Odds and ends number 94

I’ve been meaning to get to this for maybe a month or so as my e-mail box kept filling up. So finally I’m writing all these quick takes of a couple sentences to a few paragraphs as I have done 93 times prior. Let’s begin with this one.

The Biden Rules

Because I was on the American Possibilities e-mail list, I’m now on the Biden 2020 e-mail list, and that gives me no shortage of amusement because the e-mail come across to me as gaffetastic as the real thing.

First came the e-mail where Biden pledged to not take money from “corporate PACs, federal lobbyists, and registered foreign agents.” Better than his old boss, I guess, but all that means is that some entity will be laundering the money through a series of contributions first. So this is essentially meaningless.

But even better was the one where Joe took it as an insult from President Trump that he “abandoned Pennsylvania.” I always like it when he talks to me:

Well Michael, I’ve never forgotten where I came from. My family did have to leave Pennsylvania when I was 10 — we moved to Delaware where my Dad found a job that could provide for our family.

Let’s be clear Michael: this isn’t just about me. This is proof that Donald Trump doesn’t understand the struggles working folks go through.

He doesn’t understand what it’s like to worry you will lose the roof over your head. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to wonder if you’ll be able to put food on the table.

Biden e-mail, May 21, 2019.

Bear in mind that Biden could have moved back to Pennsylvania at any time once he reached adulthood. But Joe made his life in Delaware, or at least got his start there since he’s truly a creature of Washington, D.C.

But my real point is that there were a lot of people who faced that issue when Barack Obama was in office. I’ll grant that Obama’s was a situation inherited from the Bush administration but the “jobless recovery” we struggled through meant a lot of kids had to hear that same sort of news. And speaking of Obama…

Who does the gerrymandering?

Another legacy e-mail list that’s led to some howlers is my ending up on the list of an entity called “All On The Line” – that’s a result of being on the Organizing For Against America list. Every so often AOTL sends me what they consider egregious examples of blatant gerrymandering: one was Wisconsin’s First District (until recently represented by Rep. Paul Ryan), for which they claimed:

You won’t look at Wisconsin’s districts and see weird shapes. State legislators have used a more sophisticated, subtle form of gerrymandering — but the intentional manipulation is undeniably there. That’s why even though Democrats won 54 percent of the state’s congressional votes in November 2018, they won only 38 percent of the Congressional seats.

“All On The Line” e-mail, May 22, 2019.

By that same logic, Maryland Republicans should be more fairly represented as they won 32% of the Congressional votes but only got 13% of the seats – a larger disparity than Wisconsin’s.

Another of their complaints came about from North Carolina’s 11th District, which was once competitive (but won by Democrats) but now – not so much. And it has crazy boundaries in the city of Asheville to boot. In this case, they blamed the idea of exactly equal population. It’s now represented by Mark Meadows, who chairs the Freedom Caucus – that’s why they are upset.

Before that, I got a missive about Jim Jordan’s Ohio’s 4th District, where they whined about Oberlin College being included therein. Yes, he’s another member of the Freedom Caucus, and yes, that map was drawn by Republicans. In other words, you will never see them complain about Maryland, which is arguably the worst example of gerrymandering.

I have some ideas on how to address this, but it will be a future post.

Saying the right things

This was an interesting article from the Capital Research Center, as it talked about how language is used to shape public perception of an issue. It’s the first part of what I consider a must-read series from the group, which is really worth following if you’re into being a policy wonk.

I also have the CRC to thank for revealing that, while the Left howled in protest about President Trump’s short list of judicial nominees, they’re quite reticent about who they would select. Wonder why?

Old ideas become new, or just stay timeless?

I know that education needs to be reformed, but perhaps our old friend Bobby Jindal can do a little better than just dusting off an old proposal. Perhaps setting the groundwork for a 2024 or 2028 run, Jindal’s America Next group dusted off the e-mail list to send me this, which I noticed was from 2015 – just before he got into the 2016 race. Good stuff, but a bit dated. And of course, it was enclosed with a fundraising appeal.

The force for good

Last week my update from API has an item that hit a nail on the head. From their blog:

John Watson, then the chairman and CEO of Chevron, once was asked how the natural gas and oil industry is perceived since so much of the climate discussion is aimed solely at producing fossil fuels.

Unflinchingly, Watson countered that his industry is a noble one – delivering light, heat, transportation, food, clothing and other benefits to people every day – and that natural gas and oil are foundational for almost everything that we use and do. Simply put, Watson asserted that natural gas and oil are forces for good in human development and far from a deterrent (and instead an enabler) of climate progress.

It was an argument for the societal value of natural gas and oil and the opportunities they create, thanks to U.S. energy abundance. Connecting communities with energy and opportunity remains a pillar of our industry today – especially when you consider America’s growing capacity to share energy with the rest of the world, where many areas haven’t benefited from abundant or reliable energy.

“A Force For Good”, Megan Bloomgren, Energy Tomorrow blog, June 13, 2019.

Of course, she works for API, but working for them doesn’t discount her point of view. When our CO2 emissions are on the decline while those of many other nations are increasing, you have to say we’re on to something.

It boils down to this: at this stage, the top renewables are not the top reliables. While we are at the time of year we receive the most sunlight per day, it doesn’t mean you won’t have a cloudy day… and unfortunately, those warm, still days of summer are the days you don’t receive a whole lot of wind to push those turbines around.

The career stepping stone?

You know, I’ve never thought of my humble little site as a job provider. Shoot, as little as I’ve blogged here over the last three years it’s a wonder the lights are still on.

So I was somewhat surprised to get an e-mail from “Jessica Stewart,” who’s leaving her “role” as a finance and business writer to building a freelance portfolio. But this is what she told me:

I have some ideas, I think your monoblogue.us audience will enjoy.

Are you open to accepting free guest post content for publication on monoblogue.us?

Her ideas were (and I’m quoting verbatim):

  • Why Direct Lending is Surging in 2019
  • Why the Small Business Administration can’t help in a small Business loan?
  • Why rising interest rates are creating refinancing headaches for small Businesses?

Problem was – I did a Google search of the titles and found them on other sources. So I wonder what overseas writer making a pennies a day is really writing as Jessica Stewart?

After all, if I had a paying writing gig why would I leave it? Why do you think I’ve stayed with Patriot Post for all these years?

That’s enough for these odds and ends, until next time.

