This brings up an interesting point, because I'm not sure what to do about posting my longer-form writing. Although I believe I still have access to Backwash to write columns there, I've been gone from there for about two years now, and even though I have the time to maintain a regular column there again, they're not paying their columnists anymore, and as much as I believed in the "blortal" business plan back then, I don't think it's panned out these days. I still have my .journal, but now that I've repurposed the blogging component of the .org to be a bit more serious and professional (since I have to plan on potential employers checking out this Website), I'd kind of like to move the .journal to the place where I talk about more personal things, such as whatever experiences I have at jury duty next week.

There's one idea I've been considering, but it's kind of out there. I've always been a big fan of Keith Olbermann from his ESPN days, and I'm glad to see him finding such success with his latest show on MSNBC. Although I enjoy the "Special Comment" segments that have propelled Olbermann's popularity this past year, and by and large I agree with the conclusions he comes to in his comments, I think that in these segments, as well as the other segments of Countdown, Keith sometimes uses the same deceptive tactics in his reportage that he so rightfully chastizes Fox News and others on the right for. (This is why I hardly ever talk about Michael Moore; I agree with him on a lot of issues, but the tactics he uses to prove his points in his documentaries sometimes sink into the morass of intellectual dishonesty.) I also have to wonder how much of Keith's popularity these days is because of the actual content of his commentaries, and how much of it is simply because Keith is such a good student of newscasters of the past (like Edward R. Murrow) and he can mimic their styles so well with that distinctive, deep voice of his.

This makes me wonder sometimes how well I could do something like that. I know that I already possess the ability to structure a coherent argument, and YouTube is right there to provide the bandwidth I'd need for the videos. I also wouldn't be hampered by the limits of live television, so I could re-tape segments until I got my delivery absolutely perfect, and I could also edit in video clips from the AP feeds to dress the final videos up. Given that Countdown has started to engage in a bit of Nader-bashing these past couple of weeks, I'd also have the advantage of being able to present truly left-wing commentary, and not Democratic party-approved "safe" opinions.

There are some problems with this plan, though. First of all, I am one of those people who, to use an old phrase, has "the perfect face for radio." Unfortunately, I don't have the perfect voice for radio. Even though I don't think it's right that people would judge the content of my arguments based on my physical appearance and my speech, I know full well that that's what will likely happen should I ever attempt something like this. Also, alhough technically I have the money to invest in the kind of hardware and software that would be necessary to produce a quality video, I really don't see myself spending that kind of money while my employment situation continues to be so murky. I think the idea of doing video commentaries is novel, but I don't see them being feasible for me anytime soon.

That returns me to the original problem of me not having a space to do long-form commentaries on things. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them, because I feel like I've run into a dead end on this.