Some Highlights

Well, Spring Break has come and come, and I'm finding myself back in the same old cycle where I never quite manage to find time to blog, no matter how much I mean to.

Well, that's not 100% true. I made time last weekend and I worked on a post for a few hours, but I just couldn't quite get it together, somehow. There was just something off about it. I'm far too much of a perfectionist and the result is that where some people can just jump on and blog frequently, I find myself putting in an unconscionable amount of time on each post. I've tried to break that habit and do quick posts, but it never works. Once I'm on and blogging, it becomes an event.

So, there are a few things I want to do tonight. One is a belated cry of joy at the resignation of Tom DeLay! I was doing a happy dance here when I first saw the news. How sweet it is! But, remember, he's really just the tip of the iceberg. It would be all too easy to rejoice at his downfall and forget that the culture of corruption is barely scathed by this. We've got a loooooong way to go. Still, it was a sweet, sweet moment, no?

Over at The Sharp Side, Ellis has an excellent piece on the character assassination in the British press of left wing figures George Galloway, Noam Chomsky, and the sort of left Simon Hughes, who is as left as they get when it comes to candidates running to head the center-left Liberal Democrat Party in the UK. Check it out. I'm ever fascinated by British politics.

I'd like to thank those who wrote in response to my last two posts. I appreciated those who took the time to let me know they liked what I had to say. It was a bit scary to out myself as a soap fan, given the stereotypes and, let's face it, the wretched state of the genre overall. To hear from a few fellow soap fans who want to see the shows start having real social value again was great.

Of course, I also had one e-mail complaining about me taking the time to watch soaps at all, let alone blog about them, when there is so much else going on in the world.

To that, I can only say that as far as watching soaps go, they're a form of escape. We can't all be on and tuned in to serious matters 24/7. We'd go insane if we didn't have our brief little avenues of respite. For me, those are books and soaps, the latter in moderation.

As for blogging about them, I think there's just as much social merit in discussing how soaps are dealing with a woman's right to choose and with gay and lesbian issues as there is in anything else. The writer of the e-mail used my own words from a previous post, in which I lamented my Aunt discussing Nick Lachey & Jessica Simpson's break up at Thanksgiving dinner as if it were 'news' to point out that I was 'pretty much doing the same thing'.

I disagree. I'm discussing soaps from the perspective of the left, examining how they're depicting our society. I'm not writing about the hook ups and break ups of the characters as if that in and of itself were news. If Luke Snyder is allowed to have a serious boyfriend on As The World Turns, I will blog about it, because it will be a groundbreaking moment in daytime. And I will be writing (in a future post) about the way women are depicted on many of these shows, and that will include some discussion of relationships as they pertain to that issue.

If you think that's a waste of your time, I won't be hurt if you don't read it.

There's more to say, but I've got class early in the morning and some reading to finish before I get some sleep.

I'm going away for the weekend to attend a family celebration, but my plan is to post again late Sunday night/early Monday morning.