P5k

I wrote this back on November 5, 2014:

Those who know me and have some idea of what makes me tick realize pretty quickly I am a numbers guy, and there is just something about round numbers that I like. So every time I turn the odometer of 1,000 posts it’s a big deal to me, and hitting the 4,000 mark is no different than hitting 1,0002,0002,500, or 3,000. (For the record, the last 1,000 posts took 853 days to compile.)

“P4k”, November 5, 2014.

You can tell I’ve done this awhile: why dig up all the links when they’re readily available? But by my public school math, that previous pace would have gotten me to this 5,000 post mark on March 7, 2017. So what happened to push things back to March 24, 2019?

Well, back in 2016 I reconsidered a number of life decisions. One was to leave the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee after a ten-year run, but shortly before that I simply decided I couldn’t do justice to this site and my other obligations by posting every day, almost like clockwork. It was getting to be a real chore to make all my self-imposed deadlines so I decided to get rid of some of them – hence, the posting schedule is now about 1 to 3 a week. I also began on my book, which I’m working to finally finish next month after toiling on it for 2 1/2 years off and on, mostly on.

So this website, which used to be of primary importance to me, has fallen through the cracks a little bit. To be quite frank, there have been times where I just didn’t feel like posting here because I had something more important to work on. Book number two has been a joy to write, and it’s given me an idea of a topic for book number three – however, if book two is as successful as I think it may be, book number 2 1/2 will be a rework of book one, revising and extending those remarks.

At one time I had a decent-sized audience of readers, but since I stepped away from what was basically a sizable part-time job that made me very little income, that number – which was already down because the previous year was not an election year – was cut in half the first year and 1/3 of that the next. It’s somewhat depressing, but I often remind myself that the number of readers I have now was something I got genuinely excited about during the first year I had this site. That gentle reminder puts things in perspective.

Not only that, I have always suspected I attract a certain quality of readers. Once upon a time, I was put down as being “wordy and verbose,” and I’ll be the first to admit: guilty as charged. So instead of a thousand would-be political hacks taking in whatever I cooked up in the middle of the night I now have maybe a few dozen diehard readers, ones who care more about me as a person than me as a political pundit.

Because I do like working in numbers, the other day as I realized I was closing in on this milestone I got to thinking about just how many words I have put down for this website. If you figure the average as a thousand words a post, that’s five million words. (Just hope I don’t have a finite lifetime supply, right?) Considering my upcoming book should run right about 100,000 words and 300 pages, on this website I have written 50 books and 15,000 pages in 13 years and change. That’s kind of scary.

And it’s kind of sad, too. As our church is working through the Book of Ecclesiastes, it brought to my mind a passage from its second chapter:

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.

Ecclesiastes 2:11-12, KJV.

After 5,000 posts I’ve come to realize that maybe this website isn’t going to move the political needle – but then again that’s really not for me to determine. However, it still has a purpose: it’s the journal of my thoughts, experiences, and opinions, and if it moves one reader in the right direction that’s an accomplishment I probably couldn’t perform otherwise.

The other day as I was writing to my small group, which has a potter by trade, it occurred to me that, just as clay creates his vessel, words create mine. No one ever said that I was always going to be successful making my points, but these are the talents the Good Lord gave me and who would I be to hide my light under a bushel?

So whether the “odometer” has another thousand posts in it or not (let’s hope it does) I can still say I enjoy writing here and wish to continue as long as the Good Lord allows it.

More oh-so-expert advice on how to run a blog.

After doing this for almost 14 years, you would think people would figure out I have a way of doing things and a comfort zone I’m not apt to stray from. But they keep trying and as I described last night this comes from the lighthearted stack of stuff.

These are two recent appeals that I’m going to write verbatim. I decided not to use blockquote for this one, so trust me that I didn’t make these up. But I am going to print my ongoing responses in italics.

**********

Hope you are doing good.

I think I do a lot of good every time I write. To borrow a phrase from Walter E. Williams, I try to push back the frontiers of ignorance.

I checked your website monoblogue.us and wanted to shoot you a quick note. If you want we can make few changes to make your site convert more visitors into leads and to place it higher in the organic search for some selected terms.

Leads to what? I don’t sell anything here except maybe my first book and overall philosophy, the latter of which I give freely as a mission of sorts.

If you are not on Google’s first page, your website is a waste. If you want to know the major issues of your website, I am sending few points below.

Telling me my website is a waste? Yeah, that’s a good way to drum up sales.

  • Due to poor and unauthorized link sites.
  • Relevant keyword phrases are not visible on first page listing.
  • Your website is not search engine friendly.
  • Website content quality is not high standard.
  • Website is having on-page and on-site issues.

On point one, I link to those things I think are useful to the story. Since a lot of them are news, does that mean the media is poor and unauthorized?

Points two and three are irrelevant to me since I don’t write content for SEO, but to tell me my content quality is not high standard – well, up yours, buddy. And talk to my server about point number five, since they are the ones who generally cause the issues. For some reason, WordPress seems to want to add a point six on this, too.

Area of Improvement:

  • Get quality content and theme based back links.
  • We will give you 1st page ranking on Google, Yahoo and Bing.
  • Improve your organic traffic and sales.
  • Secure your website from Google penguin updates 4.0
  • Target your local market to increase business.

The fact that I don’t know what the heck this guy is talking about for the most part tells me his quality is not high standard – although maybe you figured it out from the grammar before this point.

Note*: We give guarantee to improve your keyword ranking from the first month itself, if we fail to achieve then we will refund your money.

Is that before or after you sell my e-mail address and skim my credit card?

Our main objective is to increase your website’s online visibility which results in improvement in traffic, link popularity, goal conversion and ROI.

Then you are a poor business. Your main objective should be to make money legitimately. My online visibility is just fine.

For more details please reply. We have your WEBSITE ANALYSIS REPORT ready with us.

Let me guess – it’s the same report as the other 600 website owners you sent this e-mail blast to would get. But I figure it must be enough that if only a couple fools take up their offer, then ROI is positive.

**********

So that was batch number one of supremely helpful advice. (Update: going through my spam folder I found another but with a different “sender.” You know it’s fake when it’s a name followed by a number on Gmail.) By the way, that went to my old e-mail address I really don’t use anymore, as did the second one a day or two later.

