On the One Year Anniversary of My Return to Web Publishing:

(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

It may have seemed counter-intuitive to have returned to publishing here after this medium more or less faded from general importance with the rise of more interactive social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But as helpful as those features can be; at the same time, a growing concern for censorship and other factors led me to consider taking this site out of mothballs and using it again. Or as I said a year ago today:

Though it has been pondered a bit in sundry times and in divers occasions to return to this site, I could not find the motivation to do so apart from one specific circumstance a few years ago.[...] However, the motivation previously lacking has been found now with my planned involvement in an extensive writing project that I may touch on a bit here and there if I feel so inclined to.

While I will mainly be publishing on a new website that I have set up for that purpose[...], it is also likely that I will resume posting here as well on subjects that will not be germane to the subjects to be written on there. However, upon resuming publication at this humble site, I will not have any set schedule for it as I did in years past where I sought to post at certain self-prescribed intervals of output.

Anyway, that is all for now until further notice. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 4, 2017)]

As for the project I have been involved in intermittently, it is one where I write pieces here and there with no set schedule. While it is in some form of existence at least, I will continue to dabble from time to time on this humble website.

Coming up in the following month are a few pieces which I finished last year and which will treat on an issue of controversy. As those who followed this website in years past know, I am no stranger to wading into controversial matters and I am sure as with some issues in the past, this one will sever more ties as some prior ones have.{1} But as with everything, if I think something has to be said, it will be said and there are unfortunately not a few folks who cannot deal with anything that disrupts their chosen narratives in various and sundry areas of study or thought. But that is neither here nor there.

In short, this website will remain in somewhat regular use more along the lines of how it has been over the past year with fewer long drawn out pieces compared to the way things were in their heyday here. Some of those longer threads from years past will be revisited either in abridged or other forms where warranted or if I feel inclined to as the lions share of what I have written on here in years past was intentionally done with both contemporary as well as more timeless threads to it.

On and before concluding the thread you are reading, it seems appropriate to remind people of what my combox thread policy is here and why I have it so this reminder thread from roughly a year ago suffices to do that. So with that reminder in conclusion, onward and upward we go here at Rerum Novarum{2} in some form or another!

Notes:

{1} To list one such prominent matter from years past:

Commemorating A Controversial Anniversary (circa August 17, 2017)

{2} I am considering the possibility of retaining a long term interest in web publishing again of perhaps changing formats and even site names. Only time will tell if those ideas come to fruition or not however. 

A Dialogue on Conservative Republican Hypocrisy:

My words will be in regular font.

Eugene Craig 

2014-2017 Black Lives Matter: Law enforcement is tainted and biased

GOP: No it's not and Blue lives matter

2018:
GOP: Release the memo. Law enforcement is tainted. Protect POTUS

BLM: Oh now that you are the victim its tainted. * inserts side-eye*

One small difference, those clamoring to release the memos aren’t calling for and perpetuating violence. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the release of the memos, any suggestion that is even remotely equal to the racist thugs of BLM is beyond disgusting! 

Wanna talk about what is truly beyond disgusting? 

Baltimore Cops Kept Toy Guns to Plant Just in Case They Shot an Unarmed Person 

[H]ow do we know that is even true? 

Practice some due diligence.

Who’s even heard of The Root? 

Just because you have not heard of a source does not ipso facto make said source an erroneous one.

For all we know, it could be a Fake News site. 

Merely dismissing a source without reading it is as a rule{1} not a very responsible thing to do. If you check closely, among the sources cited is the Baltimore Sun:

I suppose they are Fake News too?

Also cited are the New York Daily News, the Times Union, and NBC News. More Fake News I suppose because they do not fit the squawk radio narrative on these things? 

those cops in the Freddie Gray case, who were rightly acquitted, under the bus

Yes I know, #CopsDoNoWrong as far as some conservatives are concerned. When someone dies in police custody, someone should be held responsible but police rarely are. And of course most conservatives are due to their ideological blinders unwilling or unable to admit that maybe, just maybe a movement like BLM may have within its ranks folks who have legitimate grievances. Nah, they gotta focus on the cranks and kooks and paint them as the entirety of the movement because that fits the narrative they want to believe. Strangely, I seem to recall many of the same folks who do that were livid when more liberal elements of the media did the exact same thing to the Tea Party. Oh but that's different I suppose because that was *patriots* being targeted rather than various and sundry "urban scum", right?

I have to say this anti-cop posture you have taken recently is seriously troubling.

There is nothing recent about it. I have long been ambivalent at best about law enforcement{2} with very good reasons. Beyond what I have actually seen as well as in my youth dealt with, there is also the fact that there are a LOT more dirtbags in uniform than head-in-the-sand conservative "law and order" sorts care to admit to. But when they are not on the receiving end of the corruption, conservatives do not give a shit about this stuff generally speaking. But if they are the ones in the crosshairs? Well then they squawk like stuck pigs and will not stfu about it. And truthfully, I do not have sympathy anymore for those sorts of conservatives who only make a fuss when it involves them and otherwise make excuses or shoot the messengers when it involves bad news which does not.

Not only are there more dirtbag cops than conservatives as a rule care to admit to but even cops who are not dirtbags far too often succumb to pressure not to rat out one of their brother or sister fellows in blue. As a result, things like what happened to Freddie Gray so often result in acquittals, not because the cops are innocent per se but instead because too many supposedly "good cops" refuse to cooperate or otherwise obstruct prosecution attempts of fellow officers. 

The bottom line: we need serious criminal justice, sentencing, and police reform in this country. But as long as the myth of "cops do no wrong" is perpetrated (coupled with the "well, maybe some do but its only 1% of them" nonsense), its not going to happen. But I digress.

Notes:

{1} I say “as a rule” because every rule admits of exceptions. But they are reserved for sites with a demonstrated history of frequent false news reporting. Also, something is not false simply because it does not fit a person’s particular ideological template be they right or left.

{2} “When I was younger, my first car was a 1975 Dodge Dart. Mechanically it was sound but electrically not as much. One of the problems it had was lights would go out in the running boards, license plate area, tail lights (particularly on the right side as I recall), etc far more frequently than would be the norm. And I lived in near a small town where the cops basically funded the town with tickets -I think you may see where this is going. In that area and a number of other places, I was pulled over at times so frequently that even many years later and to this very day, I am at times highly uncomfortable when I see a police car behind me or alongside me in traffic.[...] I have to constantly fight the temptation to change lanes, pull into a parking lot of a place I am not going to, etc and let the cop car pass before I get back on the road. And while I do not do the latter nearly as often as I used to, I still from time to time out of long ingrained habit do it. While not the only personal experiences I have had with law enforcement officials, I posit the above to point out a psychological phenomenon that is hardly unique to myself. And I am as white as white can be!” [Excerpt from the Jaded Politics Article On Anthems, Protests, Free Speech, Hard Truths, Etc. (published December 3, 2017)]