cable news networks and the simple fact that those network evening news programs are wholly unnecessary in an age when you can get news instantly on the Net, on cable, on your cell phone. But screw the network news shows, and screw the cable news shows, and screw newspapers and magazines and everything.

I don't want to hear it right now.

Recall, war, taxes, crime... I need a vacation. I do nothing BUT read and comment on the news. That's what I do for a living, and it's what I do here. But sometimes you need to come up for air, and I'm having a hard time finding the surface lately. (And as an independent contractor, I don't get vacation- gotta work for the money)

I want to spend some time with the mindless. I want Lucy reruns and Dontrelle Willis on the mound. I want Wally Cleaver twisting to the "Twist Station" on the transistor radio. I want a swing set in the yard, a basketball hoop in the driveway, "Caddyshack" and "Slap Shot" on DVD. I want a world of pure, simple pleasure, no worries, no bills, no news.

Ain't gonna happen. I know. But it's what I need.

Nooooooonnnan! Luuuuucy, I'm Home! Hey, Wally!

Aaaahhh.

I'm goin' to TV Land.

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In the midst of one of those usual endless back-and-forth discussions on the letters page of the Romanesko journalists' trade site, in a debate on using digital vs. analog recorders for interviews and press conferences, a reporter felt the need to say this:

I use an MZ-NF810, because I like a radio for my commute (NPR, not Howard Stern).

NPR, not Howard Stern.

Why did he say that?

People who listen to things like NPR want you to know it. They want you to know that they're smarter than the great unwashed, that they're educated and worldly and concerned not with trivialities like celebrities and sex and true crime, but instead with the barley famine in Kajagoogoostan and the political turmoil in Outer Jibip and the civil war in New Wherever. No entertainment on THEIR morning commute- no, sir, just serious discussion of important events. Entertainment is reserved for weekends, when you might hear one of those chuckle-inducing Garrison Keillor monologues or a slap-happy game show like "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" where all the panelists are, well, you know, one of US. But the radio dial stops at 91.9.

I, on the other hand, must be a moron, because I don't care about those deep, chin-scratching, pipe-puffing political discussions. I don't care about the scandal threatening to topple the Social Christian Conservative Democratic Liberal Party in Ermabombeckistan, or the wrangling between the majority and minority on the House Grain Silo Exterior Red Paint Subcommittee. I admit it. I don't care.

Because it doesn't matter to me. It will never matter. It has nothing to do with me or my life. I will not be affected, will not benefit or be damaged by it, can live my entire life free from the need to know any of it. And I don't need to go to a cocktail party with like-minded friends conducting a serious discussion- nay, verbal fisticuffs!- over it. I need impress no one with my knowledge of the kind of things NPR discusses. (Also, they tend to be flat out wrong on a lot of things, because they come at things from one angle (guess which)) In short, neither I nor anyone else who isn't likely to be named an Ambassador or run for the Senate needs that information.

Howard Stern, on the other hand, is entertaining. THAT I need.

I admit to listening to your garden variety "shock jocks," your right-wing talk radio ranters, your in-depth radio arguments over the Chargers' chances in the AFC this year. I read the New York Post. I watch mindless sitcoms and pro sports. I sometimes even eat at McDonalds, get a drink at Starbucks, buy books at chain bookstores, buy my soap and underwear at Wal-Mart. I have no need to announce any of that, but if this reporter thinks it's important to announce your radio listening habits as a signal of intelligence, well, call me a moron- I may be one- but at least I spend the morning laughing while that guy's wasting time and brain cells on things he'll never need to know.

When it's time to look back on life, I think I'll prefer having laughed a lot to having been lectured to by some tweedy highbrow Journalist on a tweedy pseudo-highbrow radio network. Most people would. Let that guy and his friends laugh at the little people. I'm happy to be little. It's more fun.

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First off, I am not the best air traveler. I'm not the worst, either. I just want to take off, fly, and land safely and quickly. I don't want to be stuck at an airport for hours while waiting for the aircraft to finally show up, crammed into a tight seat, fed inedible "food," and dumped at the destination hours behind schedule. I just want to blink and be there, less "Star Trek" beaming than "Bewitched" nose-twitching. I like travel, but the process I can do without.

So I have to catch a red-eye tonight. Red-eyes are good in one way- you don't waste any useable daytime hours flying. The bad thing is that on Thursday early morning, I'll stagger off the plane, not having slept for more than 20 minutes at a time, drag the carry-on to the rental car shuttle, and find myself in the middle of another city's rush hour, driving an unfamiliar car, listening to unfamiliar radio shows on a radio with all the presets set to stations en espanol.

Oh, yeah, did I mention it's going to be raining?

I'm flying into an epic storm tonight. This is a "tonight's top story" storm, a "keeping a close watch" storm, a "severe flood warnings in all local counties" storm. This is one where you're watching TV and they cover half the screen with alerts and maps and blinking red things. Every weather hack on TV there is orgasming at the sight of the radar map. And they all say the same thing: high winds, torrential rain all night and into the morning. And I'm flying into it.

That's assuming, of course, that they don't divert us. I'm not relishing the prospect of awakening from a fitful nap to hear either "we're going to be running into a little turbulence while we descend, so everyone please fasten your seat belts and remove the prayer card from the seat pocket in front of you" or "we're going to be landing 800 miles north of our intended destination- there'll be buses waiting to take you there." Either way, it's not good, but that's the price you pay for having the temerity to be a human who wants to fly.

You want to fly? Hah! If God wanted us to fly, he'd have given us wings. And better in-flight meals.

So it's off to the airport in a few hours. More tomorrow. I hope.

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Made it.

That's my office for the morning. That's my computer in front. My iced tea lemonade is off screen.

Unfortunately, the weather sucks.

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Oh, come on.

If I hear one more person pronouncing how this blackout shows modern man's helplessness in the face of an interruption of technology, I'm gonna slap someone with a candle holder.

It is not helplessness. It is an inconvenience. Modern man is inconvenienced when the power goes out. 19th century man was inconvenienced when the horse got sick or the buggy hitch broke. Cavemen were inconvenienced when their clubs broke. This is not new, and it's not a disaster. People lose a half day and it's supposed to be symbolic. Symbolic? It was symbolic of a hemmorhoid. Pain in the ass. Not a sweeping indictment of reliance on technology.

Memo to pundits: get a generator and shut the hell up.

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I'm in a hotel.

I'm tired. Very tired.

The place has apparently been booked for a wedding involving families raised by wolves.

This is not good.

Screaming mobs of people, adults and children. People shoving their way into the elevator when you're trying to get out. One kid with a guitar running through the hall followed by a kid holding a boom box over his head.

This is gonna be SOME night.

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