There there

There was a time when an audience rapt with a presentation, a speech, a piece of music or an unusual but poignant anecdote would spontaneously erupt with the phrase 'hear hear'.  It was an agreement to what was said or appreciation of it.

In today's climate of fake news and what not it is challenging to see where you would hear that said.  Here, there or anywhere?

But there is one phrase that I hear on the idiot box more than others and it is 'there there'.  So  I decided to do some digging into these 'there'.  Turns out what might sound like a Yogi Berra aphorism (former NY Yankee baseball player credited with some) - there was just no there there  - is actually attributed to Gertrude Stein, author and former Oakland, CA native many moons ago.

That comment was more a nostalgic remembrance of a once familiar Oakland now lost in its excess.  Today the media and political bigwigs including the director of the FBI, investigating our POTUS's outrageous claims about tapping his tubes (phone lines being bugged by Obama), utter the 'there was no there there' to sound at once erudite and pithy in the face of climactic claims.  They also want sound bites to fill the ever increasing garbage pool of meaningless news.

The first 'there' is in reference to a smoking gun and the second occurrence of 'there' seems to be significant to the location of said gun.  Bottom-line is I'm not sure of who is smoking what but it is certainly lame entertainment here, there and everywhere.

So there! I have decisively determined herein the root cause of their drivel.