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Never have I gotten so many laffs as I did from the recent unctuous umbrage and spates of spittle concerning the sophisticated sensibilities of our fellow list-readers -- and all the bleating about their ever-so-high personal ethical standards regarding the role of journalism in today's society. I was still chuckling to myself as I slipped on my Winnie-the-Pooh bedroom slippers and shuffled up Scarp and out to the mailbox, to see what my Rural Route Carrier and Gun Club Member had brought me today. There among the Christmas catalogs and soft headed money solicitations I found a few new periodicals which I, with free will and an open mind, have purchased, and a few others which I have not, but show up from time to time anyway. I was flipping thru the new issue of JFK Jr.'s magazine "George" (ironic, huh?) and, lo and behold, what do I find but an article about the Worst and Best-Dressed in DC! No kidding! Suddenly I am in-sensed! How dare these "journalists" criticize the attire of the leadership in our nation's capital? I couldn't believe it! What gives these magazine guys the right to use their magazine to write their opinions about the way our country's policy-makers shop for threads? So mad was I that I quickly changed into my pointy-toed, bond-trader's alligator skin Gucci flip-flops (with tassle) and hit the floor looking for a cat to kick -- but she got away, lucky her. Disgusted, I continued sifting the pile and pulled out the "Congressional Quarterly", confidant that at least here I'd find some probing, perceptive, political points to ponder -- that I agree with. And guess what? Only *half* of what I read was palatable! That's right! And here I am *paying* for the damned thing on my 10W-40 form -- yet have to read drivel not of my own making! Some of those people up there in Warshingtun just don't see things *correctly* -- the way I do! Was I ever pissed! I immediately realized that at least half the people in our government keep trying to change it -- and ought to be shipped to some other country if they don't like it here. By the non-union, non-striking, multi-national overseas carrier of their choice! I wasn't about to examine ideas that I don't already agree with! What, do they take me for a fool? So I put this putrid publication next to the commode where I could get some use out of it later, while voting with my heart. Next I discovered the new issue of "Real Goods", and along with blurbs about solar-powered wrist watches, it was chock full of bits about phosphate-free douches, hemp kitty litter, adobe out-houses, recycled bidets, and environmentally friendly wart eradicators. What's *that* got to do with *saving energy*? There was NOT ONE PARAGRAPH TOUTING THE BENEFITS OF FOSSIL FUELS! How biased and myopic can you get? What about fair play? What about the other side of the coin of the realm? These publishers ought to be tarred and feathered! And sued!! I threw the damned thing underneath the oil pan of my 1968 Opel where it could do some good, sopping up the leaking lifeblood of our country. With a brow deeply furrowed I sought some solace from the world's problems, and decided to stroll the fields outside. For some perspective, I figured it might be useful to walk a mile in another pair of shoes, so I slipped into my tractor-soled boots, dug up my copy of International Harvester's "Plow, Plant, and Pluck" and went for a walk on the lower forty. As I strolled the fence line and leafed the pages, looking for a seed of an idea, it hit me like a ton of alfalfa. All the photos showed IH machines!! There wasn't a single thing in there about Caterpillar or John Deere. The experience was harrowing, to say the least. I was getting a slant towards nothing but row after row of the publisher's OWN PRODUCTS! Yes, you read it here! Is that *fair*, I ask you? In shock I said to myself "Well, I'll reap what they sow!" And, planting both feet firmly, tossed the damned thing in the compost pile. By this time I was back at the bunkhouse, so absorbed that I forgot to change my shoes and, needing a good dose of liberal-chic, left-wing lip-service couched in big words, I grabbed the latest "New Yorker" from the mail pile, eagerly anticipating elegant linquistic limning about art, movies, literature, style, politics, sociology, science, business, and all kinds of surprisingly weird stuff. Say, what is this magazine supposed to be "about" anyway? One writer quoted the Immortal Bard *out of context*!! Outrage! Unleash the lawyers! If you're going to use the guy's words, print the whole play -- or you'll sorely strain the quality of my mercy, if you know what I mean, and I'm sure that you do! (For the software types, that last reference was from "The Merchant of Venus", a very funny yarn about a cross-dressing, femi-nazi attorney and a debit card; originally produced down in SoHo by Larry Flint). And on another page there was an ad for a book of poems (yuck!) by one of the magazines' own writers! Impure! Mercenary! Unbelievably unethical! Next to that was a condemning review of a blast-and-blood babe flick that I liked. How *dare* they? If they didn't like "Squibs In Heat", they didn't have to go see it! What gives some Village Vamp the right to say "It sucked, thematically speaking" when I knew that millions of dollars had been spent, not on content admittedly, but to make millions more? What better "theme" is there? Justice, where is thy thing? At this point, only some tunes would calm me down so I exchanged one set of Pooh-Pieds for another and reached for one of my fave pre-dive CDs. What's the world of publishing coming to, I mused. Here were magazines slanted, tainted, opinionated, personality-poisoned, politically polarized, aggressively commercial, one-sided and not-too-balanced, and mired in the human condition. How did it get this way -- or was it always this way? Why doesn't publishing on paper have the same purity and serene integrity as the internet and its ever-so-highly principled denizens? I might never sort all this out -- there's nobody to tell me what I should think. And there's still another question about "The Truth" that's nagging me: the wild rumor going around, started who-knows-where, that the entire Fear and Loathing piece was ghost-written by george himself -- to attract even more attention to himself -- and done in exchange for the resort-style instructor certification that he wanted so badly -- and got -- not so long ago. As the virtual needle slipped and scanned along the cyber-grooves of the silvered disc and the voices of Marley and the Wailers pulsed into the room, I received at least a partial answer. 'Tis Bobby-lon, mon. Christopher A. Brown The Technical Diving Video Library deepedge.com/TechVid Phone (US & Can.):606-272-0255; Fax:606-272-7279 Life is short -- this is not a rehearsal. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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