When Rednecks get Bored….

Mike Thomas from the Orlando Sentinel chooses The Bulldog Manifesto as his first victim.

Mike says…

The future is The Blog.

There are millions of bloggers out there, typing away on their keyboards, living for that glorious day of recognition when someone finally comments on their blogs.

True. Is it wrong to want to be read? Is it wrong to want feedback?

Mike rambles on…

You can blog, too. For the uninformed, a blog is any thought posted on a Web site that is not good enough to be printed in a newspaper.

Not good enough to be printed in a newspaper? You say this as if bloggers want to have their news printed in a newspaper. That is not true. I am not interested in becoming either a journalist, columnist, nor do I want anything to do with the media. And I’m sure most bloggers can attest to that regarding their own blogs as well. Us bloggers aren’t trying to be anything.

It’s like if someone rode a bike everyday for exercise and one angry redneck comes along and says, “You’re just trying to be marathon cyclist”. “You think you’re hot stuff, don’t you?”

And…..?

I don’t get Mike’s point. He continues his little rant.

Here is an example: “President Bush has totally and utterly failed the American people. Almost every day we are presented with further proof why he should not be our president.”

This is from “Bulldog Manifesto.”

Note that you would never see the words “utterly” and “totally” in the same newspaper sentence because they are redundant terms

The usage of “totally and utterly” used in the same sentence are called intensifiers.

But we all know that when someone doesn’t like the content of what they’re reading, they will resort to arrogantly pointing out grammar mistakes (grasping at straws, in my opinion). But what is he really ranting about? If The Bulldog Manifesto were Pro-Bush, he wouldn’t have been the topic of discussion in the Orlando Sentinel on 9-11.

Greywulf sent Mike Thomas a response:

Here’s the email I sent Mikeyboy:

Just a quick word of thanks for your article about blogging. I now see the error of my ways, to
know that I’ve been wasting all my time these years by putting my thoughts, opinions and ideas into the ether for all to see. There was I believing that blogging was something useful – a combination of emotional outlet, method of communicating with one’s peers, a way of storing thoughts, photographs, etc, and above all, fun – and you’ve revealed the truth to me at last.

I should have known that blogging is boring. I should have stopped immediately for fear of posting something grammatically incorrect (for the record: I’ve an English Degree, and a Business Management Degree. I don’t give a damn whether I’m intransitive or not). We should obviously shut the heck up, ignore our right to freedom of speech, and listen only to the garbage pushed out by newspapers and politicians in future. I promise never to think a free thought again, least of all to blogpost about it.

As to some blogs seeming pointless or mundane, I’m sorry you don’t get it; life is like that. Life is often both mundane and boring. It take a brave man to record the mundanity rather than fictionalise the fantastic. I take it you’ve read neither Diary of a Nobody or anything by James Joyce. When people write about their “mundane” lives, they are recording real life for posterity. It’s important to them now, it’ll be important to generations in the future.

I’m sorry most of all that you just don’t get it.

Yours cordially,

In my humble opinion, The Bulldog Manifesto is a very intelligent, well-spoken gentleman. You would know this if you ever took the time to read his blog. I couldn’t even begin to be the good writer he is.

But there’s a followup! The Bulldog Manifesto welcomes Mike Thomas into the Blogsphere. Read the latest.

Bless me father for I have sinned….

(trembling in fear)…. I made my opinions public on a website.