The Evidence Gathers

The evidence gathers all by itself these days, like blood congealing or iron filings forming into a magic flower in a magnetic field.

As modern data, the evidence replicates itself using e-mail echoers and data maven bloggers, not to mention those unwilling participants in evil who bring emails home to cover their tails, ready to be whistle-blowers if their teakettle gets tipped. Anything leaked or discovered jumps into the pool and gets shared and known and shared again, distributed far and wide, far beyond anyone who has any hope of ever being interested in it.

Bloggers aggregate facts into competing theories, which argue with each other until some shared understanding of the real is formed. Everyone is trying to skim everyone else's cream, to combine the combinable in new ways and so to add a further layer of understanding to the known. As illusions fall, the cream of truth rises to the surface.

"What questions would you like Congress to ask Mr. Gonzales?" bloggers inquire, and questions to be asked then vie for popularity. Congress stands advised, handed a menu of questions its constituents want to explore.

The evidence drives the process.