Boring
In all the hundreds or thousands of days in which I’ve looked through the Web for things to read, to post, and to comment on at VFR, I’ve never seen such an uninteresting day. Or maybe it’s me?
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Buck O. writes:
I’m assuming that that is a rhetorical question.
I have long thought that we can only bore ourselves, that no one can bore me. I have all of the necessary options at my disposal. Walk away, leave the room, ask a provocative question, toss cold water on them, or take a cold shower,etc. There are many ways to stir it up and break the boredom.
Little has changed around you. All of the issues of the day are still smoldering.
Perhaps there is a fine line between overwhelming and pointless.
LA replies:
I agree. Boredom is something I (almost) never experience. But it did strike me that everything I was reading today was boring.
MBS writes:
How about this story?
CBC Investigation: Who killed Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri?
Jeff C. writes:
i’ve not checked whether and how you’ve considered the issue of wealth differentials and whether you consider it a problem under some circumstances. Here’s a presentation of the issue at the NY Times; nevermind the messenger.
The issue seems to me more and more important because trends in information technology are making so many jobs irrelevant. Yes, I know that the fear of job loss from automation is an old one, and didn’t pan out in the 20th century … but this time might be different, given the number of tasks that can done by a few people and a few companies anywhere in the world.
The answer people give me is, “well, something else will turn up, innovation is always going on.”
The two trends mentioned in that article——a less economically mobile society and a greater concentration of wealth——are issues that should be addressed in an astute way from a conservative point of view. I’ll also note Warren Buffett’s having recently voiced the opinion that taxes are the very rich should be higher.
I don’t think “Give them liberty and give me a glass of pinot noir” is going to cut it.
J. in Brooklyn writes:
Well, for some reason I looked at the Free Republic Forum front page, and oddly enough at the review of some recent book on the New York Time Gray Lady Down, kabar’s comment about “punitive liberalism” is good, might be an indication you and your allies (whoever they may be) are having an effect.
Alex H. writes:
Well, here’s a piece that suggests a very un-boring day at some point in the future, and invites the following mean-spirited question:
What particular hiring “qualification” would make them overlook the fact that one is a boozer?
Kathlene M. writes:
This definitely isn’t boring.
Liberal Republican bimbette Meghan McCain thinks she has the gravitas to be a political analyst, and says women like Christine O’Donnell are nutjobs who are making a mockery of running for public office, while not realizing that “Republicans” like her and Fox News anchorettes are essentially doing the same thing. Here’s what she said:
“Well, I speak as a 26-year-old woman, and my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office,” McCain told ABC. “She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business and what that sends to my generation is one day you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how lack of experience you have … I just know, in my group of friends, it just turns people off because she’s seen as a nutjob.”
Alan Roebuck writes:
In music, what one man loves, another may find irritating. But as a possible partial antidote to your ennui, I offer this four-and-a-half minute video of the Moody Blues’ You and Me, always one of my favorite obscure songs. (You’ll have to overlook a bit of bad grammar: You and me just cannot fail…. ) It is the visual images that make this music video, for me at any rate, a transcendent experience. The theme of the pictures is: From the Earth to the heavens, as they show the ordinary suffused with a transcendent light and the heavens as always near Earth.
Amit G. writes:
Lawrence, my good friend, you say you are bored but this is just a temporary phhase becasuye your energy has been flagging after many a battle for truth and justice. But the world is an exciting place wher many peoples are coming togehter—you from your point of view, me from mine and others from theirs. Together all the divergencies will convierge. The energies driving each point of view goes up and down and yours may be down for the time being but you will rise again to push for your angle of justice. This is an esxciting world, the young peoples are coming togetheer and we will be what Obama is waiting for as he said we are what we have been waiting for.
Jack from Long Island writes:
How about the Pope endorsing the use of condoms by male prostitutes?
LA replies:
Somehow, when I saw a headline with the words “Pope” and “condoms,” I didn’t feel like reading further. But now that you’ve filled in the story with specifics, I couldn’t help but look it up and find out more.
Hard as it is to believe that the Pope is commenting on such a subject, here it is, with audio, from NPR:
Vatican Clarifies Pope’s Comments On Condoms
by Sylvia Poggioli, National Public Radio
Pope Benedict has said that condom-use may be justified in special circumstances, such as that of male prostitutes seeking protection from HIV infection. The pope made the statements during conversations with a German journalist that have been compiled into a book — scheduled for release Tuesday, but excerpted in the Vatican newspaper over the weekend.
Now that the Pope is giving advice to male prostitutes on the safest way for them to practice their profession, …
I was looking for some further extreme case that would be the “next step,” illustrating how insane this step is, but really, once the Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Christ is giving safe sex advice to male prostitutes, is the question of a “next step” even relevant? Haven’t things already gone as far as they can go?
And to think, Rogers and Hammerstein thought that things had gone about as far they could go when one of their characters visited Kansas City in the 1943 musical Oklahoma:
One of the gals was fat and pink and pretty,
As round above as she was round below.
I could swear that she was padded from her shoulder to her heel,
But latter in the second act when she began to peel
She proved that ev’rythin’ she had was absolutely real!
She went about as fur as she could go,
(Yes sir!)
She went about as fur as she could go!
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
Alan Roebuck sent you music on this boring day.
Well, it is one of those warm, rainy November days, which qualifies for me as a boring day. Not quite festive (and cold) enough for Christmas, and not enough decorations up.
Late in the afternoon, as it was getting dark, I heard a saxophone player on the street, lazily getting into the lovely tune “Ain’t Misbehavin.” I walked slowly to hear him really play it, and finish it . He did, in his own lazy way, as I walked further away, and the tune got more difficult to hear. And it was worth it, because he was really a good player. And it was all the perfect combination of a rainy day, car light reflections on the wet road, and a slow lazy tune by a very good street sax player, with the sound diminishing into the distance strangely overpowering the traffic noise. I was cheerful for a while after that.
Here’s Fats Waller’s version.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 22, 2010 11:12 AM | Send