I’m not going to dramatize this experience. It’s been fairly mundane, let’s be honest. I’m clearly not a huge fan of blogging. I haven’t made any real effort to write truly insightful posts on this topic, though it’s within my ability. I could have tried harder, I could have written better and more, etc, etc.

Interestingly, I think I would have poured more of myself into this effort if I knew someone was watching and reading. Someone who wasn’t paid to do so. Someone who was legitimately interested in what I had to say.

This is something I realized last night while in the shower. It got me thinking: “is that why they do it?” Countless bloggers out there and only a small fraction have a good-sized audience. I’m not talking about your Andrew Sullivan’s and your Perez Hilton’s - those guys have made a business out of their blogs and whether they love the work or not, they’ve got a pretty clear incentive to do what they do.

I’m talking about the unsung heroes, unpaid workers, the people who slave away at a blog that is nowhere near as widely read as Sullivan’s or Hilton’s. Why do it?

I could never suggest that I have all the answers. I wouldn’t presume to know why Ryan Flanagan or Kyle Brown write their blogs, not entirely at least. But if I were in their positions, owning and operating a blog that has a small but relatively considerable audience, my reason for continuing to write would be simple: people are listening.

It’s hard to justify continuing to write a blog that no one reads. It’s difficult to press onward when the only feedback I get is from spam bots. This feels too much like a masturbatory experience, a self-loving effort to churn out these posts for an audience of none. And this isn’t self-loathing, not in any regard. I’m just recognizing who I am - a nameless, faceless blogger in a crowd of millions, not worthless enough to reject but nowhere near notable enough to remember. It’s not self-hatred, it’s self-awareness.

And therein lies the problem, that the only one aware of me… is myself.

The gist of his speech: 30,000 troops will be sent to Afghanistan to establish order and train Afghani security forces to maintain that order. Due date: July, 2011.

Okay, not bad, Mr. Obama. That’s a solid plan. I’m anti-war, but I’m certainly pro-solving-the-problems-you-created. This is no modern day Roman Empire venture to conquer the world one territory at a time - it’s just helping to fix the enormous problems created in an already-devastated country. Fine. I’m fine with that.

What I’m not fine with is the implications of this platform. There’s already 13,000 troops over there - do they come home in 2011? In fact, senior Cabinet members of Obama’s administration have already been promoting this war as anything but a cut and run effort, ensuring lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there will be an American presence in Afghanistan for decades. Hilary Clinton even suggests in that article that Afghanistan and Pakistan could have American forces in them for 50-60 years!

Again, I get it - the surge is just to get this plane off the ground, to gather enough momentum to get Afghanistan on its own two feet. But once that happens, why not pull ALL your troops out? I’m not so naive to suggest that I am a greater military strategist that these men and women that have orchestrated this venture. In fact, I’m clueless on the whole thing. But it seems to me that Obama has no intention of ending this war before his term is up, and maybe no intention of ending this war before the middle of the damn century.

Afghanistan will never do anything on its own so long as the U.S. still has one hand ever present on the back of the bicycle.

I pride myself on being skeptical, rational, and refusing to buy into bias. Now, let’s get something straight first: I feel I retain those qualities, but my actions aren’t always a product of them. I’m no automaton - sometimes I’m too quick to believe something; sometimes I’m irrational; and sometimes I let myself buy into bias. And it’s reflected in my actions, most certainly.

I tried to approach this blog neutrally.  I even mentioned in my first blog that I wanted to tackle the good and bad of Obama, his successes and his failures. But if you’ve read this blog all the way through so far, you’ll notice I really only touch on Obama’s successes, or at least I never really dig into his failures or shortcomings too deeply.

This is for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my affection for him as a symbol, as a cultural icon, and yes, as a politician. I tried to remain unbiased and not let that affect my writing about the man but lo and behold, here stands a monument to Barack Obama. It’s irritating to me and even a little disappointing - as an aspiring journalist, I should be able to tell both sides of the story fairly.

So here’s what I’m going to do: my next story will be a deliberately planned post that talks about a flaw of Obama’s, a shortcoming, or a failure. Let’s give that a whirl, in the interest of being fair and balanced.

Mr. Spock, as any Trekkie knows, is awesome. Coldly unemotional, rigidly analytical. Logic comes naturally to him, science is his religion, and everything is just so damn “fascinating” to that pointy eared fellow.

Obama is, in many ways, akin to Mr. Spock. He’s clearly a big math and science nerd, even going so far as to announce a White House science fair as part of a $260 million dollar effort to boost science and math education in the U.S.

He’s also big on technology, a feature that’s probably put the fear of the devil into many ancient, crotchety old politicians on Capitol Hill. He’s calm, rational, deliberate in his action - and as the first article says, this is causing a stir in Washington. And not the good kind of stir either. The angry stir. The bad stir.

My take? After 8 years of being governed by arguably the dumbest U.S. president of all time (Ford wasn’t that bad!), it’s nice to see a smart man in office. A lawyer, an author, an organizer - he’s an intelligent, rational man and from those qualities usually comes intelligent, rational decisions. “Usually.”

… is Karl Rove.

Rove said that if Obama does indeed push ahead with his surge strategy and send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, he’ll “be the among the first to stand up and applaud.”

Karl Rove.

The tech-savvy puppet master of George W. Bush’s stolen elections.

Karl Rove.

Prolific Twitterer.

Karl Rove… supporting this president.

Now we know for sure that Obama’s fucked up.

See the whole letter here.

Before we go any further, let’s figure out who this Robert Watson is. According to his Wikipedia page, Watson is a Democrat - big surprise there. We also see that he’s in favour of universal healthcare and strengthening environment protections - again, two big plans for Obama during his term in office. So basically, we need to take what the good professor says, with a grain of salt.

Still. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting “accomplishments” on the list:

10. Limits on lobbyist’s access to the White House

11. Limits on White House aides working for lobbyists after their tenure in the administration

OUTRAGE! SCANDAL! TABOO! PERVERSION! TERRORISM! Er, sorry. Got carried away. But that’s the general consensus in Washington right now:

“…it’s not appropriate for an American president to bow to a foreign one,” says “Smarmy” Bill Kristol.

“It’s ugly. I don’t want to see it,” says Bill Bennett.

“I puked everywhere, immediately upon viewing it,” says… uh, generic right-winger…? Okay, made that one up, too. But you get the picture. The Conservatives are up in arms over this apparent cuckolding of the Commander-in-Chief.

Nevermind that the man Obama is bowing to is Emperior Akihito of Japan. Nevermind that an Obama official has stated that the president was “just following protocol.” Nevermind that the bow is, according to Wikipedia, a “gesture of respect” and not a mark of inferiority in any way.

What exactly would his opponents have him do? Beat up the Emperor on sight to establish his dominance? My feeling is that no matter how Obama greeted the Emperor, there would have been a problem.

How about a kiss on the cheek? This is a fairly formal gesture popular all over the world. It’s a greeting as well as a show of friendship and respect.

…buuuut it sure is feminine. We’d hate to look inferior to Japan (because we all know that femininity = inferiority!) Next!

Oh, what about a Anjali mudra? That’s an Indian greeting or show of respect which involves one sandwiching their hands together and raising them up to the greetee.

…too weird. Too foreign. Too… Asian. Next!

Fist bump? Too informal.

High five? Nothing to celebrate!

Hug? Too creepy.

Hat-tipping? What is this, the 1910’s?

Bottomline: it’s a bow, it’s not sacrilege.