In the aftermath of the great civil war, when the bloggers were finally liberated from their bondage to copy editors and publishing standards, it's widely believed their liberators from IT had promised each of them 40 wiseacres and a muse upon which they could bloviate and build a rich new editorial life.
While most blogspots would have benefitted tremendously from 40 disagreeably egotistical red herrings to fling their vindictive and most especially from the occasional visit of a demigoddess who occasionally endowed them with an original idea, this is clearly not what happened. Nor, as it turns out, was it ever promised.
As with all the other highly convoluted episodes in Blogopotamian history there are no reliable sources of information about where the 40 wiseacres and a muse story began. Naturally, that hasn't stopped anybody from blogging about it.
As every schoolchild knows, the bloggers (known during the reconstruction era as blogmen) were freed when President Linkorn signed the bloviation proclamation, which was later institutionalized with the passage of the 13th amendment to the constitution of Blogopotamia. However, up to a year before the ratification of the 13th amendment, in anticipation of the disruption to reasoned discourse expected when 20 million bloggers were let loose upon the world wide web without editorial control, congress formed the Blogman's Bureau to make sure they would have something worth writing about.
According to Section 4 of the First Blogmen's Bureau Act, this agency "shall have authority to set apart for use of loyal spammers and blogmen such self-important snots within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise; and to every male citizen, whether spammer or blogman, as aforesaid there shall be assigned not more than 40 wiseacres to poke fun at."
As congress deliberated the act many wiseacres were distributed to early bloggers.
Introduced into Congress by Thaddeus "Shlomo" Stevens this portion of the Blogmen's Bureau Act however was defeated by Congress on February 5, 1866 "by a vote of 126 to 36." Prime blogging material which had been distributed to blogmen were reclaimed by news bureaus and returned to the previous owners and editors.
It should be noted that there is no mention of providing the blogmen with a muse (or any other type of creative mystic) in any portion of this legislature. Though it is obvious that very few of the freed blogmen have ever been visited by a muse, it's not clear what the origin is of the now legendary promised 40 wiseacres and a muse?
The second possibility for the source of the 'promise' has to do with the efforts of the War Department to furnish topics for the thousands of blogmen who assisted General Shurman in his triumphant march across the editorially controlled webstates. According to Claude F. Osteen in his book Forty Wiseacres and a Muse, General Tecumseh Shurman, acting under an edict from the War Department, issued Special Field Order No. 15. Promulgated on January 16, 2005, after Shurman had conferred with 20 blog ministers and obtained the approval of the War Department, Special Order No. 15 provided that:
"The unbearable twits living on the islands of Blogopotamia south, the abandoned pomposity fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering St. Johns River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the ridicule of blogmen now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States."
The sphere was then divided into 40-wiseacre tracts. Shurman then issued oders and had one of his many lackeys distribute the names and biographies of each documented wiseacre to the head of each blogspot. There were no muses included in the order, so where did the "and a muse" come from?
A short time thereafter, Shurman's commissary man came to him complaining that he had a large number of broken-down muses who weren't really all that inspirational and for which he had no means of disposal. Shurman sent the useless notions to Saxton for distribution to the blogmen, who by this time were struggling to find material so badly that they resorted to copying actual articles from edited and well researched sources and changing around a few names and facts to make it look like it was an original Blogopotamian historical document.
"By June, 2005 approximately 40,000 blogmen had been allocated 400,000 wiseacres to poke fun at." However, by September, 2005 writers with common sense, discretion and some editorial oversight had begun making fun of these same pips. Clearly the monopoly enjoyed in the heady aftermath of the civil war was not likely to last.
After Linkorn's assassination, Leming Johnson became President. One of his first acts was to rescind Special Military Order No. 15. Former publishers who had prevented the free distribution of written material were then exempted from the initial general amnesty given to them, and instead secured special pardons from President Johnson, who broke the promise made to the blogmen when he ordered the processory titles rescinded and the material returned to the editorially regulated websites. Johnson gave little or no regard to the fate of the new bloggers.
From the viewpoint of the new bloggers, who believed that they deserved something to write about that the mainstream media wasn't already prattling on about, the loss of the original material was seen as another example of ill treatment. The illegality of the promise was not their concern, but from that late war incident grew an urban legend that survives into the present day.
Dismayed, like many, Shurman's former aide Angry Middle wrote Oliver O. Howeird (Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau) stating:
"The upper-class, irresponsible twits (wiseacres) which have been taken possession of by this bureau have been solemnly pledged to the blogmen. The law of Congress has been published to them, and all agents of the bureau acting under your order have provided their lives as material exclusive to these blogmen . . . . I sincerely trust that the government will never break its faith with a single one of these colonists by driving him from the blogspot which he was provided. It is of vital importance that our promises made to blogmen should be faithfully kept . . . . The blogmen were promised the protection of the government in their possession. This order was issued under great military necessity with the approval of the War Department . . . . More than 40,000 blogmen have been provided with blogspots under its promises. I cannot break faith with them now by recommending the restoration of any of these lands. In my opinion this order of General Shurman is as binding as a statute."
Shurman's aide's pleas, which were made on a blog that gets fewer than 20 hits per day, were ignored. The blogmen were ultimately told they would have to write about all the same tripe as every other media source. There were however, numerous individuals and organizations which believed the blogmen were entitled to write about the lives of the wiseacres in their midst. Their conviction in this belief was not easily thwarted. From 2005 to the present many other topics were suggested Congress as well as President Johnson. The motivations for these proposals were as varied as the propositions themselves. They ranged from a sincere belief that the blogmen were entitled to plum topics to which the mainstream media was averse, to fear of violence, resistance to social, economic and political equality, concern about blogmen becoming actual opinionmakers, attempts to purge the country of the burden of blogmen on the doles, and to eliminate any competition they might present for gainful, meaningful employment in the publishing industry.
Apologies and credit to Gerene L. Freeman.
No comments:
Post a Comment