Splotchy: What is your blog?

Impeachment Birding: Impeachment and Other Dreams, though I had another blog about birding.

S:  When and why did you start blogging?

IB: I started blogging about a year after George W. Bush won re-election in a shady way. So I started to dream of impeachment, and just went from there. 

S: Did you stop blogging?

IB: Yes.

S: When did you stop blogging? 

IB: When Obama was elected in 2008, it felt thing would be different—no more war crimes, no more outright robbery by war profiteers, and so forth. We finally had a president who could actually put words together in ways that made sense. It had been so long—8 years under the moron. I continued for a bit, changing the name in my banner to Other Dreams. But it wasn’t the same. 

S: What were any factors that contributed to stopping? 

IB: There wasn’t an endless stream of political bullshit like there had been under bush. I was happy with the young new president. 

S: Do you ever miss it?

IB: Yes and no—it took a lot of time to craft posts. Lots of reading and research. In those days, I had this easy job in which I could have all my work done by around 10 a.m., so I just blogged and read other blogs until it was time to go home.

S: Do you think you’ll ever pick it up again? Why or why not?

IB: I don’t think I’d have time. Certainly not to do a political blog. I’d probably resurrect my birding blog first. But even that would be hard; I’m married with two young children now—Mateo, age 5, and Carina, who just turned 3. Plus my job for the last 10+ years keeps me incredibly busy most days.

S: How do you feel about social media? Does it give you the same feelings as blogging? Why or why not?

IB: No, not really. A lot of the old bloggers are on Facebook, but we kinda post short things, pictures from our lives. I don’t think any of us does research or anything; we just post fun stuff that’s going on. Or not so fun stuff.  I feel like there’s so much noise on social media. You get more and more friends or you follow this or that person, and then you get this highly curated (and algorithm-determined) feed of friends’ posts and a ton of crap and advertising. 

S: How do you feel about the state of the Internet in general?  This is a very broad question, so feel free how to answer as you see fit.

IB: It seemed so interesting and fun in the early days. Now it’s just a shitshow, mostly. The “vast wasteland” that guy Newton Minow called TV. There are good things. If you like certain things like DIY or woodworking or blacksmithing, you can find YouTube channels, Reddit subs, or Instagram feeds to follow and not get that much garbage like you do on Facebook. And I won’t even talk about Twitter. Musk can go up in one of his rockets and stay there. 

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Thank you so much for these answers! I hope you are continuing your birding, and hope you never stop getting more lifers!! 🐦 ❤️