Web loggers' lunacy

Are we (web loggers) so vain and pretentious as to really believe that we are making a precious contribution towards making the world a better place to live in?
As probably the most modest contributor amongst the many millions in the whole wide world so devotedly engrossed, I'm persuaded to say, without any circumlocution, yes.

Snobbishly, one refuses to use the words 'blog', 'blogger' and 'blogging', not only because of the disagreeable connotations that arise in English when terms such as 'blog-roll' are used, but because, onomatopoeically, the words themselves seem to demean the considerable efforts of those noble enough to devote their precious time in making the world a better place to live in.

Web logging, however, can become a dangerous pastime. An infernal vortex dragging those so absorbed into a spiral of no return, where, informed by statistics, they become so conscious of the fleeting interest of their perfidious readers, that instead of condescending to throw one mediocre article to the avid millions every ten days or so, they feel obliged to knock their pans out writing far more rubbish than they had ever originally bargained for. And all this for nothing of course. In fact, woe betide anyone who dares to take too often an ungodly google at any ads so supplied. But this is of little consequence in any case.

The world is constantly shrinking, although one might think that the huge amount of human crap and refuse would be creating the adverse effect. But then if we consider the massive amount of irreplaceable fossil fuel the world is burning up, say in just half an hour, perhaps a cross-section of the world would resemble an over mature Gruyere. In any case, as far as communication and the sharing of information goes, there's no doubt that the world is getting increasingly smaller.
We have instant access to this growing wealth of information, to such an extent that to try to deprive a people of it would be totally absurd and self-defeating.

The furious contagion the Arab States are smitten with, seems to underline this. The awareness that 'Egypt has done it, so we can do it too'. And no regime can prevent anyone from taking pictures and making videos with their mobiles of the latest horror in order to visually inform the whole world of all such dramatic developments.
We are living in an era where nothing can be hidden. Even the Vatican has at last been rudely awakened to the fact. And there's no head of State anywhere who can get away with anything without the world eventually getting to know everything about it. This was already the case before Wikileaks. With Wikileaks the phenomenon is even going beyond certain 'acceptable limits'. It's ok if Julian hasn't Wikileaked himself and might soon be free to clobber the badies, but some might think he should tread more carefully with the goodies. At least this was how things went in the good old days when there was a much clearer distinction between the two.

Of course, this is all part of web logging. Having already alluded to the manifestations in Egypt and Tunisia, Viewfinder will now demonstrate how its contribution is helping to make the world a better place to live in, simply by supplying the following information.
Egyptian page views number no less than 5 within one week. But wait, that's not all, Tunisian page views amount to a staggering 21 during one month. Now while it's true that 5 can't really be considered representative of the Egyptian population of 83,000,000, it's nevertheless significant as proof that those five Egyptians have computers, access to Internet, and that apparently they didn't object too much to the mullock written. At least it's a start. Assuming that Egypt doesn't eventually become totalitarian and will establish a 'real democracy'- which logically means it would also have the option of becoming totalitarian- those five people could spread the word to the other 82,999,995. The miracle of communication. The implications give one goose-pimples. For the 21 Tunisians, little need be added, the same, simple logic obviously applies.  

Viewfinder ends this worthless post added as yet another vain effort to bring back the perfidious readers, on a melodious, note.

Protests for freedom, religious perusal
Historical subjects and all art vis-u-al
Doggerel verses and phil-o-sophy
Such are what one might call my 'cup of tea'

In front of the puter, writing and musing
Observing humanity winning or losing
Actions are rising and fortunes are made
Meaning for others that all hopes must fade

Trying to come up with brand new ideas
When one could go out and have a few beers
Writing for nothing might just please a few
But there are much better things one could do

Refrain
 Where the time goes
Only He knows
Obsessed by a fad
I simply forget who I actually am
And then I'm quite sure- I'm mad

With apologies to Oscar Hammerstein II

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Text, parody and image (Peter Rabbit) © Mirino. February, 2011