Sunday, December 7, 2014

Matthew Heines: My Basic Ground Rules on Blogging-“No B-word for Me”

Dear Reader,
      
     Please, I ask you, never ever call anything that has my name attached to it a “Blog.” The word blog, although I am sure it is an anagram for something made up by someone whose sole claim to fame is that term, I find personally offensive and indicative of an American media culture dominated by what Benjamin Franklin would call blockheads. The very fact that the writings of some of the world’s greatest minds, minds that might otherwise not be heard, is immediately belittled by the term before nary a word is perused or a sentence skimmed is one of the ways we are manipulated by the Money establishment.
     First, which sounds better?
1.     “Did you read that article by Bob Smith?”
2.     “Did you read that blog by Bob Smith?”
     Of course, in the first instance, the idea of an article, whether it is on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or right above the want-ads in the Poughkeepsie Herald, implies that a story had the backing of a financial enterprise, an editor and was deemed worthy enough to merit the time to write the story and the space in the publication to publish it. Why those very ideas are complete fallacies is covered extensively in my book, Deceptions of the Ages, “Mormons, Freemasons and Extraterrestrials, should the reader feel inclined to seek out more information on the topic, but for now, let us continue with our quest.
     Just reading the second sentence, I am forced to stop at the b-word and elongate the pronunciation in my mind to where it sounds like “Blah-og” which may have been a common name among pre-historic journalists and pundits. The b-word is nothing more than a sad commentary on the way we reduce the importance of people and ideas with our language, before we had a chance to hear them. It would be similar to saying, “Did you read what Bob Smith wrote? (even though it wasn’t good enough to get published).”
     To illustrate my point, I was talking to an Indian chap near my home in Seattle and happened to mention that I was a writer.
     “You have a blog?” he asked, almost in disdain.
     The way he said it, was only half as alarming as was his reaction to the fact that I had published four books.
     And so, here and now, let us permanently divorce Matthew D. Heines from the b-word. Of course, that brings up the immediate dilemma of finding a suitable replacement. Since there are a number of four letter words that specifically start with s that imply the very same meaning, let us use our creativity and find something more suitable, apt and indicative of the intellectual revolution that is overtaking the United States.
     Since I am writing for the purpose of making people laugh, I would like to have that in the title of my, well, whatever they are. So, we need a word that means funny, which, could be comedy, wit, satire, sarcasm, slapstick or something where a knee and slapping is involved. However, I also write in order to teach and get people to think about something they didn’t know before. So I need something that means teach, like educate, instruct, challenge but doesn’t mean bore the living tar out of people.
     So, what we need is to combine the best elements of humor and education, which will hopefully result in urging people toward virtuous behavior, into one word and apply that word to my writings, musings, and observations. After much thought, I have decided on a combination of the words ‘heinessight' 'and' ‘education’ and have decided that my writing shall hereafter be dubbed, headucation.
     Having thus settled on an appropriate nomenclature for my writings or, headucation if you will,  please stay tuned for more headucation, in the future.


    

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