Template Journalism
  "Fret not the evildooers"

  OK, that isn't really a quote from the 37th
Psalm, but it is a basic idea of that Psalm.
I think the reason for the fretting not (the 
deeds of evildoers) is that often times we,
as lowly folk down below (in the story of
these Psalms; down below; Heaven above) might
not know the reasons, whys, where-fore, 
heart-thou's of other folks' actions.
And so what we might consider 'evil' is actually
just some idiosyncrasy of someone of whom we
think ill.  And we project this idea upon them
that they are so-called 'evil'.  This kind 
of thinking is why we have the term 'witch hunt'.
   I suppose it works best (if it were used
as a form of cultural inducement, a way to
stampede the herd, so to speak) when used during
times of fear, during times of great storms or
earthquakes.  Use the fear to get your way.
Stampede the herd to say and do things that are
not defensible.  What kind of people do things like
that?  A fiction that some columnist would
want to put out falsity to cause social or
political effect?  Doesn't this go against the
ethics of good journalism?
  I had thought and hoped that, now that the
election is over, that the discourse of other websites
would start to temper.  I'm trying to lead
by example here (LOL).  So, what about it
main-stream columnists and muckies who muck
in the mire of public discourse?  Why would someone
write an article before an event even happens?
Such a pre-written article or column I shall 
template-articles.  This is an old idea.
For example any fill-in-the-blanks kind of
format is a template as well.  Creating them
for opinion pieces of major newspapers and
national read columnists seems to me a
newer aspect than, say, a Mad-lib pad from
the 70's used for humor and amusement.  
Columns in major newspapers are imagined by
many to have important opinions within them.
The opinions are like a sounding of a bugle,
call to battle.  Oh, I'd better watch it,
this allegory attributing a call-to-battle
to truth-telling in a newspaper (or speaking
with the voice of righteous indignation).
   The orchestration of template-articles by
high-level muckies is an obvious thing for
a media expert, such as myself (again LOL),
to see.  And we get a stampeding effect if
the mud-slinging is timed correctly.  So something
awful happens on a Saturday (dreadful, awful,
the actions of deranged fell - faller.
And then the template-articles, obviously 
already to go even before the sad and tragic
day of last Saturday, get the templated parts
filled in and . . . auto-published to the
columnists page.  Meanwhile the political
opposition is not at their desks.  They are
taken aback by the guilt by imagined-association
being pulled by the guilt-stream media.  (I don't
want to say 'lame-stream', that is so Rush).

  Despicable.  These people ought to and must
be shamed (but don't be mean to them or make
violent allegories or metaphors to weapons or
parts of the body that can be used to cause harm).
These paid-for hit-men (oh, wait, I'm devolving
into violent allegories) for the power-deranged
dot-org mob (again with the violent allegories,
can I be stopped?) paid for by leading European
and Internationalist demagogue . . . 

   Stop right there.  Don't you dare speak his
name.  And if you do, and you say it three times . . .

  But this isn't a violent metaphor at all.
This is a metaphor of delusion.  Delusion can be
induced in many many ways.  Public delusions of 
crowds is what the enlightened sage of a writer 
(which ought to be the aspiration) seeks to
discourage.  (is that even a word).

  An enlightened journalist or columnist
ought to live by an unspoken code of ethics
that seeks to never use the power channels of
semi-official press to fear-monger or
monger any agendas of those who pay to have
you say.  Newspapers ought to be about the truth.

  But I'm being naive.  I know that these people
are very often paid (sometimes intractably) by
the 'fabulous' who want the crowd to squawk and 
fetch in a new direction.  What is the reason for
this?  If people could use psychological manipulative
presentation of multi-media to get a crowd to
cluck like a chicken, how many people would, if
put into a weirdo experimental situation where they
are fooled into thinking that they could do such a
thing, how many people would make the choice to do
it?  "Oh, you big crowd, largest crowd ever, all of you,
cluck like a chicken. There doing it.  I'm like a god."
It would be an experiment.  It would all be CG.  No
actual crowd was made to squawk like a chicken
in the writing of this article.

  No.  As viable adult human-beings we ought to be
about being honest.  And until we reach that point
where we use honesty when honesty is needed, without
lip to those who need the honesty, (and with honest
and loving intent, see other human beings as equal
in the ways that matter), until that point we are
not fully adult.
  And, while it is awesome to let a kid rant with his
pen, and let him do his hate-story telling in his
private notebooks, when we bring that stuff to other
people society ought to beat that writer down.
   Again, just an allegory.  Is anyone really confused?
  are you confused by my occasional misspellings?  Is it
important to you that I have an 'on line' identity 
sanctioned by some higher authority?  Can't you see
truth and falsity without the government having to
intervene?

  There is a whole hornet's nest of effects that
must and do happen when governments start to censor.
These effects are immediate and direct.  Anything
that involves requiring a national digital identity
to do postings to websites is a subtle form of 
censorship.  It is something designed to put the fear
in 'em.
  I am reminded by remembering the genesis of
this website, so many years ago, having just finished
a Biography of Ben Franklin.  Mr. Franklin, we should
remember, used to assume various aliases when he would
do the equivalent to what publishing this column is today,
he would publish letters to the editor in his papers penned
by him but attributed to someone from the community.  And so
with Mr. Franklin as an example I feel that folks ought
to have a right to not have to always be up front about
who they are and what they are doing.
  But let us not mistake the need for anonymity as an
excuse or apology for posts and comments (to blogs and websites)
that really are hateful.  In the case of actual hate
there are so many forces that poise against the hate that
it should be feared (by the poster of real hate) that they
will be found out and then exposed for real.  And then brought
to a place (allegorical?) outside the reach of regulators
(from where governments would seek to free them, if they could
only be reached, still an allegory).

  You see, dear reader, when there is real hate the world
takes care of the problem.  Governments can try to regulate against
hate but it is the people who do the job of deciding what they
do and do not patronize.

  In the case of what has been called libel (and not merely as
allegory) the public can see who was loose on the trigger (again with
the gun allegories) and published template-slander to try and
cognitively associate some horrible violence to names and faces
of political rivals.  The public can see who did this and, thou
the public ought not to tell these people that they can't publish
their opinion pieces which are less than adult in their quality.
Yes, let them publish.  But, no, don't patronize them anymore
if they can't maintain a level of decorum and do not cease with
their template-article.
  The fact that these people had (and again, an allegory) guns-loaded
with these template-articles tying political rivals to a horrible
crime (to be filled in later) is the real curious part of all of
this.  Oh, wait, I do not mean curious.  I mean telling.  It is
telling.  Because despite all of the calls to 'temper' the violent
rhetoric, the polemicists on the left were locked and loaded.  Saturday
they pulled the trigger and . . . shot themselves in the foot.

  No actual feet were shot at in the writing of this article.  Love 
people.  Don't do violence.  

  - Billy P
    Jan 13, 2011


Many people like this picture.  Just at sunset.  18mm focal length.
Dec 20, 2006.
Fisherman's Memorial, Gloscestor,MA

Suitible for framing.


Here is a lighted Seal.  I took this picture 
the same day.  Dec 20, 2006



Has it really been 4 years?  Strange how
time flies.  I had a site then too.  It
was very different than this one.