George Brock, writing about Timothy Garton Ash (the noted journalist of the people power movements that ended the Cold War) for the British Times Literary Supplement, uses a profound phrase to describe what Ash does – creating the “first rough drafts of history” (borrowing a phrase) “written by a witness who thinks.” [My emphasis.]
I suppose I like the phrase because it is what I seek to be – a witness to history who thinks.
With that, welcome to 2010, and happy new year.
Over the long weekend, I’ve decided on 2 changes to the blog:
First, and a long time coming, I’ve decided to focus more on research and reporting – and to make that a regular feature. Given my time constraints, I’m expecting to have about 1 story a month with a significant amount of original reporting and research – with some more in-depth research and reporting complementing other opinion pieces. I have also decided to attempt to get responses from every subject of a piece who I criticize before publishing it – which I have tried to do sometimes but not always managed to do.
Second, rather than the 1 or 2 long posts a day, I’ve decided to sprinkle in another 4 or so shorter posts passing along links or making minor points.
[Image by me].