Saturday, March 17, 2007

Laying the Foundation

"Every journey begins with a single step."

No doubt most are familiar with this clichéd saying, if you type it into Google you will obtain hundreds of results. This only makes it more surprising that I cannot find to whom it should be attributed! Thus does my "blogging" career begin with disappointment.

I have been, if not agonizing, then worrying about, what I should put into this first entry. In fact, it has taken me almost a week to overcome my timidity and boldly throw myself out of the nest and into the Internet. It is not just the plethora of options that Blogger offers, which seem quite daunting to this shy soul, more than that it is the alternately apathetic and antipathetic nature of the medium in which I swim. However, the mental unease of knowing my unchristened, ignored blog lurked on one of my Firefox tabs did eventually grow heavier than the unease associated with exposing myself like this, and thus do I begin. Seeing as I am beginning, perhaps I should finish with some comments about myself and this journal.

1) I am a self-proclaimed moderate, mainly through alienation from both sides of our two-party system. I make no claims about my views actually being moderate; many of them are quite the opposite. I do not speak for any association of moderates, or radical far middlists, only myself.

2) I prefer mild language, both in my writings and in comments that, hopefully, are posted here. Personally my strongest insults usually hover around "nutcase," although I have been known to ramp it up to "stupid" if I am emotional. Keeping this in mind will help decipher why I am seem to be taking some issues sitting down, my language may be relatively mild, but I still might be aghast or enraged. I have no intent on censoring for strong language (see next point), nor will I faint dead away if someone uses an "adult word". I consider my language to be a form of respect for my reader, and I request that contributors show similar respect please.

3) On the other hand, I may censor for content. There are some things with which I do not wish to be associated. I will not list them; I doubt I could produce anything resembling an exhaustive list. Again, pleased be governed by respect for myself and other "netizens" you may affect. Should I feel it necessary to censor a comment, it will be removed, I may make note of it, and I may not.

Thank you for respecting my personal parcel of cyberspace.

3 comments:

Michael said...

My only hope is that I haven't made it to the top of the censor list... yet. And being stuck in the middle with me might not be so bad. Once we've run out of patty cake rhymes in English, we've always got broken German to turn to.

Unknown said...

Oh, so whatever happened to that political party we were going to start with Naomi? I don't remember who else was there, but I certainly remember we were all sympathetic with alienation from the two party system. Also, I just need to mention that I find it odd that you probably wrote this around the time we were had above mentioned conversation, yet I am lame and commenting on a blog post from years ago.

Kenny said...

The biggest problem with us starting our own party is the massive inertia the two party system has, it would be difficult to break in. The second problem is I am lazy, I once was a Republican for about 2-4 years because I registered Republican as a joke then didn't bother changing it until I wanted to support Obama in the primaries.

If you feel these problems are teeny-tiny compared with the problems the two party system has, I am still quite willing to start a third party. Hmm, another problem, I am unsure if, "The Current Choices Are Both Sucky" is a sufficient platform for a party, um, I mean a successful party. Can you get behind "The Secessionist Party"? I am willing to consider other ideas, that would just be my first thought for a party platform.

Three final things. One, it is unlikely to be a coincidence if I did start this up at the same time as our conversation. Two, I hope you are not lame because I always comment when I feel like it, even when the topic is years old, so if you are, I am too. Three, even if you happen to be lame, which I hope you are not, you are also awesome because I really appreciate comments!