I’m thinking about how to make use of the suggestions offered in the comments to my previous post. First I want to elaborate on something I said here and try to give you a little insight into what I’m up to.

When I mentioned high standards, I was not talking about how well you use grammar, punctuation, imagery and tropes. I was talking about a standard of intellectual discourse. You folks are the best group of bloggers that I know when it comes to calling bullshit when you see it. A lot of you make it seem like an art form. You don’t sugarcoat anything, and you don’t care whether it’s primary season or not. You say fuck when you see something that ought to make decent people say that. I’m amazed by how well you’ve kept this up over time. That sort of honesty is in my mind the most important element that is missing from our public discourse. It’s a big part of what’s wrong with the media. We need more of it if we’re ever going to get to the point where enough people are willing to put bodies on the line to change this country, and I am afraid that is exactly where we’re gonna have to go before we’re done.

My hesitation to post here doesn’t have anything to do with my confidence as a writer. I’m sure I can hold my own with most people in that department. I identify myself primarily as a writer, no matter what job I happened to be doing at any given time. I’ve been a writer since I wrote my first poem in 1984. It only took one to get me hooked, and when I look back on my life up to this point, the most miserable times were the times when I wasn’t writing anything. The hesitation I expressed is more about my confidence as a thinker and my confidence in my ability to put it on the line and let the chips fall where they may. Lucky for me, that gets easier with practice.