You know, everyone thinks they can give me good content. But there’s a reason I call it monoblogue, and this leads me to e-mail number two, which came all the way from Germany. It was like pulling teeth to read this – imagine each line double-spaced.

**********

My name is Rik, I have two clients that want to publish content on your website.

Congratulations! Is it really that hard to start a blog in Germany, though? I’d rather do the work myself, thanks.

Do you allow paid content on your website?

Actually, I do. Most (but not all) of my record reviews are paid content, but the writing is mine. I would love to have a sponsor for Shorebird of the Month, though.

If yes how much does is it cost to publish an article on your website?

You know, I’m half-tempted to write back and tell him (in my best Dr. Evil voice) “one meeeellion dollars.” He’s from Germany, think he would understand?

Our budget is not limited. The better the websites metrics are the more we are willing to pay. An upfront payment is not a problem!

So where’s my check? I figured it would come in the mail if you’re this confident.

We would prefer to write the article ourselves but you can write the content also.

If it’s some boring subject where I have to insert fourteen keywords in the first 200 words I’ll take a pass. I like my own subjects and words, thanks.

We as an agency are looking for a long term cooperation since we have many different clients.

Clients as in people who are paying you to advertise or clients like the best of ESL writers from India who can subsist on a quarter-penny per word? Or maybe you suckered them into doing it for the “exposure” like I was once upon a time when I was young and naive.

Can you tell I’m a bit jaded? Does it show?

Ps. I take my job really serious please check out below my social profiles and read more about my clients testimonials.

Actually I did. I think he had two testimonials and I’ll bet he made them up.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

This is as close as you will get.

**********

As I said, each line was double-spaced when these sentences could have been combined. If that’s the writing I get then I think it’s worth what I would probably make off the deal.

Maybe someday people will get the hint that I like my sandbox the way it is and there are few invited guests for a reason. Of course, then how would I write my occasional snarky replies?

Have I told you writing is just a struggle? I know it was a struggle to keep a straight face with these two. Tomorrow you get some of my paid content as I wrote a record review last night.

Odds and ends number 90

The first real odd or end is writing this post in WordPress 5.0, which is a completely different interface than the editor I’ve been used to for over thirteen years. It was the upgrade that inspired me to change my theme – although the thought that my old theme may become a “legacy” theme crossed my mind as well.

So again we deal with items that take from two sentences to two paragraphs. But there’s one other neat thing about this new product – being block-based makes it easier to add headings, so maybe this is a good place to begin.

MPPI preparing for new GA session

My friends at the Maryland Public Policy Institute have been busy laying the groundwork for a new session of the General Assembly. 

We know that the new year will bring to Maryland a legislative body that, if you can imagine, will lean even further to the left than previous renditions despite the fact the GOP has a modern record of 15 Senators. (Now they are only losing 32-15! Yeah, there’s a cause for celebration.) And while 99-42 in the House of Delegates isn’t as bad as previous terms where Democrats numbered over 100, it’s not good either – especially when they had 50 last time.

(Although, technically the GOP had just 49 at the very end thanks to the departing Meagan Simonaire going where her political home was anyway. By the same token, though, the Democrats stayed at 91 because another departing Delegate, Shane Robinson, switched to the Green Party. Oddly enough, the MGA site acknowledges Simonaire’s change but not Robinson’s. So the final 2015-18 HoD count was 91 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 1 Green.)

So imagine my shock when the Kirwan Commission did what commissions often do and recommended more spending. (We should have had an inkling of that from their preliminary report last year, a time when they begged for extra time to finish their plea for massive extra spending.) Noted MPPI’s release on the Kirwan report:

The Daily Record reports that Kirwan Commission member Kalman Hettleman said at the commission’s Thursday meeting, “($4.4 billion) is a very small amount of money for the near-term years to get about the work that needs to be done.”
 
“Four billion in new spending can only be called ‘a very small amount’ by those who make a career out of spending other peoples’ money,” said Christopher B. Summers, president and chief executive officer of the Institute. “Maryland taxpayers should be concerned by the commission’s recommendations. Our in-depth analysis of the commission’s work finds scant evidence that their recommendations will benefit Maryland children and families, while ample evidence shows that historic school spending increase since 2002 has produced disappointing results.”

MPPI Press Release, December 7, 2018. Link added.

The MPPI has been busy lately, adding their thoughts on the Amazon headquarters situation – thoughts that can be described as common sense on keeping and attracting business. Too bad the General Assembly haughtily laughs at these helpful suggestions. 

But wait – there’s more on schools…

It’s a bit of a slog, but thanks to the fine folks at the Capital Research Center I learned another reason why teachers’ unions don’t like school choice. Railing against what’s known as public choice theory, which is described as “ask(ing) questions about government accountability and transparency, the influence of special interests, and the incentives that drive political decision-making,” these teacher’s unions are attempting to smear the legacy of the late Nobel Prize winner James M. Buchanan, who won his Nobel in 1986 on that subject. Public choice theory is popular with libertarians and like-minded conservatives.

On that front writer Christine Ravold not only points out the false charge of racism, but extends the blame for its spread to a union-backed push for colleges to eschew donations from libertarian philanthropists via a group called UnKoch My Campus. That front group lists a number of programs backed by the Charles Koch Institute as ones colleges should divest themselves from, never mind the idea of academic diversity.

Panic in Detroit

While we are talking about the CRC, it should be noted that Michigan-based writer and researcher Ken Braun has been turning a critical eye to a Detroit-originated institution, the Ford Foundation. 

Claiming the Foundation has abandoned the city of its birth, Braun wrote a three-part series for CRC detailing their history of ignoring Detroit as the city decayed over the last half-century.

As you may have guessed over the years, growing up an hour or so south of there and following their sports teams gives me a soft spot for the Motor City and a rooting interest in their success.

More smarts from Bobby Jindal

Another of my favorite conservative thinkers had a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (alas, behind a paywall for those who don’t get the daily) so I will give you his conclusion and my thoughts (for free, which may be all they are worth.)

The left’s effort to shut down free and open debate and banish people with opposing views is a tacit admission that they lack confidence in their own arguments.

Conservatives are often described as underrepresented and under siege on college campuses and in newsrooms. Even as professors and students continue to be disproportionately liberal, conservatives should take comfort that their ideals concerning free markets, the American dream, the traditional family structure and liberal democracy continue to prove themselves on their merits to each rising generation.

“Conservatism Isn’t Dead Yet,” Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, November 25, 2018.

