Our tops and flops of 2024

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

It's that time of year again when content creators and publishers can be a little lazy and rehash, under the guise of a review, some of the work from the previous twelve months.

Things can only get better. Actually, they could get much worse all the same!

The Wrong Way Corrigan approach to this is to pick out the hits, or tops if you will— I use those words lightly — and flops — most are just that when one desires viral-esque material — of the content I've published across various platforms.

Good for nothing

Let's start with uploads that, to put it kindly, haven't quite taken off. (In truth, they haven't even started taxiing to the runway.) I'm using the present perfect tense for the simple fact that these pieces still, of course, exist online and thus could, in theory, fly to great heights in time to come. Ever the optimist, here.

Here on Google Blogger, 2024's poorest performing post at the time of writing is Google/Gulag Blogger's faceless, unaccountable, cowardly censors. What are they afraid of?, published in September. It's somewhat surprising that Google Blogger hasn't been keen to vigorously promote a blog with such a heading. You know, to show how fair and balanced the platform is.

I must put on record here that Google Blogger has since lifted the ban on the content it unceremoniously blocked, the subject of that story. Why it was taken down in the first instance still baffles me. Google Blogger and me, a relationship of mystery.

On El Tiempo, the slow burner (it's bound to come good after this) is Round by round we go. Oh no! If only some of my Colombian friends would read a translated version so that they'd know that I prefer to be excluded from cumbersome and expensive rounds of beers. Buy me lunch instead.

'Next to nobody seems interested in my dental musings as Boosting dental health has proven about as popular as a dentist drilling away at your unanaesthetised mouth.'

Cop on Colombia, for biodiversity's sake is the least listened to/viewed on The Corrigan Cast via Spotify and associated platforms. Come on folks, you're missing out on humanity-saving advice.
(*LINK https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/e3gm0JGVvPb )

On my YouTube channel, we've got a two-way tie in the Top of the Vlog Flops category. An act of good clearly wasn't seen as such for YouTube viewers while next to nobody seems interested in my dental musings as Boosting dental health has proven about as popular as a dentist drilling away at your unanaesthetised mouth.

For YouTube Shorts, the video titled Ariarí River near Granada in Colombia's Meta department hasn't caught the imagination for some reason. The mind boggles, considering its sexy title.

So, they are our flops, with the caveat that they could become tops in time to come. Really, they could!

The letter writer's raining champion

Now for the hits.

Back to Google Blogger, the October-published Kamala control: Letter to the editor leads the way. Yes, that's right, details of a letter to the Irish Independent has been my most viewed post on Blogger in 2024. Why doesn't the Irish Independent just hire me to be a columnist? Come on, it could be the start of something great!

Now, as already noted, the Spotify version of Cop on Colombia, for biodiversity's sake has largely been ignored. However, the text of this story on El Tiempo found a niche. It's the one with the most engagement of all my 2024 articles on that page. So I won't give up all hope of a cleaner, greener Colombia in the near future.

In top spot on Spotify is Life imitating art of Los 39, minus the bloodshed. A bitchy, telling-tales-from-school yarn does have its fans.

The highest ranking of my YouTube vlogs is Shunning la Selección Colombia. Cheers to those of you who checked it out. Rather than support overpaid, petulant footballers, support an underpaid, underworked curmudgeon — me! Just don't forget to donate generously to the Corrigan cause.

And just in case you think all my pieces on Colombia are somewhat negative — what would give you that impression? — From Guaviare with love: Sending this to rain-deprived Bogotá! is 2024's most-viewed amongst my YouTube Shorts. I could be on to a winner posting about eye-catching weather events. Let's have more magical meteorological moments occur around me, please.

So that's Wrong Way Corrigan and The Corrigan Cast (catchy band name, that) wrapped for 2024. We're now all set to ride the 2025 Trump Tide!
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Listen to The Corrigan Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Kamala control: Letter to the editor

@wwaycorrigan

My riposte to a letter in the Irish Independent from Kamala Harris fan, Jessica Toal.

It can be found online at https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/letters-doubling-of-penalty-for-unresponsive-jobseekers-is-a-courageous-move/a1873078418.html.

It's something I discussed in a more general sense in a previous blog story, Goodbye Nanny State! Hello Overbearing Mother Society.

Why live your own life when the government can live it for you?

 

US democracy drags on. But decorum is dead

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Hubris. Melodrama. Scheming and screaming. Refusal to accept one's errors. Refusal to accept defeat.

Kamala Harris or Donald Trump: Which one is the greater threat to democracy? (Photos from X and Instagram.)

No, I'm not referring to South American football teams — although, all the above do apply to them. I'm referring to US presidential elections; those of recent vintage at least.

Fat chance

Watching the Democrats and Republicans battle it out is akin to two schoolyard bullies facing off. 'Yo momma's so fat' sort of stuff. OK, you're right, that might be a bit unfair to the inventiveness of some of those fat-momma quips.

It can make for compelling viewing for sure. Yet, it doesn't inspire confidence that the world's most powerful country has competent leadership.

The June debate between the now-retired candidate, President Joe Biden, and the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, was unedifying. Hey, a real axis of evil — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — may be threatening the West but how well would their leaders do facing into a par five in inclement conditions? It's pointless having a good shot on the battlefield if you can't shoot your way around a golf course, you know?

At least Biden can focus more on his golf game — or simply just try to focus — now that he's no longer in the race to prolong his stay in the White House. Trump, though, will — or should, anyway — be spending less time on the tee and more time on the campaign trail.

'Whatever Harris decides to discuss, her big problem is that she's not an orator.'

His fiery rhetoric is, um, par for the course. He had promised a toned-down, more unifying style in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt on him. Trump saying this is one thing. Delivering it, quite another. A slightly milder speech than normal at the Republican National Convention aside, his tone remains more bellicose than benign.

Calm-ala Harris?

In such an atmosphere, adopting a less hostile approach when trying to win over those crucial swing voters makes more sense, one would think. It remains to be seen if Trump's new opponent, the presumptive Democratic Party candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, goes for such a strategy i.e. focusing on policies and plans rather than ad hominem attacks. The early signs are that she'll play the man more so than the ball.

One area where she might offer something different to both Biden and Trump is in the god talk, as in having less of it. At times I wonder what's the point in having these elections if it's all in the hands of the Almighty. Many of the USA's political heavyweights reference their Christian god more than the average Islamic fundamentalist mentions Allah.

This isn't necessarily a problem, particularly if it is accompanied by concrete proposals. However, the god talk rings hollow in the toxic political climate of today's USA.

Nonetheless, Harris is going to be on safer ground talking about gun control rather than god control. Jesus is still a big vote-winner in American politics.

Whatever she does decide to discuss, her big problem is that she's not a talented orator. Well, she's not an orator full stop. (Or period, as our US friends say.)

A dying democracy

Thus, the Harris handlers will most likely advise her to stick to the well-tried but not altogether trusted line that 'Trump is a threat to our democracy'. Keep it simple, stupid.

A fresher, smarter approach would pay greater dividends, but that's probably beyond Harris's ken. Or maybe she'll show us in the coming weeks some political acumen that has heretofore remained hidden. It has been a crazy election cycle after all.

Yet, the constant over these last few years has been the vitriolic nature of US politics. This isn't going to change anytime soon.

Some argue about just how democratic the USA is, but it's certainly no dictatorship. Its version of democracy is still alive. What is dead, or dying in any case, is decorum in political discourse.

And with the death of decorum, decline or dictatorship is not far behind. Or both.
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Listen to The Corrigan Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".