On the road

My first blog entry and I’m excited. I’m a 50-year-old writer schooled completely in the print world, newspapers, magazines and books. The bronze age.

I want to blog for a whole bunch of reasons: because it’s the way the world is going and I want to keep up, because I think blogging might liberate journalism from its corporate cellblock, because like every other blogger there are things I want to say that aren’t getting said, and because it looks fun.

Some more about point 3, the things that aren’t getting said that I want to say. (My unique perspective.) I come from a progressive background. I grew up in the Democratic left, cheering the civil rights movement, opposing the Vietnam war. As I oppose the Iraq war now, though politically I’m an independent. And, I’m part of the great Jewish leap, the meritocracy; in my generation, my tribe became part of the American establishment, went from outside to inside. I was inside that bubble, it’s something I think about. I’m an internationalist. The world is getting smaller by the minute and we have to figure out what Rodney King said years ago in L.A., how to get along. One reason blogging is important is, I think America has lost its way. We’re no longer a light unto the world. This period politically is worse than the 50s, and how are we going to awaken from it?

And point 4, the fun part. The things I love are: sports and writing and music and dogs and the outdoors. Right now I love Muriel Spark in the artistic stratosphere and George Mason University in the NCAA’s. Some of that stuff is bound to leak in at the edges on this site.

Well that’s a start.