If There's One Thing I've Learned...

...it's that politics is exhausting.  It takes a certain level of stamina to follow the details of multiple stories as complex as health care reform, the daily grind of Congress, or the Obama administration's fluctuating feelings on where to try terror suspects for their crimes.  The internet has made it extremely easy to find other people's analyses, but finding raw information and synthesizing it to create meaningful posts on a regular basis is something I just haven't gotten the grip of yet.  Duties and desires exist outside of the blogosphere, and I'm still trying to find the proper balance between the things I need to do and the things I'd like to get better at.


In short, my apologies for going on an unexpected hiatus for a whole week.


My goals for this blog have changed since it began several months ago.  Originally, it was a way for me to organize my thoughts about current events while trying to train myself to write in a professional way on a more regular basis.  Now I find that this blog is more of a cathartic thing, allowing me to release energy built up over the course of a day or week as I follow the news.  There are a lot of things I'd like to be an expert on: Congressional procedures, political prospects for 2010 and 2012, the Torture Memos, the Arab-Israeli conflict... the list goes on and on.


Over the course of the coming months, my schedule will become increasingly busy, and my time to sift through the hundreds of stories brought to me by Google Reader will diminish further.  When I do write, however, I hope to do so as an expert about the topic, even if that means I don't have something posted the day an event takes place.  I'm not a newspaper, and blogs suffer when the writers try to be things they are not.


My golden rule--never get too personal!--will still stand, but I (and as a consequence, my blog) will benefit from not forcing myself to write about dreary, serious things all the time.  Thus far, I have been quite passionate about the topics this blog has addressed, and I will continue to be attached to them, but I hope to inject my personal interests into more of my posts from now on.  


I hope everyone continues to read and enjoy The Baltimore Soloist as I try to retool my writing habits.  And, as always, please pass this site on to your friends and family if you feel I deserve it.

The Active Youth Myth and Gatesgate

I've finally returned after a 16-day hiatus which completely shattered my goal of writing every day for 30 days. Thanks to all for your patience! A wife, son, job, and house to take care of sometimes take precedent over the internet. Sometimes. This won't be a full post, but more of a teaser for the posts I intend to write this week. Feel free to comment on this post in an attempt to tease back.

My first post will discuss what I consider to be a rather pervasive (but unsubstantiated) myth about political activism among the 18-24 age bracket. Oddly enough, the subject came to as I drove back to Baltimore this evening. I rediscovered my copy of John Mayer's album Continuum (which is one of the most finely recorded, composed, and performed records of the last 5 years), and put it on for some easy listening. The first track, titled "Waiting on the World to Change", is an unusually political song for Mayer, but it addresses a lot of what I'll write about in more detail later: the 18-24 age bracket has some of the most staunch opinions about contemporary issues, yet young adults tend to be the least politically active age group in the country. Why the myth when the disconnect seems so obvious? More importantly, why is this apathy allowed to slide, especially when it is supported by ridiculous arguments like the one Mayer makes: "We just don't feel like we have the means to rise above and beat it"?

Next up will be my take on the media storm surrounding Gatesgate. President Obama's short and simple answer to a simple question at the end of his press conference the other night completely overshadowed the major points he made on health care. I'll go over what is known about what happened in Cambridge between Mr. Gates and the police, and why the issue is important even though it doesn't seem to have any long-term consequences for the general public.

Thanks again for being patient while I fulfill my duties outside of the blogosphere. Comments made to this post by Tuesday evening will almost certainly be considered as I write my full posts on the subjects described above, so let loose!