Thanks to my long-standing addiction to short-form tweets or xits or skeets or toots, I’ve totally fallen out of the blogging habit. Which is too bad, because I used to like writing long posts about everything and nothing, and sometimes when I run across an old post from Before Twitter, I’m surprised that it scans as “pretty good writing” for the most part.
First of all, everyone that used to be a blogger during the heady days of 2002-2006 should probably try to dust off their logins and write about something local that caught your eye, or that interests you or engages you.
You don’t have to blog every new outrage, or every new ZOMGWTFBBQ statement of unTruth from Hair Furore. But you could blog about local news, local politics, and pass along information about local community groups that are doing good work.
You know, the stuff that won’t be seen on corporate media, that isn’t angry enough to drive ratings.
Write what you know, do your best to document your days, your thoughts, your dreams.
The inspiration for this was because I listened to the Bob Cesca podcast, with guests Driftglass and Bluegal of The Professional Left Podcast. Check out their links in my newly updated left column! That hasn’t been touched in more than a decade! Because that’s how OG bloggers blogroll!
As it happens, I’ve been OG blogging since September 2003, reality-based from the get-go during that awful time in the first Bush administration, when Karl Rove bragged that the far Right of that time could “make our own reality.”
Since then, the Far Right morphed into the Further Right Tea Party because a black man dared to get himself elected to the White House.
And after that, the Far Right morphed into the MAGA Even Furtherer Right and got their guy into the White House, and we all remember (or should remember) how bad that was for everyone in the world.
After an all too brief respite while a good man of character passed some good laws, yet fumbled at the end against the Ancient Floss-Haired Enemy, good President Joe passed the baton to a good, smart, qualified woman of character for the final lap. But Kamala couldn’t overcome just two wee shortcomings: she was Black and a Woman. Horrors! Many otherwise not-Furtherest Right voters stayed home because they Just. Couldn’t. Vote. for a black woman they Didn’t Know. And they couldn’t be bothered to watch or read news to find out more about her. Because Black and Woman, apparently.
So we’re here on the second full day of what will no doubt be a new Reign of Terror, or at least an unrelenting avalanche of headlines all beginning “Trump…” that are designed to capture our attention and make us feel like we can’t do anything to stop the onslaught.
There’s plenty to be outraged about just in the headlines I’ve read on my Feedly feed in the last couple of minutes.
Yep, as an Episcopalian I approve of the Rt. Revd. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC and her homily that was politely addressed to Hair Furore. And who knew Sen. Adam Schiff could even SAY “rat’s ass?”
Yes, I’ve been hunkered down since Election Day 2024, AKA “Black Tuesday.” I’ve followed the news, I’ve posted on Mastodon and also BlueSky, but have been avoiding cable news (especially MSNBC) and print news (goddam Bezos and what he did at the Washington Post).
But I have been coming around to the idea of managing my feelings about the awful people who will be ruining this country from the top down (but who will no doubt make massive profits and escape justice). And some of the social media posts and blogposts I’ve read, scrolling my feed constantly, have been kicking around the term “OG Blogger.”
And that reminded me that I used ‘ta be one o’ them OG Bloggers, though a very small-time one. I even started out on Moveable Type. I just checked, and yep, the Internet is forever; 4 old Blogspot.com blogs of mine that haven’t been touched in more than 10 years are still active. Yeesh.
AAAANNNNyway, tonight’s Bob Cesca Show got me motivated to blog and blag and blather. I’m no Deep Thought; I just have reactions to events and stuff. I read actual deep thinkers like Marcy Wheeler and Digby and other longtime bloggers. Maybe it’s time we take the means of commentary production into our hands, bloggers of the world, and rise up.
“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch,” as Garrison Keillor used to say on Writer’s Almanac. Happy to see that he’s still writing on his website – and darned if he didn’t post something yesterday that looks suspiciously like an undercover liberal commie blogpost.
So there you go. Make something, write something, and watch what they do, not what they say.
