Saturday, January 02, 2010

Seven years ... and counting

Seven years ago, to the day, I wrote the first post on Peace Tree Farm.  It included the following:

Whatever I happen to discuss, my viewpoint will be one of seeking rationality, of following the subject to its logical conclusion ... even if that logic sometimes takes us to a reductio ad absurdum.  It’s a viewpoint tempered by 50-some years of living, by two years residence in the Pacific Northwest after spending most of my days in the Northeast, by a career of research into healthcare and the quality thereof, by Woodstock and the assassinations, by close observation of governments in action, by Herman Melville and Bill James, by Bob Dylan and Dan Bern, and by much, much more.

My viewpoint remains pretty much the same, even as I approach 60-some years and even as I close in on nine years as a Seattlite.

As for the examples of what I might opine about, I haven’t written very much about healthcare quality (nor do I work in that particular field any more).  Woodstock was my subject on its 40th anniversary, and also an important part of my post on the 30th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation.  The murder of John Kennedy has been recalled on four anniversaries thereof—2003, 2004, 2006, and 2008.

Except for the reference on Opening Day, I haven’t said a word about Melville.  Moby Dick is on my re-reading list, but I can’t promise that its author will be on my topic list any time soon.  Though I’ve written often about baseball, particularly in the recent years of Phillies ascendance, Bill James has made only a single, peripheral, appearance in a blog post hereabouts.  In contrast, Dylan has graced these pages regularly.  I marked his 64th and 65th birthdays, expressed my amazement when he did some bizarre TV ads, and referred to him or his lyrics any number of times over the years.  Finally, I was surprised how rare were my mentions of Dan Bern.  Though I wrote a post extolling one of his finest songs, there hasn’t been all that much more about Dan.  If he ever comes back this way on tour, I’ll be sure to put up a post about it.

In any case, the Peace Tree Farm blog now moves into its eighth year of existence.  I won’t pretend to suggest that my words have been of any great value to the world at large.  After all, although this was the Pacific Northwest’s first liberal blog—Dave Neiwert wrote the first entry on Orcinus six days after PTF’s debut—it may also be its smallest and least significant.  Hell, in these seven years I’ve drawn about as many visits and page views as DailyKos gets in two or three hours.  Insignificance ‘R’ us!