Why are conservatives underrepresented in those areas? Well, for one thing, the welcome wagon doesn’t seem to be out for them there and people like to go where they are wanted. (Plus the capitalist business world makes them a better living.)

Not to give away a lot on my forthcoming book, but there is a quote from columnist Kira Davis that I use in my epilogue that goes into discussing the fields conservatives should begin focusing on. This isn’t the quote I use in Rise and Fall, but later in the same article Davis adds: 

As it stands now,the people with the power to shut down our voices at places like Google and Facebook are largely millennial liberals who moved directly from the insulation of a progressive college campus to the insulation of a progressive technological campus often housed inside the bubble of a progressive large city.

(…)

It’s a culture, not a grand plot. The only way to change that culture is to flood it with a counter culture.

“Dear Conservative Parents: Stop Raising Politicians and Pundits,” Kira Davis, RedState.com, March 2, 2018.

People need to use a bit of an Alinsky-style tactic against Google, shaming them for their lack of diversity in thought by their witch hunt against online conservatives and their lack of conservative employees in general.

More election postmortems 

I just can’t get enough election analysis. Worth reading is a piece from Charles S. Faddis at AND Magazine written while the votes were still being counted. It make the case that both Democrats and Republicans are being torn apart by forces within their respective parties, leaving a lot of folks on all sides outside a political home and the parties in need of “soul searching.”

And this came from the Constitution Party, which managed to duck under the “blue wave”:


We maintained ballot status in all ten states where we ran candidates. The Constitution Party was the only minor party that did not lose ballot status in the states where we ran candidates for office.

“Constitution Party Bucks National Trend” e-mail, December 3, 2018.

This is in contrast to Maryland, where both the Libertarians and Green Party will have to have ballot access restored before the 2020 elections. While Maryland had a Constitution Party for one term (I believe it was 2006-10) they could not keep their momentum going. However, given the direction of the state Republican Party (or, more specifically, its standardbearer) the time may be ripe for a renewed push for ballot access in 2020.

In Delaware, their ballot access may be as simple as convincing some of the other smaller parties to disband and cast their lot with the Constitution Party. (One example: the American Party, which has a platform relatively in line with that of the Constitution Party, has more registered voters in Delaware but not enough for ballot access, nor is it as well organized nationally.) They could also get disgruntled Republicans who aren’t happy with the state party apparatus that has no statewide elective offices. 

And so, in conclusion…

Now that I have emptied out most of my mailbox, I’m closing in on the end of another edition of odds and ends, done the WordPress 5.0 way. But a heads-up on a couple pieces: One, I’m really interested in the vote proportions of the midterm election here in Maryland given the national oddity of 14 Congressional races all tilting to Democrats after the election night totals were released. The second is a discussion of new tactics from the Indivisible crowd upon the changeover in Congress.

Look for those in coming weeks.

Teenage angst: monoblogue turns thirteen

To the consternation of many, this website has survived another year.

Considering the frequency over the last year nearly matches that of the year before, it appears I have found my comfort level of posting that averages out as twice a week. It’s likely the days of daily content are behind me given the circumstances in which I find myself: while the first three years of monoblogue were done with me having a full-time job, I also was single – so what else did I have to do besides blog? Now I have a great wife and take time out of my week for bowling (while that was an activity I did pre-marriage as well, it was easier to write with bowling on Friday nights as opposed to midweek) and small group at church to go with the full-time gig. Until recently there was also this book thing going on, too.

But when I look back at all the things I have done and written about, vast portions don’t seem as important as they once were. The hot takes have gone cold, the newsmakers are making news elsewhere, and yesterday’s political flavor du jour is today’s ant heap of history. But there are posts that I still like to consider as a diary of sorts, and they’re generally my photographic posts. An ongoing project I can hopefully get back to is that of salvaging as many posts as I can where the photos were lost thanks to the demise of the old Adobe photo service. Those who say the internet is forever, though, never followed the dead links to my Examiner pages where half my good stuff was placed. I think this is the year I’m going to try and set the record straight.

You know as well as I do that politics has been my site’s bread and butter from the very beginning. But frankly I am just sick and tired of the whole thing and my growing distaste of social media isn’t too far behind it. Sometimes I feel like I’ve given months or even years of my life to try and convince people who can’t be convinced, just like leading horses to water and watching them turn up their noses. Call me jaded or accuse me of a lack of empathy, but I’ve stopped caring whether they die of thirst or not and I’m arriving at the point where I think I need a different and more productive obsession. Add to that the whole “fake news” phenomenon and the increasing difficulty of using social media to build an audience and maybe it is time to set that whole thing aside. (My website kept screeching that it can’t properly connect to Facebook, so I bagged the connection. It’s a sign.)

I suppose one thing I may get to in the next year is my 5,000th post. Had I stayed on my frenetic pre-2016 pace I would have likely blown by that mark around the middle of last year but at 100 or so posts a year it might be the middle of next year. And that’s all right with me.

Perhaps it wasn’t in the cards for me to be a world-famous writer who made his fortune with a simple blog of his questions, problems, thoughts, opinions, or comments (to paraphrase Mr. Geer, my freshman science teacher.) But it doesn’t mean I can’t try to make this the best blog I can, and one of those aspects is writing about things that interest me in such a fashion that I don’t lose any sleep at night worrying.

In the more immediate future I have some final record reviews to write to finish the year and my Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame has some new players – ones that can finish filling out a 40-man roster. I may not be as political but I still have some old standards to work on as I begin year number fourteen.

A brief return

Because I thought you might be tired of music reviews…just a couple things on the agenda you might want to look out for:

Governor Larry Hogan is basically all that is standing in the way between you and getting your hot little hands (or cold, big hands – it really doesn’t matter to me) on the 2018 monoblogue Accountability Project for Maryland. He has until May 31 to decide what he will do with a few bills that I used which have not been dealt with yet – chances are none of them will be vetoed, but I prefer having things all official-like when I put the mAP out. So the target date for release is June 4.

That’s one thing which has been taking up my time. The other is doing some editing of my book, which is coming along a little more slowly than I thought it would – however, it’s to (hopefully) impress a particular literary agent a new acquaintance of mine recommended. I’m still hoping to go that route with the book even though I could probably do a fair job self-publishing it as it is. But this gentleman was intrigued by the concept of a TEA Party history written from a right-leaning perspective as most prior books have looked at it from the Left – however, I think he has a slightly different take on it that I do so I also want to make sure my arguments are sharp. Thus, I’ve added a handful of resources here and there.

