After
my last post, Google informed me that was Lacunae Musing’s 300th
entry, a milestone of sorts. When I
began this blog almost five years ago, I had no idea where it might lead or,
even, whether it would merely be a passing dalliance. I had discounted writing about investments,
something I know enough about to be dangerous, or about publishing, which, when
I retired, I knew a lot about, but by the time I began to write in this space,
the publishing world had changed dramatically. Nor did I want to espouse only political
views, although I’ve posted my share on the topic. No, I wanted to write something that simply
expresses my interests (as well as my views) and experiences (including some
family history) and, perhaps, along the way make a small contribution on the
WWW. The one thing I wanted to avoid is turning it into a job; I have no hidden
agenda, no source of income from this effort.
There is only the satisfaction from writing, and having a “written trail”
– a form of accountability, an intellectual balance sheet that is auditable.
As
far as blogs go, mine is but a minor star in a minor universe. Comparing this blog’s statistics to those of
my blogging “hero” – to me the “father” of the investment blog—Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture -- shows
the stark differences between a blog written by an erudite professional such as
Ritholtz, and an unfocused personal blog.
It is like comparing the New York Times to a mimeographed newsletter
(does the mimeograph still exist?).
Google tells me that I’ve had 25,000 page views now. Ritholtz’s blog has
had 5,000 times more (and well deserved)!
Of
course, I don’t view this as a competition, but it puts my humble contribution
in perspective. Going back to Google’s statistics, the most viewed pages of my
blog were mostly about trips we’ve taken, people presumably landing on those
pages as they are contemplating (or have taken) similar ones. (In October when
we will return from visiting Norway, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland
and I’ll look forward to posting a write up with plentiful photographs.). Just for the record, here are the five most
read pages:
Feb
10, 2011; 1101 Page Views
Feb
17, 2011; 796 Page Views
Oct
10, 2009; 710 Page Views
Aug
8, 2011; 512 Page Views
Apr
21, 2011; 418 Page Views
Late
in the game I began to add labels to the entries as the eclectic nature of the
blog needed some sort of thread to tie everything together. Unfortunately, as much of this work was done
retrospectively, it isn’t a true index because of inconsistencies. But it does give a handle on the contents
with more than 350 labels.
I
haven’t incorporated the popular “comments” feature in the blog as I just did
not want to deal with reader’s comments publicly. That felt like work to me. My email address for the blog is in my
profile (lacunaemusing@gmail.com), and I’ve received and responded to comments
that way. It certainly cuts down on
casual comments when someone has to not only write an email, but identify
him/herself as well.
The
political season is heating up and I’m so disgusted with Super Pac advertising,
and the unbearable rhetoric from both sides of the aisle that I doubt whether I
will be as engaged in these blog pages as I was during the last presidential
(and historical) election cycle. To make my personal
views clear, I think President Obama, given he is a mere mortal, has done about
the best he could given the economic mess he was handed and the political
roadblocks thrown at him. But his campaign
rhetoric has also worked against him, promising too much. Also, I’ve criticized some of his priorities
in these pages, so it is not as if I am a raving liberal. I like to think of myself as a fiscal
conservative and a social liberal and one might say that the two are not
compatible; I think intelligent compromise can transcend many of the
disagreements that are aired like dirty laundry in the media. Of course, there are also the lunatic fringes
and there is no compromise possible with them.
In
fact, I recently learned, there is actually a word to describe this endless
obfuscation of the truth -- Agnotology: Culturally constructed
ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to
create confusion and suppress the truth.
And
to whom do I give a hat tip for this morsel of incredible insight? -- Barry
Ritholtz! (Who, in turn gives full attribution to the word’s creator, Stanford
historian of science Robert Proctor.)
Ritholtz uses the term as but one element in his recent entry Defective Government By Design asking
the rhetorical question, “Is it democracy
or plutocracy when less than 200 people drive election spending in a nation of
300 million?”
This
entry is about the rise of corporate power and the Super Pac -- implications that
are onerous for democracy. I’ve written
about it before, but if you land on this entry and want to know more, go to the
foregoing Big Picture link.
Agnotology. You hear and see its practice every day......say
the lie often enough, and in as many forms as possible and voila, it suddenly
becomes “the truth”. In fact, innuendo
works as well or even better than saying the lie straight out.
Here’s
an example, the Daily News’
agnotological headline, “How many more must die, Mr. President?” – as if the horrific
tragedy in Colorado is somehow the President’s fault. If Obama had a magic wand, he would probably
outlaw assault weapons, but he has a Congress to deal with, the NRA, and, of
course, State’s rights. It was theSupreme Court of Colorado which upheld a state law that allows residents to carry concealed weapons, even in schools! But a glance at the NY Daily News headline plants an agnotological subliminal message.
That
is the brave new political campaign world for 2012, different than it was in
2008, although that one too was quite ugly.
I will be relying on Fact Check.org to winnow truth from agnotological
fiction.
