Tag: losing

On Running Away with the Circus

A short essay on gratitude inspired by Diane W’s melancholy ruminations about being a mutant in a world full of ‘bots, which struck an intimately familiar chord in so many of us.

While we were in Chapel Hill last week for Bob Del Tredici’s presentations we got to meet Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies, who wrote that excellent article about our long-ago adventures in being and becoming. She told us that the article generated a lot of complaints from the ‘usual suspects’ that have dedicated their ‘bot lives to defending the nuclear beast, yet those complaints included nothing that could have been considered pertinent to the facts we reported to Congress and the NRC way back then and Sue reported to the world in April of this year. In fact, the primary objection to our existence was the entirely predictable lament…

“But they’re just clowns!”

I have greeted with some dismay the emotional reaction to censorship at the GOS of late, and welcomed essays to promote a further dialogue about it. I read the comments and discussions about all the aspects of the current situation – who’s got power in the blogosphere, who doesn’t, what gets censored where, what doesn’t, etc., etc., etc. – and made comments of my own. Mostly because I have some ‘extra’ time lately to read and participate here at DD due to the recent ending of a long-term contract for paid blog-writing and the immediate non-existence of a new one.

So when the subject gets construed into what we are, or are supposed to be ‘doing’ about politics in Amerika, walking walks or talking talks, changing the world or morphing into good little FoxBots, it may be time to consider what each of us individually is doing, and what our doing means to us. I’ve always only been able to speak authoritatively for myself, so I will. Never been much of a leader or a follower and never wanted to be.