Six-year Blogiversary

Wow, I forgot that back on 2/22/03, I published my first post on this blog. Six years is like a millennium in blogger time and not many have lasted this long.

Aside from the period I was getting paid to write for AOL, this blog has posted nearly every day with a few weeks here and there that I was busy with other things. This is my 5,932nd post to this site or over two a day during the duration. I don't know how many hits I've had total because I didn't add Sitemeter until well into my third year.

In that time, I've been linked by blogs large--such as Instapundit--and small and for that I am thankful. Any writer, whether they be on the op/ed page of the NY Times or some scrub like me sitting in my home office wants to get the widest exposure for their work. I may not be grammatically correct all the time but I have an opinion just like anyone and getting it out there is what this whole medium is about. I may not be a "trained jounalist" either but why is my opinion worth any less than one who is?

I look to continue doing this for another six, twelve or thirty two years and will not stop for any reason I can see. The job of the press in this country and the reason we are specifically protected by the 1st Amendment is so that we can criticize our elected leaders as we see fit. The "press" is no longer what Pinch Sulzberger says it is but what you and I say it is. Our job is to watch our politicians and make them be responsible and ethical or expose them when they are not. Unfortunately, some in Congress have a differing definition of what constitutes "free speech" but we'll expose them too.

Many members of news organizations and dailies, entities once known as the "press", have fallen down on the job and bloggers have picked up the flag and marched forward. The success can be measured by the increase in blog reading and the decrease in professional news reporting.

I'm going to continue with this great experiment that would make Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin proud. With blogs, great essays akin to Paine's Common Sense are being written daily. Blogs are political and social criticism taken to the Nth degree and have made more than a few targets uncomfortable. With the state of the country right now, blogs will only grow stronger in my opinion as people go to outside sources for information they aren't getting in the MSM.

Anyway, why say in one paragraph what can be said in five, right Scott? I just want to say thanks to those who read me daily, monthly or even just once. You are as much a part of this free-flowing dialogue as anyone and you're much appreciated.