After six years, many elections, and two leadership contests, I have decided the time has come for this website to die. It has been fun, but I have lost interest. The ‘eureka’ moment came to me when I was forcing myself to write something, anything, for my gentle readers, and I ended up with three-thousand words on Jon Snow from the George Martin novels. Yes, the time has definitely come for me to stop publishing random thoughts, pet peeves about political reporters, thoughts on how to win campaigns, and occasionally a video of me swinging a golf club badly.
There are many people I would like to thank for the success I have enjoyed with this site. First is my late Nana. She never told me she was a reader, but my computer illiterate grandmother on my father’s side was having printouts of my posts delivered to her apartment. She was someone who understood that I was passionate about politics, which the rest of my family still things is strange and almost impolite.
Second I would like to thank another reader who read my blog, then called me and convinced me to move to Toronto. Warren Kinsella is kinder than most would imagine, given his moniker “The Prince of Darkness.” He even forgave me for creating a joke website that purported to draft him for Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. If blogging has been worthwhile, then its biggest payoff has been the work I found with Warren and his terrific company. Without this site, that never would have actualized.
Third, I would like to thank a candidate who stood two and a half times for office in Ottawa-Centre for the Liberal Party of Canada. I say ‘two and a half’ because there was a by-election cut short by the general election of 2004. Richard J. Mahoney was an outstanding candidate, and I was proud to start this website when someone on the campaign told me that Richard needed a greater online presence. Without that campaign, I never would have started a political blog.
Lastly I would like to thank all the other bloggers. There aren’t so many of us in Canada writing about politics, and we get to know each other fairly well. Scott Tribe, Jason Cherniak, and Denise Brunsdon deserve special mention for their extraordinary work in organizing and syndicating bloggers. The same is true for Stephen Taylor, whose website “The Blogging Tories” is the reason why I joined Twitter, but that is a longer story. While we do get a reputation for being screaming and boorish partisans, I have usually been surprised by the amicable relations between bloggers of all political parties. I’d especially like to mention John Baglow, a friend of mine who is currently fighting to strengthen defamation laws online in the Ontario Court of Appeal. After my leader was trounced on May 2nd, John took me out for a beer and we had a productive chat about the future. A lesser person would have gloated, and I won’t forget John’s kindness, or the kindness of most of the bloggers I have encountered.
I have long maintained that blogs are a liability for their authors. My comments have caused some to brand me as “anti-blog,” and my unstated plan has always been to blog while I was a student. Now that I am done school forever (fingers crossed) it is likely time to put away my little website, jack up the privacy settings on my Facebook, Tweet only judiciously, and hunt for the career I have always wanted as an Ottawa lawyer.
To my partners, Kyle Harrietha and Monte Karl, too bad. You guys never wrote anything anyway, so you are both fired. I’ll see you guys in real life for beers.
To all my dear gentle readers, thank you for all your time and attention. Your feedback has almost always been appreciated. If anyone still needs to reach me, my new coordinates are at jamesdsbowie at gmail dot com.
Oh, and Jon Snow’s parents aren’t who you think they are. It will be in the next books, for sure. I hope we don’t have to wait another five years this time.
