Area 51

My wife sometimes chides me for being something of a conspiracy nut.

I don't think a lone gunman killed Kennedy, for instance.

For another instance, even though I don't believe that aliens are secretly visiting the earth and abducting people to perform proctology exams, I love most of the "X-Files" TV series, and recently bought the brilliant DVD collections of the "mythology" that gathers the "aliens among us" story arc from the series into one cogent group. (Like Whiskey, I think the series jumped the green shark when David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson left the series to be replaced by Terminator 2.0 and Xena: Warrior Princess (though the two did give it the old college try). I love the "X-Files" for its exploration of conspiracy theory and the mechanisms behind it/them all. It makes my conspiracy nut dendrites twinkle. (And, FWIW, there may be aliens out there, but I doubt we will see them in our lifetimes because their planet, should it/any exist, began most likely at the same time ours did, so how could they be that much further ahead of us? This is based on the assumption that only life forms similar to ourselves (or at least some variant from the amazing diversity evidenced during the "Cambrian explosion") can and would form via evolution, given the known components of our universe.)

But I digress...

Back when all the wingnut falderol whipped up around Clinton, where they spent years and millions trying to nail him with something so the Republicans could have their tit-for-tat Nixon revenge experience, I kept fuming to anyone who would listen as to why the press wasn't tearing the those pultroons a new one. Clinton was a popular president, save for the wingnuts. It was so clearly a witchhunt, but only the right wing echo chamber was getting airplay. The lack of journalistic response on the opposing side just didn't make sense. Also, Newt Gingrinch (yes, that's on purpose) and his little revolution seemed like so much BS from guys who really were just selfish, grubby, and mean-spirited bastards, rather than guys who honestly wanted to improve America. The chirping of crickets that accompanied that whole clusterfandango astounded me.

Well, now some journalistic mea culpas are quietly beginning to surface from the various media outlets. The majority of the journalist world still has the 'tude articulated by Lily Tomlin when she played an operator for AT&T: "We don't care. We don't have to." But it's nice to see some of those who don't assume the rest of us are stupid and unworthy beginning to fess up.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light has constructed a great anthology of this occurrence in a post entitled "Why I blog".

Usually, I don't feel the need to be pushy about exhorting you to follow a link, because any links I provide are done so merely for your pleasure should the topic tickle your interest. However, this time, I think this one has enough importance and gravity (and it's fun, btw, this is not a homework assignment) that you owe it to yourself to at least give it a glance, even if right now it doesn't seem to be something you'd typically read.