Yesterday evening, while eating, Guinevere asked me if I'd heard anything interesting in the news. She works very hard in a very demanding career, while I tend to find myself with long stretches of unclaimed time, which I then tend to fill with research into politics, economics, and the history of science. The irony is that we each envy the other.

As it happened, the recent Japanese election was very interesting, so I told her about it. When I got done she asked me if I'd thought about starting a video blog where I talked about politics and current events, because she thought my way of explaining and describing things was both clearer and more interesting than that of traditional journalism or even of bloggers generally. You see perhaps a sliver of why I like Guinevere so well.

But, it is worth noting that my typical mode is also far less impartial and respectful than that of traditional journalism, while being far less personally invested than your normal blogger. I will call Taro Aso a big jerk, and I will call Hatoyama a clueless dork, and I will describe how they're the two faces of a life of privilege (callousness on the one hand, and pity on the other). At the same time, I don't really care, because neither one of them is as horrible as any of a hundred political leaders I could name from history.

I hold similarly disrespectful and detached views concerning most of American politics. Lately, though, the "right wing" has given itself over to true demagoguery and unthinking wrath. I have to confess that it is difficult for me to remain light-hearted and cheerful in the face of these things.

Even so, I do like talking about these things, and I especially enjoy seeing the light of knowledge spread about. (I may be a stumbling drunk of a torchbearer, but I am proud of the flame I carry nonetheless.) So, I thought I'd throw it out there, and ask… you.

What do you think?

So, I set up a separate blog to do the Genji thing in, but plan to cross-post to here. The Genji-only blog is here.

It is likely that link will break sometime within the next year, but we'll deal with that announcement when we get to it. Also, there is no reason to visit that link as of 24 July, because I haven't actually posted anything yet.

Wish me luck!

So, what happened?

Early Tuesday morning I received catastrophically bad news, of a highly personal nature. Upon returning home, I deleted the majority of my social networking accounts, and made other preparations to cope as best I could. At around noon it turned out that I had been misinformed, or had misunderstood.

But why did you delete all of your social accounts?

I did not wish to make my grief a matter of public record. I was, in effect, removing the temptation to blub.

So you’re back now? This whole embarrassing incident is behind you?

In a manner of speaking, yes. Alternatively, no. I am not expecting to reactivate Twitter anytime soon, and the blog hasn’t seen much activity in ages anyway; “paid” status on LJ lapsed a week or two ago. I only reactivated this LJ account so I can lurk if I feel the need. After all, Ken Hite occasionally posts some interesting recipes.

While catastrophe was averted, my overall life status remains both unpleasant and boring. That means I don’t have much to talk about. Especially in the current global milieu, life is unpleasant and boring for a great many people, including many of the people who care enough to take an interest in my existence. My current circumstances in no way make me special. Further, while I consider myself a competent wordsmith, there is a vast surplus of meditation on ennui. Adding to it would benefit no one. At the moment, I lack the mental fortitude to write anything else. The old saying is, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” In this instance, swap “nice” for “useful” or “entertaining”.

So, I am "officially" packing my kit in for awhile.

But, what was that –30– thing, anyway?

In old-school journalism, –30– signifies the end of a story.

I've added the "rough draft" tag to my journal. Posts tagged with it represent a concept that is either partially formed or still requiring refinement in its expression. Rough draft posts are explicitly temporary -- the may be superseded, altered, or simply removed.

Tangentially to this, I do not intend in future to discuss recent social events on this journal, except those that are public and themselves tangential to some larger cultural activity (e.g. a movie premiere).

This post itself has the metablog tag, also new. It, obviously enough, marks those posts having to do with the blog itself rather than the subjects I write about. I don't expect it to show up terribly often, on the grounds that I don't expect my presence in the public consciousness will ever grow vast enough to merit much in the way of formal process. Still, I'm just enough of a gearhead to feel itchy when such programmatic niceties are ignored.