So.
I once had this blog. A political blog called Political Ramblings. I started it way back in ’03 from my remarkably non-Beltway vantage point in Austin, Texas.
I wasn’t necessarily looking to influence others’ opinions; I merely needed an outlet to express my own. Rather than just rant, the blog forced me to put my random thoughts / observations / ideas into moderately coherent sentences / paragraphs / articles. It also provided a means of indulging my analytical nature without completely boring the crap out of my friends.
I often spent more time writing blog entries than I probably should have. While my readership was initially limited to a relatively small circle of friends, the act of pushing something into the public domain was serious enough in my own mind to force me to verify statements presented as facts, edit content to accurately capture my intended tone, and at least attempt to research multiple sides of an issue before weighing in. While those may seem to be obvious prerequisites to political discourse, very few of our paid political practitioners (officeholders, candidates, and pundits alike) seem to follow them. That’s just wrong.
Even with zero traffic-generating efforts on my part, my blog’s audience slightly expanded over time to an interesting amalgam of friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I didn’t so much have a “following”; I had a group of people who were interested in reading my opinions but who also weren’t shy about expressing their own. In fact, my blog spawned some spirited debates. Since the opposing arguments were almost always made by reasonable people whose intelligence and perspectives I respected, I definitely learned from those debates. And maybe — just maybe — I did occasionally influence others.
While spending considerable time on individual blog entries, I didn’t devote nearly enough time to the blog itself. Updates weren’t exactly regular. The blog was a hobby and life constantly intervened. My last entry wasn’t intended to be the last. It just was.
This reincarnation is simply an overdue attempt to return to where I was. Given the current political environment, I need the outlet now more than ever.
While the frequency and regularity of blog updates is not likely to improve, I thought I’d try dipping a proverbial toe back into the political pond. That toe is still positioned a little left of center — although even that is a matter of perspective. The new name is both a practical implementation issue and an acknowledgement that reasonable political discourse should always be nuanced.