Bloggers and blogging – Page 31

Failed candidate PAC number 2

After my weekend detour for local stuff, it’s time to return to the national scene. Last week I helped spread the word about the political action committee that named former GOP candidate Mitt Romney as its Honorary Chairman, and a couple days ago I found out Mike Huckabee was joining that fray as well. As the Huckster wrote:

I invite you to become a part of an exciting new venture. I remain enthusiastic and excited about what together, we can accomplish. Each of you, along with Huck PAC will be a big part of Election 2008. Please join HUCK PAC as we accomplish our goals, and help to bring the Republican Party back to its core values.

In the days and months ahead, I will send you frequent updates about the activities of Huck PAC and ways that each of you can be involved. I ask that you remember the principles upon which we founded Huck PAC: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We will continue to identify candidates who hold firm to those same strong principles.

What’s not clear yet is just who HuckPAC will support. They do have an interesting assortment of candidates who guest bloggers would like to “make the case for”, including Maryland’s Fifth District hopeful (and he needs a lot of hope going up against Steny Hoyer) Collins Bailey. I’m tempted to jump onto Mike’s blogroll simply to make the case for Andy Harris. I think a lot of those readers would enjoy what I have to say for the most part.

It seems to me that HuckPAC will attract many of those who still make up the Religious Right and definitely feel ignored by the higher-ups in the Republican Party; moreover, a lot of the true believers among the bloggers still hold out hope that Mike Huckabee will be John McCain’s pick for veep. It’s good that this large segment of the GOP still has some interest in the election even though their chosen aspirant didn’t make the final cut. And with a fairly left-wing Republican at the top of the ticket, a more conservative Congress who can work with McCain on a select few of his pet items (like cutting out earmarks) but do their utmost to stop the radical left portions of John’s (or Barack Obama’s) agenda would be in all of our best interests. We need a motivated base to work for at least that goal.

But my point in bringing up the Romney PAC was that Mitt Romney has the financial potential to combat the George Soros-types who make up a large part of the Left’s bankroll. One drawback to Huckabee’s PAC bid is that the Huckabee Presidential campaign pretty much ran on a shoestring from day 1, while fellow competitors like Romney or Rudy Giuliani had a larger financial base behind them. On the other hand, 100,000 contibutors giving $25 apiece is a nice $2.5 million and balances out 5 people who donate a half-million apiece. Certainly the small contributors can be more of a force at the ballot box IF they stick to the principles that compelled them to donate in the first place and vote accordingly.

It will be interesting to see as the months toward the 2008 election melt away how much of a force these new political action committees become on the results in November. With conventional wisdom predicting another GOP slaughter at the ballot box (then again, when has it not?) every little bit will help the cause.

Now if only Duncan Hunter would start up a PAC, I could be all over that one too.

Blog construction – traffic (hopefully) maintained

This is simply to warn the half-dozen of you who may read here in the next few hours (yes I know traffic is dreadfully slow on the Saturday night of a holiday weekend) that you may find my site inaccessible while I upgrade to WordPress 2.5.

It’s a good time to take care of this so I shall.

And I have, thank you very much to the person who wrote the automatic updating plugin. Man, that is sweet! But this version looks a LOT different as far as editing and whatnot, so we’ll see how things go. I may have to relearn a few things – but you can teach an old dog new tricks once in awhile.

Pushing my analysis farther

I was happy to see that G.A. Harrison of Delmarva Dealings is paying attention and put together an excellent look into his crystal ball to see what would happen if Frank Kratovil were elected to represent the First District in November. He actually puts some of the points I’ve been making all along into a nicely tied set of paragraphs. Honestly, we really don’t know what Frank stands for, just who he stands against.

Actually, it gives me a chance to point out that I caught Frank in a case of doublespeak the other day and didn’t realize it until yesterday.

