The Closest I’ll Get to Writing for the Times

It’s the little things in life that make me gloat . . . In a sign of just how circumscribed my world has become, my heart leaps every time I scroll through the “Comments” threads on the NYTimes site and discover my two cents among the highlighted posts. It’s not much in the way of a prize; your comments are set off by a tasteful blue bar and are featured on the thread’s “Highlights” tab. Because you’re on this shortlist, other readers click the “Recommend” button more often, and the number in the “Recommended by X readers” line jumps from 4 or 5 (or 0, if you happen to comment late and thus appear on page 8 of the peanut gallery) to 23 (current total, as of 5:30 pm).

Surprisingly, I’m not the biggest Comments whore in the world. I can’t stand the people who use the thread as a place to self-publish their tangential screeds about politics or ethics. The point is to comment on the article in question, not write your own. Though I find the racist and homophobic overtones of the WSJ’s comments section deplorable, I’m also not above writing my own acid-toned critiques of Republican policy. It’s like shouting into the void, or playing to an empty room, but it’s better than letting that obsessive compulsive “I hate Mitt Romney” bug run circles around my brain for the next hour. Let’s be clear that I have no illusions of grandeur here. No one is getting hired by the Times for writing comments, no matter how pithy or witty they may be.

Still, you’d have to be inhuman not to appreciate a pat on the back. My latest (ooh, “latest” just smacks of vanity, doesn’t it?) appearance on the Highlights tab was a response to “U.S. Mideast Envoy Resigns After 2 Years of Frustration” (Steven Lee Myers, 5/13/2011). I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I do know that I find it ridiculous that the U.S. expends so much energy on an argument about a few square miles of land on a continent halfway across the world. Yes, the conflict is at the root of a lot of anti-American feelings in the Middle East; and yes, it’s a driving force behind organizations like Hamas and al Qaeda that do matter to the U.S. But the fight has been going on for more than half a century. At some point, both sides need to peel off the line of masking tape that divides the shared childhood bedroom. At some point, it’s time to grow up and move on.

So without further ado (it’s not a shocker that I tend to ramble), here is my comment:

Mr. Mitchell’s position is not a job for anyone who dislikes running on a hamster wheel. It must be frustrating to see other countries in the region experiencing the so-called “Arab Spring,” while Israel, Hamas and the PLO retread the same tired paths. The intractability of the issue would be comedic if it weren’t so sad. I suspect in fifty years we will be hearing many of the same arguments from each side. It certainly doesn’t take a pessimist to think that way.

If this is as good as my 15 minutes gets, I may as well milk it, right?