Ms. Ivins Regrets You're Unable to Think Today
Molly Ivins writes:
“Bloggers are not news-gatherers, but opinion-mongers. I have long argued that no one should be allowed to write opinion without spending years as a reporter -- nothing like interviewing all four eyewitnesses to an automobile accident and then trying to write an accurate account of what happened. Or, as author-journalist Curtis Wilkie puts it, "Unless you can cover a five-car pile-up on Route 128, you shouldn't be allowed to cover a presidential campaign."
Now, I generally agree with Ms. Ivins, but this pisses me off. Yes, that is an opinion. And yes, I will express it.
You see, I am not someone who believes that car crashes are news. If there is an accident on Route 128, I am generally not concerned unless that accident affects someone that I love or if that accident deviates from the common denominator of most car accidents -- which is lousy-ass drivers.
As much as I respect Molly Ivins and the journalists of this world for having an opinion about what they think is news and what they think is responsible cultural commentary, I feel that it is incumbent to remind them that my overly-political, irrelevant, unimportant and potty-mouthed opinion is none of their God-damned business.
Do not dare to presume what I should think, how I should think, where I should think and when I should think it. That is my fundamental problem with white people bullshit.
Quite simply, I have had enough of it!
You see, I am not here offering my words to sell books to you or shill newspapers for my employer.
I am not here to seek the validation or commentary from others (as cool as that is…and occasionally, gets me laid).
I am here simply because I choose to be here. And you are here reading this because you chose to be here. And I fundamentally respect your intelligence, your tolerance of profanity – and more importantly -- your time -- so I’ll wrap this up.
Molly Ivins is pissed that newspaper readership is declining, civic involvement is almost non-existent, political discourse is rabidly dogmatic and that the most commonly agreed-upon issue in America is that Simon Cowell is a bitch.
Blaming the apathetic, disengaged, ill-informed and inconsiderate nature of contemporary American life is not the fault of a few thousand progressive loudmouths who keep clamoring for change.
Rather than dismissing and disregarding our opinions as puerile poppycock, perhaps members of the press who make rent by deciding what you know and when you should know it -- will begin to realize that the world they used to control doesn’t look, act, feel or respond they way it used to...
And that’s my opinion and I fully encourage you to go get your own.
Posted March 24, 2006 12:55 AM