During his radio interview Friday Frank alluded that while he wouldn’t vote straight down the Democrat line on a number of issues, Andy Harris would vote strictly Republican. It was meant to imply that he would be anti-worker and pro-big business, contrary to the populist that Kratovil is attempting to portray himself as. But then Frank chastised Andy for voting against his Republican governor on the “flush tax”; meanwhile Andy has spoken of not voting for Governor Ehrlich’s final budget because it was too large. Obviously these are two examples where Harris voted more as a conservative than a Republican.

As I attempt to do, in his post G.A. is using his observations guided by years of experience to predict what may happen if Frank Kratovil is elected. Have you ever noticed that, while John McCain is a “maverick” Republican because he works with Democrats on some issues, there’s not really a “maverick” Democrat? Sure, you could cite Senator Lieberman as an example but remember the Democrats in Connecticut drummed him out of the party and he won his last election as an Independent. Former Senator Zell Miller from Georgia is another example.

The truth is that 99% of the time people are loyal to their party allegiance, so what elections tend to boil down to is whose party platform you favor. Given the Democrats’ tendency to tax more, spend more, restrict more, and stick up for America on foreign soil less, the better candidate is the conservative one.

The First District has a choice. They can vote for talking the conservative talk or for walking the conservative walk. As some conservative commentators have warned Republicans, given a choice between liberal and faux-liberal those on the left of center will go for the real thing. Those of us in our conservative area should also go for the real thing, not just one who talks about it.

By the way, I notice that G.A. didn’t crosspost this to Salisbury News. Wonder whose decision that was?

Posting under the influence

I touched on this last night, but at the time I simply wanted to respond to what was e-mailed to me and hadn’t read what was said about monoblogue in the post in question. Having read it, it didn’t change my mind about what I originally wrote but it did lead me to think that perhaps I need to give a refresher course on the purposes for my website.

Like most people who take the time to type out their thoughts and opinions on a regular basis, I’m looking to change hearts and minds. When I began writing in this format, there were a number of goals I had in mind and in truth the model I envisioned was not a blog, but a radio show. If you measured influence on my website, you’d see that Rush Limbaugh is probably number one. (I’ve been a dittohead for about 12 years, and October 5, 2007 was a red-letter day for me.) Much as he does his show on “what interests me, because if I wasn’t interested it would be boring” that’s the way I write. It’s why you don’t get wall-to-wall politics because I get tired of it after awhile.

Certainly I think I do my share of the political posts, and as one may guess I see things politically from the right side of the spectrum. The first President I ever voted for was Ronald Reagan and I’m hoping that in whatever time I have remaining I see another President who compares favorably to him. But that President, whoever he or she is, will have a lot to do in attempting to restore a philosophy of limited government based on the model created by our Founding Fathers and embodied in our Constitution. Unfortunately, it’s been noted that a democracy only lasts until voters figure out how to vote themselves money from the national treasury (attributed incorrectly to Scottish writer Alexander Tytler) and my friends, we have a republic where both parties are guilty of this malfeasance. I’m a Republican simply because there’s less work involved in straightening out this party than with our counterparts across the aisle, plus they tend to win elections on a vastly larger scale than the Libertarians or Constitution Party.

But there’s still a lot of work to do. And my aim is to inspire thought among those who read my political writings about the larger points of limiting government and enhancing individual freedom, including pet issues of mine like property rights and nanny statism like seat belt or motorcycle helmet laws. (Yes, I do wear my seat belt but I don’t believe that not wearing one is a primary traffic offense.) In particular, what gets my goat are situations when federal regulations dictate withholding federal money if states don’t comply with particular items desired by the federal government, like seat belt laws.

