Do you hear the people sing?

Theater, art, music, television, movies. Creative distractions from our everyday lives. As we prepare to alter our cable and internet providers, i find myself wondering: How damaging is the mass availability of art and information to people actually caring? If i want to know about what's going on, there are thirteen different website i have bookmarked and a dozen others i could probably name off the top of my head. And you all, whatever your interests may be, have access to equally vast resources via the internet alone. When you add in television and print, it's almost overwhelming. Does the ready access to such a wealth of information encourage the masses, or discourage them, figuring that if anything important happens someone will notice and bring it to their attention? We tout any new way to assault the populace with information as progress, but without monitor or filter can it actually discourage us from taking the time to know? I beleive so. I firmly beleive in the freedom of all forms of transmitting information, but i feel it's time for us to step and and increase the monitoring of such sources. No matter what form information comes to you, take a moment to assess it's veracity. If we all do a little to make sure what we come to know is accurate, everyone instantly becomes ten times as well-informed. Different opinions will always persist, but they should be based on fact, not mutually exclusive misperceptions. The average in this country should always have the power, because THEY are the majority. That's how "average" works. To quote Richard Jeni, "The average person is just that: average." (Perhaps someone else said it first, but that's where i heard it- see, this is me doing my part to ensure you, dear reader(s?), aquire accurate information.) Do your part. Help society learn, and society will educate you in turn.

And so it is...

Introduction. The etymology and defintion of such a word i could discuss at length, like a politician whipping one of his trusty default speeches before a reliably pre-swayed crowd. I won't, however. I could give an epic and helpful introductory post, too, like my friend Pedro. Won't do that either. Oh, certainly, in times to come you may find thoughts and words here that are informative, helpful, amusing, perhaps even insightful and unique. This is the beginning, however, and if i peform too well your expectations will be quite high, and to be honest that's a lot of pressure to put on me and i don't know if our relationship is ready for that kind of commitment. I am hardly a professional writer. I am, in fact, hardly a professional anything. But i communicate well, and i'm funny, and in this particular medium that's halfway to success by my standards. (My standards also include being right, but as a whole i would say that does not apply to anyone else.) I will comment on things political and sociological, mainly, in this place, although parts of my personal life will inevitably enmesh themselves. The bastards. For now, however, with the holidays in place and the government quiet, with my cold ass being stuck in Michigan until monday, the only wisdom i have for you, fair readers (or, at this point, fair reader. at best.) is simply this: Don't eat the yellow snow.