This is a shoutout to Dean Blundell.

                  Don’t know him? Sample his Substack page and if you don’t find it addictive, skip this missive and make better use of your time. Any edition will exhibit his furious, fulminous, hilarious, meticulous, concise yet careening style. A one-time Canadian shock-jock, Blundell’s horror explodes off the screen, not only in his racy prose, but in graphics, typography, hyperlinks (but not hyperbole). In a saner hour, one might dismiss him as a Chicken Little, over the top, only his outrage can barely keep pace with the outrageous audacity of our ruling thugs. He and the Nameless One were made for each other: Blundell’s weapon is truth; theirs lies.

                  As a fellow spouter, I’m awestruck by his fecundity. I publish a lot, six hundred words a day, day in, day out, plus occasional extras. Some of you urge me to publish less, so you’re not drowning in my spew, to which I reply, “That’s why God made the delete button.” Turning on a faucet does not oblige you to drink all its gush. 

                  Blundell leaves me – to change metaphors from wet to dry – in the dust, emitting at least one long post a day, plus a TV show, plus a daily roundup for those who can’t keep up. Quantity, though, is the least of his marvels. Every piece is a muckrake, vivid (and vitriolic) with fresh information, gathered from everywhere, and presented with the propulsive precision of an impassioned prosecutor. How does he report so much so thoroughly? Professors Paul Krugman, Heather Cox Richardson, and Robert Reich, among other brilliant daily docents, are teaching, in part, what they already know, whereas Blundell is reporting what’s just happened, often days before any other outlet. How on earth!

                  Maybe there are several Blundells masquerading as one, but I doubt it, for his style is unmistakably his own. He makes me laugh aloud even as my jaw drops. When he gets things wrong, he says so. However bad you think things are, they’re worse. Yet no patience with moping. To the barricades! (That Blundell’s a Canadian may shield him from the Nameless One’s department of injustice, but I fear for his freedom.)

                  Polite Alistair tactfully informs me Blundell has a bias of which I should beware. He does indeed. I’ve got the same bias. It’s a bias in favor of truth, decency, fairness and against theft, rape, deceit. The worthy both-sides-ism of the legacy press is rendered worthless when one side doesn’t play by the rules. The Nameless One does not represent a point of view, unless you call rapacity an idea.

                  I heed Blundell as avidly as I might a spy from my enemy’s camp. He never makes me happy, yet what a relief that somebody will tell me, without trepidation or equivocation, the terrible truth. The Nameless One has cowed the corporate press by threatening and often accomplishing their extinction. Individual voices are harder to gag. What’s the worst he can do to us – kill us and make us martyrs? Well, you gotta go some time.

                  Courage encourages. The boldness of others emboldens. Blundell, as excitingly as any, embodies the bare-fisted animosity of our moment. The Nameless One intends to overwhelm us with his turpitude so we give up hope. Despair is easy in this hour – and spares us the responsibility to act. If there’s no hope, why bother? By telling the truth with bravery bordering on bravado, Blundell proves the truth can – and will – out. I drink him daily as a restorative.

                  Weep, yes, friends, we must – but then dry our tears and get to work.