Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
First of all, there is the media. Yesterday MSNBC had a "DEADLINE" clock on screen. This is funny in part because the clock was ticking down to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and Bush actually gave his 48 hour ultimatum at slightly past 8:00 p.m. EST on Monday. But mostly it is funny because it was a clock. My sources tell me that Dick Clark was flipping through the channels, came across MSNBC and said, "What the hell? I didn't know I was supposed to blather about how 'we made it' and introduce Darryl Worley tonight."
Sadly MSNBC was far from the worst of the media. That distinction probably has to go to Bill O'Reilly. Yesterday on his radio show he made it clear that he feels anybody who opposes this war and expresses this belief while not in his or her place of living is a "bad American." (If you merely oppose this war and don't express this outside of your house, you are a "misguided American," in his view.) He also called Walter Cronkite "too self-important" and said he "should just shut up." O'Reilly presumably wasn't trying to be as funny as he actually was.
Then there is the general public, which according to my observations is in the mood to show the Red, White and Blue a bit more than they had been say a week ago. As someone inside the spectator sports fandom subculture, I understand the desire to show one's "colors" and the positive feeling that one gets when you see that someone else is on the same side as you. Having said that, it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, the spectator sports fandom model is not a good a model for how people should react when their country is dropping bombs and launching missiles.
I've contemplated changing the format of this blog now that a new state of war with Iraq has broken out, but decided not to. There are plenty of farmoreusefulblogs, not to mention sites publishing reporting, to go to for links to excellent stories on this stage of the Bush's "war on terror." I don't have the time to compete with those sites and so I am going to stick to what can I do well, which is provide commentary. posted by micah holmquist at 3/20/2003 01:22:00 AM
