SnarkAttack debuts:  Why another blog?
posted 3-4-2008 - 4:37 pm

 
People seem to understand the need for more than one website. More than one blog, tho, may seem to some to be overdoing it. Egotism, even.

Fear not, friends. My ego doesn't require more than one blog — only my career does. PoliticalEye, a blog I began elsewhere nearly three years ago and moved to Blogspot when it seemed opportune, is a timely op-ed portfolio of sorts. A comparatively civilized venue for ideas, it's also meant to show other op-ed writers and editors what I can do. The essays and commentaries are often longer than the standard 650-750-word column allowed in most newspaper or magazine op-ed sections. Online opinion blogs get to be longer, but that print version has a pretty solid size restriction. Which is why I started my own opinion blog: to publish the longer essays I couldn't place in the op-ed pages.

Snark Attack, however, is a lot less formal. Sassier, off the cuff, more impromptu; less circumspect, perhaps, but I'd like to think just as defensible in its opinions. I belong to a few listservs, and folks on those lists noticed after a while that my list comments often seemed like blog entries. When a few of my colleagues suggested that I lift those comments wholesale and put them on my blog PoliticalEye, I hesitated at first; those sober or snippy remarks aren't quite on a par with my op-ed essays. The obvious solution (once I really thought about it — duh!) was to start a new blog.

And here it is.

I'm hoping it will be even better read than PoliticalEye and enjoyable to those who read it. I'm sure you'll let me know one way or the other, right? I look forward to those replies. Until your next visit, then. Ciao, ragazzi!