This Web Blog was haphazardly produced without using Spell Check one danged time. We like it that way.

ESOTERICA: Yeah, the top country for readers here is still the USA. But only about 47% of the people reading this site come from America. More than 50% come from elsewhere. We're still trying to figure that out.

Our publisher - oops! forgot this is not a magazine any longer - I expect that as we begin to do new things at places elsewhere - places such as CinemActivist.com - we'll pique your interest.

12 July 2007: This Blog is only ten (10) days old and I've already received an e-mail saying I don't post enough. What the heck am I supposed to think about that? Do you think I don't have a Day Job that might require me to do like WORK when I'm not online?

("Yo, Rod! When are you not online?"

"Shut up, Little Man!")

After communicating with co-workers in Singapore, Toronto and San Antonio for my Real Job, I decided to take a break and come here and post. I hope you all are now happy that I show up more frequently.

My feeling is: Why post if you have nothing to say?

("Yo, Rod! When is it exactly that you have nothing to say?"

"You are starting to be a wise-ass and I don't apprecitate that.")

Let me see if I can get this right. We are the Web site that told you about Giuliani Time before that malefactor decided to run for President on the Republican ticket. Am I right? Aren't we the same people who brought you Danny Schecter's Weapons of Mass Deception? Or am I missing something here?

I wasn't here, of course, when G21.net talked about Jim Wallis's God's Politics. That must have been some other guy.

Okay, all sarcasm aside, I guess I'm saying that there is a cathedral of words, only one click away, on the left side of this page, to which I devoted almost twelve (12) years of my life. I'm done with that now and just playing over here. Posting daily? That's possible but not likely.

What I can do is come here when I have something to say.

9 JULY, 2007: If this weekend's Live Earth concerts and the last Democratic forum at MoveOn.org didn't prove anything other than one fact, this is the fact: Al Gore has set the agenda without even running for President of the United States. (Should I say "again?") He has made his central issue, global warming, one that can't be ignored. That's quite an achievement.

This 69 minute video from MoveOn. org (yeah, I said it! sixty-nine minute video) tells you how much the declared candidates f or the Democratic Party in the the USA take Gore's global warming issue seriously. They have to say something . Meanwhile, Al can stand back and grin.

Is he running for President again? Maybe he's too smart this time. One thing he is doing is setting the tenure of the debate and bringing up issues that people can't ignore. Maybe that was part of what he started doing when investing in CurrentTV. I'm sure I'm not the only person who noticed that.

There's a saying among those of us who have actually taken a punch that you can certainly be knocked down but that doesn't mean you're knocked out. I've been knocked down lots of times.

I have a friend out East named Walter Wells. Now there's a man who looks pugnacious, as the saying goes. He's taken a lot more punches than me. I always admired his ability to do so. Wally, as I know him, being one of his friends, could probably plow his face into a concrete wall - and likely has - if I recall his drinking habit correctly. But he's a man of pure heart who I would want at my back any time.

I bring this up because I think, when thinking about the relationship between Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones, they just might have the same feeling. Al and Tommy Lee, like Wally and I, have known each other a long time. That male bonding thing. There is something you learn about a man after knowing him for a number of years. There are words unspoken.

I asked Wally to make two phone calls for me - and I guess for him - to two people we have known all our lives. I heard - through the grapevine - that he did. That was good enough for me.

I think I told you in my last post that I would talk about human relationships at the basic level. That is what I am doing now.

As to the issue of global warming, I think you know what I believe from my years of writing on the topic. You can also go to the RANTS page to hear what I most recently had to say.

At this Blog of mine, I think it's more important to talk about people. If that bores you, you can always click away.

Yeah, it's not like I didn't see a lottah people tatted up when I was bartending in New Orleans. But that's just me.

NEWS TO ROD

ITEM ONE: Since you're all reading me on the Internet, you need to read this great essay by David Weinberger. (Thanks and a tip of the hat to my smart friend, DC Stultz.)

ITEM TWO: I suspect you've seen this vid. If you haven't, please do. That provocateur, Michael Moore. (BTW, if Lou Dobbs thinks Mike is a "left-wing" promoter, I'm sure glad he doesn't know about Yours Unruly yet.)

ITEM THREE: This story from The Nation by Chris Hedges & Laila Al-Arian is disturbing and long. Some of you won't have the attention span to digest it all but it is certainly Need to Know. Hear what US troops have to say about this quagmire, if you dare.

Afterthoughts

My co-worker, Bonnie Kim, looking at a couple of other Blogs out there made the comment the other day, "It's sad to visit Blogs where nobody makes any comments. It means what they had to offer was not very compelling."

Since I Blog regularly at Leverage Social Media - and now here - and noticed that I don't get many comments at either site, I had to take that seriously. No writer or journalist wants to believe that his or her work is not compelling - or, at the very least, interesting and informative.

I started thinking abou the fact that Bonnie and most of my friends haven't made a comment here.

True, I've only been at this solo venture for about ten days - but still.

Meanwhile, you'll soon see more from the Hardest Working Man in Show Business (now that James is gone) over at CinemActivist, a new Blog that I hope you'll visit when you are not here.

Cheers!

Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

Thanks for visiting.

Talk to you in a day or so.

Be well.