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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, October 08, 2003
The Power of Positive Thinking
I really can't get away from the guy, can I? Right after finishing that last blog, and hoping I had finally put tonight's events out of my mind, I picked up Mastery by George Leonard. It's a wonderful little tome on how we can't have the quick fixes we crave in our lives; self-improvement in any discipline comes in brief bursts interspersed with years of rigorous practice. A lesson there for the quick-fix pro-recall voters, I was thinking. And then, in a chapter lauding the power of careful visualization, I read the following quote:
"All I know is that the first step is to create the vision, because when you see that vision there -- the beautiful vision -- that creates the 'want power.' For example, my wanting to be Mr. Universe came about because I saw myself so clearly, being up there on the stage and winning."
That quote, in case you hadn't guessed from the esoteric style of English, came from one Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So did Ahnuld become governor because he created the 'want power' to do it? Was that what he was doing during the other debates -- sitting at home quietly visualizing his acceptance speech? Are we all merely players in Ahnuld's unfolding lucid dream of global domination? Is this all, perhaps, a virtual reality scenario he bought at Total Recall?
Don't laugh. Ahnuld's pal Senator Orrin Hatch recently introduced what he hopes will become the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, ridding us of that pesky provision that all Presidents have to be born in the country. As goes California, so goes the nation.
Be afraid, world. Be very afraid.
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