Hey, It's My 14 Year Blogoversary

So this weekend will mark the 14th anniversary of me cutting the ribbon on my little blog here in the middle of Middle America.

And WebMD has warned me what to expect:

If you have a 14-year-old blog around the house, you already know that it has changed almost overnight in some ways that seem huge. Other changes might be more subtle.

At age 14, it’s a safe bet that your blog's rapidly emerging sense of self is going to astonish you and, at the same time, introduce new challenges into your relationship.

Your blog is most likely starting to show more complex thinking patterns, although sometimes getting those thoughts out of him may be difficult.

• Your blog is developing strong likes and dislikes.
• Your blog seems to communicate less at times.
• Your blog is eager to enter into heated arguments and discussions with you.
• Your blog  challenges your assumptions and solutions.
• Your blog is becoming interested in politics, philosophy and social issues.

Sounds about right.

First, a bit housekeeping: I'll be out of touch for the next little while, so this will be pinned to the top of my blog for a few days.

Thus ends the housekeeping.

To put this post together, I went back to my earliest stuff and, I have to admit, it depressed the hell out of me.  Not because it was poorly written or poorly received by the small readership I had back in 2005.  You all have always been very kind, or at least brutally honest :-)

No, it was depressing to confirm that I was writing about exactly the same shit 14 years ago that I am writing about now.  Here, for example, is a snip from literally the first real blog post I ever wrote (after posting a couple of test/calibrations pieces just to make sure that I had figured out all of the buttons and switches.)

From me, April 1, 2005:

This sort idiocy rests at the bewildering heart of the Hard Right.

Why is the Hard Right always so predictably, drooling eager to believe such a torrent of half-assed nonsense, half-truths or outright lies? Why they are so invincibly incapable of even a moment’s reflections on the faint possibility that they might be wrong?

Why they are so willing to believe any ragged, crazy shit that is pulled out of Limbaugh's or DeLay's or Coulter's nether-regions like The Amazing Fecal-o producing mile after mile of shit-stained handkerchiefs out of thin air?

The answer is Fundamentalism: the belief that the Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God. To believe that One Big Lie that under-girds an entire cult movement that, in turn, owns and operates the Republican Party, you must be willing to trade your soul and free will for faux certainty. You must declare yourself openly and eternally at war with Science, Fact and Truth and once you travel down that road, you are lost. Well and truly fucked.

Then again, without the slack-jawed credulity of the Big Dumb Right, endlessly emptying their change-purses into the coffers of Solar-Corona-Haired Poltroons and getting their mental health treatments by the Laying of Hands on the teevee and praying extra special hard during Jack Van Impe...

... the market for Petroleum-Based Jesus Trinkets, Virgin Mary Douche (For that Immaculately Fresh Feeling) and Velvet Artwork would surely crash...

...hucksters and whores by the thousand would be driven from their Mega Churches and 700 Club sofas and Congressional Seats into cardboard boxes under bridges, begging for scraps. Reduced to turning Two Dollar Indulgence Tricks on the street-corners. Leaning into open car windows at three in the morning, hawking their shabby wares: “Hey Baby! Wanna do some Forgiveness?”...

...the feeble, feudal economy that will be Bush’s real legacy will well and truly collapse. Chinese Bankers will begin sending their shirts to Peoria for dry cleaning (“Ancient Illinois Secret my ass!”), ‘cause hey, can’t beat ‘Murrica for cheap Fundy labor...

...and the Terrorists will finally win.

So on second thought, keep on keepin’ on, PVS Fundamentalists.
And Remember: Jeb and George Bush Stabbed Sweet Baby Jesus in the Back.

So having been writing about this subject for 14 years ... and podcasting about it for nine years ... and talking about it in real life since the 1980s ... perhaps you can understand why I find the ludicrous alibi proffered by professional Republican Never Trumper pundits who are now getting rich calling Trump a shithead -- the alibi that, until five minutes ago, they never had any idea that the Republican Party was full of Republicans, and that everything wrong with their GOP began in 2015 -- to be not only insulting, but incredibly dangerous.

Because until we start talking honestly about the authoritarian and racist roots of the modern GOP -- authoritarian and racist roots that go back more than half a century -- the Party of Trump will go right on birthing monsters and destroying this country long after Trump is gone.

And so, in addition to asking you to heave great gobs of cash into my tip jar, I would ask one other thing:  Please recommend this blog to five people you know who might be interested in the sort stuff I write about here.  

Blogger's stats tell me that, since I began this little public house at the edge of respectability, my 8,900 posts have racked up nearly 12 million page views.  Which is both amazing and freaks me out a little.  Blogger's stats also tell me that I have 445 unpublished post in the Draft file, which I'm sure says something about how my brain is wired. Those would be essays I got into and then got bored with, fragments and paragraphs stored up for later use, subjects I found were getting too rambley and wide-ranging and I could not rope them in at the time, stuff that interested me and I wanted to keep track of and all the other detritus of the mind of a writer doing five things at once.   

Anyway, out of all that, I have linked six, signature pieces of mine from various years that I think are among the best work I've done.  If you have favorites of your own, by all means pass those out to your friends.  If you think my style or subject matter is ferkakte, well this late in the game I'm never going to convince you otherwise, so go with God :-)

From my archives:

Little Red State Fundy (2005)

Like a Virgin (2009)

Now, The Bush-Belly Sneetches  (2010) 

Death of the Anti-Gonzo (2011) 

Bob Benson's Loveless Erector Set (2014)

In The Beginning (2017)

And although I don't slow down to say it nearly often enough, thank you all most sincerely for hanging in there with me through all kinds of weather.

Your pal,

driftglass