22 JANUARY, 2001 - My back still hurts. I could barely put on my socks this morning, so sore I remain from dealing with the Bush inaugural ordeal. I'm glad I did it now, but I won't do anything quite as adventurous for a while. I'm getting too old for this stuff.

PLUS I had to come back to put together this larger-than-usual edition for your delectation. I've been pushing to get this one out by tonight --- BUT I'm still waiting for one more contribution from Diamond D, up in the frozen north, as to his take on the Bush protests. So, I'm doing this next-to-last this week.

Thanks to all those of you who have already sent in your commentary on my opening article of that two-parter. My hope is to live up to your expectations in Part 2. I'll comment on your e-mails when we update VOX POPULI next week.

In the Glass House

What I mean by that is that I was hearing the soundtrack again. I was in the movie where I actually was the hero and the comic foil.

But, wait a minute! Let's qualify that.

I'm certainly not as handsome or virile anymore. I'm deteriorating rapidly, in fact. The dog is getting old. I'm still funny, though, and willing to take risks. I could be a good old gris-gris man down in N'Orleans. Looking at me, they'd think I was in my sixties, perhaps, but still know I had good ju-ju.

So, again, I ask you to visualize Rod happy in New Orleans. The courtyard, oleanders (the aroma of Paradise,) and that I go out somewhere with Romance.

Bill Withers is part of that soundtrack, as you must imagine if you opened the recommended file. If you didn't scroll back up the page and open it now. It's a classic.

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where the people in your corner have wanted to throw in the towel.

I have.

I know what it's like to look at their faces and see them say, "Rod, stay down! Stay down!"

I got back up.

Staying down is for chumps. I'm not a chump.

So what else is happening this week in the Glass House? Well, I've been in contact with the Analysis section editor at my new gig at Silicon.com and he wants me to start pitching stories. After dealing with the chaotic editorial structure I left last year (you know where) it's great to work with people who focus on good journalism. I'm pleased.

My friend DOUGLAS MC DANIEL called me on his cell phone from a train taking him Out West --- ("Back East" "Out West" Where did we citizens of El Norte come up with this stuff?) ---to tell me that he thought my Bush inaugural piece represented finding my "place in history." I chuckled. He's never seen the tirades I used to write against George the First back in G21's hardcopy, nascent days. Having George the Second, His Fraudulency, to deal with is like returning to well-learned lesson.

His Fraudulency's cabinet will be my hobby. Star Wars II, the proposed missile defence system, might even force me back into my old defence-policy wonk mode.

I probably never told most of you the story about working on a Brookings paper on Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) the aptly-acronymed current policy stance of the United States. One day I might...

Sometimes, as Dan VanDeMortel has gibed, I actually *do* feel like I should be eighty years old by now.

CHANGING THE CHANNEL: I got this impression this weekend, while in the District of Columbia for the Bush inaugural, that Diamond D, the son of my good friends Sal and Mardi d'Alessandro up in Connecticut, is starting to worry about my health. To paraphase former President Reagan, here we go again!

Various of my friends, and my family, seem to think that I'm on a bullet-train appointment to the Grim Reaper. Let me assure you all here and now that such is not the case.

I just don't like doctors. Never have.

Besides, I have this obsession with maintaining the integrity of my skin. I've always hated needles. That means that, other than when travelling abroad and being required to take shots, I've avoided having my skin broken like the plague. The thought of someone drawing my blood makes me ill.

Besides, you should all count on my "amazing recuperative powers." They have held me in good stead for nearly half a century now. No operations, no broken bones, no hospital visits other than to see other people who were ill.

Don't make me have to repeat myself on this issue.

I make my living writing non-fiction, journalism, and even at my own magazine non-fiction is what I do! It causes me a great deal of emotional frustration....

I'm going to keep asking all of you to do me a favor: START VISUALIZING ROD HAPPY IN NEW ORLEANS. There must be a courtyard in our shared visualization, lush with oleander, magnolia, and maybe even a few roses. There must be moist moss hanging from the crenulated gates. It must be near the river.

Hot Stuff!

I found KEVIN CAREY's take on the Clinton legacy, from a UK observer's point of view, in DAY ONE witty and incisive. BOB POWERS chose a winner for his CD give-away. (Ok, I'm not too sore that it wasn't me.) Our guest columnist at MEMOIRS OF THE INFORMATION AGE, ANDRES HEUBERGER, CEO of fxtrans.com, did an excellent job of addressing the challenges of global localization on the Web --- and there are seven other wonderful columns for your perusal this week. RON DIENER's AMERICAN DREAMS submission, for example, brought me to tears.

How can I not feel blessed when so many excellent writers think my little Web site is worth their time and attention?

GO PLAY!

THINGS I LOVE THIS WEEK

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He is now a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appears both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. In January, 2001, Rod became the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers.

Rod lives in dreams and visions, edits the writing of people from six continents for The World's Magazine, and wonders if New Orleans is actually the next stop on the hejira.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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