The Beginning

Chris Bouneff

The first posting. The essential question. Why do this?

Call it my mission statement. Every organization seems to need one to operate. Hell, they’ll spend days in meetings coming up with one. So maybe I need one to be successful.

Here goes. I’m an ex-newspaper reporter who gave up in disgust at the direction of newspapers moving to a trend of “community journalism.” I tried sports marketing -- hey, I love sports. I hated sports marketing. The view from behind the green curtain was like looking into the sun for me. Fans are widgets; sports is about selling product. Fun over.

In keeping with my reasons for being a reporter, I figured I could do something publicly oriented by entering politics. Eyes burned. See explanation above.

An aside: I even attended a couple of neighborhood association meetings. Learned quickly that if you believe that it’s reasonable for dogs be on leashes in parks (and I have two dogs) you’re not welcome at my neighborhood's table.

So why blog? Because I’m ready to go Howard Beal.

Mind you, I’m not far enough gone to go Renee Mitchell. I can complain as much as the next person -- but she has no equal? Is there anything that anybody does well enough in her estimation?

But I am far enough along to go Howard. And, Kari, you were just the one to give me a mission objective.

By Chris Bouneff July 19, 2004