Approaching a writing milestone, one wants to
write something terribly profound. This is my 501st article for OpEdNews. It's
late, I know. Actually, it's been a long time in coming, but so much of the
usual crap got in the way, that profundity is virtually extinct in this author:
last week Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Uganda, homelessness, Billionaire Jesus, and rape-hangings numbed
the creative writing process (as well as normative thinking).*
Readers of progressive sites like OpEdNews, however, are aware of the effect the real world has on writers (much of the Right lives in its own 1% - or 1% wannabe - world), excusing the numbness and exhaustion, patient for the writer to revive himself.
The Last 500
Writing is always liberating: putting words out, crafting phrases to fit thoughts is freeing to the mind in a way few other mediums can begin to approach. Other art forms may come close: painting, for example, places emotions on canvas, but no matter how explicit, detailed the painting may be, no matter how vividly it displays emotion, it may not always achieve exactly what the painter feels.
And being allowed to write on many people and incidents is even more liberating. That's what OpEdNews has enabled me to do. It has permitted me to peruse headlines and pick up kernels of religion and politics (and the fusion of the two), investigate them and formulate ideas to throw out. It liberates me in being opinionated, as long as I back up my opinions with salient points and supporting links. In the last 6 years, it has allowed me to liberate my opinions - 500 times!
Sideline In The Forefront - The Last 6 Years
Let's get one thing straight as far as my writing is concerned: I'm not exactly a gay activist. I wish I were. I was at the forefront of the AIDS epidemic many years ago and experienced burn out by the late 90's. I now do things on the sidelines as it were. Writing as I do is definitely a sideline kind of deal.
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