I also figured that not everyone would come to read a strictly political website. Moreover, I wanted to appeal to an audience that’s skewed toward a younger generation and also promote the area that I have adopted as my own – the first place I’ve ever lived by choice and not because of family ties. Thus, I added three of my other life interests – baseball, where I devote a seasonal post for each Thursday’s Shorebird of the Week and add in other Shorebird-related topics; and secondly music, as evidenced by the occasional posts known as “Weekend of local rock.” I’ve always been into music even though I can’t play or sing, but I found out quickly upon my arrival that Delmarva is blessed with a lot of talented musicians. I can keep plenty entertained with the area rock bands but I’m sure others can vouch for the local musicians of other stripes too.

The third interest is photography, which I put to use a lot. I like to share my pictures and I think that blogging doesn’t have to be just a written medium so I add photos to help tell my stories. It also gives those who visit my site from other areas a visual perspective of some of what makes Delmarva interesting.

I feel all this brings me appeal from a wide-ranging audience, and I figure if they like one of the non-political topics I delve into they may start with that and eventually begin reading some of the other more important and weighty things I have to say as well. Just as Rush uses humor as a hook, I use these other topics to broaden the audience.

One thing I did figure out early on is that I can’t generally be a primary local news source, simply because I have a full-time job that I do during most of my waking hours. This website is simply my hobby/obsession and it can be a challenge to write so much and cover news too. While another local news-related blogger likes to brag he covers more stories than the local newspaper and its 200 employees, he should keep in mind that the vast majority of those people aren’t field reporters. If you count the number of co-contributors this particular blogger uses then the comparison of his forces against the number of reporters the paper employs is far more even.

And to be quite honest, I think having too much of a local emphasis limits my audience. I can get away with it for the non-political items because they don’t comprise the bulk of my work, but I’m looking for a readership that probably doesn’t care about what’s going on in the city government of Salisbury, Maryland. I can make the argument that state events are important when our General Assembly is a canary in the coal mine of rampant liberalism but on a local level that model doesn’t hold true. We have others locally who do get into those trenches and I tip my hat because they care enough to do so. I’m simply more interested in a bigger picture so I only do selected local items.

I occasionally do become a primary news source for local events I’m a participant or observer in such as political forums or meetings. At times there will be other media there but normally I’m it so someone has to tell the story. A picture or two doesn’t always do justice to the event so I do my reporting in an effort to inform and fill in the gaps by recounting that which was said. Am I biased? Of course I am. But when I’m outed by the moderator at a Democrat forum yet praised for the quality of my website I guess I’m doing something right – Lord knows I take a lot of shots at those on the left side of the aisle. (Needless to say, most of them are deserved!) No one’s told me I’ve misquoted them yet; it’s not my fault they say the things that give me the rope to hang them with.

Finally, in doing this for almost 2 1/2 years and closing in on 1,000 posts, I’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t. Granted, some will read the first two paragraphs of my various posts and lose interest but I’m not here to write on a sixth-grade level to someone who lives and dies by who advances on “American Idol.” There have been features I’ve done for awhile and dropped like the standings reports I used to do during baseball season or the Congressional legislative checkups. Unfortunately, those are time-consuming and frankly I found that I was simply duplicating efforts that are better done by other news sources. Some may recall the Ten Questions I did, which I thought was a great idea but didn’t get cooperation from the candidates who I asked. On those sorts of things it takes two to tango and I was dancing with myself.

I don’t know what measuring stick the folks at BlogNetNews use to determine “political influence” or if that’s just a catch phrase they use to keep folks interested. I do know that by my efforts I’m actually a small part of the political world as an elected official, a contributor to the Red Maryland website, and occasional pseudononymous writer for the Patriot Post website. So I do a small part in changing the minds of thousands through those outlets, and with the possible exception of crossposting on Red Maryland none of it influences my BNN rating. In fact, I wonder if the crossposts cannibalize this site’s readership slightly and prove to be counterproductive in the rankings.

What I do know is that I have a number of folks who read and enjoy my site because they like my writing and point of view. Of course I’d like to see that number rise to rival some of the national sites I link to but for doing this on a very part-time basis as a solo operation I can’t say I’m doing too badly.

