The View Point Blog

Last week I was questioning whether or not I should keep this blog going. You see I was concern about not knowing if my blog was read by anyone. To my surprise, a viewer of the blog sent me a comment. This viewer was gracious enough to explain to me the way most people view blogs. He or she, I don’t know which it was because they left the comment anonymously, said that most individuals don’t leave comments on a blog. The person went on to say that if I am looking for a response from readers, I was out of luck. In other words, readers of blogs are more than likely, surfers. You know those who like to click around.

Without this individual knowing it, he or she, had reassured me that someone was reading my blog, even if I didn’t know it. That made me feel somewhat better. I guess because I am not a surfer of the web, I had forgotten that a lot of others are. So what purpose does a blog serve? A place to get things off your chest and maybe, just maybe, someone else who feels the same way will read your thoughts and say, thank you. Will they tell you straight out? No. But the comment I got on my View Point last week was a welcomed follow-up.

So I will continue to post something on my blog, View Point. It may come each week or maybe not but, I will continue to post to my blog. Only because I do have opinions and don’t mind expressing them now and then. No, I can’t promise you a daily or weekly post. I can only share when I think I have something worth sharing. Lately, I have been so busy going to school, conducting workshops on writing and attending writing functions, that I really haven’t had time to share points of view on anything. I know, a lot of you are probably saying, “so what’s your complaint, you’re working aren’t you?” I guess I felt a responsibility to you, the readers. Like a newspaper writer, if you want others to hear what you say, you have to open your mouth. Anyway, just letting you and that individual who commented know, I hear you. Hopefully, I will feel the need to share another one of my points of view with you soon.

To Blog or not to Blog?

I suddenly find myself wondering what made me start this blogging thing. Was it having more exposure? How about spiting out my thoughts as if it was a weekly column that I got paid for. The answer is, I just don't know. I can tell you this. It isn't all they say it is. They being just about everybody from Larry King to the man down the street who runs the community organization. I find myself starting to hum that old refrain, I, can't, get no, satisfaction. In other words, it's not working for me.

It has really become a nuisance. I only pledged to write once a week and I am having serious trouble doing it once every other week. For one thing, I'm not feeling it. Don't get me wrong, this may be working for other people but, unless I know someone is reading it, it really serves no purpose for me. Isn't that why writers write? To be read and commented on is the reason for the writing. Well, no one is reading me apparently because no one is responding to my words.

I know this because I once had a column in a weekly here in my hometown. And good or bad, agree or disagree, I got responses. People e-mailed me, called me and bought printed material from me. Hence, they responded to my weekly words of wisdom or bias. This gave me the spirit to write a column once a week and sometimes more than that. I would have columns ready to go well in advance of the deadline for the weekly. Why? I knew people were waiting to read my thoughts on just about everything. It didn't matter if I was talking politics, religion, race, school, communities, restaurants, movies, gas prices, blackouts, robberies, or even the holidays, they read my words and commented on them. I didn't care if they loved what they read or hated it. I just felt inspired to write them because they were read.

That's what's missing in this blogging thing with me. I don't know if my words are read or simply ignored. Either way if I don't start getting some comments on them, good or bad, I will most likely stop doing a blog. I know I'm out there because I went out to google.com and found my name splattered all over the darn web site. So it's not that people can't find me. So one last time I ask you, ARE YOU READING MY BLOG? Then let me know please.

Voting Rights

Last week we had to say good-bye to Rosa Parks. This week we have to cast out votes. What does one have to do with the other? A lot. Mrs. Parks was the beginning of what we call the Civil Rights Movement. Voting was a significant part of that movement.

We not only could not sit where we wanted, dine where we wanted, shop where we wanted, live where we wanted, go to school where we wanted and a host of other things that affected our daily lives, included in that list of “can’t dos” for minorities, was the right to vote. Mrs. Parks was the catalyst of an all-out fight for the right to be counted as a human being.

Today across the southeast region of Michigan some people are honoring the loss of lives in the fight to have a right to choose. The sad part of it all is that we know there are some out there who don’t get it. They can’t see the reason for casting a vote. I know. I have heard it all before. My vote doesn’t count. I’m just one man or woman. Whomever I vote for won’t win anyway, so why bother. What difference will it make, they make sure the one they want, wins. Blah, blah, blah and so on and so on.

Stop! I’ve heard enough. How can you not see why each and every vote does count? Let me try to explain it to you. Let’s say you are running to be president for your neighborhood block club. There are 57 households on your block. Hence, 57 votes to be cast. Twenty-eight households voted for you and 28 voted for your opponent. Now think about it. That would leave an equal number of people voting for each candidate. We know that is not going to work. Someone has to have the majority of votes to be the president. How do you resolve this? You find the household that didn’t vote and ask them to cast one. Simplistic, isn’t it?

I gave you a simple way of looking at why your vote counts in any election, large or small. You see, it only takes one vote to decide which way the wind will blow. It only takes one vote to decide if you can or can’t accomplish something. It only takes one vote to decide if you stay the course or change direction. It only takes one vote to decide every thing in this country. That one vote is the most important vote because it just could be the last vote to be counted and that last vote could be yours, the one that says yea or nay.

If you can show me in the simplest way how one vote won’t count, I will be quiet from now on about the right to vote. Until then, hear me roar, loud and clear,

I VOTED, HOW ABOUT YOU?