Inspired partly by some recent comments from a reader, I've decided to try and post on this blog a little more regularly than I do. It had got to a point where I pretty much only do if I feel I've got something valuable to say, something interesting to share or something I want to promote. This has meant that for the actual writing (rather than just popping up another video), it takes ages to actually get anything said. I spend hours perched in ponderment in front of a little edit window trying to conjure up pearls that are worthy of distribution, but blogs aren't always about that and posts don't always have to be crammed full of pictures or other such design features.
My wife, who blogs in Japanese, posts almost daily. This means that she's built up quite a community around the online musings that make up her digital output. I on the other hand spend far too much time fretting over every word that goes into one of these posts that I end up either writing nothing at all or becoming too distracted by whatever other goodies the Web lures me with. Sometimes, just a few paragraphs of text are enough to get a flavour of where things are at!
Commenting elsewhere is also considered to be a good way of drawing the like-minded towards your own works and I've broken out a little more on that tonight too. To my jaded surprise, in an interview with The Guardian and in response to the rise of the Liberal Democrats on Britain's political stage, David Miliband had the temerity to suggest that Labour had been 'punished enough' over Iraq. I almost never comment on The Guardian's site despite reading it daily, but this time I felt compelled to add my own contribution to the conversation (as Globalism). As if ignoring the views of millions of people against the invasion, the millions more turned into refugees as a result of it, and the hundreds of thousands killed in the name of securing some oil fields is going to be easily forgotten!
My wife, who blogs in Japanese, posts almost daily. This means that she's built up quite a community around the online musings that make up her digital output. I on the other hand spend far too much time fretting over every word that goes into one of these posts that I end up either writing nothing at all or becoming too distracted by whatever other goodies the Web lures me with. Sometimes, just a few paragraphs of text are enough to get a flavour of where things are at!
Commenting elsewhere is also considered to be a good way of drawing the like-minded towards your own works and I've broken out a little more on that tonight too. To my jaded surprise, in an interview with The Guardian and in response to the rise of the Liberal Democrats on Britain's political stage, David Miliband had the temerity to suggest that Labour had been 'punished enough' over Iraq. I almost never comment on The Guardian's site despite reading it daily, but this time I felt compelled to add my own contribution to the conversation (as Globalism). As if ignoring the views of millions of people against the invasion, the millions more turned into refugees as a result of it, and the hundreds of thousands killed in the name of securing some oil fields is going to be easily forgotten!
2 comments:
While I understand that people will have long memories with regard to Iraq, I can also see where Milliband is coming from. When would be the appropriate time to stop punishing Labour? 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?, especially as realistically the only alternative to Labour (albeit perhaps propped up by the Lib Dems) are the Tories who would have followed the US into war as well. It is my view that by far the most important issue in this election is the economy and I hope that whoever wins that argument will win the election - but I am guessing you will have something to say about that (the election) over the next week or so?
It is indeed a fair point. I've been sorely tempted to pass comment on the election, having found the narrative of this one much more engaging than on previous ones, but haven't felt I've had the space to do it justice. I'll have a pop at a brief nutshell comment or too here though.
Yes, the Tories would have done exactly the same. Yes, the need to keep the Tories as far away from government as possible remains paramount. However, how long can one 'vote with a clothes peg on one's nose' (to paraphrase one of Polly Toynbee's 2005 election aphorisms) without utterly compromising one's own principles for voting?
If we forever vote tactically rather than according to what we believe to be right, then we never get political representation that might actually reflect our views. It is a horrible quandry to be in for a 'progressive', but I personally can't find it in my heart to endorse representatives of that massive folly (Iraq) this time around.
I guess that once the main front bench culprits that voted in favour have been purged, that might be sufficient 'punishment'. I wonder how many of them have actually spoken to an Iraqi about their feelings on the invasion?
Afghanistan is, of course, another moral quagmire entirely, but history doesn't seem to be on the right side of any invading army of that place...
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