Ten Years Already?
It’s my birthday, which means it’s also Not News’ birthday. 10 years ago I uploaded the first articles to a Dellhost server and wondered what would happen. In one sense – not much. I’ve left the site dormant for fairly long stretches, never quite hitting a stride long enough to make this more than a hobby. On the other hand, in the last ten years my wife and I have had a child and bought a house. I’ve finished grad school twice and started teaching high school full time. And those are all pretty good things to put my energy into, so no regrets.
At the same time, the Web has changed. The political blogosphere is full of places to talk policy and politics. There are sites and blogs dedicated to the notion of deliberative democracy that still inspires me, but there’s also plenty of evidence that nurturing the spirit of deliberation takes a lot of time and energy that I will never have as a hobbyist, so I’ve let go of any dream that Not News might be a hub for such deliberation.
Still, I think Pattie, Kevin, Earl and I put some good pieces up here over the years, and I don’t see any reason to take them down. I still have dreams of converting the rest of the Comics section to WordPress posts, and finally having the site’s archive in one database.
And I think it’s worthwhile for me, as a teacher and a citizen, to have a place to work out some of my thoughts on the issues of the day and perhaps engage the dialogue about education in this country more directly. So I think my birthday present to the site will be a promise not to neglect it. Over the next few weeks, let’s see if I can keep that promise.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.