And Now, for Something Not So Completely Different

Hi all,

Sorry for my unpardonable silence of late. For a number of reasons, I've been lax in keeping up with the blog over the summer. Here are some of them:

• I started the blog a bit too shortly after the fall of He Who Shall Not Be Named--I needed more of a rest!
• I had filled my plate over the summer with a number of other writing projects that had higher priority (rightly or wrongly).
• This current blog reminded me a bit too much of your typical, run-on-the-mill political bitch and moan blog, of which there are already way too many.
• A related point: my desire to link my academic interests in rhetoric with popular political commentary wasn't quite working in the context of this blog--at least not to the extent I hoped.
• I was growing weary of Blogger. It's a great program, but I was wanting to get a bit more sophisticated in my knowledge of website/blog stuff, and needed some time to get up to speed on what else was out there and how to use it.

The good news (at least from my point of view) is that I've resolved these issues to my satisfaction, and am launching the blog that this blog had aspired to be, but didn't quite make.

So, for your future reading pleasure (I hope), I direct you to the newly created (and still slightly under construction) Unfrozen Caveman Rhetorician.

You can read more about it in the "About" section on the website. My hope is that it will be a nicer blog in a number of ways, particularly as I get up to speed on some of the additional features and options I have on a blog hosted on my own domain and using Wordpress.

Don't look for daily postings--probably a couple a week. But I hope to attract enough folks willing to chip in with comments, arguments, retorts, etc., to keep it a place of ongoing conversation.

Oh, and as for He Who Shall Not Be Named, he might be inching his way out from under the rock he's been hiding beneath. As a visitor here noted, he has published columns in the conservative mag Human Events on the budgeting process (basically a recycled rehash of a some stale "Point" commentaries) and (wait for it!) the Fairness Doctrine ! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

While you're enjoying a chuckle over that, you'll also be amused to hear that he also popped up recently as an interview subject in a story posted on the right-wing news site CNSNews.com.

The topic of the story? Editorial political bias in the news media! BARHARHARHARHAR!!

Needless to say, if my scar starts burning, HWSNBN will be dealt with over at my new digs at UCR, and if, God forbid, the campaign season lures him out into the light of day, we'll take The Counterpoint out of mothballs and break him over our rhetorical knee.

Until that dark, and hopefully never-to-be-seen, day, I hope you visit UCR. Bring fire!

TJR