Anniversary

This one sort of snuck up on me. It's been just over a whole year (first post: June 18, 2005; first combox contributor: Kathy Shaidle) since I began this Dawg's Blawg project. As the frog says, "Time's fun when you're having flies."

I don't want to talk about the flies, but I'll say a few words about the project.

I'm a returning student at the moment, exploring the field of anthropology, and my studies so far have robbed me of the last vestiges of orthodoxy. Attentive readers, and I have been blessed with a few of those, might see a progression in my thinking, a growing uncertainty. It's the postmodern condition. I'm on the Left, make no mistake, comrades, although some days I'm not sure what that means. The notion of "progress" itself is a huge, contested one, so when I call myself a "progressive," I'm referring these days to that constellation of values and principles that has been historically associated with the Left. I think I'll leave that one vague for now. Precision in these things leads to countless false trails and metaphysical divagations. I really have very little idea, at the moment, of What Is To Be Done, at least in the long term. Putting Harper back in the bottle, though, strikes me as a good short-term goal.

My blog gives me a chance to explore ideas, and to write: it's much-needed discipline. I have little patience with the kind of blogging that consists essentially of getting up early, scouring Google News and other blogsites, and posting links to articles with brief bolded quotes from them. Well, let me be entirely honest: sometimes such bloggers do provide interesting paths to follow. It's like having research assistants, only cheaper. Thank you. You know who you are.

I'm a proud member, and now a moderator, of Progressive Bloggers, a huge tent that extends from the right (Nav Purewal, who calls Margaret Wente "Sister") to, well, my trusty benchmark leftist over at La Revue Gauche, Eugene Plawiuk. The place is chock-full of Liberals, but that's just the way it is, and I've learned to accept it, if not always graciously. I'm a card-carrying NDP member (sometimes I have no idea why), but consider myself non-aligned enough to join James Bow's blogroll with a clear conscience. I've managed to annoy that dreadful brat Warren Kinsella, and I've chatted with both Antonia Zerbisias and Rondi Adamson about our mutual love of dogs. I whistle along with the Dust My Broom folks when Darcey puts up his Friday night blues set. Sometimes, at least, "there is no right wing or left wing... there is only up wing an' down wing."

So I'm well-anchored in the blogosphere, if that isn't too mixed a metaphor, and I'm liable to stick around. I should probably be spending much more time on Useful Pursuits, but, like "losing a few pounds," this may be a fond and foolish dream. I hope the next year will be as much fun as this last one has been, and thanks to everyone who helped to make it that way.