Kathy Kinsley
Site-essential was originally intended to be a center for web site content and design information. I was intending it to be another webmonkey, but more oriented to tutorials on usability and writing for the web. Then, on September 11th, the US was attacked. I became a charter member of the group that Glenn Reynolds has labeled "Bellicose Women". I like that label. Even though it was quite some time after the 11th that I began reading blogs, I began signing a lot of my e-mails and forum posts "Bellicose Kat" almost immediately.
After the terrorist attacks, I found myself unable to take an interest in much outside of the attacks (a fairly common reaction). The site stayed in limbo. I found myself uninterested in much of what I had previously found fascinating. I began posting opinions on political forums, and reading everything I could find about terrorists and US foreign policy and Islam, as well as anything else that seemed associated. I even re-read the Qu'ran, which I'd read many years before when doing a bit of religions study out of curiosity.
I've always been just a bit opinionated, but had always restricted my writing to technical writing, travel writing, and the occasional piece on culture shock or language usage. I'm still greatly interested in culture, languages, and travel, but technical writing seems a total bore now. Even though I've always found politics and policy interesting, and have been playing war games since my teens, I never really wanted to write much about those subjects. I considered them good only for dinner-table or pub talk.
Seems I've changed my mind. I have known about weblogs for years, but had mostly ignored them because most seemed to be "lets talk about me" journals... which just made me think of the daytime talk shows. Then I found the InstaPundit and followed his links, and they had other links... and suddenly I had a lot of information and commentary to read that I wouldn't have found on my own. So I decided to join in the fun.
The blog is titled "On the Third Hand", with nods to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, who wrote The Gripping Hand, which had in it a three-armed race who did not look at things from two sides ("One hand... other hand... gripping hand").
Seems to me that most of what (little) I'm seeing from people looking for solutions is "this is the (only) answer". The radical left wants to send flowers and the radical right wants to send nukes. I think we need to find a balance, rather than playing with ideologies. We need to look for some solutions that haven't been tried, or have been tried--and have worked--but haven't fit into someone's political box. I've always disliked the 'One True Way™' sorts.
So this blog is dedicated to infuriating all sides of the political spectrum. Right, left, moderate, libertarian, socialist, facist, communist, religious or anti-religious, I don't care where people come from. I'll agree with some things, disagree with others, and do my damnedest to make everyone (including myself) think. If I don't get hate mail, I'll try harder next time.
MommaBear
Very shortly after 11 September 2001 MommaBear stumbled across a Blog [which one is unfortunately unremembered] for the first time. The whole concept seemed to make a lot of sense, because that particular blog pointed her to several items of interest she would never have seen otherwise. As Blogdom exploded in size in short order, she soon found she had a regular route she followed in her plodding. Then, on an otherwise unremarkable day, she realized she had seen an item that she thought would be of interest to the author of a particular blog, based on the slightly specialized nature of that blog. Seeing an eMail address on the navbar, she took pen in paw and wrote to the blogger with the information and the link.
Thus started her routine of plodding about and rooting out little tidbits to send to bloggers. The next step seemed logical at the time, which was to send eMails with commentary about certain subjects to some of the bloggers. Her first published eMail thus appeared on the I-Net over at Samizdata as a Rant, or, as she labeled it: A Roar From The Den. That was her downfall !! A couple of months later she sent an eMail to a gentleman who wrote occasionally for Samizdata, but had also just started his own blog, called Dodgeblog, because, unfortunately, he had made a couple of grammatical errors. The next thing she knew, without warning, she had been appointed WebMistress/Editor/Poster there.
That was some time ago; as with all things, change comes. Dodgeblog has gone silent as its members have gone in different directions. At almost the same time MommaBear had gone there, Kathy had sent her an eMail asking if she would be interested in joining On The Third Hand. Having already agreed to go with Dodgeblog, MommaBear regretfully had to demur. Now it appears to be just the right time to belatedly take up that re-offered invitation, so here she is in all her rough splendor.
MommaBear does not belong to a Labeled Political Party [inhabited solely by the Professional Power-Grabbing Politicians]. If forced to make a statement of her political beliefs, she probably would be best described as a small-l libertarian. Her main thrust, or swipe, if you will, is at politics as practiced, which all result in "the state" reaching way too far into everyone's personal and individual life. She will be making her usual points about the idiocies, disasters, and other hurtful results of that meddlesome and unnecessary interference. A pox on all their houses!
If you agree with her, that's fine. If you have comments about her writings, tell us. If you disagree, that's all right. If you learn something, that will be great !! She hopes mostly to make you think.