I’m starting a new blog (as much as I am growing to hate that term) for work which I want Google to find – so I’m linking to it here. You know the drill by now. Within a few months it will become a wealth of search engine marketing and search engine optimization information. So if you care, stay tuned.

Back to the word ‘blog’ and its origins. The term stems from a mish-mash of the words “web” and “log” which when used together was how folks referred to online journals, once upon a time. Google’s Blogger (which I use here – but will soon replace) has made it so easy to have your own ‘blog’ that I’m seriously waiting for my grandmother to send me her URL. I’d guess that www.dontbecheeky.com would probably be her first choice. Or maybe something along the lines of www.getthosedamnsquirrelsoutofthebirdfeeder.net. Regardless, I am in mourning for the medium. Johnny and Janey Everyman are doing to the blog what the white man did to Jazz and hip-hop. Speaking of which, have you heard Kenny G’s new version of Straight Outta Compton?

The following text is a letter my friend Steve penned to the Boston Globe this morning. I had thought of mentioning something similar here on the blog last week, but this speaks volumes and I’m glad that I waited. It is really horrifying (there’s just no other word for it) to think that most major media outlets are downplaying what is happening in Iraq right now because it hurts their agendas and conflicts with their leanings. Have a read:

“I’m utterly disappointed with your coverage of the Iraqi elections. I arrived yesterday, to my adopted home town, fresh from a business trip that afforded me the opportunity to see how Europe, Central and Eastern Asia report upon these crucial Iraqi elections. I rushed down the steps of our triple-decker in South Boston, keen to hear how the elections had played out.

While your headline declares “Iraqis flock to polls” your accompanying editorial misses the point – by about a half century (since the last free elections). Your affront continues, like a toothless pup, at the ankles of the birth of a nation’s independence. Your partisan journalism is found to fail the international fabric of Boston.

You may want to take a note from your column on the Gilette merger, “… as Boston, which once called itself the Hub of the Universe, now finds itself playing second fiddle to cities such as Cincinnati, Charlotte, N.C., and Toronto. I believe your once great news source, is now solidly Bush league, restrained by overt political blindness.”

I couldn’t find the editorial Steve is referring to, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where it’s likely coming from. “Yeah, free elections and Democracy are great and everything, but Bush-bad-lied-Haliburton-no WMD-drunk daughters”. The article was also summarily buried in favor of a story about illegal Guantanamo tribunals and has now dropped somewhere below the piece about whether or not Johnny Damon should cut his hair before his book tour is over. I wish I was kidding. Regardless of what you believe, whom you support or where you stand on issues of the day remember – always consider the source.