I’ll leave you with this. Architect Daniel Burnham once said:

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.”

There’s nothing that says I don’t have a big break coming that I haven’t foreseen yet, so I’ll keep plugging away and doing my part to change a nation.

Bad influence?

This post will be relatively brief because I decided this weekend to have a life away from the computer – thus I really didn’t have something in mind to write for tonight.

Apparently the gentleman who has the sole website ahead of me in this week’s BNN influence ratings decided that the number of comments he gets from his site against the number of comments I get from mine makes me far less influential than the ratings show. (Don’t ask me, I haven’t read his site today – the info came in an e-mail.)

I think I’ve said before that I like comments which advance the post, even if they disagree with my opinion. Lately “ShoreThings” has placed a number of comments on my posts which argue for his point of view, and that’s perfectly fine with me. It makes for a livelier discussion.

The point is that I don’t have to throw out comments because they’re personal attacks or the like. Maybe not being a very controversial figure hurts me in the categories of readership and comments, but I continue to maintain I have the best comments of any local website because they’re generally thoughtful, not incendiary. And the readership’s not too bad either.

Anyway, I’ll just allow him to have his opinion, it’s not really worth too much in the big picture aside from idle discussion fodder. While I derive a lot of satisfaction from this thing I call monoblogue, I try not to make it all-consuming because one can burn out quickly on doing a blog. Thus the dearth of posting this weekend and maybe for the rest of the month it’ll be more like one a day rather than two most days. I’ll just take a bit of a breather since the political world is pretty slow anyway and allow things to sort out.

If I fall to #3 in the rankings or even out of the top ten, I’m not going to worry too much. But I owe it to those who read here that when I do a post it’s the best I can do.

Two favors to ask

As you know, recently I had a rash of spam comments and installed a program to combat them. What I didn’t realize until yesterday was that I installed it incorrectly (misnamed the directory) and I have no idea if any comments could get through. Hopefully I didn’t turn anyone off because I was ignoring their comments, on my end there was nothing in the queue so I didn’t know they were out there. That and factor in I was away for 24 hours.

So if someone out there could leave a comment or two for me to see when I return to check the queue (and also e-mail me when you do so, the address is above), I’d truly appreciate it. I know I have the program installed correctly now (it tells me so on my WordPress “dashboard”), thus it should be just a matter of tweaking the settings and that’s why I need to get a few comments as a check.

My second favor is to read the three-part series where I’m going to talk about economic stimulus tonight through Wednesday night (and if you like it, tell your friends!) This promises to be commentary that inspires thought and discussion the right way, not through overt solicitation. I just need the overt stuff to make sure that my anti-spam program works properly.

Late edit: Elbert told me that the message he got was:

Sorry, there was an error. Please enable JavaScript and Cookies in your browser and try again.

That may be the solution for those of you leaving comments because this particular program uses those aspects to filter out the bot spam.

A question for the day (updated)

I respected your wishes when you asked (even though there was no mention of either party in the photo or the text), so how about doing the same since your “curiosity” was answered?

It appears as though Joe did, so I removed the link.

You know, there are times where my emotions get the best of me and this post was one. I think I had a valid point but maybe I went about expressing it in a manner I shouldn’t have. And having found out over the last 24 hours or so that I have a number of fans in places that I didn’t anticipate (I was in Annapolis for the Maryland Republican Spring Convention – more on that later), perhaps this was a detour from the quality they expect and for that I apologize as well.

Still, I do want to make it known that I will support those who support me and oppose those who would see me fail at my task.

A tournament with few winners

This was just too good to pass up. The folks at PolitickerMD obviously know that this is a pretty slow time for political doings in the state so to promote discussion (and of course readership) they have inaugurated their first Maryland’s Smartest Legislator tournament.

