On The Keystone Path. January 12, 2012 Blog Entry [View all]

I remember Orrex use to post excerpts from his story here and I use to follow along, wondering what would come next. I was attracted to the writer's group because I also had a story to write, though mine was going to be a challenge to publish. It was a real story full of details that had to be absolutely accurate, which left little room for creativity. But I think I have found a way to turn it into a journalistic story. I'm posting the information on a website, which you can access at: www.Keystoneworksite.com.

But, like Orrex, I would like to post the articles here in DU and request feedback. Even feedback on spelling errors will be welcome. Thank you for any interest you might have.

Keystone Writer.

Pre-launch Day Reflections
January 12, 2012

If someone had predicted fourteen years ago that I would one day be on the internet blogging I would have waved it off as a case of mistaken identity. For one thing, I thought bloggers were people who were passionate about an issue, were programming wizards and possessed a spine stronger than mine. But that was fourteen years ago.

What I didn’t anticipate was what happens to a person as they get older, when experiences calcify opinions until one day you wake up one morning and realize that there is a great many things that need to be said.

Now I look back to what was happening in my life in 1998, and I wonder if things would have turned out differently if blogging was as accessible to ordinary people back then as it is today. As quick as the question comes up, I rush to answer: Yes, yes, it would have. Just having a medium to pass on information in a timely manner would have stopped some bad decisions from even being considered at all. At least, I would like to believe that’s the case, because it's an opinion that rests on one of the basic principles of our country.

In our republic, it was deemed so important to have good information available at all times, that a safety measure was included in the US Constitution to allow the press the freedom to report the news and to criticize our leaders when they felt it was warranted. What wasn’t anticipated back then was what would happen if the newspapers one day decided to make exceptions on the topics they printed.

I know I’m not alone in thinking that we just went through one of those dark pockets in history where the press didn’t live up to our expectations. But whatever effect their silence may have had on a national or state level is not the focus of this blog. Instead, one of the things this worksite hopes to demonstrate is what happens at a community level, when information is selectively withheld. One of the things this blog will continually hammer home is that it’s not just the press that is burdened with this responsibility to provide the public with proper information.

It’s conventional wisdom, or should be: bad information, bad decisions. It’s especially important to talk about today when the lines between government and business have become blurred and we don’t have the stop measures that once protected us from policies that could harm us or threaten our quality of life.

That said, my decision to become a blogger became easier when I recognized two changing trends: The first, that web design software is now simple enough for non-programmers to understand. And the second, that I recognize a change in the public’s willingness to take a critical look at our leaders. Maybe this healthy skepticism is the result of what has happened in Wall Street, or any number of the let-downs we keep reading about in the newspapers. Just the fact that the papers are now reporting freely about things that they would have avoided ten years ago is an example of this new change.

However we all reached this point, this website will ride the trend and discuss things that should have been discussed years ago, in an effort that others will not fall in the same traps and make the same mistakes.