Coyote Crossing

Nothing on Gaza? Nothing?

I thought you, of all the front-line bloggers, would have had something by now.

I’m out the door, so my response about the dynamics of readers apparently feeling that writers owe them free articles on specific topics on demand will have to wait, as will my feelings about being declared a “front-line blogger.”

As for “something by now” on Gaza in the blog world, let me Google that for you.

Woot! Happy birthday!

Happy happy! New Year and birthday and life!

Jeez, you are only seven in dog years, that’s not that old.  But you are yet another awesome Capricorn, and we appreciate that.

Four things I like about this psot:
1) That you are so young, relatively speaking.
2) An introduction to “Let Me Google That for You.”
3) The tire tracks on the desert ground.
4) The tire tracks on ArthurF’s face.

I am shocked! How could you prioritize your priorities over your reader’s sense of entitlement. Especially a reader so devoted as to know you to be the go-to front-line political blogger for breaking news on world politics. How could you Chris? I am crestfallen.

In other non-breaking, non-front-line, non-political-world-news, have a great day of completion of yet another solar circumambulation, you old dog! My wife and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary on the same day!

Congratulations! And enjoy your break. I will check
out that link. I love photography.

I wish I had the brass balls to feel so entitled that I could read your diary then lambaste you for not writing about the things that are important to me.

But anyway…

Happy (belated) birthday, Chris!  I hit my latest milestone a few weeks ago as well, so I feel your need to wrap all the hoopla in one massive dose of ‘whatever’ capped with a New Year’s sleep-over (as in, sleep over the days in question and find yourself well and survived on the other side of it all…).  Be well!

Many happy returns. ;)

Not belated, jason! The day in question is the fourth.

Thank you all! It was the best birthday in a long time, as evidenced by the fact that I seem to have caught a cold doing it.

It was the best birthday in a long time, as evidenced by the fact that I seem to have caught a cold doing it.

Wow, you have all the luck.

Is your back hair turning grey yet?

Happy Birthday, young man!

Predictable pile-on aside, nice way to evade my question, and your responsibility to your readers. What happened to you that you stopped the political writing and embarked on this months long binge of navel-gazing?

your responsibility to your readers

Not sure what that means, Arthur. Could you enlighten me? I thought people wrote blogs, and other people read them, or not. There’s more?

The author here gets a thousand visits a day at least. He has a responsibility to alert those readers to what is actually happening in the world, and he seems to have decided that this basic human responsibility doesn’t apply to him. Aside from environmental issues and other such peripherally relevant issues, that is. I don’t think the people in Gaza care about the environment right now.

So why, “Arthur F,” does your name link to change.org instead of something you yourself are writing about Gaza—or whatever else it is that you think you owe the world?

He has a responsibility to alert those readers to what is actually happening in the world, and he seems to have decided that this basic human responsibility doesn’t apply to him

OK, I get it. You’re just being a dick. Good luck with that.

What a tired platform: Trying to tell a blogger what to do with their blog.  Yawn…

I’ve learned in past conversations not to feed trolls; therefore, I’ll just agree wholeheartedly with RobG!

There was a period, back when I was venting my frustrations in unconstructive political snark, where the site that was formerly in this space would on rare occasion reach—or surpass—a thousand visits a day. It’s about a tenth that now.

The higher traffic was, in part, due to my sense that readers expected certain things from me, and my feeling as if I ought to meet those expectations—giving the people what I though they wanted, whether or not I wanted to write it. It was an unhealthy relationship.

Environmental politics may seem peripheral if your blinders limit your gaze to the parochially human, but human politics is a subset of environmental reality. In any event, it’s what I am most qualified to comment upon and that’s where I’m expending my political energy on this blog.

That isn’t to say I’m unwilling to write pieces in response to reader request. Such an activity is generally called freelance writing, and my basic rate starts at $.50 per word.