With regions being named after great Maryland legislators of the past (or so they claim), the writers of PolitickerMD selected 32 of those they considered the most intelligent that Maryland’s General Assembly has to offer and placed them against each other in a single-elimination voting contest that will run with elimination rounds until a final on May 16th. Of course, my first objection is that there’s only 7 Republicans among the field of 32; I pretty much think that if you’re talking about intelligence as far as common sense then the field should be fully from the GOP. Additionally, the lone Eastern Shore representative in the field is State Senator E.J. Pipkin (State Senator Harris is also in the field as a #1 seed.)

Is it gimmicky? Of course it is. But as I noted earlier we’re in a slow political period and I’ll be interested to see how my choices do like anyone else who participates. It may just be enough to end the lower Eastern Shore’s three-month stranglehold on the “most influential political blog” title.

Speaking of that title, while I took Bud the Blogger to task yesterday about his recent post attempting to tie Senator Harris to the inflated prices we suffer from at the gas pump, I do agree somewhat more with his assessment on the BNN Influence Index as well as with many of those who commented. As I noted there, if it were solely based on readership and political content then blogs like The Hedgehog Report or O’Malley Watch would score highly each and every week; frankly I’m surprised those two underperform as they do. Neither aspires primarily to a local audience like other highly ranked sites do.

So whether PolitickerMD is going to increase its BNN ranking over the next couple weeks by running their contest remains to be seen, but it is an interesting diversion for a time when political news is reasonably slow.

Is Bud the Blogger anti-growth?

I know my Red Maryland cohort Bud the Blogger happens to be one of those mavericks who supports the Democrat Frank Kratovil in the First District race, and if that’s how he feels more power to him. I think he’s completely off base with that particular opinion, but some people come around sooner or later – hopefully he’ll be one.

However, his post yesterday regarding Andy Harris and the Club For Growth went a little over the top in its reach. When Bud makes the conclusion he does, I have to question where he’s coming from:

District 1 needs a leader that represents our interests. No one wants to hear a bunch of organizational spin when we’re forced to choose between gas for the car and food on the table. Over the next six months, the democrats, independents and even the republicans of this district need to send a loud message showing we’re tired of getting hosed. Make no mistake folks, a vote for Andy Harris means an endorsement of higher gas prices. Ready for $4 a gallon, anyone?

Unfortunately for Bud, the party that his choice belongs to shares a lot of the blame for people having to make the choice between gas in the car and food on the table, and certainly the Club For Growth is not interested in politicians who promise more regulation of corporations and restrictions on what oil companies can and cannot do in order to secure more product. If you don’t believe me, go see for yourself what the Club For Growth stands for. I happen to be a member myself, and even though I don’t agree with everything they advocate, overall I think the CFG has the right idea.

It’s disappointing to me that Bud has piled on to the anti-capitalist view that oil companies make too much money from a product that they don’t really dictate the price of – after all, did anyone feel sorry for the oil companies when oil was $15 a barrel and the resulting hard times hit a number of areas that depended on that industry?

As to why gas prices are so expensive, I go into my thoughts on the topic here but I think having Andy Harris in Congress would do more to address the root causes of the problem than having a Democrat who would likely toe the party line, one where oil companies are ripe for taxing because they supposedly make too much money. Then the taxes confiscated from oil companies would go to support non-marketworthy boondoggles in the so-called renewable energy field.

If you’re curious about where Frank Kratovil stands on the energy issue, so was I. And while I could find nothing on the topic from his website, fortunately I managed to snag one of his leaflets from the Democrats’ table at the Salisbury Festival (yes, once in awhile Democrats are useful for something). Here’s what the leaflet has to say:

I will work for an energy policy that reduces our dependence on foreign oil and promotes cleaner energy and smarter technology that creates American jobs and lowers energy costs.

Aside from the boilerplate quality of the solution that is offered, I’d like to point out that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by drilling for domestic supplies and building more refineries, something we haven’t managed in over thirty years. Perhaps Frank would support this idea President Bush proposed 3 years ago as one solution to the refinery issue? Certainly those ideas would work, but I don’t think that’s what Mr. Kratovil means.

