Goodbye; Farewell; and Amen….

“Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ‘the rat race’ is not yet final. We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer. It’s a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

The only way that democracy can be made bearable is by developing and cherishing a class of men sufficiently honest and disinterested to challenge the prevailing quacks. No such class has ever appeared in strength in the United States. Thus, the business of harassing the quacks devolves upon the newspapers. When they fail in their duty, which is usually, we are at the quacks’ mercy.

— H. L. Mencken

The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.

— Ernest Hemingway

______________________________

Well, folks – it’s over.

Yahoo 360, which was for some their first blogging experience (I’ve had a Blogger page since ’01) announced today that it was closing in mid-July, and that all content should be moved before then, or it would be lost.

I’ve mixed feelings about it all – I met a lot of really wonderful people here — won my first writing contest since college; validated the concept of a book; chewed the fat and solved the world’s problems with a lot of you. While I also met some scoundrels, they’re not memorable — those of you who followed this small part of the blogosphere, favored me with your comments and your presence, and followed me elsewhere are the one’s I’ll remember.

Thank you. Sincerely.

The Particulars:

If you want to move your blogs, there’s a “moving” link on the main page here on 360. You can either generate an archive on your own computer automatically (which you can then host on WordPress), or move everything (including your comments!) to your profile.

Right now, you can’t change the name (it’ll simply read, “My Blog”).

That’s it.

Most of you know that I now have several locations. I’m splitting my writing between three sites, with an ‘aggregator’ to help people find them all. Here’s the info:

1. If you want to ‘connect’ to me using Yahoo’s new profile-tool, you’ll need my Yahoo email address. It’s “blue_jay001@yahoo.com”.

2. I’ve continued my day-to-day communication with many of the Y/360 crowd (and some new folks, besides) at Multiply.Com (that’s where nearly everyone went.) While the site has its drawbacks (I’m doubting any of us will find anything which is exactly like 360 used to be), and while it’s aimed at the soccer-mom crowd, it suffices for a social network – I didn’t find Facebook or MySpace to be much more than a haven for teenagers and college-kids.

My Multiply account is here. Feel free to join me there for lighter fare, videos, reviews, and the like – I also use it as a ‘portal’ to my other more-serious writing.

3. My sociopolitical commentary, current-events and related writing I’m putting here. Drop by sometime and link to me (Note: You’ll need a Google ID to do so).

4. My sci-fi, alternate-history and ‘series’ writing is here, at WordPress. Again, drop by sometime!

5. You can go here, and find not only me, but a lot of other cool people we used to ‘hang’ with. Mybloglog is also a convenient aggregation point and digest for everything I’m writing.

Folks, I’m going to miss this place. I’m going to miss the comments – which in a lot of cases were better than the humble missives they complemented.

While I won’t be transferring this particular post, you’re welcome to comment here — it’ll stay for as long as it lasts.

Lastly – I know some of you are of the mind that when this ends, you won’t be looking for anything else to take its place. Please just know that, in that case, you were – and are – important to me. Try to check in sometime.

Res Ipsa Loquitor.

–Will (“Astra”)