Nov 17 2007
Jay and Deb’s Invitation and My First Post
Jay and Deb have very kindly invited me to post here. They say it was to get an alternative point of view, and thus more traffic. I also think they did it to reduce my email traffic to them, providing me with a place to post all the interesting links I find. (Yep, I’m on to you guys). 
I have been flirting with the idea of starting a blog of my own for a long time. But I never did, mostly out of a desire to protect my privacy, but also, in small part, because of my distaste for the extremes that seem to occur naturally on the Internet. There’s a self sorting that happens when people are together, anywhere, in groups. Sometimes it can be beneficial. Sometime it can be frivolous and fun. Sometimes it can be stupid. Sometimes it can be lunatic fringe. And sometimes it can be actively and poisonously malicious.
Anyway, back to posting a different point of view. Anyone here ever hear of the Colorado Experiment? Even if you have, I’d like to point out the first and last posts from Cass Sunstein’s guest posts at the blog Talking Points Memo. Essentially, the whole discussion is on the effects of the Internet on democracy; how it may or may not effect the extremes of our national debate. This week’s discussion at Table for One seemed a perfect fit for my first post. I do believe that Jay and Deb may be running a mini-Colorado Experiment of their own. 8-)
