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Greetings all and welcome to The Vent Collective.
Your first question may be "What the heck IS this?" Well, I have become a huge advocate of blogging in the past year. ("weBLogging" for those who don't know.) I've found it helps to vent your thoughts and get frustrations out on the keyboard. But more than just a personal journal, Blogs can be a great way to communicate ideas. A few bloggers have even gotten book deals out of successful blogs.
The idea for The Vent Collective is this: I have a bunch of friends that have opinions. Lots of opinions, on nearly every facet of life, both funny and thought-provoking. And I wanted to share the opinions with the rest of the bunch. So instead of just reposting these thoughts on my own blog, I thought I'd create a single community blog for us all to share our words.
But more than just lofty ideas and quips, this is a community VENT. It's right there in the title. More often, you'll not be inspired to write a bit of pithy prose, you'll be ticked off that the government did something, that your boss has the I.Q. of dish soap or that the Department of Transportation decided to remove a lane of busy highway in attempts to IMPROVE the flow of traffic. The Vent Collective is your outlet.
I'm always telling friends about this guy I met in London, this World War II History buff, the hairy Swede that I shared a room with in the dorms, the man we called "Gonad the Barbarian", my oh-so-opinionated wife, and many others. I'm always relaying funny or insightful things that they said. I thought it was time to cut out the middle man and let everybody read it for themselves, because frankly, I suck at re-telling stories.
Blogger.com has a pretty straightforward system. You log in to the web site, click "The Vent Collective", create a new post, and click "Publish." I'll do all the HTML and formatting, but I'm always open to suggestions. Give this a try for a few weeks and let's see what happens. Send off a few test rants. See how you like it.
Are you in?
1 Comments:
I think that I've figured out why I have a problem with the Presidency of Jimmy Carter.
I've not thought this through completely, as the idea came to me last evening while PBS was apparently running a marathon of their Jimmy Carter special. Incidentally, this seems like a strange thing to concentrate on following the death of former President Reagan. It hit me around three in the morning and followed a four hour phone conversation with a very pleasant bridesmaid who decided to stalk me. It's not a bad thing, honestly.
Former President Carter has come under fire quite often by the talk radio crowd. This is understandable, as he has frequently and publicly criticized American policy while seeming to cozy up to every two-bit dictator who will have him. He has made friends with Fidel Castro and the like while proposing changes in American foreign policy that would benefit many around the world, but would be disastrous at home.
The idea that came to me is this: peanut farmer Jimmy Carter is a good man. He truly cares about all of the people of the world. He would do all that is in his power to alleviate suffering and attempt to join together the people of the world. He is a hater of injustice. He wants to find a way to eliminate poverty and war. He is a great supporter of human rights, a man of God and is filled with compassion.
This sounds wonderful and, on a personal level, it is. The problem lies in the fact that the office of President of the United States cannot view all of the concerns of all of the people of the world as equal. When we vote to elect the leader of our country, we are not attempting to elect someone who will treat every concern from every nation as equal. We are electing someone to represent OUR interests above all others. The President is supposed to determine how best to govern and lead the people of the United States. That will not always coincide with the interests of those outside of this country. The job is to govern Americans, not the people of the world. The primary responsibility is to citizens of this country.
Former President Carter confused his personal calling with the responsibilites he shouldered upon taking the oath of office. As the holder of the highest office in the land, his burden was to lead THIS country, address the concerns of THIS country and to always remember that the people of the United States elected him to work for them. Instead, he attempted to use his office as a means to treat the ills of the world, often at the expense of the very people who elected him.
I believe that Jimmy Carter is a great human being. I believe in his integrity, his drive, his morals and his conviction. I do not believe that he should have attempted to become the President. It is inconsistent with his personal beliefs. Instead, I feel that he would have been far better suited to being the American ambassador to the United Nations or a leader in the WHO, Peace Corps, International Red Cross, or another such organization that is designed to address the needs of all as equal. Instead, the United States spent four years with a President who did not put priority on their concerns. We have spent all of the years since listening to his opinions on foreign policy that, while noble, do not address the needs of Americans as their prime motivation.
I am not in favor of ignoring the needs of those outside of our country. I AM in favor of electing a President who knows that the primary responsibility is to the needs of Americans, but that the concerns of others must be heard.
If we're not going to elect someone who treats our needs as paramount, why are we the only ones allowed to vote?
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