Whither Winds

amateur

am·a·teur

[am-uh-choor, -cher, -ter, am-uh-tur]

noun

1. a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons. Compare professional.

I've always considered my blogging habit to be a hobby, rather than work. While it has opened professional doors to me and taught me things that I use in my work, I've never made any significant fraction of my income from blogging, nor have I ever set out a career path for myself that blogging regularly about politics or world affairs was ever a meaningful part of. It's always been fun; I work ideas out in public, people correct them, I meet interesting people in the discussions - how can this be bad?

But for the last few months, it's been a struggle rather than a joy. I've tried hard to power through and rediscover the pleasure but with no success.

It's just not there. And worse, as my activity ramped down, traffic on the site ramped down and the interaction that really drove me to write started to slowly become thinner and thinner - which was no one's fault but my own.

You folks - who are reading this now - are a core group who I enjoy debating, learning from, and too often - lecturing at. I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

But I don't want a job in a think tank writing the occasional paper and responding to the news - maybe when I retire, I'll try and start one. I'm not running for office, there's really nothing I want from you all except the pleasure of dialog.

And to get that, it needs to be a pleasure and I need to be a participant. And, bluntly, I've been an increasingly bad one for the last few months.

Facebook and Twitter have some of the blame here; I fire off quick thoughts on both and that serves as an outlet (not as satisfactory, to be sure, but better than nothing.

But I'm just bored and unmotivated. And since I've always been an amateur at this, the difference between a professional - who delivers when bored and unmotivated - and an amateur - who doesn't - is pretty significant.

So here's my plan. I won't be writing here for a while, if ever. I will move this site to WordPress, so that the archive can be preserved and maintained and others who have author raights may decide to pick up their participation. I will also relaunch the old content from my Armed Liberal site so it's available as well.

And then I'm going to take a break from all this and think about what interests me and where I might fit. I'd love to hear from you what you think I ought to do - suggestions here are most welcome!

For now, some of it will be on Twitter, and I encourage you to follow me at @marcdanziger.

In the interim, some of it may be on other sites - I'm looking around for someplace where I can do the occasional piece and the guys at Blackfive have more than graciously offered to let me post there. I feel kind of weird about it - first, I'm not and have never been a soldier, and I don't want to be perceived as something I'm not. It's also a different audience, although one I respect as well. I'm looking at other sites, and welcome suggestions as to who might appreciate an occasional piece from me.

I'm not done thinking or talking about these issues. We face immense problems - and opportunities - and out political class is as feckless as they have ever been. Radical Islam still battles for dominance within the Muslim world, and the outcome of that fight will matter a great deal to me and to all of us. Middle and working class people here in America have no party that truly supports them - and they should. But I'm not sure where or in what format I can best participate in a dialog about these things. Maybe I'll re-engage here or on a solo site. We'll see.

There will always be commentators worth mocking (hi, Matt Yglesias!) and worth following (hello Leah Farrall). So I'm sure that at some point something will happen.

But this chapter is, as others have said about other events this week, closing. I can't wait to see what the new chapter will bring.

So long, and thanks to everyone who had read me here, agreed with me or better still, argued with me. You're all my teachers, and I've learned a lot.
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SFC. Carlos Santos-Silva

Today is the anniversary of his death in Afghanistan, where he served with my son. He is survived by his widow Kristen and son Cameron, and by all those who remember him.

My son was in town this weekend, and last night after dinner he and a guest were talking about his time in Afghanistan. Our guest asked him about good memories, and he talked about the day they were on mounted patrol, drove through a town where they smelled a delicious bakery and all talked about it. On the trip back, SFC. Santos-Silva called a halt, set up a perimeter and overwatch, and walked into the bakery, buying everything on the shelves and some "disgustingly sweet" local energy drink.

They drove back to the COP eating fresh pastry and laughing...

Godspeed.

Update: Corrected SFC Santos-Silva's rank.
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Thomas Lynch 1927 - 2011

My mother's partner, an Irish physicist who had stories and love enough for ten men. And if that weren't enough reason to love him, he adored the boys and they adored him.

Have a glass of Knob Creek or Tullamore (neat) and drink to a life damn well lived.
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PRAYER

My mom called at midnight last night.

She never married Tom Lynch; for the last 20 years, they have just been together - having fun, feuding, taking care of each other. And for the last 20 years, he's been an integral part of our lives, and of the lives of the boys - all of whom adore him.

Tom has a relationship with his own children - I think nine of them - that we don't completely see; there is history there going back far into their shared past. But his children have this amazing history of success. Colum Lynch of the Washington Post, Niall Lynch of Latham, the televison producers Joey and Tom Lynch...and those are just the ones I know of.

For the last year, mom has been amazingly selfless in caring for Tom as he's battled with kidney disease, heart disease, and then lung cancer. Then as Tom's energy and capabilities declined, she had been working with him family to get Tom into an assisted living facility.

Too late.

Last night he fell and broke his hip, and he's now in the hospital in Santa Monica on a respirator as his condition declines rapidly.

He missed our family birthday dinner two weeks ago - said he didn't feel well enough to come, and asked us to come by later, not that day. We said "Sure" and made plans to see him after this trip.

Don't ever do that...go then regardless.

I want to rush home from North Carolina where I write this, but I know that it's his family's movie now, and that I need to keep myself - we need to keep ourselves - to the background.

But I can do one thing. Tom was a devout Irish Catholic in the years we knew him, and I can ask all of you to pray for him today.
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Dating Advice From The Armed Liberal (A Replay)

Since I'm working on Valentine's eve, it occurs to me that I ought to repost an old favorite of mine about dating from back in the day (2003) when TG and I were...and publicly wish my wife a Happy Valentine's Day to boot!

So Tenacious G (my [then-] sweetie) and I went out for our pre-Valentine's Day dinner last night. We have the boys Friday, and it'll be a zoo everywhere, so we went to our favorite neighborhood bistro and had a nice dinner together.

Which was slightly spoiled by the conversation at the next table. I'm usually pretty good at filtering, and too polite to acknowledge that I'm eavesdropping (or reading your mail upside down on your desk), but this was just too much, in every sense of the word.

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Happy New Year

I've been the Absent Blogger lately, and the Management is working to see what it can do about that for the coming year.

But I didn't want New Year's to pass without sharing a greeting, and expressing how happy and relieved I am that 2010 - a year of loss, risk, and fear for so many - that our family was truly lucky and blessed.

This picture - our Christmas card for the year - says it all.

The photographer, Stephanie Pullman, did a number of portraits of the boys when they were very young. I happened to run into her at a Long Beach Opera performance, and amazingly she recognized me.

It was that kind of year for us, and I hope that the luck we've had this year will continue into the next.

And I hope that each of you is as fortunate in the ways that matter to you.

Happy New Year, and lift a mug of coffee to absent companions.
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Armed Liberal's Thanksgiving 2010

So I'm wrapping up work and sitting down to go over my recipes and break them down into a shopping list; we'll start brining the turkey and figuring out how to tidy the downstairs next.

Tomorrow afternoon, we'll have my mom, my brother and his wife, our son Littlest Guy, and our friends Norm and Jill and an orphan or two. Middle Guy and his mom will drop by, and we'll wind up the day in a food, conversation, game, and alcohol haze.

That's the basics of the event, but it doesn't say much about what it means.

Tomorrow's a day when we're supposed to be grateful, which always sounds kind of schoolmarmish - aren't we supposed to be grateful every day? But - like Veteran's Day which is a day when we get reminded about something, I'm happy to set the day aside.

Like many but not all in America and the world, we've been blessed this year.

We have a lovely home - and we're current on the mortgage.

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