Is This Thing On?

As a wandering commentor and grateful reader of informative sites showing the progressive side of Canada, I'd like to thank the DJ! crew for allowing me to sit on the team bench and yell encouragement to the big hitters.

I personally consider blogs to be heirs of the pamphleteers of previous centuries, a mix of passionate opinion and underheard intellect vying with sheer whackadoodle bravado for readers, and in the process, setting the drinkeries abuzz with argument, mockery and excitement. Perhaps, as in those times, they're even being monitored by the State as radicals.

I understand some people on the bleeding edge of the internets are debating whether blogs are becoming staledated when there is the immediacy of Twitter and other hotshot communications delivery methods now. Speaking as a less connected Canadian, I simply don't have timely access or visual acuity to keep on top of those immediate forms while I am on the move during the day. Some people can be brilliant and succinct off the top of their heads given 140 characters. Most of us? Me? 140 characters? I appreciate the chance to sit down and absorb the work of a number of interesting opinions and the references they offer.

Whether I can be an interesting opinion is a good question, one others will have to answer. DJ! has kindly given me keys to the printing room and I am happy to be one of the ink-stained wretches under its banner, daring the greatest truth and power of the internet, 'verba volant, scripta manent'. Words fly away but writing remains.