There was a time….

The first iteration of Dave’s Not Here… was a livejournal.com website. Then I ever so briefly moved things over to typepad.com and then to movabletype. When I decided to self-host I moved it to WordPress, and I was a fairly regular blogger for a few years.

What ended all of that was a decision that the Social Media policy of my then-employer changed to be so draconian that I was fearful of termination and decided to quit blogging.

With the rise of Social Media and Facebook, Twitter, and other sites I’d occasionally put something out here on Dave’s Not Here… but it wasn’t always the best representation of me, as can be seen in some of the posts below.

I also saw the near complete end of what I was doing here – because for some reason I was arrogant enough to believe that readership was the goal.

I never should have cared if you, or anyone else read this blog. I should only have cared about the blog being here for me. My hubris over the value of my utterances turned into a sort of depression about losing readers to social media.

When in fact, I shouldn’t have cared. I’m not writing this for you.

I’m writing this for me.

So, I’ll write what I want, and I’ll write it for me, and I won’t impose on myself a goal, or a genre, or a direction – all of these have had the opposite effect and led to the end of content.

I have more to say than that. But I only have it to say to myself. If you like it, certainly, contribute to the discussion. If you hate it, certainly, try to change my mind. I’m open to dialogue. I find that I’m more often wrong than right.

The Past Cannot be Undone

Sometimes it can be erased.

Sometimes it can be white-washed.

Sometimes it can be forgotten.

But it is indelibly part of the present.

Someone, somewhere, has copies, or screenshots of some of my most embarrassing posts here on Daves-not-here, and while I can wish them away, I can’t make them disappear forever.

They are a part of me.

For those of you who read them, they are a part of you, at least partially integrated into you.

For those of you who preserved them, they are fully integrated into you because you found either a positive or negative future value in them. I am a part of you. You can never remove me from yourself.

When your death arrives, as it will, the part of me that you integrated into yourself will be passed on to your children.

In this sense, we are both immortal and will live forever through your children.

Thank you for your part in making me, and whatever ideas I have had, and their influence on you, immortal.

Some Thoughts on the Rise of Trump

The 2016 Presidential election will go down in history as one of the worst elections in US history. Americans were confronted with a choice between an immeasurably untrustworthy, and not at all liked candidate, who by many accounts was (arguably, and definitely not in my view) the most qualified candidate for the Oval Office in US history, and a candidate who almost half of America (and the rest of the world) feels is a racist, misogynist, narcissistic tax-cheating bully.

Out of approximately 325,000,000 people, these two candidates were the best our current two-party system had to offer? Really, it’s pathetic.

As a result of the election of one of these absolutely awful candidates, Donald Trump, I have been doing a lot of thinking and reading concerning how this could have happened. Make no mistake, I’d have been doing the same if Hillary Clinton had won the election as well, since I feel deep down inside that the Democrats and the Republicans have nothing left to offer the average American in terms of actual leadership or new ideas.

By Request….

I won’t say by popular demand, because only a few of my friends have worked to persuade me to return to blogging. So, since I have a back catalog of my posts from 2003 through 2009 I will begin re-posting those a few at a time, with some updates based on the evolution of my opinions, and I’ve already started with some draft articles.

There was a time when I was a very prolific blogger. Don’t expect a return to those days. I may return in some way to photoblogging, and will likely return to milblogging to a degree, but I will not be posting in a shoot from the hip way. I’ll keep using Facebook for that.

No, They Don’t…

Ken Garfield, a Special Contributor to the Dallas Morning News, writes that Door-to-door missionaries deserve a smile and a moment of our time.

I disagree. While I’ll agree that there is no justification for outright hostility, I also see no reason to allow them to soak up my time proselytizing to me about a faith that I’m not going to adopt in 20 minutes. While Mr. Garfield may have time to divert to the daily attacks on his privacy by Witnesses from any church, I don’t, and I didn’t when I was living in Dallas either.

When I return to the States I will be just as courteous in initially answering the door as I have been in the past, but should they not take no for an answer, out will come the hostility. I don’t like salesmen standing on my stoop trying to insist that I need some new product, especially if that product is their version of God.

Not in the News

Naturally this sort of post from Glenn Reynolds, like a lot of the stuff I post here, will never see the light of a news day. Anything that makes Bush look like a good guy is bad press from all perspectives except Fox News.

Don’t know if you’re reading, but thanks for that post Glenn.