My Political Mea Culpa

For those few who might have noticed, I haven’t been posting to Open Source Politics, lately and, while it’s felt good not to have a deadline staring me in the face every Thursday, I’ve also felt guilty about not contributing my share to the site.

The problem began with my relatively recent trip to Santa Rosa when I was forced to skip a week. Although I submitted an article before my trip, my “editor” never got back to me and the article actually sat around two or three weeks before it got posted, long enough that I thought it lost some of its timeliness, even though I seldom write articles that are newsworthy in that sense. In the process, I lost contact with my editor because she got overloaded at work and didn’t have time to maintain her own site, much less keep up with Open Source Politics. Of course, the article sitting waiting to be published and the lack of contact gave me the perfect excuse not to write more articles. So, I didn’t. After it was finally published, I had trouble getting started again.

A more serious problem is simply that after writing 16 rather extensive articles on environmental issues and the Bush administration, I have little or nothing new to say. Now, regular readers of this blog may laugh when I say this, but, as a result of having taught for thirty years, I have a strong aversion to repetition. Simply put, the Bush administration is an environmental disaster. Clearly they have sold out to the business interests that fund them and have little concern for anything beyond those business interests. How many times can you say that and still be effective?

My sense of guilt, though, drove me to start looking today at other political sites that were part of OSP. My radically revised list of contributors to Open Source Politics reveals the awful truth: I’m not the only blogger that’s been unable to sustain the earlier pace. Nearly half of the contributors to Open Source Politics are no longer updating even their own site, much less contributing to OSP.

Instead of writing, I’ve been taking the easy way out and contributing more money to organizations opposed to the Bush administration, particularly environmental organization like Environmental Defense, legal organizations like the ACLU, and political organizations like The Democratic National Committee. I’m sure that I’ll end up giving money directly to the Kerry campaign, and I’ll finally get around to giving money to MoveOn. Unfortunately, contributing money still seems like the easy way out.

I’ve promised myself, though, that despite having bought two more books on Flash, a new book on Dreamweaver, a long-awaited volume of Canadian poets, and several new books of poetry, not to mention my new Canon Digital Rebel camera, I will get back to writing political articles on a regular basis.

9 thoughts on “My Political Mea Culpa”

  1. I see… I just wanted to let you know that I check OSP’s MT interface daily, so if you post something on my section, SocialEyes, I’ll see and publish it in one day, two days tops.

  2. Thank for the information, Joe, but unfortunately I publish under Inside/Outside. I don’t even think I have access to SocialEyes under the system we’re running, though I might have published my original article on Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath under that section.

    Annoyingly enough, I was never given your name or notice that you’d joined so that I would know enough to add you to my political blogroll.

  3. OSP’s trackback to this short excuse has had the proper effect, and I just posted my latest article on the environment despite the beautiful whether we’re having here in Tacoma.

    I’ll let you know when it comes out.

    And, ooops, it is Social Eyes that I can also contribute to; I’ll have to see if there isn’t something that I can add to that section.

  4. Actually, the “editor” did attempt to write back to you many times. The emails bounced back to her from your address, …., every damn time. Unfortunate indeed. Thanks for the castigation.

  5. Editor, I’m sorry you took this as an attack on you. It wasn’t meant that way. It was written as a way of reminding myself that I needed to get back on task and start writing for OSP again.

    I don’t know why my ISP suddenly started rejecting you email. I’ll try to ask some questions.

    After reading on your web site that you were overwhelmed at work, I just assumed that you couldn’t keep up with all the work.

    My apologies.

  6. Yes, qb, there are a few benefits to having your children raised and no responsibilities other than taking your Australian Shepherd on his daily walk.

    Expect a flowering of new photos in the near future.

  7. I guess I’m somewhat of the OSP apathy poster child. I have yet to submit one article.

    It’s not because I don’t care, I just have trouble really sitting down and writing on a deadline. I’d make a terrible newspaper reporter. Also, blogging is a mix of fun and politics for me… putting this much organization into it makes it feel more like work, and I already have 2 jobs to deal with.

    Keep writing, whether on OSP or just your own site… I’ll keep reading!

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