The bad news (if you don’t like my music reviews) is that I have a couple more lined up, just needing to actually listen to the album in question a couple times and write the review. Since the client makes it worth my time, though, I don’t mind too much (especially when the songs are good.)

I know that I’ve really let this blog go over the last couple years, but the book and my other projects just keep finding their way to the front of the priority list. Maybe as the election draws closer I’ll have more to say, but frankly this primary is boring and I’m ready for it to be over. When it takes the sudden demise of one of the candidates on the ballot to move the news needle, the primary season isn’t very newsworthy.

That, my friends and readers, is your quick update.

Reversing the tempo

Yeah, I’ve been down awhile. Working on a book (plus doing my weekly Patriot Post, plus a disinterest in everyday politics) will do that. But now that the book is through the rough draft stage 90-odd thousand words later I can get back to what sharpened my skills enough to write such a book, and perhaps be a better blog writer for it.

But the reason I wrote this post is to inform you of the road ahead, sort of a heads-up for the near and medium-term future. There’s also a completely unrelated segue at the end, which is why you may see the photo on the social media sharer.

I have two major political projects to do this spring and summer, and both have deadlines attached. The first one is to begin the research for the twelfth and final edition of the monoblogue Accountability Project for the Maryland General Assembly. This one will come with some additional information for whoever takes up that baton going forward, but the idea is to have it done prior to the June 26 primary.

The reason it will be the last edition is that I’m going to have less interest in Maryland politics in future years – my wife and I are looking to purchase some land north of the border and build our happy home. Instead, I will almost immediately begin after the Maryland primary on the Delaware edition so it can be completed by their September 6 primary date. (Their session ends June 30.) That will be the second of what will become its own ongoing process, with the advantages of only having to do it semi-annually (because Delaware carries items over between sessions) and only dealing with 62 legislators. I think I did my Delaware charts in one or two nights, rather than taking a week or so like I do with Maryland’s.

Once I complete that – and deal with the usual summer distractions such as Shorebird Player and Pitcher of the Month, the Tawes event in Crisfield, and so on and so forth – I have a longer ongoing project in mind.

Over the years I have used a couple different photography hosts. At first I used an Adobe website, but when they decided to migrate that to another site I lost all the links I had placed (not to mention some of the photos.) Then I went to a service called Photobucket, which was originally free but then began to charge $2.99 a month for hosting. Now they are supposedly changing the service again – but they have a plan for me at the low price of $9.99 a month.

Sorry, but when it costs more to house my photos than it does for my website host it’s time for a change. This is because in the meantime, maybe 2 or 3 years ago, I got a deal from midPhase (my server since the website’s inception) that gives me unlimited space. I used to have a limit, which is why I needed the outside service. Since that change it was only a matter of convenience because working with Photobucket was easier than working with previous iterations of WordPress. I have found, though, that the recent WordPress upgrades make working with photos noticeably better.

Anyway, if you go back to my archives from about 2008 to 2012, you’ll notice a lot of holes there where the photos are missing. Those are the dead links I need to replace, and it’s more than likely the same fate will occur with Photobucket since I began using them in 2013. Thus, on an ongoing basis (I’m hoping for two months’ worth of posts a week) I will upload the old photos to this server and repoint posts (as I have with a select few already because they are links in my book.) For that, it’s a matter of FINDING the photos, which I believe are on a external drive someplace in my house. If not, I am a saver and I have both my old computer and original laptop.

In a more immediate timeframe, though, I have a crapton of items I can use as odds and ends. One of them will be straight up and the other can deal almost strictly with energy, if I so choose.

So I may get back to the posting tempo I was envisioning when I stopped the everyday rat race. Ideally four or five posts a week will bring back some interest and maybe double my readership. Dare I dream of triple or quadruple, which used to be a bad week? Ah, the good old days when people paid attention to blogs and weren’t nose-deep in social media.

I think this is from the July 4, 2009 TEA Party in Salisbury.

Speaking of that latter subject, you know you’re in an information silo when you go to social media and the same photo of a certain political candidate I know well as an erstwhile colleague keeps showing up. It’s unfortunate I can’t find a certain photo of my own, although this one that is traced to Lower Eastern Shore News may be pretty similar because I’m guessing it’s from the July 4, 2009 TEA Party in downtown Salisbury. (This is one set of photos that may be on the old laptop.)

Now I have known Julie Brewington for about a decade, since she and I met when the TEA Party got started. For two-plus years (2014-16) we were colleagues on the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee, and to say she has a roller coaster of a relationship with her fellows is an understatement.

Over the years Julie and I have had the occasional lengthy social media conversation regarding local political issues. There are a lot of things she’s been accused of over the years, but I don’t think she’s a bad person. I think she’s a good person who needs help with her current difficulties and our prayers for strength, wisdom, a thick skin, and a penitential personality.

Given the charges against her, it’s fortunate she only wrecked the car she was in and, to an extent, her reputation – although there are a number of people who already believe she’s done that before all this happened. But let us pray she seeks and receives the help that she needs. We will have to be without her passion for a time, but I think she’ll be better in the end.

The sidebar sidestory

While I haven’t been hanging around here as much as I used to with this book I’m writing and all, a service I’ve always provided here is being a one-stop shop to link to political candidates in season. And seeing that the season is fast-approaching – the filing deadline is barely a month away – I suppose it’s time to build out the 2018 version of my widget.

One change I think I’m going to make from previous years is to not just link their websites, but their social media as well. It seems now that most of the action on the political position front comes from those sites because they are interactive by nature. So I’ll figure out a way to integrate them into the links.

In looking at some of the local races, the most statewide attention seems to be on the State Senate race between incumbent Jim Mathias and current Delegate Mary Beth Carozza, who’s trying to move up after just one term in the House. If that seems opportunistic, bear in mind that Mathias also moved up after one term and about six months of change (he was appointed Delegate after the incumbent died in office.) However, at the time Mathias ran for an open seat thanks to the retirement of longtime GOP State Senator Lowell Stoltzfus. And while Mathias is best known for being the popular mayor of Ocean City, it’s also the area Carozza represents in the House. Her task will be to catch up name recognition in Somerset County, although it’s likely she’ll get the backing from Stoltzfus and current Delegate Charles Otto to help her along there.

