Every now and then, a mass email hits the blogosphere like a game of Chinese Whispers. Like any fake but accurate story, the themes remain the same while details change constantly. So, is the company fifteen years old (as seen on Bablublog) or is it twenty-eight (Rottie)? Does it really matter? Memes like these exist and persist as a portmanteau of experiences and ideas that resonate across groups of participants.

The embellishments generally get laid on thick, and while I don’t have the resources to trace the origins of such a meme, I’m sure there are others that do. In the end, mass emails have some kind of role in maintaining a consistent message among those willing to suspend a little disbelief. The empathic appeal of these messages can outweigh the words of any pundit in print, online, or on television. I’m certain that anthropologists can tell us that this is a not a new occurence, and that the image of a diet of Ramen Pride noodles is pretty recurrent throughout history, albeit the subsistence foodstuff will be different.

I want the President to fail in enacting his policies and agenda, which I know are not good for the country. Not only are his economic policies damaging to our general prosperity as a nation, but they are so transformative that the success of those policies would transform the very nature of our country. The same way how Jindal would want him to fail, The same way Fred Thompson wants him to fail. Sorry to admit, but this is the time for the right kind of nuance:

But when you say you want him to FAIL, even if you try to qualify it by saying “if his policies hurt America I want him to fail,” you are alienating and losing the support of the vast middle, who do NOT want any American president to fail. When you insist on it, they hear you saying you want America to fail.

Wrong, Charles. Wrong, because the President is not America, and while our national success does not turn on one man, he has enough power to hurt our success. That our fate is inextricable from his is the narrative that our opponents in the media want people to believe and this is what I, politically, have chosen to focus on. Forget economic policy, NatSec, shit there’s enough wonks and a half out there to discuss the ins and outs of that. However, the high population density of the American Left in the Mass Media presents a challenge in presenting message, and until these people are called out, fought on our terms and not theirs, well, anyone’s words will be subject to their machinations.

I’ve lived in a third world, or “developing” country. My whole life in the Philippines the electorate has placed hope not so much in themselves but in the President, and by year two of a six-year, one-term-limited president, there are always grumbles. Frankly, this is what I am seeing here in the USA, and it is disheartening.

The blogosphere has grown, and its collective memory has shortened, in such a manner that were I to bring up a blogfight as recent as three weeks ago, my readers would be lost without a large number of supporting links. There has been a grand discussion on the nature of language, and peoples’ ability to redefine a message out of context and original intent, between Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom and Patterico. The argument itself is neither here nor there, at this point, at least for me. This, though, I find interesting:

And what I find disturbing is that, rather than ask me to explain that position, these “scholars” have asked SEK to write something up so that they can understand it. As if SEK, by virtue of having waded into the anti-intellectual depths of Wingnuttia, is, by virtue of his being “one of them,” more capable of making my argument than I am.

Goldstein is one of the premier intellects I have come across in my six years of online writing. His arguments are clear and founded in logical consistency. Don’t take my word for it either; rather, spend some time on his site and read, and read some more. I have not seen the man backpedal in the name of increased nuance… But enough of the platitudes. What is most interesting is that in many blogs, across all disciplines, comments sections generally exhibit a level of intellectual maturity that lags the author. The best comments sections have been built over a period of years from loyal readers. A good example would be OTB and Althouse. Majority of comment posters, though, add little to the discussion past beting their chests one way or the other.

Unfortunately, the image of pilotfish and sharks doesn’t really apply.