Gone...All Gone...

Easy come, easy go.

Blogspot giveth and Blogspot taketh away.

{insert other platitude here}

Every post and comment has been erased from this blog by a force beyond my understanding. Not that there was ever anything that would make the Pulitzer folks take notice, but dang, that was a lot of typing just to be gone with the proverbial wind. Having received no help from the Blogger.com support folks (if they really exist) on a possible recovery of all the lost posts, I am resigned to simply starting fresh as of today.

You know, the whole blogspot thing is pretty cool for a free service. It's hard to complain when it goes wrong.

For posterity: This blog began during the 2004 election when I found no online outlet for my anguished soul to vent about the state of local Charleston politics and matters that affect us Charlestonians. I had hoped it would become a fair-and-balanced (and not in the Fox News sense of the phrase) discussion board. Instead it became a quiet non-political place with four or five regular readers and posters. Since then several local bloggers have found their own niche and I don't intend to duplicate their efforts.

Here are some of the locals (in no particular order) and my view of their niche:

Don Surber - The local right-leaning mainstream media staffer.
William Stewart - The local (albeit Putnam Countian) politico neo-con.
Bob Coffield - WV law and health care issues.
4HAKS - Friendly neighborhood computer game and digital photo geek.
Spike Nesmith - Various and sundry musings of our local Scottish DJ.

There are others, but frankly I'm in no mood to write a ton of stuff and then let the Blog Gods delete it again. They'll have to earn my trust again.