Just testing my new power as a blogger, journalist, writer, comedian, or whatever I choose to be in these pages which apparently people actually read! For a while, I believe I'll just put the old hands on cruse control and wax eloquent about current events, raw deals, good news-that's novel-or just any little thing that crosses my mind. So let's see where I am today in my thinking about the current state of the economy--bad, the current state of our elected officials--bad, the current state of gas prices--good!--trust me, I'll get better and more succinct as I go, but right now I'm just happy to be part of this vent process, so do we have to pay a fee for the therapy portion of this blog?

By the way, if one gets addicted to this and must check mail and respond and therefore loses one's job over this, would it be covered under unemployment insurance-just wondering. What if people really DID listen to something I had to say and really DID take some overt action which validated the blog lesson, would that prove the power of the pen. Why do people keep writing articles in papers? Do they get such great feedback that they know they are having an impact? How do you measure your impact? Why don’t newspapers let readers vote on their favorite columnists? I don't get to choose--oh sure, I can choose not to read the column, but that doesn’t tell the paper to stop buying the column--how do they finally cut someone and replace them?