Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, January 05, 2012 8:57:18 AM
It has been my policy for over a year now to avoid current events. It is not so much that current events are unimportant, or that they hold no interest for me, it is just that I recognize my limitations. Those who succeed at current events reporting are either (1) those who have connections and can break stories thanks to insider information, (2) those who dedicate a lot of their time to following current events and so can publish insights before they occur to others or (3) those who publish either pithy or inflammatory articles which are brief and exciting enough to generate a following. I know I have no contacts so the first is out. I don't have the time to commit for the second (though I respect those who do). And I am too even handed and too interested in telling the whole story, while being fair to all the details to be the sort of "throwing red meat to the faithful" (yes, horribly mixed metaphor, I know...) writer who succeeds. So, I decided that, if I ever will enjoy success, it will come from what I did well before, that is, provide lengthy analysis of events along with some novel solutions (such as my proposal for rotating primaries which got me my first attention from TH magazine -- "
Fixing the Primaries") Of course, I also have stopped posting comments on the professional pundits' pages, and thus I do not draw the traffic I once did, but that is not important. The point here is, traffic small or large, I just don't have a writing style or demeanor suited to a successful current events blog, while, though I may not presently have the readers, my personality favors a more theoretical, general political and economic issues blog.
However, since there is a presidential election taking place, and one which is somewhat interesting (though I admit not one of the candidates has yet truly excited me), I am tempted to throw my hat in the ring one last time. So far, I am resisting, just as I am resisting writing on various small and large current events, and have done so for some time. But, even by consciously avoiding news, as try to do when this temptation strikes, I am finding it hard to avoid commenting on recent election events. (And my recent post "
Why Ron Paul Scares Me" shows I am not completely successful). So, if from time to time a small current events post slips through, please forgive me that lapse, I try to keep to my general plan for this blog, but every so often, I get a bit off course. Rest assured, sometime in early November, all temptation will be over. So we only have to make it through about 11 more months.
To end on a positive note, I have realized something useful. From my response to temptation, I have realized I made a good decision in not following a monastic career. (Of course, not being a Christian, it was probably not a career open to me in any case...)
One final "final" note: I am still feeling pretty ill, but my hands are free of pain for the moment, so I may try to squeeze in some sort of post before I feel worse again. If I do, please don't feel offended if I take a while to respond to any comments. My illness seems to come and go recently, so while I may manage to get some writing done, there is no guarantee I will still feel anywhere near as functional when it comes time to reply to readers.