Anniversary

Home. Two glorious weeks on the Outer Banks, and now back to reality. Why is it that at almost the exact moment you turn the key in your front door after a fortnight away, vacation seems like a dream that flashed by in an instant? Funny thing, the human mind.

I realized today that I've missed an anniversary of sorts. My anniversary to be exact - although it would be even more precise to say The Hue and Cry's one-year birthday, this past Saturday.

And so, 590 posts later, I suppose I'd be remiss were I to not say something pithy about what this site has meant to me over the last twelve months. Something about the importance of the Liberal blogosphere, and how proud I am to be a member thereof. Something about the pressing necessity in these partisan times for the dissemination of facts and ideas among the true defenders of democracy. Something about the wonderful opportunity to share my pent-up frustrations and opinions with an unrestricted, borderless, global group of avid readers.

All five of you...

Yet, while all those things are of significant importance, it occurs to me that there is one gift I've been given by The Hue and Cry which undoubtedly supersedes all of those more anticipated rewards combined. One which, even in an era of political madness, is an issue that trumps every hand, cutting across party lines. One to which I'm sure most of my fellow on-line editorialists can easily relate.

I'm certain this blog saved my marriage.

Scoff if you will, but by late August of 2005, my seething rage at the Bush Administration, our rubbber-stamp Congress, and the pitifully compliant Fourth Estate, had made normal conversation at home about current affairs next to impossible without my rhetorically raised voice and fists pounding on tables. Why, even simple channel surfing had transformed into a dangerous (and expensive) activity that regularly involved the hurling of various heavy objects at whatever simpering White House apologist happened to be on the screen at the time.

And though my life partner enthusiastically shared my anti-conservative attitudes, and completely sympathized with my righteous fury, this increasingly volcanic behavior on my part had begun to wear her patience thin. Not to mention the inconvenience she suffered, learning and then re-learning a succession of new remote controls for all those replacement TVs...

Oh and the looks! As I'd launch into another of my rants at the stupidities being perpetrated in the name of "spreadin' freedom," the blood would begin to boil beneath her skin and small bolts of lightning would arc their way across her pupils in a pattern that told me I had few precious seconds to live if I didn't immediately seal my lips. After all, preaching to the choir is a lot more fun for the man at the pulpit than it is for the soprano in the first row who's heard it all before.

So I'm profoundly grateful that this site has provided me with an outlet for my ire, one that threatens neither my relationship with the love of my life, nor the few meager possessions that I'd not yet gotten around to smashing at the sight of Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity. It's definitely kept my head from exploding on numerous occasions as well, a minor fact for which I'm equally thankful.

Now, back to defending the nation from the monsters who've tried their damnedest to destroy it. I can only hope those five of you are still along for the ride...