(Thanks, Vincent. As a fan of The Prisoner, I am chagrined that I did not think of this myself.)
UPDATE: some of you have asked about Twitter. I do have plans to truncate my attention span and start Twittering, gawd help me. I don't know when I'll get around to that, however. Maybe in the fall, when the new book comes out, since I'd planned to buy an iPhone -- and thereby cease to be the last journalist on Planet Earth to be without a mobile phone, an obscure title I hold with some pride.
This is the end, as Jim Morrison sang. The end of this blog, that is. I'm hanging up my keyboard. And I'm not happy about it, I assure you. I've had a lot of fun doing this and I think we've had some good back-and-forth among thoughtful people of varying views.
The problem is time. I basically volunteered to do this. When I took it on, my workload wasn't lightened proportionately, and that workload is, contrary to what some people think of the cushy life of the columnist, substantial. A good column requires significant amounts of thinking, researching, and writing. The big-name American columnists turn out two columns a week with the aid of staff and the ability to get almost anyone on the phone that comes from being a big-name American columnist. I have neither staff nor clout and I write three columns a week. In fact, since my columns are longer than most, my weekly production is almost double that of Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, or any other Big Name you care to mention.
It's come to the point where, I think, both my columns and this blog were suffering, the blog in particular. At its best, a blog feels like a fabulous dinner party conversation: It's quick and light, the subject constantly shifts, people chime in with witticisms and deep thoughts and nonsense. But that requires an energetic host with undivided attention, and I haven't been that for some time. As a result, the party has become a little dull and tired. That may be acceptable for some of the regulars -- bless 'em -- but it's not good enough for me. I have standards, dammit. It's time to do the dishes and go to bed.
So now, one last time, let's all sing together. Then everybody get your coat and clear out.
Today's column, in which I endear myself to the nation's polysyllabic populist.
This was a textbook example of how not to report statistics. Or perhaps it is a textbook example of how to report statistics in order to turn a modest story worthy of modest attention into a five-alarm fire.
And this is a textbook debunking. Whack!
Saturday's column, on politicians and their passionately expressed love of evidence.
The basic claim of this column is modest, as is all my writing about predictions. We can't predict. That's it. And when someone says with perfect certainty that something huge will inevitably and imminently happen, he is fooling himself and others, particularly if the same prediction has flopped countless times over the last two centuries.
So how do convinced pessimists respond? Here's a typical email. Read on, if you can stomach the sight of a straw man dying violently.
Dear Mr. Gardner:
I've travelled across the continent and the Earth looks flat
everywhere, so how likely is it really that the Earth is round? This
is precisely the sort of argument you are offering your readers and it
doesn't amount to much. Haven't you noticed that some really horrendous
things are happening on the Earth right now? Are you unaware that
there are approximately 2 billion humans who are living on less than $2 a
day and are faced with the prospects of losing their food and water
supplies in the years ahead? Perhaps the global economic collapse
escaped your attention?
All sorts of strain and stress are appearing throughout the world
right now with 6.7 billion humans. How is it at all possible for this
planet to host 9 billion humans? Infrastructure is eroding and decaying
throughout the developed world and even the wealthy countries cannot
afford to maintain their roads, bridges, dams and electrical systems.
How long can these things survive against the forces of nature? Not
much longer.
Greenland's icecap is melting and the Gulf of Mexico is dying from a
combination of agricultural and fossil fuel pollution. There's this
massive oil volcano 5000 feet below the water. Have you heard?
Throughout Florida's coastline the rising oceans are taking the
beaches and overtaking the sea walls. The same is true throughout the
rest of the world. Millions of humans living along the coastline are
going to have to live somewhere else in the decades ahead. Where will
they go on a planet with 9 billion humans?
Humankind's future is bleak. This present world is bleak.
My response to this glum fellow:
If you can show me where I wrote that everything is fine and everything will be fine, you will have a point. Otherwise you are flailing at a straw man.
Of course this response is futile because anything but a long, low moan of "we're doomed! doomed!" will be deemed the folly of an incorrigible optimist.
You see a list of 30 words, 29 of which are written in blue ink. One is in green ink. Your eye immediately falls on the one in green ink and when you are later asked about the words on the list, that's the first one you recall.
This is novelty bias, an elementary aspect of human psychology. And this is a demonstration that reporters are human.
John Tierney in the New York Times discusses a book I've just started but is already impressing the hell out of me. And he delivers this gem:
"Predicting that the world will not end is also pretty good insurance
against a prolonged stay on the best-seller list."
Pesticides are an evil, awful, crime against nature. Organic is a gentle kiss on Mother Nature's cheek, a life-affirming gesture, a beautiful.... Uh, say what?
(No, I'm not saying pesticides should be sprinkled on cornflakes. Or that organic is actually bad for birds, on balance. The point is simply that the issues are complex and reasonable judgements must balance competing evidence and interests. What isn't helpful is the moralizing and posturing advocates of organic so often engage in.)
Today's column, on Bill McKibben and authors who never learn.
This morning I was shocked and appalled to learn that a spiritual guru who spent his long life peddling mystical nonsense to gullible fools has been exposed as a money-grubbing hypocrite.
I was much less surprised, and much more pleased, to discover that one of the few celebrity-followers of the guru to see through the man was John Lennon. No dummy he.
("Serve Yourself" was a response to Bob Dylan's "Serve Somebody," which Dylan wrote when he converted to Christian fundamentalism and became a follower of evangelist Hal Lindsey. Lindsey, you may remember, was the author of The Late Great Planet Earth, which predicted -- big surprise -- the imminent return of Jesus and the end of the world. The Late Great Planet Earth was the best-selling book of the 1970s, which says everything you need to know about that decade of stupidity and bad fashion.)
To the conservative dogmatist, the New York Times plays a role not unlike that of Lucifer in Christian cosmology. Thus, when the Times breaks important news that advances the interests of the forces of Good -- aka, the Republican party -- the conservative dogmatist suffers severe cognitive dissonance. He cannot make sense of his perceptions. His thoughts do not cohere. His very understanding of the universe is threatened.
Cognitive dissonance theory suggests that in such circumstances, people will seek out rationalizations that reconcile the apparently irreconcilable and thereby restore mental order. If the dissonance is especially severe, people will even accept as valid explanations which, in other circumstances, they would deem illogical, absurd, or downright hilarious.
In this experiment, my team of researchers placed a dissonance-inducing New York Times article on the website of a conservative dogmatist popular among her peers. The experimental results in the comments section were as expected. And how.
So finance ferrets and banker boobs cause the biggest financial crisis since the meltdown of 1929-33, which turns the recession in the United States into the worst since the Great Depression, and which sectors are least effected by job losses? Finance and banking, of course.