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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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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.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
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... Friday, June 25, 2004
Rage and Pessimism
There's a quite bizarre new campaign commercial up at the official W. site. It strings together quotes from (among others) Al Gore, Howard Dean, Michael Moore and various MoveOn ads, all of which are making quite rational points about the insane extremism of the present administration. My immediate reaction was: well, that's very sporting of the Bushies, given they have the edge in fundraising dollars, to balance it out by giving one of their ads to the other side.
Why are they really doing it? For that you have to wait to the end, where soothing music plays over the image of Our Fearless Leader, and the words on the screen tell us: "this is not a time for rage and pessimism." I quite agree. Imagine, for example, a president filled with so much rage that he decides to invade a country without provocation or legitimate pretext. Or a Vice-President so consumed by pessimism that he tells us the War on Terror will last the rest of our lifetimes. Good thing we don't have to worry about that!
Years after this administration is gone, historians will point to this ad as a perfect example of the Bush II world view. See, they will say, first they tried to claim criticism of the president -- any criticism of the president -- was unpatriotic. Then they dismissed it as "rage and pessimism." But never, ever, did they try to deal with it on the merits.
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