(I don’t know where these particular trolls work. Could be one of several Agencies, or they could, of course, be free-lance, given the state of the economy.)

OK- twice this week. I generated another story that I cannot do anything with, exactly like yesterday. I won’t trouble you with old news- am going to have to take a hard look at what I am doing. Maybe there is something in the water at the new apartment, or perhaps it is the effect of the increased time I am spending in the pool.

It has been wonderful, having a little more time in the day. The challenge is to find something positive, besides therapeutic exercise in which to fill it up.

I am frustrated with news, as you well know. I am digging at all sorts of threads, some of which make sense, and others that do not. Maybe the news about the amazing NSA surveillance program has me a little uneasy. I know it does many people- but in reading some of the accounts I find myself with the luxury of time to read the comments people post about articles on a variety of topics.

I am not talking about the New York Times: there at the Gray Lady, you get exactly what you would expect. A New York Progressive lens that reflects accurately the basis- and bias- of the paying audience.

But on some other sites, notably the alternatives to what passes for the Mainstream Media, there are responses that are oddly similar. It struck me this morning that there are either a large group of people with strikingly singular and seemingly scripted doctrinaire views, or there is something else going on.

Could it be that someone is being paid to monitor opinions that differ from the government’s accepted line? There is a term for amateur harassment in the blogosphere- they call them “Trolls.” Is it possible that people are paid to do this? Sounds crazy, but if you had told me that the IRS would be used to do exactly that, I would have said I was trapped in a Nixonian nightmare. And yet, that is exactly what happened.

I confess that the continuing cascade of events is getting my knickers in a bit of a knot.

Could anyone explain to me exactly why we are supporting Islamic radicals in Syria, to the extent that we have armed them against the sitting government with absolutely no prospect of an outcome positive to the United States?

That we effectively have thrown our support behind the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, while China and Russia have lined up with the secular opposition?

If you had suggested to me that we would not only be on the side of the table with the people who revere the 9/11 terrorists, only a decade along, I would have looked at you in disbelief.

But that is what we are expected to do these days, I guess. That or go on vacation, along with common sense.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303