Jumping on the Bandwagon

Well, everyone else is doing it, right? So I finally decided to take a stab at the ol' Blog-O-Sphere. I'm delving into this new and dynamic medium partly as a support buddy for my lovely girlfriend. She has wanted to start a blog for a while now, so I decided to be a pal and do it to.

Also, I have recently been making some decisions about the course of my life, and I wouldn't mind a forum to sort of talk things out and develop some of my thinking and writing skills. I have been studying political science and history, but I believe that I am leaning towards studying at seminary in a post-undergrad world. So I want a place where I can begin to really dig into some ideas about religioin, Christianity, social justice, and service/civic engagement.

But another reason I cannot neglect is that I have a love for discussing domestic and international relations and politics. And I feel like with the increasing popularity corporate cable news, sound-bite politics and divisive mudslinging have become the norm. This unfortunately creates distrust and ungracious discourse. Therefore, I would like to at least use my own blog as a space to present alternative perspectives to the traditional dichotomy of politics, which chokes out creativity and encourages "us versus them" hostility. Though I do tend to side more with ideologies that promote social justice over corporate care, I am not opposed to digesting and integrating other persepctives. I hope that my example will demonstrate creativity, critical thinking, and gracious understanding, all of which are essential to democratic development.

And if not, at least I'll have a place to post stuff and sleep at night! So many ideas running around in my little head. Maybe this will take the edge off a bit :-)

Anyway, this introduction was supposed to be short, but it's not. I don't think I know how to keep my thoughts short when it comes to politics, philosophy... or anything really. I'll leave it at that. I don't know where this will go, but I hope it is somewhere nice.