I have been wanting to jot these random thoughts down, but held off until my blog had hit its anniversary… That was yesterday…

Since I have been writing I have learned much…

I have learned that I, as are the rest of my species, prone to laziness from a genetic level..up. I used to be a great speller, able to guess correctly when I crossed something I did not know… Since the advent of “editor” on my servers…that attribute has all but disappeared. When asked for a “spelling” the first thought in my head is to reply: “just right-click on the word”… But if it is any consolation, with the loss of that brain capacity, my middle finger, the one on the right click button, has become much more limber and dexterous, which helps a lot when one is with the ladies.

I have learned that blogging alone can’t change the world, but even so, it is a big part of the change… Serendipitously, on the day before I started blogging, Dana Garrett and Joe M. covered the topic here on an on-line interview, which states this truth, which should be self evident: that bloggers can focus on an issue long enough, and in detail enough, until the major media outlets, simply can’t continue to ignore it any longer…

When I started, The Daily Kos was big… now, it is so overcrowded that it has become hard to catch the smart posts as they swim upstream, without visiting the site on a frequent basis… Most of the overcrowding is crap… After all that is what one gets when you look at raw sewage without a filter… Locally, Delaware Liberal has taken over the role that Daily Kos played two years ago, and I’m sure that same shift has occurred throughout population centers around this nation… i wish them luck… The time it sucks away can never be gained back…

I have learned that it does not pay to be self-righteous… That decrying over the policies of the News Journal, and other major sources of media, will one day come back to haunt you when you deem the necessity to do the same… For during those times when the cause is great, and the enemy is strong, all weapons at ones disposal will be used… What matters is winning. It matters for them, and even more so… it matters to us.

I have learned that even though I may think I’m good overall, I have to be pushed to reach any point of greatness. It’s only the challenges from worthy opponents that spur me to dig further. I am sure some of them never wish they had inspired me so thoroughly.

I have learned to take each commentator seriously, even if one can’t really take the comment seriously… When challenged I have learned the best approach is to look over all their points as one would from a friend…kind of secretly hoping that perhaps they may have found the actual switching point, that one which may prove the other side right… When that fails to happen, (I’m still waiting) I can respond back with facts, often the ones they put at my disposal… I have found that doing so, makes their old line of attacking the messenger, appear quite silly,ill thought, and rather foolish…

It cuts down on return comments..

There are the occasional queries about comments on our blogosphere… My seeings in and around the blogosphere, are that comments usually occur when there are questions, or someone has something to add to what the poster said… If someone is rather thorough in what they post, and right, there is little reason to leave a message saying “yeah”. Most people don’t. But when someone is wrong, stupid, or idiotic, or all of those traits rolled together… there is multitudinous reasons for leaving a trail that one was there, most particularly so that one can never be called out for witnessing such a travesty and doing nothing about it…

Looking over the various blogs in our blogging village, there is a distinction between numbers of comments and the quality of comments… I have learned that one can take a commentor’s names worth a grain of salt.. Any administrator can create a conversation with himself driving his comments through the roof.. Which is ok, I suppose, if there is quality in those comments.. It really matters little in the long run whether they are real people or not… what matters is the thoughts they convey and whether they do, or do not provide some additional insight to the readers.

Although having a large number of comments can be a bragging right, it is far too much work answering them; mostly because doing so requires much thought… Reading over the comments in a national blog, my thoughts were why bother… once past 8 or so, no one reads them anyway…

And speaking of comments, it is a much needed function of blogging… It is how we communicate.. It is how experts can get their information out to a thirsty public…. If I write about William Kempton, and say something incorrectly, he can respond and all can see; unlike the News Journal that lives in fear and publishes their corrections where they are sure no one will read….

And I have learned about anonymity. It is truly the only way to have free speech… There are times I would have been forced into shilldom, had anyone known it was me. There are times I would have held back out of friendship, if anyone knew it was me.. There are many conversations I would not have been privy to, had any of the participants known it was me… I could not have done what I’ve done… had anyone known it was me…

And what have I done? I won’t say I was the prime factor, or a major factor, or even a factor in the passage of the Bluewater Wind. Or in the changes of the SEU. Or in the effort to unseat those who tried to kill wind surreptitiously. I wont say I was instrumental in the defeat of every Republican candidate who subscribed to FLS’s negative and falsifying tactics. I won’t say I had anything to do with bringing the Work Force Housing issue to public light, or flip several tight races in Republican districts over to the Democratic side. I wont say I had anything to do with putting a progressive on Sussex County’s Council… because that would defeat the whole purpose of what I do…..

But I will say, that I was on the right side of all those issues…. I will say that of all but three of the battles I joined, the bad guys got their due.. Team effort… Heck, I probably had nothing to do with it….Ha, if only the world knew what really went down behind the scenes…..Tant pis, I have to stay anonymous…..
So for now it’s working.. And there are still things that need forcing.. Open government for one, calm reasoning over our budget problems for two. And a national park for Delaware, for three… as well as flipping our Congressional Seat, unless of course Mike Castle shows his true colors now that he is not beholden to a vindictive Republican party structure…. But mostly it’s about open government… Although that is not the complete answer, (honest and dedicate humans are the real answer) it nevertheless leads us in that direction… For once everything is open, and debates have been waged… the outrage is gone.. the winners win and the losers tuck their tails and run…even before the bill comes up for a vote! Open government is the answer.

Curtailing development is our next big state issue… No doubt, due to the economy it will lie dormant for a while, but vigilance must be exercised furiously… Now is the time that developers buy up properties for a song… For us, insisting that the laws are not diluted, that density is not imposed upon either a school system, road structure, or sewer lines that are incapable of handling the increased levels, is how we are going to keep Delaware continuing to be Delaware, and not turn us into an urban slum.

We are a little state… but a little state that roars… And that make blogging here fun….

And finally I think the biggest surprise that has made itself aware, is that there are a lot of smart people out there, who do what I do..  All of us are working  on the same issue, better government, and we all have different ideas on how to get there…  Whereas those that actually vote for issues, are often not held accountable,…. we here in blogworld…always  are… We get called out each time we say something wrong… If we can’t defend it, we have no choice but to fold, because all our argument is in public… It’s ironic that we face a higher form of accountability than do either the main stream media or our elected officials….

So if you are one of those poor souls who will not read this… because it’s a blog…. the rest of us are asking, how can you even hope to be taken seriously?

Blogs have a role to play.. and the tone of politics within this state is quite different now than it was two years ago…  Two years ago, all information was funneled by the News Journal, which meant that most of what happened, went unreported.  Now, with Delaware Talk Radio, WDEL (no Hannity: local talk instead), WGMD, as well as a myriad of new bloggers who were not yet pecking keyboards two years ago, it is becoming pretty hard to hide in this little state…

And being part of the pioneering process, has been immensely enjoyable.  Blogs cannot be dismissed as some did two years ago….

And those out there still without a clue?…. Their days are numbered…..

Overall, I’m glad I did it.