At some point in 2009 I became a devoted fan of This American Life, a weekly radio show/podcast that tells stories of, well, this American life. And sometimes foreign life, too. On the most recent episode of TAL, producer Nancy Updike described a speech by former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as “utter nonsense delivered with utter conviction.” For some reason, that turn of phrase pleased me. I knew at once that I’d stumbled across a touchstone for this very blog.
The Internet is replete with utter nonsense, but I’m persuaded that I owe it to everyone involved to deliver my personal brand of utter nonsense with nothing less than utter conviction. I’m sure it’ll work out better for me than it did for Mubarak.
