Peace Tree Farm

Wood or silverware

Five years ago tomorrow, I wrote Peace Tree Farm’s very first post (reproduced below). Those readers wishing to commemorate the occasion might want to consult this webpage before deciding on an appropriate gift.

Another year, another blog…

I can’t say what shape this enterprise will eventually take. There are daily events worthy of comment and discussion, in a myriad of arenas, but the one or ones that inspire me to bat out a few words can’t be predicted. It might be a political decision or it might be a baseball game; a piece of music or a magazine article; scientific research or a well-cooked meal.

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.

As the title says, today is opening day. Who’s pitching tomorrow???

You’ll have to be the judge of whether the 326 entries written since then have lived up to that original intent. In that time span, my subject matter has been vastly more on politics than on baseball, music, or magazines. A sign of the times, no doubt. I’ve mentioned Woodstock three times; the death of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or Martin Luther King Jr. six times; Herman Melville not at all; Bill James once; Dylan ten times (he’s been the topic of five posts); and Dan Bern once.

My blogging history has been one of diminishing returns. I wrote 142 posts in PTF’s first year, over 43% of my entire output. Year Two totaled 69 blog posts, followed by 47 in Year Three, 46 in Year Four, and just 23 (including this one) in Year Five. It isn’t entirely that I have become less productive in that time period, though I must admit that sloth and outrage fatigue have played a not-insignificant role. I’d prefer to believe that the largest portion of my decrease in blogging is a reflection of the numerous progressive blogs—both here in the PacNW and throughout the land—that have created such a vibrant netroots community. I was here in blogtopia (y!sctp) ahead of the great majority of them, but it bothers me not in the slightest that I have been eclipsed by so many others. With insightful, acute, talented, and prolific writers like Goldy and his HorsesAss colleagues, Dan Kirkdorffer at On The Road To 2008, Dave and Sara at Orcinus, and many others wielding influence in the Washington political scene, whatever I might come up with would be (at best) a “me too” afterthought. And then there are the remarkable national progressive blogs like digby’s Hullabaloo and the immense orange community created by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.

I still spend a lot of, probably too much, time reading the thoughts and ideas of those other lefty-bloggers. And I’m a fairly regular, and very longtime, diarist and commenter on dKos. So it’s not like I’ve completely stifled myself on the web.

Will the next year see more frequent posts here? I won’t promise that, but I do hope I can find the inspiration within myself to create material worth your reading-time, and hopefully more such content than I’ve produced recently. Even if I’m long-silent, though, I expect to be here in 366 days to mark my candy/iron blogiversary.

Posted by N in Seattle on 01/01 at 01:51 PM