I am gratified so many follow this series –between the ”likes” on Facebook and tweets and retweets on Twitter, the number is somewhere between 500,000+ and 19. It is, after all, about a boring social issue, a protest movement trying to get writers to shake their chains and say “hell no” to the plantation school of writing (HuffPo and other non-payers) who are violating Doctor Johnson’s rule (that only a blockhead would write except for money). I realize you would rather read about my theories as the world’s leading Murdochologist on the Divorce Case of the Century. Was Wendi dating John Blair or the new generalissimo of China, Li Keqiang? And why didn’t NewsCorp’s crack investigative reporters, who were hacking her phones for the last five years, tell him a few million frequent flier miles earlier?
As a reward for your loyalty today I am going to tell you the real reason why I am still not doing a blog like any normal blockhead, especially those on a trust fund or holding good over-paid jobs in academia, like the folks at NYU. I’ve saved it for the last because it is too scary even for me, this Chicken Little Kitman to contemplate.
Some background.
Everybody who blogs, in effect, is playing into the hands of those who would suppress freedom to dissent in mass media. There is nothing to fear about the monopolization of media, argue the big media monopolizers, because there are new alternative sources of information and access. The FCC itself is in the process of dropping its ban on cross-ownership, saying it’s now okay for one media monster to own a newspaper and a TV station in the same market. Or even two in the case of Rupert Murdoch’s duopoly in New York. His showcase local station WWOR-TV (Ch. 9) as a public service with no notice just cancelled the only half-hour newscast it had left for an evolutionary youthful newsmagazine anchored by a real estate executive and an Republican candidate for Congress. Who needs diversity when there’s always The Internet!
The Internet is the biggest wolf in sheep’s clothing in terms of progress, since the invention of commercials in movie theatres.
If I was to figure out a diabolical plot to stop this degenerative process, which deludes the public into thinking The Internet is unmitigated progress, the first thing I would do to bring down the Web is start a Kitman blog.
To understand my cockiness, I recite a series of events that have occurred in recent intellectual history:
The one common denominator in the list is all have featured my work.
Space limitations prevent my dwelling on the complete bibliography of lesser publications now defunct. Suffice it to say, the Kitman family motto is: publish—and perish.
Modesty also prevents me from embellishment, detailing the track record of my nine books beyond the first volume of my autobiography: “The Number-One Best Seller” (that was its title, not the sales report. You can look it up in the card catalog: It’s still “The Number- One Best Seller).
Nevertheless, literally tens of people are urging me to wise up, stop being behind the curve, and open a blog site like the 5,432,078 other blockheads.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like The Internet, even more than Facebook. It’s a beloved institution, a great source of information, some of which is factually accurate, an easy way to connect, providing an endless horizon for grazers in the digital domain. It also has probably stopped more writers from actually writing, as they ride the log jams of the stream of consciousness, the most important thing a writer needs, next to his fingers for typing. No medium is perfect.
The Internet is also the Sargasso Sea, filled with completely forgotten web sites like Friendster, AltaVista, HotBot and other little engines that couldn’t get them out of the digital Bermuda Triangle even before I memorized their names.
But the stakes are higher. With me in the mix, The Internet Itself could be endangered.
Once I finally start a blog site, The Internet will be history. Kaput. Over.
Now I realize The Internet is only a way play station in the march of progress. Something else will be replacing it, invented by some kid who dropped out of high school and is already working in the family garage developing the step beyond.
Still, would you want to have a crime of this magnitude on your conscience? That you helped kill The Internet? I couldn’t sleep at night.
I might even be arrested under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 and sent to Gitmo as a terrorist.
If you love The Internet, for God’s sake, STOP me before I blog!
To be continued.
marvinkitman2@gmail.com
8July13