I had lived a life already when I entered in to the world of Blogs and did not think to find my fortune there, but perhaps some solace for the frustrations in love and politics I had experienced in my youth. I have to admit that I had little knowledge of what the word Blog meant and I did not know how to comprehend even what others believe to be the simplest acts, such as how to link. I could write words and that was about it. The different pages of what people have come to call the Blogosphere all seemed to run together for me with little meaning until I met an interesting young gentleman by the name of Mr. Daou. He was in a hurry to somewhere but he looked like he knew where he was going when he waved me to him so I followed without question. He took me to a place called the Triangle and after that my life took a course I could have scarcely imagined before that point in time. Perhaps the most interesting, if not altogether influential, meeting in the triangle was with one Mr. Uriah Kaus.
Ah, but I get ahead of myself, a habit borne of being around people going faster than me and trying to keep up. Mr. Daou was a fascinating character, seemed very much in a rush to get to the triangle, to bring as many with him as he could in as short a time possible. Now this was most out of character, for Mr. Daou dealt in politics, Democratic politics to be precise, and in Democratic politics it was well known that few things ever changed and that for the most part people went nowhere very slowly.
"What is this Triangle," I asked Mr. Daou, struggling to keep up.
"Triangle is an is," Mr. Daou said, waving more people to him, twirling his walking stick in the air as if he might be flicking off demons who were buzzing about him. "Triangle is a what, Triangle is a who. Triangle is all those things. It is a way to control dialogue, the way those around us think, the way they act. It is in a word sir, dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than anything we have faced in politics."
I laughed at first. "Dangerous?" I asked, "Dangerous to what?"
Mr. Daou was in little mood for unseriousness of any kind. "Dangerous to democracy sir. Dangerous to the very freedom we breathe in the morning without a thought. One day we will wake up and there will be no freedom to breathe. It will have all been sucked up by the triangle. And then sir, I tell you and then, we will be out of time." He took out his pocket watch and looked at it. "We will all be out of time I tell you."
We came to the triangle. It was indeed a three sided structure. There was a row of desks on one side with scribes writing furiously. The second side had large men, red in the face, pontificating on one thing or another, with dollar bills flowing out of their pockets. The third side of the triangle was populated by strange looking men and women who, if I could guess, had not seen the light of day since childhood. They snarled and snapped at each other, raised pictures above their head of men who seemed to be wearing medals and uniforms and laughed and guffawed. Their screams and rantings were almost unbearable. What was most interesting about this triangle though was how little men, dressed in black, wearing glasses hiding vacant eyes, scurried between the three sides of the triangle, being whispered to by the ranting group, whispering in to the ears of the scribes, taking papers from the scribes to the pontificators, and taking dollar bills from the pontificators to the ranting group.
In the far corner one of the scribes noticed me. He was the oddest man I had ever met. He had a strange smile with crooked teeth. He came over, hunched, showing the strangest habit of constantly washing his hands as he walked. One wondered about the stains he was trying to get off.
"Away with you Kaus," Mr. Daou said, flicking his cane at what now seemed a very real demon.
"Oh Mr. Daou you don't mean that. No of course, you couldn't. I am not one of the bad one, oh no, not Uriah Kaus. I am interested in helping Democratic politics, just as much as you Mr. Daou. Oh yes, Uriah Kaus is a very good Democrat."
"Like that Whitman I supposed," Mr. Daou said. "You're both part of the triangle."
"Oh no, not me," Uriah Kaus said, bending his head a little lower. "I could never be part of that Triangle, oh no. I am much too `umble a blogger. Oh yes I am. I just try and scrape by with a few ideas to keep me and sainted mother comfortable."
I have to admit I was surprised. I could not think of a creature like Kaus actually having a mother. "You mother is part of the Triangle?" I asked.
I saw Kaus' eyes flash for a second, a slight snarl come to his lips, but he quickly hid them. "Oh mother is the same to us all you know. I am talking about my good friend Jonah's mother. Oh she got Jonah a veeery good job. I of course could never hope for such a job, I am far too `umble a personage for that. Let Uriah Kaus just scribble away with a couple of ideas, that's all I ask."
"I have read some of your ideas," I said. "They often times seem vicious attacks with some type of agenda."
"And who is this new man?" Uriah Kaus asked, desperately trying to hide his hostility.
"This is Wilbur Copperfield," Mr. Daou said. "I have brought him to observe the Triangle of a firsthand basis."
"Oh no, oh no," Uriah Kaus almost screeched. "You cannot say I am part of a Triangle. Oh I am far too `umble. Why if I was the first thing I would do is tell my editors so that could think a little better of poor Uriah Kaus. And then I would go and tell mother. She would be so proud of her `umble little Uriah. But no, oh no, I do not even know of a Triangle existing."
Mr. Daou got a knowing smile on his face and turned to me. "Wilbur Copperfield, did you read Mr. Krugman today?" he said loudly.
It was a shocking change in Uriah Kaus. His face turned read and I thought he might be a victim of spontaneous combustion. "Krugman, I hate the Krugman, he is nothing, nothing I tell you." Then is an instant Kaus seemed to catch himself. "Of course I don't worry about Mr. Krugman. I have my own work here to worry about. Of course Uriah Kaus must toil away in obscurity."
Uriah Kaus' cell phone rang. He held up his long, thing finger and turned away hunching down in to the phone. "Hello Mr. Hair," he said, only half under his voice, as if he wanted us to know that well known people such as Mr. Hair called him. "Oh yes, oh yes," he said laughing gleefully. "That is rich Mr. Hair, very rich indeed. Oh yes, I will be sure to put it as one of my next ideas. Of course what I write is so `umble I don't know what good it will do." Kaus closed his phone and turned back to us.
"You see," said Mr. Daou, "you are part of the Triangle. Mr. Hair has given you something to write and you are going to write it."
The snarl returned to Uriah Kaus' lips. "I write it because it is true, not because Mr. Hair tells me to do so."
"You are a scoundrel," Mr. Daou said, "part of what is choking our democracy."
"Oh no, oh now," Uriah Kaus said, phlegm starting to come through his nose. "It is your friend Markos who is the scoundrel. Yes he is. I have it on very good authority indeed, from Mr. Hair and others. He made the horrible comment about mercenaries. It was far worse than anything me, or Mr. Hair, or any of our `friends' would ever say."
"You mean that Harpie Miss Coulter don't you sir," I said, incensed at the idiocy of Uriah Kaus.
"Don't you say nothing bad about Miss Coulter," Uriah Kaus warned. "She lets me touch her nipples, she does. She talks about liberals and how she hates them and her nipples get hard and then she lets me touch them. Somebody as `umble' as me don't get to touch nipples so much."
Mr. Daou walked away in disgust. I followed close behind not wanting to be left alone with the likes of Uriah Kaus. "He will put it print, you mark my words."
"About Markos and Coulter?" I asked.
"He will put it in print," Mr. Daou said with a deep sigh, "and then somebody will repeat it. And then somebody will repeat it again - in spite of its idiocy - because of its idiocy. That is our downfall Mr. Copperfield, that is our downfall."