With Carozza moving up, the opening for Delegate in District 38C is shaping up to be an interesting GOP primary. (With the political composition of the district, frankly that is the race.) Four contenders are in the running so far, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see one or two more crowd the ballot. While Ed Tinus, a perennial candidate, moved down from the Senate race when Carozza made it official, the others waited to jump in and made it a race. Wayne Hartman is an Ocean City Council member trying to advance, while Joe Schanno is making a second run eight years after his first in what was then a two-Delegate district. (He finished fourth of the four in the GOP primary.)

There’s not nearly as much suspense in the other local districts. The only other one really worth mentioning at this point is District 37B, where a third business person has thrown his hat into the ring in a district already boasting two in Chris Adams and Johnny Mautz. Keith Graffius is running in large part because Dorchester County doesn’t have a native Delegate – an unfortunate reality in that part of the Eastern Shore where two three-person districts span seven of the nine counties of the Eastern Shore – so someone will be left holding the bag and after the last election Dorchester County replaced Caroline County as the state’s red-headed stepchild. (The District 37 Senator, Addie Eckardt, lives in Dorchester County so they are not shut out entirely.)

Here in Wicomico County, the key races are the County Executive race, which thus far pits incumbent Bob Culver against independent Jack Heath, who has to petition his way onto the ballot, and the new school board elections that will fire up for the first time in 2018. So far only three incumbents on County Council have filed (Democrat Ernie Davis and Republicans Larry Dodd and Joe Holloway) and one challenger had popped up for an open seat – Josh Hastings makes his second try after moving from District 3 to District 4.

Something I’ve found interesting is how many people have already filed for Central Committee races. In the three times I ran, I was not one who waited around – I filed several weeks before the deadline and was normally among the first to do so. (The only election I was a dawdler was my first, but I was still 5th of 7 to file. The other two I was 4th of 13.) These candidates are notorious for waiting until the last minute, but this year there are already enough Central Committee hopefuls on the male side of the Democrat Party and they’re only one short among females. On the GOP side we already have five of nine so they may exceed their previous high-water marks of thirteen in the last two elections. I suspect the same may be true for school board as well. And because of school board, for the first time every voter in Wicomico County may have a ballot to vote on come June since school board is a non-partisan race.

So anyway I will have some work to do over the coming days. Fortunately I have an old widget extant so it’s not much of a chore to do.

So THAT’s what I have been doing wrong all these years…

I guess I will hit the ground running in 2018, as I take a quick break from writing the book.

Have you ever had unsolicited advice on your job? If you’re a nurse, the guy off the street tells you how to do patient care, or everyone’s suddenly a real estate agent, lawyer, architect, or any of a thousand other tasks where there’s some specialized skill or training involved?

Try being a blogger.

A few days back I received a list of everything I do wrong. This is copied verbatim except I fixed the bullet points to format.

Hope you are doing well.

A quick analysis reveals your website Monoblogue.Us having different technical glitches, where natural traffic is very low. Well, this is not the only reason for your website performance, because this list prolongs.

What we see from initial analysis of your website, it has been impacted much with recent updates from Google.

Here are some points where your website needs immediate attention:

  • For many competitive keywords or, phrases your website stands beyond 10th page of Google.
  • Your websites compatibility with many browsers and devices seems inconsistent.
  • Found lot more scripts and css files that are increasing page loading time.
  • Multiple links from same directory and author sites, downgrading link authority score to 30%.
  • As far as social shares and posts are concerned you need to work and improvise a lot.

It could well be I’m guilty of all of them. Still, if I were to write back to “Sonia Rose, Marketing Consultant” I would have to ask whether they realize that we speak English here and tell them that proofreading is your friend. In this case, though, I’d rather shame them publicly.

You see, I really don’t give a rat’s rear end what Google page I’m on for “competitive keywords” because that’s not why I do this. “Link authority score”? I link to what I need to in order to get my point across. Scripts and CSS files probably come from WordPress, not from something I add. I’ve run the same theme since 2010 or so, thus the widgets are probably legacy ones but no matter.

If you’re worried that I’m suddenly going to sell out, not a chance. I’m still going to feature the same insight and occasional snark as I have since 2005 here in 2018, although probably less than most readers would like since I want to get a book out, too.

I just think it’s hilarious that people want me to hand them over good money to tell me how to be a blogger. I think in almost 13 years at it I know a little bit – but the two most important lessons are to write from the heart and never write something you’ll lose sleep over. As long as I don’t stray from those two tenets I have a success regardless of Google placement.

To you and yours, have a happy and blessed 2018!

A doozy of a dozen: monoblogue turns twelve

Well, my friends and readers, it’s that time once again to celebrate the anniversary of my website. Truth be told, there’s not as much to celebrate as this has become a part-time operation at best: over the last year I started in earnest on my second book, stopped on that task to take advantage of a job opportunity I couldn’t pass up (in essence, I spent about five months moonlighting with both a full-time and part-time job), then got back to work on the book. So this website has become more of a secondary or even tertiary outlet for me at times, since I’m often engaging with people on social media.

My general disillusionment with politics has subsided a little bit, but I’m still not really into the whole 2018 election thing yet. Yet the filing deadline isn’t all that far off, and to be realistic those who are campaigning for high-profile seats should already have made their intentions known. To try and start a campaign in January for a June primary against an entrenched incumbent, or as a newcomer, or both, is a nearly impossible task. (So ends the free political advice portion of the blog post.)

I did a quick check of my statistics and it confirmed what I had already figured. My readership was about half of what it was last year, which is probably appropriate because I did half the posts (or probably less.) So I guess I’m down to the diehards now. It’s almost like I’m back to where I was at in the beginning, and that’s sort of fitting as well since I’m working in the same place I was when I started, too. Of course, much has changed in the blogging world since that time. Here’s a good example.

Of late I have been working on my Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame page for its return next Thursday. As I’m in the midst of adding the Class of 2017 and updating the older profiles, I keep going to my menu of pages to work on the SotWHoF page (it’s a page and not a post) and on that same menu is a link to a private page I’ve kept called the 2009 Guide to the Maryland Blogosphere. It was something I started at the suggestion of a fellow blogger but didn’t keep up, what with all that political and TEA Party jazz going down at the time. (I probably had it public for about a year, since the last edit was in October of 2009.)

