I've been wanting to start a blog for some time, but I've been deterred by two considerations. First, I had doubts over my ability to contribute anything useful to the b'sphere, and whether my pronouncements could stand up to public scrutiny. Second, I didn't know how I could distinguish myself among the galaxy of conservative intellectual bloggers, which includes veteran journalists, professors and war heroes. Then I realized that these work together in favor of my starting out on this enterprise. As long as I remain nearly invisible in among the throng of aspiring Hewitts and Tarantos, I can make my misguided attempts at brilliance with impunity.
Since this blog will serve as my Mitty-esque secret life as an influential member of the right-wing intelligentsia, I thought that "Secret Life" would be an appropriate name for it (I passed over Mitty forms to avoid trademark disputes with the Thurber estate). Unfortunately, every variation I tried on the name was taken already. I tried forms of "world 3", referring to Popper's term for the world of ideas independent of the their originators, but found all of those names taken as well. Finally, I turned to the classic solution, flipping pages in a dictionary. Except that instead of a dictionary, I used Liddel and Scott's Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. This was how I came upon "perinoia", "thoughtfulness, quick comprehension". I was amazed that I had no trouble registering what I thought was a homophonic gem. After registering it, I found that the homophony with "paranoia" is so exact, that its only use on the WWW is as an especially bad misspelling of "paranoia". I imagine that anyone coming upon my blog for the first time will assume that I just can't spell. I guess that's what they call being too hip for the room.
Thus I begin my career as a right-wing opinion maker.
"Rick Harlan re-read K-Lo's disparaging comments on his "Roberts" article. He half-smiled, knowing he'd knock this one out of the park. But, he'd have to make it fast if he wanted to get to Gigot's show in time for his segment. Harlan opened the editor and began to type his rebuttal, filling the cherry-paneled study with the keyboard's pocketa-pocketa-pocketa."
Since this blog will serve as my Mitty-esque secret life as an influential member of the right-wing intelligentsia, I thought that "Secret Life" would be an appropriate name for it (I passed over Mitty forms to avoid trademark disputes with the Thurber estate). Unfortunately, every variation I tried on the name was taken already. I tried forms of "world 3", referring to Popper's term for the world of ideas independent of the their originators, but found all of those names taken as well. Finally, I turned to the classic solution, flipping pages in a dictionary. Except that instead of a dictionary, I used Liddel and Scott's Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. This was how I came upon "perinoia", "thoughtfulness, quick comprehension". I was amazed that I had no trouble registering what I thought was a homophonic gem. After registering it, I found that the homophony with "paranoia" is so exact, that its only use on the WWW is as an especially bad misspelling of "paranoia". I imagine that anyone coming upon my blog for the first time will assume that I just can't spell. I guess that's what they call being too hip for the room.
Thus I begin my career as a right-wing opinion maker.
"Rick Harlan re-read K-Lo's disparaging comments on his "Roberts" article. He half-smiled, knowing he'd knock this one out of the park. But, he'd have to make it fast if he wanted to get to Gigot's show in time for his segment. Harlan opened the editor and began to type his rebuttal, filling the cherry-paneled study with the keyboard's pocketa-pocketa-pocketa."
posted by Rick Harlan at 1:47 PM
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