Saturday, May 3, 2008

Welcome to Andrew's Tiki Lounge!


As Cat Stevens once sang, "Oh baby, baby, it's a wild world." For the longest time, I sat on the sidelines, keeping my distance from the Blogging world. I read Blogs, but I haven't written one until now. I figured Blogs were for other people. They were for people who had the time to write them. I didn't have the time. I couldn't be bothered. I'm a single father. I have two kids. I have a loving relationship with a wonderful woman. I have a big house to take care of. I have a research project that demands my time (I'm researching -- and I'll eventually be writing -- a biography of Senator George McGovern). So the last thing I have time to do, I reasoned for so long, is Blog.

But the lure of the Blogosphere is too strong. I can't stay away from it. I'm drawn to it like a moth is drawn to flame. The Internet is a boundless frontier of free expression, and Andrew's Tiki Lounge will be a place for observations, rants and ideas with a decidedly humanistic and anti-authoritarian flavor. Much of it will focus on contemporary politics and society in the United States, although I reserve the right to comment on popular culture and other tidbits begging for discussion. I come at this from a unique perspective: as a dual citizen of the United States and Canada who now lives in Ontario and proudly calls Canada home, yet still feels a profoundly deep connection to America.

Andrew's Tiki Lounge will be a little bit of everything -- a mosaic of our times. As Edward Van Sloan said in his famous introduction right before the opening credits of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein: "I think it will thrill you; it may shock you ... It might even ... horrify you. So then, if you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain ... now is your chance to ... Well, we've warned you."

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