Moborate

I came across an essay today that contained the following passages: "Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal. It’s no use pretending otherwise and telling us... that educated people are the nation’s most valuable resources. Sure, they are, but do we still want them? It doesn’t look to me as if we do. The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit.   An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country. Most of our politicians and their political advisers and lobbyists would find themselves unemployed, and so would the gasbags who pass themselves off as our opinion makers. Luckily for them, nothing so catastrophic, even though perfectly well-deserved and widely-welcome, has a remote chance of occurring any time soon.

I know, I know. We've been terribly bad. No need to rub it in. But the simple fact of the matter is, things have changed since we began this blog. On the positive side, far more people are keeping tabs on the media in particular and even the media itself has matured and become more self-critical, which takes some of the burden off us and this is something to be celebrated. On the negative side, we have let our own punishing work schedules make us a bit lazy and perhaps also complacent - it's not easy doing things as kaar-e-khair for so long. In any case, one of the most daunting things is getting back into writing after a fairly lengthy lay-off. Especially, as is always the case with Pakistan, there is so much piled up worthy of commentary. In fact, one of the things that made me hesitate about a number of different posts I wanted to write was because, after such an long absence, I felt the first post should be something truly substantial. I realize, of course, that this was