Further, it seems to me that having nuclear power rather than coal-burning plants to provide our electricity is also a viable option, with natural-gas fired power plants as a backup source for peak usage and periods when nuclear plants are shut down for scheduled maintenance. Having lived in an area that was serviced by nuclear power, I’m not worried about what some fear regarding waste or accidents. Unfortunately, I believe what Frank is referring to are those unproven technologies that government tries to foist upon us by market-busting subsidies like tax breaks and outright adoption of restrictions that enrich favored companies.

So while Bud is trying to be shrewd and tie Andy Harris into the price we pay at the pump while trying to tar the monetary contributions that the Club For Growth has bundled for his campaign with that same brush, the truth is that if you really support $4 a gallon gasoline you’ll touch the screen next to Frank Kratovil’s name. After all, it’s his Democrat party’s would-be standardbearers who are on record as wanting to punish the oil companies for “excess” profits, conveniently forgetting the thousands of Americans those companies employ – many of whom belong to the unions who support that party – and the millions who own a stake in those companies (including me, and maybe even Bud) who expect oil companies to provide a return on investment.

Am I happy to pay $40 for a tank of gas? Of course not. But I’m still voting for Andy Harris because I think he’ll work to find a more equitable solution to the issue than simply sticking it to oil companies. After all, companies never pay business taxes – consumers do when they’re passed on as part of the cost of doing business.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

Another level of archi-hell

Anyone who makes a habit of reading monoblogue knows just how I feel about an organization I belong to, the American Institute of Architects. While they originally were an advocacy group to advance the profession, in the last decade or so it seems they’ve become more of a quasi-governmental bureaucracy with their support of mandatory continuing education for architects – naturally they decide which courses qualify and many times require a fee to pick up those necessary credit hours – and bombarding the membership with a push toward “sustainable” architecture in response to perceived manmade climate change. More energy efficiency is great but not by government fiat, nor do I believe in damning the cost in order to make a building “cradle to cradle” sustainable. Economic payback has to play a role – must be that capitalist in me. Has anyone ever had their LEED AP designation pulled? I might be the first.

Recently I found a blogger who questions another aspect of the profession. On a blogsite called Quiet Observations From Archi-Hell, “The Silent Observer” recounted his thoughts on modern suburbia vs. the New Urbanism instilled on students in architectral schools. A few excerpts:

I’ll be called a traitor. I’ll be laughed out of all respectable architecture circles. But I have to admit it. Having spent nearly a week visiting friends in the vast land of suburbia known as southern California, I could see myself living there. Yeah, I just said that.

Admittedly, this particular suburb of SoCal was only 20 minutes from the beach. And the sun was out nearly every day. For this New York City dweller, having come via London, the blinding yellow sun was like teasing a child with an ice cream cone after feeding them steamed broccoli. It was a bit of luxury, a break from a streak of ho-hum life. And you just want more. We’ll gloss over the fact that I was playing around for nearly a week without work. That would make any place seem appealing, I imagine.

More than the lack of responsibility, though, may have been the sense of overwhelming ease…

(snip)

Fact is, for a large portion of the population, (suburbia) is the lifestyle they are seeking. Architects, quite often it seems, willfully ignore this. We chase the glitzy, the adventurous, the sexy, the new, Maybe it gets back to being told, over and over again, to “think outside the box”. We are attracted to the idea that the status quo needs improvement, change, a radical shift in ideology, and of course we are. That’s how we justify the existence of our profession…

(snip)

(Suburban) homes are what many dream of. These are the places people hope to call home, imagine coming back to each and every night. These are the buildings people are willing to put their hard earned money towards. That says something to me. It says that these developers, for better or worse, understand the world better than I do. It reminds me that, for many, perhaps a majority, this is the lifestyle they want to live. Not the sleek, glassy living that our profession so often highlights, promotes. We vilify what the majority aspires to. That is a huge disconnect. (Emphasis mine.)

