thing #11

People need feedback to keep their mind open and engaged. The beauty of and problem with blogs is that they are editorial and opinionated. Factual blogs generate no conversation and are merely postings of data. A good blog is based on fact, but includes the authors interpretation of those facts. Speaking of opinion, let me share a controversial one here that would have certainly generated some comments were it not coming in the eleventh hour. I think that one of the reasons our country's politics have become so devisive is that most people chose only to read, hear and interact with others that hold similar opinions. Any information that filters into this hermetic environment is usually skewed, incomplete and/or out of context to make that person/party/group/religion/opinion seem nonsensical. Having moved around a lot, being in a multi-racial and multi-cultural marriage (my wife's parents are both from part of India that is now Pakistan, but she was born in Uganda and grew up in London before coming here) and having had many occupations (computer data entry, day care supervisor, truck driver, army medic, car salesman, teacher, coach) I have the fantastic privelage of being in touch with the broadest array of viewpoints. I certainly dissaggree with many of them much of the time, but I find that they are seldom completely out of touch with reality (most of the time) regardless of their political/social/ethnic/religeous views. OK, I'm rambling, let me get to the assignment.

I have commented on Nancy's, Jeff's, Janie's, Margaret's and Bobo's blogs. I selected Nancy 'cause she's the boss of this thing, Jeff because I need to pick his brain to teach Physics next year, Janie and Margaret because they are also not finished yet and Bobo because I needed five. I have also made many comments to my friend Amy's blog. she is a terrific writer and has a very strange sense of reality about very common things she blogs about. I have also been commenting 4 or 5 times a day to blackboard because I am taking a UCLA class online. Many of my comments are simply encouragement when someone is feeling frustrated, some are reinforcing a blog I agree with. A few comments voice my disagreement with an opinion and (especially in my online class) I am voicing my complete lack of understanding of the topic of conversation.