About a blog
Uncategorized - - Posted on March, 14 at 9:17 pm by Jon Fox
My name is Tim Dunlop and I live in Adelaide with my wife and son. I was born in Sydney but grew up in Canberra, from ages eight to twenty. I moved back to Sydney for a few years and then onto Melbourne for about ten years. Another stint in Canberra was followed by periods in London and the United States. Although I have worked as an academic, it wasn’t for very long, though I did teach–mainly tutoring–during the six or so years I spent getting an MA and a PhD. The doctoral thesis was about public debate, intellectuals and the role of citizens and is partly responsible for my interest in blogging. Mostly, though, I’ve worked in retail, including a number of years as the owner or part-owner of a couple of shops in different parts of Melbourne. Best job I ever had was in record shop in Canberra. I’ve had articles, fiction, reviews and radio drama published here and overseas. I like water skiing and meeting people.
I started The Road to Surfdom in May 2002, just after I moved to Washington D.C., back when blogs were young. It was meant to be a bit of diary of my time in America but a few things changed that. The first was the appearance on the scene of the Washington snipers, the geniuses who cruised the streets of D.C., Virginia, and Maryland for three weeks in October 2002 randomly shooting people in what turned out to be an attempt at large-scale extortion. My posts covering our reaction to living in amongst that received a lot of links and so knowledge of the blog grew in what was then a tiny blogosphere.
Thanks to that period, Surfdom was well-placed to ride what became the growing wave of political blogging.
The next big thing that happened, and the event that launched a billion blogs, was, of course, the decision by the Bush administration to invade Iraq. From the moment that such an invasion became a possibility, to the invasion itself, this issue has been a staple of the political blogosphere and Surfdom has participated in all of that. So once we got into the hot and sweaty of that particular issue, Surfdom officially ceased to be an attempt at an online diary and became a full-fledged political blog.
There’s some things you should know about this blog that will probably make a visit here more enjoyable. It’s a blog, not a newspaper of record. I write about whatever I want to, mostly politics, but also on books, movies, concerts, music, my son or whatever else takes my fancy. It’s great that so many people read it, and I’m open to tips and links about things that might be of interest, but at the end of the day I’m only going to post on stuff that, for whatever reason, I want to post on. It just impossible to for me to do it any other way. But if you want to comment on what I’ve written, go for it.
So you should know that you are free to comment, and indeed, this latest rennovation of the site has been done in large part to make it as easy and as reliable as possible to be able to do so. A blog without comments is like a head without a body, if you get my drift imnotsurethatIdo. Feel free to comment as often as you like, under whatever name you like (though if you use a pseudonym, don’t change it) and please respect other people’s participation. Try and stay on topic and don’t abuse anyone, even me.
Having watched a million blogs tie themselves in knots with ‘comments policies’ I’ve decided to reduce mine to one simple rule: I decide. I reserve the right to allow through or delete comments entirely at my own discretion. If you have questions about that, then email me, but there will no dicussion about it on the blog itself. So some comments will be deleted, some may be disemvowelled, but the vast majority will be let through. If I deem you to be a serial offender, a spam bot, or in some other way undesireable, I will block you from commenting altogether. If you reckon that is an infringement of your free speech then you nuture that thought and grow warm from it but understand that nobody sane agrees with you.
Surfdom gets a fair few comments and I don’t always get to read them all. If I don’t respond to everything you write, don’t take it personally. Sometimes I get involved in discussion, sometimes I don’t. Time is usually the reason. Besides, I get to post in the first place, so by and large I reckon the comments should be left to others. To you.
I tend towards the social-democratic end of the political spectrum with a strong liberal streak. Chuck in a bit conservatism when it comes to democratic institutions. Surfdom gets labelled as a leftwing blog, which, to the extent that such labels are meaningful, it probably is. It’s certainly not a rightwing blog. You can tell this by the fact that you will not find a knee-jerk defence of everything ‘my’ side of politics does. I regularly criticse stupid things done by Democrats or the Labor Party or Tony Blair or whomever else. The left of the blogosphere tends to lack the groupthink mentality that prevails on the right and I’m happy to be considered part of that.
Anyway, main thing is: you should feel to comment, free to argue with people, free to post links or other references to matters of interest. You can be anonymous, though think about that. If there’s a problem, then email me. If you want to pass on some information you think I might find useful ditto.
Thanks for reading and participating and watch out for future developments.
Posted in Uncategorized |
