I am sure this is an odd way to start, but it has the advantage of being honest and it might even inspire someone else who has similar difficulties. I have no idea what the hell I am doing and even less confidence that the application of time and diligence is going to get me out of this mess. I don’t understand how all the technical stuff about blogging works, don’t understand what all the various terms mean (widgets? Plug-ins? Permalinks?) and can’t figure out how to wade through the endless pages and pages of instructions that would have no less significance for me if they had been written in Sanskrit.
All I wanted to do was launch a blog so that I could write about the only two topics that I presumably know anything about: sports and politics. As I presume anybody who reads this may know, I blogged for nearly four years when I was the editor of Sports Collectors Digest, but there I had help in wading through the admin stuff. Now I am on my own, huddled metaphorically in my basement in my pajamas trying to do it on my own and just getting madder and madder as it goes.
All I truly want at the moment is to be able to blog and maybe drop in a picture now and then to either illustrate the blog or maybe sell something. As the site title suggests, I’ve revived the old OConnell and Son Ink company name first launched 28 years ago. The configuration of the company name was chosen out of respect to my father, who initially handled some of the mail-order duties during the first year of selling our Baseball Greats and Mini Prints card sets.
In the course of all this I am going to blog about the only two topics I’ve actually studied much over the last 30 years. I’ve worked in sports for much of my adult life, emphasis on baseball, which I adore; I’ve anguished over politics over the same span, mostly out of a deepening sense of frustration that its highlighted participants have served so ignobly and bizarrely that it’s little less than a miracle that the republic has survived.
I fully understand that somebody who might be interested in my views on sports might not care to read along as I blather about politics – or vice versa – but I suppose that can’t be avoided. It’s even more likely that somebody might be fervently opposed to my views, but that’s hardly a reason to abandon the idea. I would say that if you can talk about something in a tavern, you can talk about it here. With equal ardor and commitment.
If somebody wants to respond to one of my blogs, I’ve got to point out that I don’t even know how that works, either. If I ever pick up on any of this at all – hardly a certainty at this point – it will doubtless be a “learn as you go process.” I would note that there’s one aspect of the development and expansion of the Internet and all its various permutations that I absolutely despise: anonymity.We’ll have none of that here.
Anybody who wants to weigh in on any topic whatsoever is welcome to do so, but I’ve got to insist upon a name and city address. No one will ever convince me that the determination made early on in the development of the Internet that it was a good idea to allow people to savage one another online without clearly delineated attribution. I understand that anonymous quotes about public policy, etc., have a vital role in modern journalism, but I draw a huge distinction between that important element of modern news gathering and the often malicious gibberish and libelous claptrap that routinely shows up in online forums, blogs and the like.
And with that I am going to sign off until the morrow. I haven’t got the slightest clue if any of this is going to work or what it will look like if it does.
- T.S.O’Connell