Does that not sound like the so-called progressive movement at large? They claim, “we know what’s best for you” when people know what they want.

Let’s face it: in American culture, bigger has always been better and each generation wants the best for the next one. Further, while I do not have a large house or Jeep Grand Cherokee sitting in my driveway, I’m not going to begrudge my friends and neighbors their personal choice to have them because it’s what they wanted. (I’m not thrilled about bailing them out for making poor lifestyle choices either, but that’s a subject for another day.)

Unfortunately, elitist architects (you know, the ones who grace the coffeetable magazines like Architectural Record and inhabit the leadership positions at the AIA) seem to think that communal living like that found in urban Europe should be what Americans aspire to as well, and we’re not that way. It’s a little late to change decades of thinking, so the shortcut desired by those on their side is to force us to do with less through excessive regulation, courtesy of the dollars confiscated from our wallet.

While my fellow blogger in “archi-hell” may not have traveled in the same direction, I think he (or she) and I reached the same understanding on what makes our culture unique, different, and inspiring for billions across the globe.

Leaving the cult of personality

I sort of alluded to this on Friday and appreciate the advice from Hadley; in fact I did have the half rack Friday evening for my supper and will have another today for lunch split among two establishments, assuming they are both still here with the anticipated rain. However, I can’t quite ignore that other guy from Delaware – though I’m going to attempt to make him only a peripheral character in this post as much as possible.

Needless to say, it’s been a trying month for a number of local bloggers including myself. Mine happened to be on a personal and professional level away from my home computer; regardless it wasn’t assisted by some things which were said and implied elsewhere. On one point brought up recently I will say that the gentleman being questioned was the treasurer (not manager) of my 2006 Central Committee campaign and that the books were closed to the satisfaction of the state Board of Elections shortly after I was successful in winning my seat since I chose to have a non-continuing account. So let’s lay that portion of the whole sordid affair to rest.

While it’s not something I’m particularly fond of, a great deal of our local and thriving blogosphere revolves around the words and actions of one individual. I know I fall into this trap more than I should when my true purpose is to inform and convince people that the political point of view I hold is the most valid one for maintaining the strength and prosperity of our society and our nation. Yet there are times I feel the need to respond to one man’s charges and smears, even against the wishes and advice of my readers – a number I’m pleased to see is increasing but concerned that it’s growing because of a position I’m perceived to be in as a “pro-Maryland blogger.” Of course I’m for seeing my adopted home state succeed in becoming the best state possible but in this case that’s not the meaning of the term.

To be perfectly and brutally honest, at times I feel like I’m in a battle of National Review vs. National Enquirer. I say this not because I think I hold any sort of candle to the late William F. Buckley but because in my mind I could think of no other metaphor that would express the frustration I have at times. Yes, sometimes I do take comfort in knowing I have the respect of many of my peers in this field but sometimes the relative obscurity bugs me. It’s an obscurity that unfortunately has tarred my site with a broad brush, with bloggers being described as a “cancer” by one countywide candidate a couple years ago and now possibly getting a reputation for not quite being the most truthful and trustworthy types, if you catch my drift.

Further, it’s a morass that even can suck in the most talented writers I know. Since “Straight Shooter” has been outed in dramatic fashion I can say that I’ve admired her writing skill for some time on posts she’s placed at a couple websites. But she can do so much better with better material to write about than the exploits of one person, which I think simply serves to inflate his ego. It’s a shame on both sides because both started out with the best of intentions but became tangled up in peripheral issues that made them lose focus on what made them special and worth reading in the first place.

