2005: Wing Nuts Out Of Their Shell

It's New Years Eve. 2005 is today and 2006 is tomorrow. Time for a quick look back and review the year. Let's see...

A year ago, I don't think I'd ever looked at a blog. I'd heard the name in connection with the Bush war record v. Dan Rather debate over type fonts exposed by Little Green Footballs. In February, somebody told me about the ontheborderline.net blog in Hudson. I checked it out, joined and started commenting. I thought the OTBL blog was a place for debate and discussion, I quickly learned it was a klan of right-wing anti-tax, anti-community, anti-union hell-bent on using anyone who dare disagree with them as a pissing post.

Even though I persisted commenting there for the next three months, I knew our romance would be a brief one. Finally they gave me the boot for being "lewd and vulgar" and told me to go start my own blog. So I did. When word got out about this blog, the first two people to sign up said they too were kicked off of OTBL for being "lewd and vulgar." ...a repeating theme...

In late June, I started writing a series of letters to the editor at the Hudson Star Observer exposing the hypocrisy I was seeing between the deeds and words of the OTBL'ers. This led to increased publicity for their site and brought attention to this site.

I put on a hit counter in late July and have gotten 8,722 hits. We average about 100 per day. It goes down on the weekend and up during the week. I'm attributing that to work site computers. A handful of people have joined this site and post with varying degrees of frequency. Others send stuff by e-mail that I will use. Some have corresponded with me by e-mail to discuss various topics.

In September, I started writing another series of letters to the editor at the New Richmond News pointing out the invasion of the OTBL blogtroopers into the New Richmond school district debates and discussion. This brought more attention to both these blog sites. In October, I stood next to three of the infamous OTBL blogs at WITC during a community meeting on school district planning. I ate a cookie and listened to them plot their strategy.

In October, I addressed the NR school board with a question about the posting of confidential, executive session information that was released to and posted on the OTBL blog. A few weeks later, after another OTBL posting on NR school district, executive session information, I contacted NR's acting school superintendent about the timing of the OTBL posting. I posted the response to the timeline I was provided and this blog became the topic of a school board meeting.

In December, the New Richmond News did an indepth article titled "Battle of the Blogs." I was pictured on the front page of the News, sword in hand, computer by my side and Michael Moore-ish Michigan State Spartan cap on my head. The OTBL'ers were obviously jealous about me getting my picture on the front page of the NR News. Of course, they will deny this and deny all knowledge that I exist -- but I'm the who gets asked by the women of Quik Trip for autographed copies.

The OTBL'ers whined about the idea of there being a "blog war" and pointed to my "obsession" over getting kicked off their blog. Sister Clarentine is the one who called me a "pugilist" way back in sixth grade. When I asked her what that meant, she flung a dictionary at me and told me to look it up. I looked it up, read the definition and told her that was a compliment. She said she meant it as one. If you follow this blog, by now you should now that I pretty much give all credit and blame to the nuns at St. Pat's who will forever patrol my memories of that grade school prison in Hudson.

To the OTBL'ers I say your wall of selfishness has been breached, the rotten teeth of your selfish politically hypocrisy have been exposed and the dark stains of your agenda have leaked through your blogger shorts. To those contributing to this blog and providing encouragement, I say thanks. To you readers, we hope you find this a worthwhile stop in the blogsophere.

2005 has definitely been a learning experience. Who knows what 2006 will bring? One thing is for certain, we will keep on truckin' above the border line!