So many news sources, so little news. After several years of growing dissatisfaction with my usual media sources compounded by a lame liberal stupefaction at the success of the 'Liberal bias in the media' redirection by the right (they are so fiendishly clever, damn them), I pretty much gave up on ever getting anything relevant from mainstream media again.
I even began despairing for my beloved NPR the last couple of years. I felt I was tuning in primarily for some really great slice of life stuff. I still had a newspaper delivered to my house, but honestly it was just for the comics and the box-scores. Television news... has become an oxymoron.
And then my wife discovered the Daily Kos. Her name is Maryscott O'Connor.
I suppose I should 'fess up... I have been less than charitable in my estimation of the time and energy she expends on this site. My dinner has been burned, my child sent to school with unbrushed teeth. Bills have been paid late... all for dKos. We have argued. We have fought over computer time. We have gone to bed angry... I have threatened to change the password on the computer and not tell her the new key to her kingdom... and now I have a user ID and a diary of my own. She wins.
And I win.
Ultimately, we all win because WE ARE INVOLVED. Or trying to be involved. Or at least waking up a little. Maybe in the big picture, all that this site and sites like it provide is a place to gather together and rage against the machine. Or maybe this site and sites like it will merely provide a quick and easy list of people to round up - if my worst nightmare comes to pass.
I despair what's happened to the country I thought I grew up in, and the people I thought populated it. I despair for my dream that we as a people might escape the repetition of history and do something truly great. Now I fear there is nothing to do but take a spot beside George Carlin and watch it all circle the drain.
Still, I must believe there is some hope or I would just stick to the boxscores and my favorite computer games and allow myself to sleepwalk to the retirement I will probably never have.
I must believe there is some hope or I will never forgive myself for bringing my son into this mess.