Tommy's Take: The Beginning

Andy Rooney might be dead (RIP), but his spirit lives on in Conflict Revolution's new resident cultural commentator, knowledge purveyor, and peanut gallery season ticket holder Thomas J. Devine.  Tommy's Take will be a new feature here at CR, appearing on a regular basis to enrich your weekday existence with some straight up insight.  And if knowledge does in fact = power, the fact that it's Wednesday and you're reading our blog instead of getting any work done should be no concern at all.  Your mind may well be blown already, but if it isn't, here's Tommy/Tom/Thomas with a better introduction to his column than I could ever possibly muster:

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There are an incredible amount of blogs on the internet. I’d give you an exact number, but I looked it up and couldn’t find one. Between Tumblr and WordPress, the two most accessible and popular blog hosting services, there are at least one hundred million. Everybody wants to be Editor-in-Chief of their own digital universe.

Conflict Revolution is a tiny drop in a massive sea of blogs in the colossal ocean of the internet. But I’d
be willing to bet that in terms of its unique insight, quality of writing, and personality, this blog ranks somewhere in the top 50 million.

Suffice to say I was floored when I was asked to contribute a weekly column to one of the best blogs
on the internet, especially because I’ve been an ardent supporter of Conflict Revolution from day one. I
was present for the real-life, person to person debates that predated this blog. At times I was an active
participant, other times I looked like a spectator at an ugly and discordant tennis match. I’m glad that
Matt and Steve finally have a structured place to explore in depth their differences of opinion.

My column will touch on policy and politics, but I’ll leave the bulk of the issue analysis to Matt and
Steve. Instead, you can expect a smattering of human interest, art and culture, business, Andy Rooney-esque commentary, and musings on societal trends that I think say something interesting about the human condition.

So here I join the league of internet commentators. The grand Opiners of Opinions. The Pop Culture
Pontificates. Savants of the Soapbox. They-Who-Have-Something-To-Say. You get the point. I won’t
make the mistake, as so many people do today, of inflating the importance of my ideas just because I
have a forum. I keep in mind the advice Jean Sibelius gave to a young composer who felt dejected after a negative review: “Always remember, there is no city in the world which has erected a statue to a critic.” After all, this blog is only one of a hundred million.

-Tommy