posted by Mike Madison at 8:00 AM /
As a early holiday gift to myself, I am calling off my blogging at Blog-Lebo.
Joe Polk will be carrying on here. The blog will not be shutting down.
The reasons for my signing off are not worth explaining here in detail; let us say that I keep a running cost/benefit blog accounting in my head, and over the last several months the costs of my blogging have outpaced the benefits by a considerable margin. In recent months, there has been far more melodrama associated with my writing for Blog-Lebo -- and more melodrama in Mt. Lebanon -- than there has been in all of the rest of my blogging life "put together." (You don't get the full impact of the phrase in quotes unless you put on your Jean Hagen, Singing in the Rain accent.) As some of you know, I post on a semi-regular basis to five blogs, including this one. With this post, that number becomes four. (As some of you also know, I shut down one of my other blogs -- Pittsblog -- in 2008, only to bring it back a few months later. I was on the right track in rebalancing my blogging; I erred in choosing the wrong blog as my target!)
Melodrama? In Mt. Lebanon? What I mean is this: Inside the well-oiled machine that produces the public posts and comments at Blog-Lebo is a back channel of email and phone calls, some thoughtful and constructive, many whiny and angry. These come from our elected officials, their friends and enemies, all manner of other Mt. Lebanon residents for whom the blog isn't a good enough forum, and some for whom the blog serves its purposes quite nicely. Those of you who follow the School Board or Commission closely are undoubtedly on the receiving end of even more of those messages than I am; some of you probably also send them. Mt. Lebanon has no monopoly on bad behavior by its citizens, but it certainly has its share. Dealing with all of that bad behavior on the blog is part of the bargain; dealing with all of it off the blog is a ceaseless hassle.
That said, there are a lot of wonderful people here in Mt. Lebanon, people whose time and passion for Mt. Lebanon far exceeds my own. The best part of my blogging experience has been meeting many of them. Some of those wonderful people have taken to blogging themselves, and that's good, because their blogging shakes things up, and Mt. Lebanon certainly still needs to be shaken up. Whether or not I'm blogging here, the shaking will continue (until morale improves, to borrow the old joke). To those who will carry on, I say, with my best faux Latin, Non illegitimis carborundum. Don't let the bastards, or the drama queens, get you down.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, and best wishes for whatever holiday that you and your family do or don't celebrate this season.
Joe Polk will be carrying on here. The blog will not be shutting down.
The reasons for my signing off are not worth explaining here in detail; let us say that I keep a running cost/benefit blog accounting in my head, and over the last several months the costs of my blogging have outpaced the benefits by a considerable margin. In recent months, there has been far more melodrama associated with my writing for Blog-Lebo -- and more melodrama in Mt. Lebanon -- than there has been in all of the rest of my blogging life "put together." (You don't get the full impact of the phrase in quotes unless you put on your Jean Hagen, Singing in the Rain accent.) As some of you know, I post on a semi-regular basis to five blogs, including this one. With this post, that number becomes four. (As some of you also know, I shut down one of my other blogs -- Pittsblog -- in 2008, only to bring it back a few months later. I was on the right track in rebalancing my blogging; I erred in choosing the wrong blog as my target!)
Melodrama? In Mt. Lebanon? What I mean is this: Inside the well-oiled machine that produces the public posts and comments at Blog-Lebo is a back channel of email and phone calls, some thoughtful and constructive, many whiny and angry. These come from our elected officials, their friends and enemies, all manner of other Mt. Lebanon residents for whom the blog isn't a good enough forum, and some for whom the blog serves its purposes quite nicely. Those of you who follow the School Board or Commission closely are undoubtedly on the receiving end of even more of those messages than I am; some of you probably also send them. Mt. Lebanon has no monopoly on bad behavior by its citizens, but it certainly has its share. Dealing with all of that bad behavior on the blog is part of the bargain; dealing with all of it off the blog is a ceaseless hassle.
That said, there are a lot of wonderful people here in Mt. Lebanon, people whose time and passion for Mt. Lebanon far exceeds my own. The best part of my blogging experience has been meeting many of them. Some of those wonderful people have taken to blogging themselves, and that's good, because their blogging shakes things up, and Mt. Lebanon certainly still needs to be shaken up. Whether or not I'm blogging here, the shaking will continue (until morale improves, to borrow the old joke). To those who will carry on, I say, with my best faux Latin, Non illegitimis carborundum. Don't let the bastards, or the drama queens, get you down.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, and best wishes for whatever holiday that you and your family do or don't celebrate this season.
3 Comments:
Mike, thanks for your service to our community! In Blog-Lebo, you and Joe have provided me and the rest of Mt. Lebanon with a great resource. Even if your voice here will be diminished, your creation will live on and continue to benefit Mt. Lebanon. Thank you. (And I still owe you that coffee!)
Knowing something about how much work it takes to keep a blog going – the technical and writing duties alone are a heavy burden to carry – I am amazed that you were able to carry the load of five blogs at all, let alone for as long as you did. But no amount of caffeine will let a human carry Atlas's load, and so I am not surprised that you would eventually be forced to give something up.
So take a well deserved break. Relax. Recharge. Move on to other things. And, after a while, if you decide that something needs to be said, I hope you will consider a guest post or two on Blog-Lebo. You always used your voice here wisely, and it will always be welcome.
Cheers,
Tom
Ditto-
thanks to you Mike, I've been introduced to some interesting Lebo residents.
Thanks!
Dean Spahr
Sad to see you go Mike. You will be missed but the reasonings are understandable. I imagine as the unofficial but pretty damn close to the official blog of the community you've had to deal with a lot. I can barely keep up with one blog, I can't imagine 4 to 5!!!
Hope you'll continue to post as a community member!!
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