Cogito Ergo Blogito

The excellent movie Miracle dramatizes the amazing victory of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team over the Soviet Team and the events that led up to it. Coach Herb Brooks had his work cut out for him in trying to mold a group of young men who’d never played together before into a world-class team. His task was made all the more challenging by the fact that several of the players had been on opposite sides of one of the nastiest brawls in college hockey history. Resentment was still strong, and an open fight broke out on the ice one day at practice, according to the movie. Mr. Brooks let the players fight for a while and then put a stop to it. Then he asked them to introduce themselves and get to know each other a little better. It was a small but significant step toward building a team.

In the wake of the latest Virginia Blog Carnival spat, one of my liberal counterparts has taken a page from Coach Brooks’ playbook. She’s hosting a Carnival that seeks to nurture understanding and respect among the differring factions of the Virginia blogosphere and is offerring an opportunity to re-introduce ourselves to our community. It’s a gracious move on her part.

As regular readers of this blog know, I’m not much given to public navel-gazing. But in the interests of making nice, here goes:

I started blogging in September 2005 because I was bored to tears at a new job and needed an intellectual outlet. A year later, still bored, I quit and returned to freelance writing. Now I have some wonderful clients and the opportunity to write thoughtful essays that get published.

So why do I still blog? Because I love blogging. Sometimes people ask me what my blog is about. It’s about the things I care about. It’s about policy and politics. It’s about culture. It’s about the sanctity of life and the importance of community. It’s where I can say things without saying them. It’s where I can experiment. It’s where I can share some of the great opportunities that I enjoy. It’s where I use satire, common sense, and the lessons of history to advocate a better world as I envision it. It’s where I can be all of me, where the parts of me that have been misunderstood or just plain unwelcomed at jobs, at church, at school can come together. My blog is the anti-Seinfeld blog; it’s about everything, or at least everything that I care enough to post about.

It’s also an entree into a community. It’s an opportunity to help old friends and meet new ones. Meeting fellow bloggers was one of the best things about Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s Bloggers’ Day this January, and it’s one of the things I’m most looking forward to about the Blogs United Conference this August.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me? Seriously, what do you think about this blog? What would you like to see more of? Less of? One of the best things about leaving the world of bosses behind is that I can respond to the market. So let me know if you have thoughts. But remember–the point of this post is to make nice.

Leslie Carbone

I fell in love with travel on a trip to Mexico when I was nine years old.  Since then, I’ve travelled the globe from Israel to El Salvador.  I’ve skied the Swiss Alps and hiked national parks like Acadia, Zion, Shenandoah, and Virgin Islands.  I’ve marvelled at masterpieces in the Prado, the Uffizi, the Huntington, and the National Gallery of Art.  I’ve stayed in a cabin on a mountaintop in Norway and on a kibbutz along the Sea of Galilee, and been kicked out of the Ritz at the Place Vendôme.  I’ve taken cooking classes from New England to the Caribbean, and watched a chef prepare traditional shakshuka in the kitchen of his restaurant in Tel Aviv.  I weave historical research and my personal experiences together in writing this blog.  I hope you find it helpful.  Read more …