Onto 'Off the Bus'

My, my, this brave and narcissistic new blogger world is full of surprises. I have been recruited to expand my musings from this comfy, half-lit and paradoxically private little niche to the glaring headlights of the Huffington Post. A new feature on that site, named Off the Bus, is pulling in pieces on the presidential campaign from people like me who think they can document their opinions or at least back up their wisecracks. In my condition as a recovering journalist, I have been solicited to submit contributions on an array of topics, from issues that I may even know something about to more general concerns relevant to the gathering Twilight of the Bipeds.

The invitation is irresistible, despite the threat of being drawn into polemics, which was not the point of inventing BT at all. Verbal fisticuffs of the sort clogging the Internet’s arteries do not interest me in the slightest, and I hereby swear not to answer the typing bipeds who will undoubtedly try to assault my sanctuary. I express my observations and reflections in a spirit of self-indulgent glee, much as someone who talks incessantly to himself simply because he likes hearing his ideas expressed aloud.

Of course, rules are made to be broken, and many thoughtful people, including you, dear Reader, do manage to provide well-pondered feedback. I wish there were some way to install a internet filter for distinguishing between ideas and thought-spam, but alas, this technology awaits future generations. As if a dozen penis-enhancement offers weren’t enough, one has to scroll past obsessive opinion-monitors determined to increase the importance of their intellectual genitalia as well.

But I digress. My first contribution to the Off the Bus addresses the debate on healthcare reform based on a Kaiser-sponsored interview this week with John Edwards. I found that although the candidates rush to agree that our healthcare system is a sick duckie,

". . . from the tone of the discussion so far, they must think that to perform major surgery on this moribund patient, first we have to anaesthetize the voters."

Read the whole piece here, but please, esteemed Visitor, when you’re done, hurry back over to my sitting room. We’ll have tea and chat.

Twilight Highlights: What better illustration could we ask for of our complete moral bankrupcy as a nation than the current constellation of simultaneous events: Bush asks for another 50 billion dollars to throw down the Iraq sinkhole the same day he announces a veto of healthcare for children from low-income families as ‘too expensive’, then utilizes African-American children as props in his No Child Left Behind renewal announcement. We should be ashamed that he could even dare to show his face in public.