Through the kind invitation of my friend, columnist and former FPRI analyst, Bruce Kesler, the well-regarded blog, Democracy Project, is running my guest post “Modern Foreign Policy Execution” subtitled “Instead of Crowning a New Czar, Bush Should Ignite A Revolution“, where I offer some suggestions for changing the decidedly broken, interagency process for foreign policy. A brief excerpt:
Blogging
It’s a Small, Small Internet
My daughter sent me the following email:
i thought you’d like to know one of my co-workers was reading your blog and taking to me about it, without knowing who you or I were. Then yesterday your blog posting was sent to me on myspace. You’re all over the web and in the middle of the lancet study debate still. Just thought you would find it funny.
Sticky Posts and More
I’m experimenting with ways to make it easier for occasional readers of this blog to quickly find the weightier posts here, without compromising readability for people who read more often. That’s why I’ve been sticking selected posts to the top of the page.
Thoughts on Blogging in the Guise of Suggestions to Prof. Macfarlane
I notice that Prof. Macfarlane has several “experiments” with new media. I was going to send him my thoughts, but decided I’d post them here instead.
Two of his experiments are blogs. One called How the World Works is a restatement of parts of his book Letters to Lily, which is a book written in the form of letters to his teenage granddaughter. The other is entitled Hammer of Evil. In his words, It imagines what two medieval Inquisitors who wrote the very influential anti-witchcraft manual, ‘The Hammer of Evil’ (Malleus Maleficarum
But, without regard to the substance of these two blogs, I think the good professor is missing some key elements of what makes a blog “work”. Of course, at its most basic level, a blog is like a scrolling piece of paper with posts on it. It can be about anything or random things or nothing or just photos. It is a blank slate.
However, as the term has come to be used a blog usually has certain characteristics. The main one, in my view, is that its writer or writers are conducting a conversation. The blog is part of a dialogue with the larger world.
A blog, in its essence, as the term has come to be understood and employed, is an extended and ongoing conversation.
Happy New Year
It has been a bittersweet year for us – but isn’t it always? One more daughter married, two moved farther away, the third becoming a woman so quickly.
In this year, one of my joys has been the companionship with both the Chicagoboyz and the Chicagoboyz readers – somehow we are becoming a community defined by the most abstract and yet important of links. Thanks to you all for this year – and thanks to Jonathan, may he long have the patience to keep this rowdy house party going.
And Youtube, with all its faults, brings us memories before most of us (even me) have many of them. And Burns’ lyrics.
Burns’ verse:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ?
CHORUS:For auld lang syne, my dear,for auld lang syne,we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
And surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUSWe twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin’ auld lang syne.
CHORUSWe twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin’ auld lang syne.
CHORUSAnd there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
And gies a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS