When I need wisdom — real thinking, the sort stiffled by crowds — I go to the website of Fred Reed: Fred on Everything. Feeling oppressed by the talk about the inauguration (I have no TV, but the networks’ broadcast radiation affects us all), I turn to him for insight about the meaning of it all.
Here is an excerpt from “Wintering – An Incoherent Interlude with the Elite“, 22 January 2009:
Tom’s {Bar] was bleak, though. Instead of NASCAR or the NFL playoffs, all the televisions had some guy being enthroned as president of the US. It was awful. I can stand singing commercials for toilet paper. I once watched a half hour of Oprah and recovered, though with psychic scars. But twelve hours of embarrassing imperial pomp, chattered about by boringly dressed dullardesses with the intelligence of catfish? A freaking coronation with everything except inbred hemophiliac nobles?
In a sane world, a president would sign in online. User ID, password, bingo, he’s president, spare me the media circus. Why involve the rest of us? When I get a new job, I don’t need a $150-million parade that blocks the streets everywhere. It’s a sign of a defective character.
In fact we could probably do a president in software, and save the upkeep on that funny-looking double-wide on Pennsylvania Avenue. Server space is cheap these days. Little processing power would be needed to simulate the average president. An abacus would probably do it.
… On the lobotomy box the babble-blondes kept nattering on like concussed parrots about how wonderful it was that we had a black president. Oh God, I thought, spare me. I mean, so what? So he’s black. Lots of guys are black. It’s a pretty common thing, really. He isn’t a freak, an unexplained natural phenomenon, just some guy who probably couldn’t find a better job so he took what he could get. I mean, if we had elected, say, a giant fronded barnacle from a geothermal vent, then, sure, I’d want to hear about it. For at least five minutes. Or maybe if we chose a hitherto-unknown tube worm. Though I grant we came pretty close last time. What’s the big deal about a black guy?
I figured a black president couldn’t possibly be worse than the white ones. This O’Bama guy hadn’t done anything terrible yet. Good as any, better’n some.
That really says it all, IMO.
Other good colums by Fred
- “A Sordid But Instructive Interval At Soldier of Fortune Magazine“, Playboy, March 1984
- “Playing At Adventure – Thoughts On The Spreading Mismatch“, 28 February 2006 — The mismatch between men and women, between men and the modern world.
- “A True Son of Tzu, Guderian Was the Mother“, Fred Reed, 23 January 2007 — All you need to know about the Department of Defense.
- “Theater of the Absurd, by the Absurd, for…“, 16 February 2007 — About “securty theater.”
- “Air Power: Zooming and Booming for the Sheer Hell of It“, 16 November 2008 — “everything you need to know about air power.”
Afterword
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Posts on the FM site about America:
- Diagnosing the eagle, chapter IV – Alienation, 13 January 2008
- Americans, now a subservient people (listen to the Founders sigh in disappointment), 20 July 2008
- de Tocqueville warns us not to become weak and servile, 21 July 2008
- A philosphical basis for the Batman saga, 23 July 2008
- The American spirit speaks: “Baa, Baa, Baa”, 5 August 2008
- We’re Americans, hear us yell: “baa, baa, baa”, 6 August 2008
- The intelligentsia takes easy steps to abandoning America, 19 August 2008
- Symptoms of a fever afflicting America’s culture, 5 November 2008
- The corruption of a nation is usually hidden, but sometimes becomes visible, 21 November 2008
- The war for America’s soul, 23 December 2008 — Our changing attitudes to “It’s a Wonderful Life”
- This crisis will prove that Americans are not sheep (unless we are), 8 January 2008
