TFR

Hey Quad… is there a way to see the Dashboard a different way, or are we stuck with this very blue look? ::chuckle::. It’d be better for me if it were all white or something. I just can’t find the writing spirit on this layout. It’s way too cold. Not your fault, of course.

Anyway, Gary Kamiya’s most recent essay, as usual, channels my intentions perfectly.

He articulates the core motivation as to why I’ve wanted to separate TFR from tfr. While I do believe the personal is political, I certainly don’t believe politics is everything. Hence, I’ve long wanted to make a distinction in my writing/weblogging life, between considerations of politics and everything else—literature, movies, personal life, parenting, technology, OS X, etc. ad infinitum.

So yeah… looking forward to TFR’s birth, hopefully soon buddy! No pressure, though. Keep going as you are. (But I’d love to have even a beta version up and runninng soon, so I can begin the project.)

First of all, I need to thank Quad for giving me this space on his server, and using his amazing design/layout, which I feel can be truly productive for me.

Thank you, Quad! And please forgive me for being so impatient. ;p But I think you understand why.

For anyone who has faithfully read the free radical all these years, you know how I’ve acquired an edge about America, American culture, America’s polity. An edge of fear, really… I fear what this country is becoming, or has become.

I’ve spoken out, to be sure, but have often felt a solitary voice in the wilderness. I know that’s not true, though. I know how many friends and family of mine feel, how they resonate with what I have had to say or observe.

And yet clearly, that kind of shared sentiment isn’t enough. That’s not going to be nearly enough to thwart societal forces now arrayed against enlightened civilization. I know this is a sweeping claim, but I aim to help provide a coherent voice with which to define the reality we all face. Note: “to help provide” … which means, being involved in a grassroots, communitarian, effort. Not an individualistic, Quixotic, one.

This weblog is only one node among many (I hope!), in this effort.

The reality of American society and culture’s evolving is a complex one, to be sure, but through this weblog I hope to provide a coherent voice describing and framing that reality. And to provide a platform on which other clear-thinking people might speak out.

Next: a non-ideological stance.

You do want to change the world, right? (Or at the very least, the United States of America, by perhaps being its President one day.) I always thought that a valuable, valiant sentiment. An honorable one, particularly in this day and age of political apathy and the disingenuousness of the typical American persona. <– I have no idea what the latter part of that sentence means; I’m just typing in fill-text. ::chuckle::

Let me be your first critic, then… towards the goal of holding you to honesty, transparency, and compassion.

(in “progress”)