It’s one of those things that one becomes aware of as a blogger, over time. The internet is like a vast ocean, with weird currents, storms and agitations in far corners that eventually send out waves and ripples that travel across wide spaces and eventually turn up crashing into the shore of awareness. Many moons ago, as time is counted in internet years, the ruckus over the fraudulent documents presented in a 60 Minutes/Dan Rather expose broadcast on the eve of the 2004 election created one of those far-rippling storms. So did the fracas generated by the Swift Boat veterans, when it turned out that despite John Kerry’s attempt to campaign as a sort of studly Dudley Do-Right Vietnam veteran, those who served with him in-theater viewed him as more of a Frank Burns/Eddie Haskell figure, and were not afraid to say so in whatever small-media or internet venue would give them the time of day. Yes, eventually the whole issue crashed ashore on the Island of Major Media Awareness.

Ever since then, I am of the notion that it pays to keep an eye out for those interesting ripples, especially when those on the Island of Major Media Awareness seem most determined to avert their eyes. I very much suspect that a lot of ordinary news-consumers are not ignoring these concerns. Look at how many people turned out for Chic-Fil-A appreciation day, having got the word through blogs and social media.



So – I have my eye out for ripples. One of them was this, posted at Sarah Hoyt’s place; a guest-post by another writer, who does have a day-job involving much traveling.

On the drive to and from the East Coast, I paid attention to the billboards and bumper-stickers. Folks, the people in “Fly over” country are PISSED, from the guy that guides hunters, to the mayors of towns and cities, to state senators congressmen and Governors who are voting to arrest and imprison federal law enforcement officials for enforcing federal gun laws that don’t agree with state law … The political pendulum has never, in the history of humanity, stayed on one side of a swing. The back lash from over reach has always been proportionate to how far off center it went before coming back … right now we’re staring at a whole hell of a lot of the country (about 80-90% of the land mass, as well as about 50% of the population) that is FED UP. You really don’t want those guys to decide that the only way to fix it is to burn it down and start over…

I found his observations interesting, especially as he seemed startled at how vehement the people were that he talked to, and observed, out in the center-continent weeds, away from the Island of Major Media Awareness.

Another such ripple was observed here, by Neo-neocon – not the story itself (which did float up to the awareness of a denizen of the Island of Major Media Awareness). The story itself as written became one of those exercises in hand-wringing over the plight of a poor, pitiful victim, intended to invite an outpouring of sympathetic comment from readers … but as far down as Neo and I read the comments, they were very much otherwise. The commenters were spitting-nails angry over the fraud perpetrated by the subject of the story – an illegal alien woman arrested at her Ob-gyn, for presenting forged ID. Neo-neocon wrote;

“The article’s commenters are not in agreement with these sentiments, to say the least. Every single comment I read expressed outrage. Of course, I certainly haven’t read them all; there are over 5,000 as I write this. But every single one I read seemed to come from a person who was breathing fire.



[. . .] What about the rights of the person whose SS numbers she’s illegally using? The economic and physical hardship they are enduring with their credit being destroyed and flagged as fraudulent? What about the rights of the thousands involved in accidents with illegals using fake IDs and no insurance? The need of a law abiding citizen who may have to be forced to forgo medical care because they now have to pay for it themselves, and the economic ramifications it has on all our insurance costs? What are the rights of the woman who may have been turned away from this medical office because this woman took her place on the patient roll call?



What about the national security ramifications of people walking around with fake government papers, using our resources and having the ability to access secured facilities with ease?



You are a disgrace to journalism with a one sided article somehow ignoring all the people who suffer and will potentially suffer because of those who are breaking the law and committing fraud. This far outweighs the medical needs of those who can find care in their legal homes of origin should they need it. The article, with its “undocumented” this and “undocumented” that, highlights the rift between the MSM and the people. The MSM and the left has been pushing the narrative that such a woman is a victim (complete with crying children) rather than a perpetrator. But the vast majority of readers aren’t buying it for an instant.”

This morning, I see another such interesting ripple, in the imbroglio regarding “The View” – a program that I have never watched, and have no particular interest in watching, and only hear about at second hand. It would appear that certain hosts of the show had some rather catty remarks to make about nurses, and the predictable wrath descending from a significant audience segment has caused no less than five major commercial sponsors of “The View” to pull their advertising. Too late the apology from Joy Behar for off-the-cuff remarks that might have passed relatively unnoticed in the past. I suspect that her words were just another spark that fell into the dry tinder of audience anger.

And the anger is out there, certainly. It is a cold, watchful and mostly private anger, however – not the hot anger which erupts in riots and arson and looting, and which attracts the brief attention of the Island of Major Media Awareness. These ripples that I have listed – and I am certain there are others — are subtle signs of that cold anger, an anger too quiet for our major media organs to notice, save perhaps on those occasions when their comment threads explode.

Discuss.