Anyway, I scrolled down through the list of over 50 blogs and found out I still link to just two – doesn’t mean some others aren’t active, but I can vouch for about 10 or 15 that I know are deceased. A couple I clicked on to check hadn’t been updated since Obama’s first term, so they’re basically dead, too. (On the other hand, one was just updated Monday so that’s still alive and kicking.)

It takes a lot to keep a website going. There was a period this summer where I had to sweat out fixing the very WordPress program this site runs on because it was failing to do automatic updates and my server provider was upgrading the PHP to a version incompatible with my old WordPress version. So I had to spend an afternoon figuring out how to manually upgrade the site; fortunately (and obviously) I succeeded. But I may have another upcoming headache with photos because Photobucket is phasing out the service level I use and I take up too much space there for the free version. (This is not to mention the years’ worth of photos lost when my old system went away and didn’t repoint – hence the blank spaces on posts from around 2009 to 2012 or so.) And so on and so forth…for some who have jobs, kids, lives – they throw in the towel on this type of outlet.

I will admit that I derive more enjoyment these days from writing my book, but there are times I need a break or I have something off the topic that I need to say – so I go to social media. But that’s not really the best venue for long-form writing like this.

To that end, I think I will stick around for another year. I’m not going to promise anything groundbreaking, new, or exciting will occur here, but you never know when I may get one of those manic periods where I may write more than a couple times a week. 😉

DLGWGTW: September 24, 2017

In the spirit of “don’t let good writing go to waste,” this is a roundup of some of my recent social media comments that I’m going to make a regular Sunday evening feature. (Maybe not every week but more often than not.)`I’m one of those people who likes to take my free education to a number of left-leaning social media sites, so my readers may not see this.

Health care was in the news a lot lately, and social media was no exception. Here’s what I responded to a typical liberal scare tactic from Senator Ben Cardin:

That would be more like the way it should be…states could tailor their programs to the desires of their citizens. I love how loaded and extreme the headline writer made this sound.

Remember, health care is NOT a right, but life is.

Then when some liberal tried to go all Article 1, Section 8 on me (hey, at least he’s read the Constitution) I had to make sure he understood something:

Nope, “general welfare” does not equal health care. Try again.

So when his pal Steny Hoyer jumped in I had to revise and expand my remarks:

Yes, because letting an incompetent federal bureaucracy run health care is working SO well. It’s funny – your post came up right after Senator Ben Cardin‘s caterwauling about the same subject on my page. I smell a Facebook conspiracy.

And again I had a few people tell me their mistaken belief that health care is a right. That’s all right, I have plenty of time to set them straight:

Again, the idea is to bring this down to a state level, although ideally we would work our way back to fee-for-service and insurance to cover catastrophic events. Who said a state could not step in for preventive care if they wished? Better them than Uncle Sam.

Now you can call me a troll but if you are familiar with the website Shareblue, it purports to the the “Breitbart of the Left.” Problem is, their hacks aren’t even readable sometimes and they distort stories five times worse than Breitbart ever dreamed of. Here’s a case in point and my response.

David Brock created a fake news site designed to confuse millions of voters so that the party could win elections in multiple states. Oh wait, that’s you guys.

Basically I have to ask: you’re surprised Republicans have a news outlet to control their narrative? I’m sure if these reporters wanted to dig a little more they’d find the Democrats have the same. Otherwise I wouldn’t get all these e-mails from the DNC telling me the sky is falling.

I’m not really a reporter, but let me tell you about the site whose Facebook page you are now gracing, or more specifically its sponsor Media Matters for America.

*****

“Because MMFA is a non-profit organization, it is not required to disclose its donors, and it does not do so. However, some donors have self-disclosed, while others, such as foundations and labor unions, must make certain filings that discloses their funding of Media Matters and other similar groups.

MMfA’s funders range from labor unions to progressive foundations to liberal billionaires. From fiscal year 2009 to 2012, the National Education Association (NEA) has contributed $400,000 ($100,000 per year) to Media Matters. MMfA has received an additional $185,000 from other labor organizations since 2005, making labor unions some of the largest known contributors to Media Matters. MMfA has directly quoted these labor groups and has defended them against “attacks” from reporters and media personalities. MMfA did not disclose these donations in its reporting on labor unions.

MMfA has received nearly $30 million from foundations since it started. The Tides Foundation is the largest contributors to MMfA and MMAN, giving nearly $4.4 million. There are undoubtedly close ties between the organizations besides financial support. MMfA frequently reports on the critics of Tides, but fails to mention that the foundation is MMfA’s largest donor. The line between Tides and MMfA is so blurry that even donors appear to be confused. In 2003, prior to the official launch of MMfA, the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation even designated a $100,000 contribution to ‘Tides Foundation – Media Matters for America.’

Billionaire George Soros donated $1 million to Media Maters in October 2010. According to the New York Times, Soros donated the money to help MMfA respond to the ‘incendiary rhetoric’ of Fox News Channel commentators.”

(source)

And if this doesn’t describe Shareblue to a T then I don’t know what does:

“The news content analysis of Media Matters is a complete sham. Such examinations of political news traditionally focus on detecting journalistic bias, but MMfA’s approach is to try to stamp out views with which its left-wing content analysts disagree. That isn’t hard to do if you can think creatively and tolerate mind-numbing hairsplitting. Media Matters will typically isolate a small facet of a media story that can be twisted in such a way that suggests that the reporter or commentator is a liar or hypocrite. That tidbit is then used to suggest that everything the original source says must be false and deserving of censure.”

(source)

So there you have it: two named sources, verifiable if you copy and paste the link and remove the space I added.

I take news with a grain of salt until I consider the source and its motivation. My motivation? To get to what’s really true, and where you’re at isn’t it.

Via the local Republican Club I found out even Governor Larry Hogan jumped on that bandwagon. My free advice to the governor:

The electorate that voted him in was by and large also the one that wanted Obamacare repealed. But it’s up to Larry Hogan – if he wants to get 55-60% in the areas where he needs to come close to 70% (like the Eastern Shore) just keep moving left of center. The Democrats across the bridge will be happy to vote for the real thing this time.

The “progressive” (read: regressive) group Our Maryland also wanted to note Maryland could lose money under a GOP plan. So guess what I told them?

