Blather

I'd like to post something substantial and of merit but it seems too often that my posts and blogging in general have become a tiresomely derivative enterprise. Every once and again it strikes me—the mood—to actually write something of substance. This particular post is the exception. I'm writing merely to know if the blogging absence has resulted in literary atrophy. How can I know if my prose style has deteriorated since my last post? Generally I scan through older post to be either surprised by my witticism and prescience (remember when I wrote that the Pope would pass away sometime in May; although now it looks more likely he'll shut it down in March) or appalled by my rambling incoherence—present post excluded—and lack of formal structure (House of Saud, House of Bush review)

With other things on the go, and a gradualy increasing torpor to many things political since November 2, 2004, writing posts, let alone reading political blogs, has become a bloodless distraction. Lately I've been more interested in reading fiction (Philip Roth specifically) and playing chess. Otherwise, I'm finding it difficult to be excited about, says, blogging on Social Security or Mid-East democratization—though it appears that the latter has some optics of fruitfulness. This apathy also dovetails into another problem with Blog content—for me at least. A sizeable portion of my blogroll is of American provenance; consequently, a sizeable amount of my content is about American politics. American politics, its foreign policy particularly, inherently has the gravity of hegemony. I can no easier deny American political and economic dominance than I can disregard the physical laws of our cosmos.

That being said, as goes Washington and New York, so goes the political and social realties that exist and are managed, or conceded, in whatever way your ideological doublespeak characterizes, just a few blocks from where I hang my hat—I don’t actually hang my hats; I was trying to integrate that turn of phrase into my sparse repertoire.

Therefore, is it any wonder so many Canadian bloggers write about American politics? To be fair, prominent bloggers, who are usually small c Conservative journalists—Wells, Cosh, Radwanski, Steyn (Syndicated columnist; writes on topics Americana and Canadiana), ect.—write substantially on Canadian politics. But then again, isn’t that their job?

Essentially, of the Canadian bloggers that I’ve read, who aren’t salaried conservatives, only one generally writes on Canadian public affairs. Chris Selley’s Tart Cider offers irreverent commentary, if almost analogues to Cosh.

The conclusions I draw from this wholly unreliable sampling are that 1) some, if not most, of Canadian bloggers, who aren’t on the Can-West payroll, blog infrequently on Canadian politics; 2) of these bloggers, with the exclusion or inclusion of said Can-West employees, some, if not most, lean right politically, with respect to the content they imbibe and expounde from; therefore 3) some, if not most, of the bloggers in the Canadian bloggesphere(Canblog) are markedly small c conservative.

I think conclusions 2 and 3 have some interesting implications. First, as regards 2, and despite my professions of being a pragmatist, my platonic ideological convictions disincline me from agreeing with a majority of commentary imbibed and expounded by right leaning Canadian bloggers. This is not to say that areas of consensus don’t exist, or that intelligent and informed counter-commentary isn’t likely to be found. On the contrary, some of the most trenchant blog commentary, I’ve read, is from the Can-West claque.

As per conclusion 3, demographics trends such as education, socio-economics, and cultural and regional differences could explain the preponderance of right-leaning blogs in the Canblog. The more interesting question is why am I, a liberal politically, so familiar right-leaning Canadian bloggers? The easy answer is that I’m only familiar with the prominent ones—who write extremely well, I may add. The liberal bloggers that I do read tend to be American and far more ideologically centrist, even more conservative, than conventional Ontarian Liberals or federal liberals—which explains the lack of Can-con on my blog; and the evolution of my thought on the Iraq war. But I should qualify all that I have said heretofore by noting that on the margins of the Canblog leftist commentary on social and economic justice—proletariats of the world unite!— flourishes.

The point I’m trying to make is that much of my blog content is political and more or less international—if you consider the totality of it relates to foreign policy issues. When I get the chance, I’ll usual add the Can-con that catches my interest. In the interim, I’ll start trying to post general interest content, from which I can blather needlessly—without substance, without merit, and, hopefully, without peer