Before I become the pot calling the kettle black, by the time you read this (I’m writing this a day or so in advance so I can enjoy the rest of my weekend!) we’ll know if I managed to keep my BlogNetNews #1 ranking. (Nope, I guess not. Not controversial enough?) I know I’d like to have done so, in part because I’ve managed to make it to the top of the heap four times now but have never kept the ranking for more than one week. So I have a little bit of ego invested in this enterprise too and I’ll guiltily admit there was a brief burst of schadenfreude when I found out about the legal issues that became statewide news. On the other hand, more sober reflection caused me to think that not only would this incident make his “train wreck” (as a friend of mine calls the site in question) even more popular but it would drag the lot of us down even more in the eyes of the public.

By sheer happenstance I ran into Kathleen McLain on Friday and naturally the subject of local blogs came up. While I got the impression that she wasn’t too pleased about the number of personality-based blogs she links to through her TV station’s website, she also praised a story found on one of those blogs commonly linked to that ilk and noted it was something that probably should have been covered by her station. I countered with the old adage, “if it bleeds it leads” and the same is true for the local blogs. Some have made it a mission to combat others they don’t agree with and it’s sad to see.

Since the beginning of monoblogue I’ve kept the tag line, “News and views from Maryland’s Eastern Shore.” But I don’t cover news in the classic TV or newspaper sense, running from fire to crime scene to government meeting in an effort to give all of the happenings contained within our happy little slice of Delmarva. Rather, the news you get from me comes from items I either cover as a good reporter would because I deem them newsworthy (like the Wicomico County Republican Club meetings), from items that I find interesting which lie outside the area normally thought of as news (such as my Harris article yesterday), or different angles on events that were covered as breaking news (my photos from Friday come to mind, I was attempting to inform in a lighthearted manner.) Of course the views come from these items and others found in the news cycle that I felt were worth commenting about, along with posts to reflect my basic philosophy on political issues.

So I suppose I’m going to find out whether my newfound readership is going to stick around while I make the sincere attempt to simply stay away from the issues brought on by just one man, a guy who has managed to make himself the news but really hasn’t accomplished a whole lot while doing so. While I reserve the right to defend myself when attacked, I’m going to trust that the truce of sorts that stemmed from a complaint about being a frequent photographic target will hold in other matters as well and post accordingly. It’s time to get away from the cult and move to what’s really important, or at least worth my time to write about.

The perils of blogging

John Hawkins at Right Wing News recently had a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at the health risks of being a blogger. It was based on a New York Times article that recounted the demise of some fairly prominent people in the field because of the stress induced by the attempt to keep up with a 24-hour news cycle.

Of course there are health risks associated with any sedentary job, especially one where you sit in front of a monitor and encourage carpal tunnel syndrome by constantly typing. Being a wordy and verbose sort, it’s probably surprising I don’t have the affliction but since I never learned proper typing technique I suppose that my modified hunt-and-peck method eliminates the repetitive motion required to contract carpal tunnel. I figure I still crank out about 30-40 words a minute, maybe somewhat more. (It’s those rewrites that slow me down.)

And then there’s the other perils involved, particularly in a legal sense. Yeah, I talked about our local situation but there’s much more serious charges being leveled at those across the border in Canada where they don’t have the same First Amendment rights that we do, particularly targeting popular columnist Mark Steyn. Threats of bodily harm aren’t uncommon either, especially when it comes to female bloggers – Michelle Malkin (one of my favorites) was forced to move when the description of her home and neighborhood was used to threaten her safety. Fortunately, nothing came of it but someday someone else may not be so lucky, especially if they manage to offend the wrong person or group.

With all of that and the time involved, readers may wonder why those of us who take the job seriously continue to do so for not a lot of pay. Personally I think of it as using this side of my talents to make a difference in something greater than myself. Others may have different agendas but we all seem to have a love for the craft and sometimes that love is what keeps us going – along with a few flattering comments to stroke the ego a little bit.

So I’ll carry on with this obsession of mine later tonight after I check out another joy in my life – tonight’s Shorebirds doubleheader. I’m not loving the chilly weather though!