Think twice about taking “free” money from Uncle Sugar next time.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”

They also want to blame Trump for Maryland having revenue short of expectations, so I gave then my side of the story:

Perhaps if Maryland becomes more than a one-industry state (that being the federal government) these people may have more confidence.

Since I got my old job back in the Trump era (one that I lost just after Obama was elected) I feel pretty good about the economy,

Obviously that didn’t sit well with them, so they asked for “details before (we) accept your Obama bashing – so I complied.

About my job? I was flat-out told by my employer that he was worried about keeping his doors open under Obama. But he managed to survive and business has picked up enough to bring me back part-time at first and now full-time. Maybe I’m an outlier but the change in administration did bring a more positive outlook for businesses.

Then I added:

And it’s funny – those people who pointed to the stock market as evidence of Obama’s success are quiet now under Trump despite the fact the indices are 20% or so higher since January.

And the poor lady who tried to tell me Baltimore is teeming with industry and my “Beltway bias” was showing. I took about two minutes to find the proof she was all wet.

The statistics beg to differ.

I know, it’s not as obvious. But Baltimore City had a total average employment of 69,141 in the government sector in the first quarter of this year compared to 21,137 that produced goods. I had to explain this to someone else.

The premise provided by (the lady who commented) was that Baltimore had “way more industry than government.” As you can see by the stats, the reverse is true if you consider non-service jobs as “industry” – which I do. (Also notice that education is lumped with healthcare as a service job when most education jobs are public-sector. I think they should count in the government category.)

Yet they were still arguing with me as late as today about my blaming my layoff on the incoming Obama administration and crediting my return to Trump.

Consumer confidence was already rising pre-election and surged in the runup to Trump taking office. Confident consumers lead to confident investors, which is where we come in (I work for an architectural firm, and that was an industry battered by the Great Recession.)

And then:

Seeing that I’ve had over two decades in the field and my industry isn’t one that’s “affected by automation and digitization” you may want to try again.

And I did not bring up Obamacare because no one really knew what it looked like at the time. It was just a sense that the economy was going to rebound very slowly, if at all. Having seen some of what O’Malley did over the previous two years and how it affected our local economy, people were bearish on prospects.

And you may want to ask our friend who was laid off in 2009 (above) why he blames his situation on Bush? He was out of office after January.

Also at Our Maryland, I had this reaction to a reaction to a WaPo story (behind a paywall, of course) about Rep. Jamie Raskin (who was a far-left loony of a state senator based on monoblogue Accountability results) and his fear that Cassidy-Graham would pass. This is how the respondent wrote it, verbatim: “The Koch Brothers want it so badly – and they aren’t going to give anymore money to the Republicans until they repeal Obamacare and cut corporate taxes BIG TIME. That’s what it’s always about – follow the money.”

So I had to correct the record, again:

That would work for me. And even if you assumed a 50% cut in corporate tax rates would bring in half that revenue – which, as we know, isn’t true because lowering tax rates generally acts as a spur for economic activity – the federal hit would be less than $250 billion (out of a $4 trillion budget.)

In this case, the Koch brothers support smart economic policy.

Naturally, that was met with the pithy, “Oh Michael Swartz, if you think you are going to benefit from the giant corporations getting tax cuts….. Sad.” (It’s funny how the Left has allocated a standard Trump response, isn’t it?) But the answer is yes.

I certainly will. Ask yourself: who pays corporate taxes, the business or the end user/consumer?

To expand on this concept, this is part of a fundamental argument about who does more good with money from corporate profits: the government which redistributes it willy-nilly to address their priorities after taking a hefty cut, or a corporation that rewards its stockholders with dividends, invests in expansion (thus needing more employees, which benefits the community), or – even if the CEO is a greedy SOB – spreading the wealth around via purchases. Even if he buys a yacht, someone has to build it.

Turning to local politics, I made a comment about candidate recruitment.

The hard part is finding candidates who want to go through the process. And don’t forget the school board, which will be “nonpartisan” but will almost certainly have a union-backed (read: Democrat) slate.

And finally, I had this reaction to fellow writer Jen Kuznicki‘s video. Like a lot of conservative writers, writing’s not her paying gig – her “real job” is being a seamstress.

You could sit in front of a computer and draw all day like I do in Salisbury, Maryland. Glad to see an American who makes things and adds value to raw material.

But if you thought yours was boring, there’s a reason I don’t do mine. To most watching paint dry would be preferable.

Look, all I do is put lines on a computer screen. It’s the end product that’s important – for the past few weeks it’s been for a proposed local hotel. The part that’s important is knowing where to put the lines.

Similarly, in good writing sometimes it’s best to know when to stop, so here you are. I already have a couple threads lined up for next time, one of which involves a candidate for Congress.

Upgrading for the long haul (hopefully)

This is going to be inside baseball to many of you, but as a regular reader of this here website it’s something you should know.

Back in July I received a notice from my server provider that they would be upgrading their servers:

In an effort to become compliant with the latest security bulletins, and to support our ongoing effort to provide the most reliable hosting experience possible, we will be upgrading MySQL and PHP on your server.

PHP will be upgraded from 5.6 to the latest version of 7.0. MySQL will be upgraded from 5.6.35 to the latest version of MariaDB 10.1. Roundcube databases will be migrated from MySQL to SQLite. If your site or applications implement PHP functions that are incompatible with PHP 7.0.x, there is a helpful information about the upgrade in our knowledge base.

That last sentence is key, because I have been running a legacy version of WordPress for some time. Supposedly it was updating core functions, but after this upgrade I came to my site only to realize to my horror it wasn’t there. Obviously WordPress 3.7 was one of those incompatible programs.

Fortunately, I found out there was a grace period where I could still run the old PHP (and made the fix that restored my site) but that would only be about 30 days. In other words, whether I liked it or not, I had to update my version. Now I know just enough about HTML and computer programming to be dangerous, so to me upgrading sounded like a daunting task.

It turned out to be not so bad after all. Basically I swapped out new files for old, and at the moment most of this seems to be functional. The only two things I had to do once I put this back end up were to bring my theme over (since it didn’t migrate) and move my uploaded photos. The last step was resetting the PHP to 7.0 and that’s now done, so I should be good to go!

And as a special added bonus, come Monday I will write up the official release of the 2017 monoblogue Accountability Project. With that out of the way – finally! – I can now get back to working on my long-delayed book. But don’t worry, I’ll be popping in here from time to time now that I know this site is upgraded.