A few words to live by on my blog:
- Kindness. I will strive to post as my best self, and to refrain from posting intemperately. I will try to remember that the people I am responding to are human beings who also have their good and bad days. If I post something that I feel is unfair or unneccessarily unkind, I will apologize and either take it down or make a new post, whichever is more appropriate. I do not intend to hide my mistakes or lapses but I will delete a post if I feel that leaving it up hurts others more than leaving up the evidence of my stupidity is worth.
- Corrections. I am eager to learn of any errors in my posts and will attempt to correct errors as swiftly as I can. However, a willingness to make corrections should not be mistaken for a willingness to accomodate readers who are simply unhappy about something that has been posted. I continue to reserve the right to have my own opinion.
- Respecting others’ privacy. I strive not to blog what I don’t own. This includes life experiences I consider myself to have joint ownership of, including experiences in my marriage to my wife, work experiences that I share ownership of with coworkers, employers, employees, and constituents, and things mentioned to me or e-mailed to me by friends and acquaintances.For these experiences, I will follow the “Friendly Stranger” rule: I won’t blog anything about another private individual that I would consider out of bounds to talk about while waiting for a bus with a friendly person at the bus stop. Example: I might mention that my daughter is in high school, or that I had a friend who won a literary award. Items more personal than that are either private property of that person, or, if they involve a shared experience, are joint property that I will not share without prior permission from that person. I will consider something public and repeatable, with proper attribution, if they write about it first on their own blog. Also exempt from this rule are public figures including people who run for public office and celebrities.I will never share a commenter’s email address for any reason.
- Linking. I attempt to provide links to all material I quote on this blog, and also to the site that pointed me to the material of interest wherever possible.
- Fair Use. I will refrain from reproducing more of a post or an article than is neccessary to make my point, and provide links back to the author’s blog or original publication wherever possible. Preservation exception: Many online publications make articles unavailable after a short period of time, often only days. If I am quoting an article that comes from such a publication, I may quote at greater length in order to preserve the sense and content of my weblog.
- Comments and the “Living Room Doctrine.” I consider my blog to be a virtual extension of my living space. As such, any comments that I would find threatening or offensive if said to me in person in my living room will be deleted. It’s fine to disagree with me – I allow that in my living room. Not fine is unbridled hostility, name calling, etc., either towards me or towards other commenters. No sock puppets – commenters who change their ID solely for the purpose of making a new comment seem like it is coming from a second commenter. Spam and off-topic comments will be removed.
- Transparency. The rules by which this blog is run will always be available to be viewed by any reader via a readily accessible link. If I make changes to these rules, the change will be noted as a new entry in my blog. If I realize that there is an important but tacit rule that governs part of this site, I will attempt to make it explicit.
- Money. This website is a noncommercial enterprise. A friendly recommendation about a product or service is okay, but this is not the place for a sales pitch. Try the blog two doors down.
Now back to our regularly scheduled chaos, already in progress.
Rummaging About 