Summer Soltice, 2007: This is how it begins.

As successor to my years long endeavor of being the editor and publisher of a Web magazine, this venture has dubious prospects at best. Going it alone? What am I thinking?

On the flip side of that coin, I read the message: "Quarter past time, mate!"

Thus, welcome to the premiere of my new experiment. Let's see how it goes and if you'll deem it appropriate to stay with me.

I suppose I should get (semi-) serious now and explain what this newest project of mine is about before you ask me, as you always have, my lovelies, "What is this all about, Rod?" When I started The World's Magazine, that question haunted me for the first three years (1996 - 1999,) and then Magically some people started to get it.

"Oh yeah! World Wide Web. It's not just an American thang."

That's when things started to take us from simply being this "hip little station at the end of FM dial" and we gained tens of thousands of readers from around the world. Awards started being garnered by my writers in Africa. Writers in the UK got prestigious jobs at offline publications based on clips from here. Writers in Asia saw they had a place to go to become prosperous. My greatest lament is that we never represented Latin America as adequately as we should have. I suppose that's a mission for another Web publisher. I've decided that my publishing days here on the Web are over and that now I'll edit a few more books and focus on my Golden Years, as they say. The Web, as I've said elsewhere, is now a young man's game.

As I begin this Blog, I decided to go "freestyle." I'm NOT going to work in MS Word first and then hope that SpellCheck will help me. It never did. I'll just sit up in the middle of the night and tell you what I see and think. If there are typos, I'll fix them as we go along.

"Okay, okay! But what is the point of this Blog?"

As Murrow eloquently put it, to inform and inspire. But also to entertain. I foolishly harbor the belief that those of you who have read my work over the years believe that I have important topics to discuss, important people in my big rolodex that you'd learn a bit from - as I have - and that you do actually care about the issues of our lives. That means I have to cover a lot of ground. My friends at Cinema Libre Studio believe I'm a decent film reviewer, so I'll be pointing you to DVDs they release and supply you with trailers, so you can get an advance look. There are also people - for reasons that mystify me - who also believe I can point you to a couple of good books. And then there's politics and culture to look at, not to mention the fact I suspect a few of the writers I'm associated with may show up in this space to do Guest turns.

I've always admired what Jack Parr, the t elevision interviewer, managed to accomplish. He brought urbane, thoughful commentary to a medium that was fixated on only selling soap and corn flakes. So, Gentle Reader, I suppose that's the point, the mission, what I shall attempt to accomplish with this Blog.

Stop yawning! It's possible.

When I started going "My Glass House" a decade ago, what some people have acknowleged was the precursor to the Web Log (Blog) about a decade ago, a lot of people told me I was nuts. I didn't listen. I'm not listening now, as I attempt to move this up another notch. You'll see.

Here's a little fun for you! Enjoy!

That was the intro. Now let's get busy.

28 June 2007:I was invited to Blog live for Texas Forums this week. (This thanks to my friend Taylor Willingham of Extreme Democracy.org. We were the only group asked to Blog Tavis Smiley's PBS Event, "The All American Forum." You can read what I and other Bloggers had to say about the event, the Presidential "debate" among the Democrats and Smiley's "Covenant with Africa-America" by following the link provided.

30 June 2007: It took me a few days to realize that I decided to jump off the high board into the deep end of the pool.

I just walked away from a successful Web site to create something new.

I have to build a new audience and hope I can do enough tricks of my own that people will come back to check out my solo album. Oh-oh!

Well, all I can do now, on this mountaintop, is hope you like the new song. Please do me the favor of letting me know.

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.