March 30, 2003

Washed up

I guess you've all figured out that I redesign my site whenever I'm feeling uninspired and have no idea what to write and am generally in a pathetic state, the kind that makes people look at me and shake their heads impatiently and tell me I should get a life. Wait a minute -- you had no idea? Well -- some kind of friend you are! And who are you anyway? Get out of my head now!

Um -- anyway, I had this idea that I was going to post about, this really Big, Important post on Life, the War, and Everything, and it was going to make all the peacenuggets stop and think about how silly they have been acting, and I was going to have a million dollars in gold coins rain down on me. I had even assembled the books with the snappy quotes to use to bolster my opinion, or at least to burnish my own writing and make me look like the real clever kind of gal who always has a quip ready with which to devastate her opponents.

But I kept putting it off. And then I read that Mark Morford wrote that "the whales know" that War is Not the Answer, or something (I admit I didn't read his latest column, just the excerpt here), and I thought, "What's the use?" I can't even pump out a paper for class on time, and this guy shits out a random collection of words -- or things resembling words, anyway -- every week, and he gets published and paid for it. And Robert Fisk is still treated like a respectable journalist instead of a brass-plated hack, and I am terrified of signing up for a new semester at the university I am going to because I am afraid I'll get someone like the SUNY Buffalo refugee* who moaned about the lack of "student activists and protestors" during a We-Luv-Each-Other-Mmmkay? "open forum" they held at UCF a month after the World Trade Center attack, and I'm afraid that I'll throw a chair at his head if he emits some idiotic antiwar trope, and there will go my chances of ever finishing up getting my freaking bachelor's degree.

*That link is to an entry in my old Livejournal. I like to think that my writing style is improved since then. I was also mistaken about Israel's nuclear capabilities; it is certainly more impressive than Saudi Arabia's, as is the Israelis' fortitude -- if I was in charge in that country, the rest of the peninsula would be a nice, shiny sheet of glass.

Posted by Andrea Harris at March 30, 2003 12:14 AM
Comments

You could fake it - you know, pretend to be a Fisk type to get the paying gigs. Just tell yourself it's a fiction assignment - which is what it is. It'll be fun; you'll laugh the whole time you're writing about how the Rain Forest critters are all united against the war!

This is the same method guys who really don't care one way or another use to get into activist/radical/protest chick's panties.

Posted by: Kevin Parrott at March 30, 2003 at 12:33 AM

Friend of mine has a livejournal and she posted a link to the "Whales on War" article saying, "Even if you disagree with the politics, the newest by Morford is inspired and everyone should read it anyway." I know better--I basically ignore anything that she writes that doesn't relate directly to our common interests or her personal life. I didn't go read it even though I'd never heard of the guy and didn't yet know he was the world's leading producer of sewage-like bullshit.

Same day I saw you and Michele blasting an article written by someone with a name that seemed awfully familiar, so I go back to my livejournal friends list and hunt for the link, and sure enough: at almost the same time as Michele posted saying it was moronic, my other friend says it's inspired.

I'm fearing I have to chalk that friend up to an ex friend and a complete waste of air.

Oh shuckydarns. I think I'll die from dissapointment. (Not.) :-P

Posted by: Erica at March 30, 2003 at 01:02 AM

HA! Even in your po-mo cynical mode, you're crakkin me up. You kind of lost the thread with that "throw a chair at his head" line, but still -- better than looking at that kid from Middle Cove at a roll-top for the rest o my life.

PS Surely someone somewhere has screen shots of all of your looks. That would be cool archive.

Posted by: Scott at March 30, 2003 at 02:51 AM

I, too, am continually impressed by the patience and fortitude of the Israelis. Personally, after the current battle, I think they should move all of the Pali rioters to Iraq, accompanied by pics of the crowds holding the Saddam posters. Payback may be a bitch, but payback with irony is delicious.

BTW, just one more little thing::

Robert Fisk: "Vicious war, vicious war, vicious war"

You know, say it three times fast it sounds like vichysoisse. There's gotta be a joke in there somewhere. Anybody finds it, pick it up and run with it.

Posted by: Ken Summers at March 30, 2003 at 11:12 AM