Month: September 2003

If you’re curious what I sound like on my liberal soapbox, you can find my first contribution to Open Source Politics at SocialEyes, the first of three segments on Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Actually, I was a little surprised at how easily I adopted the cliches of a political hack. Perhaps that’s because I lack a strong character of my own. When I was serving in the South while in the Army, some people took offense because they thought I was mimicking their accent. The truth is that I seem to pick them up quickly and subconsciously.

While you’re there, check out all the other great articles by more inspired political writers, after all most of them actually maintain political sites. And, remember, I should get better at this stuff after a year of writing it.

And the answer to that deceptive, misleading headline is obviously “NO.”

I really haven’t been quite as lazy about writing as In a Dark Time would seem to suggest. As I mentioned awhile ago, I joined a group of bloggers at Open Source Politics who are attempting to make a difference on the political scene.

I completed three entries on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
that should start appearing in a few days. Needless to say, that took most of the precious time I’ve been able to avoid packing or fixing up this house. I have to go north tomorrow for the new home inspection, so things will probably continue to get more hectic.

If I’m still online, I will make a note when my entries appear there, and eventually I suspect that some of them will be archived here. Strangely enough, though, since there is a different audience for Open Source Politics than there is for In a Dark Time, I found myself adopting a rather different persona than the one I’ve adopted here.

I suppose the review of Grapes of Wrath was similar to the one I just completed on Catch-22, but as I proofread it it certainly seemed to me that I had adopted a more aggressive, and perhaps more stereotyped, viewpoint than I reflect here. Politcs seem to have a way of polarizing people, I’m afraid.

The truth-be-told, the INTP in me is not entirely comfortable contributing to a group that is, in many ways, more radical than I am. On the other hand, neither does it seem entirely acceptable to limit myself to swearing at the TV news or mumbling to myself as I read conservative propaganda on the web. Talk to yourself, and just yourself, long enough and you may well end up being as crazy as other people already think you are.

On the good side, there should be very little political commentary from me on this site now that I have a chance to express my political views elsewhere.