INTRO

This fall, I look forward to updating this blog regularly with a steady stream of political and literary commentary, as well as personal stories and the occasional book/art/music review. Just your garden variety blog, for now, at least until I hone in on a central focus and style.

I just got the internet reinstalled at home, and spent the past few mornings looking for a good, functional online news aggregator. For the layman, a "news agreggator" is a site that allows its members to "subscribe" to their favorite syndicated sites/blogs. Members of online news aggregators receive short clips of the latest entries in these syndicated sites/blogs daily, allowing them to monitor these without having to visit each one. It is a wonderful tool and a blessing for the aspiring critic in the 21st century, or for anyone who just wants to stay well-informed on anything. Of the free online news aggregator services I tried, including Bloglines.com and Fastbuzz.com, I chose Newsgator.com. As far as I can tell, Newsgator has the largest number of features that actually function at all. Even more miraculous is that the features often work as they were intended to. In addition, Newsgator has the cleanest format I've seen thus far. Taken together, these factors made for an easy choice.

Returning to my game plan: this blog will be updated once a week, most likely on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Perhaps there will be several entries over the course of one session, more or less with an eye toward wrapping up the week in news, arts, personal run-ins with the world, and any interesting literature or music I happen to come accross during that week. It goes without saying that a "weekly wrappup" in this blog will not mean mentioning everything that's been on the mainstream news; I don't have that kind of time, or, for that matter, that kind of taste. At Creative Meditations a "weekly wrappup" for the most part means what caught my attention as I browsed through my favorite syndicated sites at Newsgator. Furthermore, I'm not even sure I can comment on every noteworthy thing that happened to me over the course of any one week. What I can do is trace a recurring theme for that week by incorporating a few, relevant personal stories.

My intention for this "INTRO" is not to guide readers on what Creative Meditations is or will be, but to give a sense of how it might be born. I am, and always have been, as much a spectator as anyone else regarding the finished or perfected state/format of this 2-year old blog, if such a condition might ever be met. With that said, I hope this blog attains the creative and meditative heights that its promising title suggests, or at least contributes sound opinion, with a healthy pinch of humor, to the chaotic, stormy, and primal sea that is our raving-pundit-filled blogosphere.