Just doing what the voices tell me...

I used that line the other night in response to someone who has tried to "reason" with me about the futility of my latest internet project. I was being tongue in cheek, but I was also referring to something I've addressed before, in my story God, the Blue Puppy. As the mother of young children who watched Blue's Clues, I enjoyed the idea that God left little "clues" to let me know when I was on the right track toward fulfilling the purpose She has in mind for me.

Of course, now that my kids are 11 and 13, that show is a distant (sometimes pleasantly nostalgic) memory, so I don't talk about "God's Clues" any more. But from time to time I do feel "called", for lack of a better word, to take action. How do I know it's something I'm meant to do? 1. It feels out of character and scary. 2. The damn thing just won't go away. So, while I don't have a name for that insistent feeling that there is something I must do, there is an image/metaphor that seems to pop into my mind: Joan of Arc. Of course, the big problem with that...

...is that for Joan, it led to this.

And, you know, I am so not into that.

Of course I'm being metaphorical here--I don't expect to be barbecued. "Flamed" perhaps, in the good old-fashioned usenet sense, or potentially banned or reprimanded, depending on the site. Because the issue I currently feel that I must do something about, was spurred by the Orwellian-ly named Blogroll Amnesty Day. But it's not just about medium to small blogs being purged from the blogrolls of the "big dog" bloggers. It's about the increasingly evident consolidation of power that can be seen in some of the top ranking blogs. That's just wrong in my mind. The blogosphere has such potential to be truly democratic. As I wrote yesterday,

But the blogroll purge which, as I have already stated, does not affect me personally, has been the catalyst that prompted me to revisit some of these issues. Also an overarching issue that I have noticed over time: the man really tries to have it both ways. On the one hand, he's been quoted as saying that he is "not a leader" or that he's "just a guy with a blog". But on the other hand, he has often behaved like a very autocratic guy who just "happens" to have one of the most widely read blogs on the Democratic side of the aisle. And he has a great degree of power over what issues can see the light of day in front page posts.

This was starting to remind me of the situation with the mainstream media. They were controlled by interests other than "we the people", and they were too willing to play along with Bush during the buildup to the war in Iraq. They were also silent for far too long about the election integrity issues that many of us saw a mile away.

Anyway, in addition to work, digging out from the snow, and just generally the day to day responsibilities of an ordinary American who does *not* have ad space worth $9000 a week needs to keep up with, this is what I've been working on lately...