The Reason Aliens Haven't Visited Earth Yet

Since I have cast in my lot with the bloggers and tweeters of the world, I have noticed a distinct trend in my thinking: I have become overly critical of the gratuitous, vain, narcissistic, self-congratulatory style of expression blogging and tweeting promote.

(See what I mean.)

I was reminded of it again yesterday when I spied someone wearing a shirt with the iconic Twitter bird exclaiming, "Who cares?"

I really feel the way this bird feels. Deeply.

Even so, I was raised by a mother who is remarkable for her civility and who instilled in me a deep reverence for the Ancient Words, "If you don't have nothing nice to say, say nothing."

I haven't been saying nice things about bloggers and tweeters; yet, I can't simply say nothing. (After all, I have a blog and Twitter feed to keep up.) I was vexed by this problem until the Muse of Clean Poets and Philosophers met me in the shower this morning.

People may blog about the poor condition of wintry roadways. They may tweet (endlessly) about the previous night's basketball loss. They may fill up a status update with news about the great bargain they found at the department store. And if they do this day after day, they might just save us from the madness we now know as The News.

You read The News, don't you? Perhaps you even watch it on TV. If so, then you understand why aliens have never visited earth. They are intercepting our broadcasts of The Nightly News, and they do not want to come.

The earth appears to them one roiling mass of robbery, rape, intrigue, assassination, economic collapse, political stalemate, natural disaster, anger, lust, blame, and angst. Is it any wonder they maintain a safe space of several galaxies? I should not like to visit that world, either, and thankfully, I don't live in it.

I live in a world filled with bloggers, and I do hope our aliens obtain internet access soon. If they do, it will take quite a concerted effort for them to reconcile the cosmos of the blogger with the chaos of The Nightly News. Bloggers feel little need to inflate the mundane affairs of the world (Lat. 'mundus') into sensational reports.

The roads get somewhat icy, the team loses, and shirts go on sale. The blogger can report and reflect on the little things that make life, life. The news anchor, however, if he cannot find anything more sensational to report on must say it thus: "Icy Roads Becoming Increasingly Treacherous In Spite of Global Warming. Scientists Baffled. Local Government Officials Blame Lagging Economy and El Niño. Salt Mines in Southern Poland Reopened."

The whole point of the Nightly News is to present us with something new, something sensational, something out-of-the-ordinary. The Nightly News bears almost no resemblance to the night it purports to tell us about. We stare at a screen to discover what a weird and wild world we live in, when a glance out our window would show it to be a falsity or a farce.

Here's to the blogger, then, that looks out his window and tells us about his world. Here's to the tweeter who represents reality in 140 characters or less. And here's to the alien who'll be brave enough to visit us one day to settle once and for all whether our world is mad or mundane.