The Blogger Flogger

from George Anastos, Senior Minister

"We should start a First Plymouth blog" our Youth Director told me enthusiastically. "It will be a great communication tool and we can really get the electronic generations engaged."

I guess I am not electronic; I grew up analogue, not digital. I feel good about that. I do still have transistors though. (Note to electronic generations: "transistors" were big gas-filled tubes that populated the guts of televisions and radios and children back at the dawn of time (1950's). They belched occasionally and we got static on our radios and snow on our TV screens and conduct demerits on our report cards.)

Back to blogging: I have always thought bloggers were a bit off. Not because they want to write, but because of what they have to put up with as a result. The few times I have read a blog I have been stunned, not by the blog itself, but by the responses (reactions would be a better word). Writing anonymously, respondents go for the blogger's jugular and write some pretty petty and even mean things. Sometimes they seem to flog the blog. Anonymity at times is a vehicle for license.

But blog I shall, O brave, new world. I haven't decided yet if I have the courage, or perhaps the good sense, to read or not read the responses. That may depend on how provocative a given entry is. So stay tuned. Analogue Man is evolving and walking upright. My transistors are feeling a belch coming on and I may have to write something.