zenpundit.com

Today I realized that while I decided this in concert with some of the participants it was not all of the participants, nor did I ever send out an email. At least as far as I recall. OTOH, I don’t think anyone will object to this either:

The symposium on Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd by Colonel Frans Osinga, PhD, to be held at Chicago Boyz will take place the week of February 1st and not, as originally scheduled, this week. My apologies to any whose schedule may have been disrupted.

There will be more timely announcements and email prior to the new start date.

Taking a break from posting tonight to work on some internal pages as I have no great inspiration at present. Talk amongst yourselves.

Briefly, as this issue has arisen, I will clarify as I expect that if one asks, ten wonder.

I am not in the habit of censoring commentary and certainly not because of the commenter’s political/religious/methodological/disciplinary/etc. POV or because they criticize my posts. Dissenting views are welcome here. That being said, I prefer that commenters try to maintain the same sort of civility and assumption of goodwill they would if they were talking with another person with whom they disagreed across a table. In my years of blogging, I have only deleted spam, a couple of guys who were repeatedly blogwhoring off-topic and one anonymous comment that I considered to be libelous as well as outrageously unfair.

In terms of functionality, if you put in a lot of links ( or goof up your homemade HTML coding), your comment will automatically be held for moderation by the spam filter. I will typically approve it,  ASAP, usually within a few hours. Otherwise, your comment should appear on the site immediately. I’m sorry for the delay but I’m not keen on spam messsages appearing in the sidebar, given that they usually involve enlarging one’s manhood with secret herbal formulas or winning the Nigerian lottery. Sort of detracts from the “new look” I’m going for here. ;o)

That’s it.

Jeremy Young, a.k.a. “Nonpartisan“, the founder and editor the respected and popular, left-wing, history group blog, Progressive Historians, had some kind words for me when he was interviewed by Scott McLemee, for an article  for Inside Higher Ed.com:

“I’m a liberal,” Young says. “ZenPundit” (Mark Safranski) is a conservative. So what? His history blog is one of the most best reads on the ‘Net. Whether he’s discussing small wars theory, political history, or Jack Kerouac, he’s unfailingly thorough and offers a unique, insightful perspective on every issue he covers.”

That was darn nice of Jeremy to offer up ( incidentally, Young has an article online over at HNN, “A Historian Against Obama“, arguing that progressive hopes for a Barack Obama administration may be misplaced), particularly in a venue where readers were not likely to have heard of Zenpundit. I think much the same way about visiting Progressive Historians where Young has a stable of  talented contributors, mostly younger scholars, digging into a wide range of historical and political issues and frequently engaging in vigorous debate. Despite my being on the conservative side of the spectrum I’ve never been made to feel anything but welcome in the comments section despite a wide divergence in political and economic views ( very wide, in some instances, as many Progressive Historian bloggers are well to the Left of Young, to say nothing of me).

This is how the blogosphere ought to be more often. Thanks Jeremy, much appreciated!

I am trying to catch up on my email tonight and tomorrow morning. If you sent me something this week and did not hear back from me….well….it’s coming. :o)