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 have my own little blog, which I named "newsrack" once upon a time, and "
newsrackblog.com" now. I imagined I'd cover the ebb and flow of news from all over, but I couldn't do it: the Twitter-like pace of a Willis, a Reynolds, a Sullivan, a Marshall awes me and completely eludes me.
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.
I call those "jags", and I've been on a few: Iraq. Iraq. (More on that in a moment.) Torture. Bankruptcy bill. Texasgate. Impeachment. Executive power. Civil War/Reconstruction. Wal-Mart. Fair Share Health Care. Feingold 2010. FISA Amendment Act. License plate scanners. A general sense of disgust with the media. Disappointed In Obama. D'oh!
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