I AM AWARE OF ALL INTERNET TRADITIONS

In the brief hours since last I pondered this phrase, and verily I knew at the time what it would become, it has flowered into the fleeting glory of a mayfly that's about to overstay it's welcome. I should have left an indication of my presence, but know that I was there when it happened.

Once more before we're all too sick of it:



And also, my favorite of the images:



Also, here we have the suggestion that Obama should fight ridiculous untruthful chain-email with ridiculous untruthful chain email. Helpful examples:

[Barack Obama] is PROUD that Jesus was an American...Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL. Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

And finally, one internet tradition of which I am aware but did not partake this year, some combination of aggrieved busyness and neglectful agitation, is a variably geeky acknowledgment of Bloomsday. Until next year. I've been thinking of re-reading Ulysses (but what aren't I thinking of rereading?), but for all the mastery which spoke to me intellectually, what burrowed into my heart was the unstoppering of Molly Bloom's torrential psyche in the final chapter, the emotional explosion made sweeter by all the mechanisms of emotional restraint with which the book has heretofore concerned itself. Yes yes yes.