Pundustry, Or A Day In The Salt Mines Of Information Overload

Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post tried an experiment recently. He spent 24 hours in a room surrounded by televisions, two radios and a laptop set up to cycle through a selection of blogs and news sources. It was all in the interest of science - to see what living in total information overload was like. Welcome to the blogosphere, Gene.

THE CRUDDIEST MOMENT OF THE CRAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE ON EARTH happened as I found myself watching five televisions simultaneously, each containing a different political pundit opining on the same subject. When I looked down toward my computer screen to see what the bloggers were saying about it, I noticed that a button on my shirt had come undone.

There I was, literally contemplating my own navel. But I didn't even crack a smile because, in the relentless drone of insipid opinion, irony no longer held any meaning.

I knew then that this whole thing had been a very poor idea, one from which I would not return undamaged. Because the clock on the wall said I still had 14 hours to go.

Weingarten takes more than a few swipes at the folks who practice surfing in this sea of information that beats mercilessly these days. But there is a certain amount of truth in his dark humor about the overload of news, semi-news, punditry and analysis (both paid and freelance) that inundates us these days. Especially those of us who choose to do this on a daily basis. There is so much out there to read and absorb and talk about. It is, indeed, like drinking from a fire hose. I'll let you read the long piece and figure out where the title of this post comes from.

Just doing my bit, Gene. Even if you didn't mention the Crabitat in all your blog name dropping!

After The Snow, The Floods

Many areas in the Midwest, having suffered a brutally cold winter are now being inundated with water, both from new rainfall and the melting of heavy winter snowpacks. The Washington Post reports on the flooding.

FENTON, Mo. — With more than a dozen people killed by floodwaters and rivers still rising, weary Midwesterners on Thursday weighed not just the prospect of a sodden cleanup but the likelihood that their communities could be inundated again.

Families in some areas have been forced from their homes multiple times in the past few years, making the routine of filling sandbags and rescuing furniture into a familiar drill.

"We've been through this before," said Michelle Buhlinger, who works for the school district in Valley Park in suburban St. Louis. "We're expecting the levee to hold up, but we don't want to take any chances."

The first day of spring brought much-needed sunshine to some flooded communities, but many swelling rivers were not expected to crest until the weekend in Arkansas, Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana and Kentucky.

The worst flooding happened in smaller rivers across the nation's midsection. Major channels such as the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers saw only minor flooding.

In Fenton, another suburb, Jeff Rogles joined dozens of volunteers to fill sandbags and pile them against downtown businesses near the fast-rising Meramec River, which was expected to reach more than 20 feet above flood stage in some spots near St. Louis.

"I think we have enough volunteers out here to stave off disaster," said Rogles, 27, who joined the effort because he remembered the devastating Great Flood of 1993.

Parts of Missouri got a foot of rain over a 36-hour period this week, causing widespread flash flooding and swelling many rivers. Five deaths have been confirmed in Missouri and hundreds of people were forced from their homes. Many families will return to find their property badly damaged or destroyed. 

Many areas are being hit with flooding. It is not expected to get any better for a while. Many areas farther north still have significant amounts of snow on the ground - it remains to be seen how fast that will melt and how much that will cause further misery. 

Brilliant Fraud

Charles Krauthammer looks the big speech that Barack Obama gave this week and pronounces it a brilliant fraud. Harvard-tinged sophistry meant to misdirect listeners away from the real issues, the speech played on two major themes: moral equivalence and white guilt. Krauthammer is having none of it.

His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.

(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

"I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was Grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus's time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did Grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then he proceeds to do precisely that. What lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.

Go read the rest, it is well worth it. For myself, my issues with Wright have nothing to do with the man's race, everything to do with his public venom spewed against this nation. If he is a role model for Obama - as Obama claims - he certainly is not one for a candidate who claims he can change things. Obama is supposed to be the healer. Wright is a divider and a serial America-basher.