Really, Honestly, There's No Way You'll Ever Get Me To Blog

I'm serious: I'm not blogging.

Really.

Of course you are currently saying to yourself, "Dude, you're using Blogger to write stuff down for publication on the Internet. That's a blog!"

I've often decried blogging and bloggers, because I'm a crotchety curmudgeon who has a healthy does of neo-Luddite running through his veins ("Why, in my day, we programmed with punch cards"). When the phenomenon of the blog first arose, I was pretty sure it was then end of civilization as we know it, because now every member of the lunatic fringe who had been hiding in basements, cabins in the woods, or Manhattan penthouses was now going to have an opportunity to spew forth their particular brand of inanity for many to read and some to identify with and others to trumpet as wisdom.

And then something remarkable happened: my worst fears were realized but somehow mobs of pitch-fork wielding sycophants did not suddenly materialize in the streets, wrenching signs from lampposts, overturning cars and setting them ablaze, trashing stores and stealing merchandise, or attempting to put on large performance art works. This of course only happens when your favorite hometown sports team wins the ultimate championship and you are so happy about it that you feel the need to destroy things and cause civil unrest.

And so time has past and something astounding is happening: the Internet is starting to fill with blogs and bloggers who a) have something to say, b) have a sufficient level of erudition to say it in a cogent fashion, and c) there are people reading these commentaries who are able to read, understand, and discuss the topics raised in the fashion of the old Town Hall Meeting without the poor coffee, stale doughnuts, and heat of bodies pressed together.

This has led me to the inescapable conclusions that a) things are not as bad as I feared and b) this is now the way of things. Given this, I'm on board, because I'll be darned if I'm going to be left behind.

Just one request: this is not a blog. I am not a blogger. The things I write are my opinion, based on my knowledge, experience, and the occasional help of information sources. I tend to think of this my own Op Ed, one that isn't controlled by a large media outlet with its own biases and bad taste in reporting. I'm going to try to make my opinions based on reality and facts, sprinkled with my own conjecture. I won't always be right, sometimes I'll sound like a reject from the casting call for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I will attempt to tell it like I see it and hope I can continue to foster intelligent debate.

If nothing else, perhaps this will finally keep me out of trouble.