Guest post by Thomas Nephew, longtime blogger, posted by Gary Farber.
Gary has been kind enough to invite me to post here, and I'm overcoming some real jitters to give it a try.
Obsidian Wings! One of the top blog sites and one of the top online communities of the past decade, hence pretty much of all time. Writing that could make you simultaneously rend your garments and thank the gods somebody, somewhere had the guts and the gift to say it - whether as writers like Katherine, Publius, Lindsay, Hilzoy, Eric, or G'Kar/Andrew, or commenters like Nell, KCinDC, or Gary. (Just to name a few, and not to overlook the rest.) Still not sure I'll belong.
Aside from jitters, though, I was also not sure how I'd fit with ObWi's recognizable "voice" -- probably basically hilzoy's, but somehow the whole site's as well.
I nevertheless think I've sometimes written some fairly good stuff there, usually when I stick to a topic for a while, learn more about it, research it, and finally start to get across to *myself* what the heck interests me about it.
Nor will I obsessively track how the Democrats fritter away what remains of the victories I advocated and helped work for in 2006 and 2008. I wish them -- that is, their leadership -- continued and deserved ill fortune, so that perhaps a better, more self-confident, truly progressive party can rise from their ashes.
Now you will say "but that's not being a voice of moderation at all, Thomas!" And of course you are right. But also, of course, it's not being much of anything else either: it's not as if I'm out on the hustings debating Barack Obama one day and buying ads to try to beat Van Hollen or O'Malley here in Maryland the next.
Instead, my latest jags, crusades, jihads (d'oh!), call them what you will are, of all things... drumroll: opposing bag searches in the DC Metro subway system, and a "Local Civil Rights Restoration Act."
More on those in future posts.
For now, I leave with the claim that these are in fact, moderate goals pursued at a very nearly feasible level -- my little corner of the world, which is more or less southern Montgomery County, Maryland and the metropolitan DC area. Despite the smallness of scale, the issues and the arena are often a microcosm of the tragedies and comedies of American politics today. At any rate, they are goals pursued in an arena I can work in, rather than just write about at my blog. (And now write about here, at least for a while.)
I'm also moderate in another way: I can never forget how deeply wrong I've been before, and therefore may be now. My most memorable moment of deep wrongness was when I handwringingly decided I supported the Iraq War after all, a month or so before it began, and wrote a post that was well received in all the wrong places as evidence that "even" liberals like me could be brought around to solving intractable problems by blowing stuff up. I can understand if some were to find that unforgivable, since I do so myself when I give it too much thought.
That's all for now.
Guest post by Thomas Nephew, longtime blogger, posted by Gary Farber.
(Gary wishes it noted that he included the links about Thomas, who is too modest, and people shouldn't think he's immodest enough to include them himself.)
I empathize witht the focus on local goals. I go out and walk dogs at an animal rescue for that reason. The world is going to ehll but I made a dog happy!
Even the possiblity of local reform fills me with dispair. Our legislature is mulling over some language changes inthelaws regurding the care of dogs. The current law is pathetic. Literally unless the dog is nearly dead nothing can be done. Owners are required to provide food water and shelter, but the shelter does not have to be clean or adequate, the food does not have to be nutricious. I know of two akitas tht live in ten by ten kennels, with only a few planks of wood for shelter, in mud and filth eating table scraps, theri fur matted and flea infested and our animal control officer says its legal and that she can't do anything.
Anyway there is an effort underway to limit how long dogs can be left outside no a chain and to require owners to bring dogs into the house at night.
An awful lot of abuse and neglect could be stopped with just that simple requirement.
Will the law pass? I doubt it.
Posted by: wonkie | February 16, 2011 at 10:47 AM
Wonkie, I suspect some of the very dogs using your free walking service are meeting right now and plotting to block the new legislation you favor because so many of the benefits will go the wrong kind of dog.
These dogs want more for less and haven't caught on yet that their Kibblecare is a government program paid for by all of the dogs.
But what really rankles these dogs is that elite poodles of a different color are trying to improve the lot of the mutts, and they'll be dam$ed if their hard-earned money earned by sniffing the wrong end of the German Shepards and Rottweilers is going to be used to keep undeserving dogs of questionable lineage alive.
Or maybe even undeserving cats, who we all know belong to the Communist Action Turncoat Society, the feline union secretly financed by George Soros, ACORN, the SEIU, and the Muslim Brotherhood. (See Vaster Bullshi*e's analysis on this (he KNOWS!) at Redrum).
In the end, I fear "unless the dog is nearly dead nothing can be done" will wind up as "the dog is dead, and if anything is done, we'll run a Tea Party candidate against your DINO (Dogs In Name Only) commie butt.
Death at no cost to anyone. Nothing for less than less.
Sometimes I look at these new mixed breed of dogs ruining the kennel, and I get them mixed up with vermin living on them.
Posted by: Countme--In | February 16, 2011 at 01:38 PM
Maybe I should ask for a cite in a brusque manner, and then you could tell me to FFFF off, and then you'd have more comments on your first post!
Anyway, welcome.
"I'm also moderate in another way: I can never forget how deeply wrong I've been before, and therefore may be now."
This is a good sign in a blogger. Chances are we all hold some spectacularly false beliefs.
Also: I left WI before the election, after having voted for Russ F. three times. I read the local accounts (WSJ, Isthmus, etc.) and I still can't figure out why he lost. I mean, I can, but I guess I can't believe what people chose to believe in that election.
Posted by: crash | February 17, 2011 at 05:35 PM