5views.com

When I started 5views.com in January of this year I had hoped to focus on the city I live in, Tacoma, WA. So I listed with a local feed aggregator and started blogging on issues that would interest people living here. I decided to be as nice as I could, since I was stepping into their ‘domain’. Holding back on issues that mattered to me wasn’t easy, but I quickly learned that that little group wasn’t ready for anything else.

When I started I thought that I was walking into the lion’s den as a conservative in a liberally dominated local blogosphere. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t a lot of trouble, but it was annoying and largely fruitless. I was amazed at how little liberals want to actually think anything through on their own. With a few exceptions the responses were just the parroting of liberal talking points.

So now that I’ve had time to figure things out, I’m going to change the focus of the site a little. I won’t be holding back on local issues anymore. Nor will I be focusing on such a small piece of geography.

Here are some things that are on the horizon for 5views.com:

• Elections - It’s an election year and my frustration of finding a conservative view of candidates has gotten the best of me. Tacoma and Pierce County have eliminated most party affiliations from the ballots. Everything is listed as ‘NP’. So I’m going to be looking at the candidates myself and passing on what I find so other conservatives won’t feel the same frustration that I have. I hope to offer information and opinion on each race in the area.
• Politics - Since national politics are covered well from a conservative perspective, I’ll be focusing on Tacoma, Pierce, Puget Sound and Washington. Most will be local and county issues because there are others covering the state and I don’t want to duplicate their efforts, especially those more capable than I am. One of my favorite topics will be the strange contradictions that are so prevalent in Tacoma’s politics.
• Republicans- The Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) has been divided as long as I’ve lived in the area. After seeing the state House and Senate get swept to the right during the ‘94 national Republican revolution, I know that there are a lot of people in the area who want more solid candidates and coverage of issues. The WSRP has lost almost all of the ground gained by that sweep, and it’s time the party leadership gets more criticism for their failures. Since the liberal media loves the WSRP’s failures, they don’t say much about it. But I will, and I’ll link to others who have criticisms as well.
• Christianity and Politics - We need to hear more from the other side of the issue. I’ll be talking about why, as a devout Christian, I am also a strong patriot. With that will also be an explanation of how my beliefs support the efforts in the war on terror in the homeland and in other nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the coming fight with Iran. I’m not one to brow-beat since I’ve had my fill of it, but as a Christian minister, my opinions will come out. However, the focus here will be on having a frank discussion of how Christianity and politics can and must work together in our nation and in our cities. I’ll save the bulk of other ministry topics for other sites, with an occasional scripture reference or link from here.
• Transportation - Speaking of frustrations. We’re watching Billions of dollars going into pet projects that were sold to the public as one thing, then after they got their funding they were forced to get honest and admit that they lied, but they’re still getting away with it. Personally, I’d like to see Light Rail go the way of the monorail. We need roads. Lots of roads. And if liberals demand mass transit, they can put buses on the roads.
• Abuse and Domestic Violence - As a Christian minister I believe that I have a ‘call of God’, which means that He is calling me to work in an area of ministry. Part of that ministry is reaching out and helping people change their heart so that they can change their behavior that is hurting others. I support the efforts of (most) domestic violence shelters and also the Father’s rights/Men’s right movement. I think both have and will continue to play an important role in keeping people safe, even from violence that erupts in their own home. But I also believe the problem can be solved, not by just relieving the symptoms of abuse and getting people out of the situations, but by changing the behavior before it leads to violence. This is a topic that will not be limited geographically. If you’d like to know more, check out my ministry site at AbuseBlog.org (ABO) or order a copy of my book (SpeakToTheHeart.org or at Amazon.com). Just for fun, here’s a couple of samples of my perspective on the issue of abuse. Here’s an ongoing article entitled ‘The Proverbs 31 Man‘, and this one is my version of the well-known ‘Wheel of Power and Control’ used by many in the Domestic Violence industry, which I call the ‘Wheel of Manipulation and Control‘.
• Business - As a business owner for over 20 years, I think I’ve learned a thing or two about the subject. Most of my focus will be on small and medium businesses and will include some perspective on how government helps and hurts these businesses.
• Technology - I wrote my first computer programs for use in a real world application over 30 years ago when I was still in High School. I’ve watched products and ideas come and go and I’ve seen the things that help some stick around. In my work helping small and medium businesses move their IT and IS infrastructure forward, I’ve learned some things about what causes successes and failures in these areas as well.
• Search for Other Contributors - I am well aware that I can only cover a few topics well, so I’m going to be looking for others who can do better at it than I can. Some examples are in looking at how Tacoma and Western Washington interact with the military, both in official business and in the personal lives of military personnel. Tacoma’s history is rife with contradictions and corruption. It would be nice to have someone who can bring some of that to light. Public education is another area that I’m lacking since I was educated in a private college.

There are some things you won’t see. Here’s a partial list:

• Fluff pieces - I’ll leave the fluffy clouds and bunnies to other bloggers.
• Republican water-carrying - I’ve been impressed with Rush Limbaugh and how he has repeatedly refused to jump on board with Republicans on issues that went contrary to his conservative views.
• Rehashing of issues covered in the conservative blogosphere - There are some very capable new-media sites that do a far better job of covering national issues than I could, so I’m not going to rehash what’s already been covered. The global warming hoax, liberal national politics and the wars abroad are covered well elsewhere from a conservative perspective, so except as these issues affect our area or the topics mentioned above I won’t be spending a lot of time on them. If anyone joins up as a contributor to 5views.com, they’ll be welcome to do more in these areas.

Update: For those who have been waiting to see changes, here’s why it’s been slow.  I’ve been grappling with the details of how to go about making this site all it can be.  I’ve been considering custom changes to WordPress, additional pages, reorganizing, etc.  But the biggest challenge is something of an emotional issue.  Yes, I’m a man and I’m willing to admit that I have emotions.  It’s not a ‘feminine side’, which I think is a whole lot of garbage.  It’s just part of everyone’s humanity.

What I’ve been trying to resolve for myself is how to go about getting to all the topics that I want to cover, while at the same time being as complete as possible in how I approach each one.  The conclusion I’ve come to is that I can’t, especially in something that doesn’t provide any income and consequently doesn’t get as much time from me as it really needs.

Part of the problem is that both by training and by profession I am an analyst.  A Bachelor’s degree in Theology (not Divinity) means that I was trained to study, teach and preach (as well as do my best to live according to) the Bible.  I’m also a computer and technology consultant, which means that I have to analyze everything related to my work so that my customers get the best solutions for their needs.  With that is my propensity to send potential customer to other providers if I think someone else can do a better job, which is also why I’m going to try to avoid rehashing topics that are covered well by others.

So, the solution I’m hammering out basically has two parts to it: 1) post short comments on the topics listed above without over-qualifying, over-quantifying or over-clarifying (like that), and 2) post my (almost signature) treatises where appropriate.  That means that on topics that are politically or emotionally charged or easily misunderstood, I won’t start the short posts until I’ve had the time to post the treatise explaining my position.

Hopefully, that combination of treatises and short posts will avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication, and will also allow me to satisfy my inner-analyst.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 7:41 pm and is filed under Site Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.