State of the Blog Address

[I noticed this morning that about every blog on my Blogroll has been updated, mostly with State of the Union comments of the "Hi-I'm-A-Professor-Of-Elizabethan-Sculpture-And-My-Expert-Opinion-On-The-Economy-Is..." variety. So, instead of adding my own stupidity to the chorus of inane repetitions of facile memes, I offer for your reading displeasure my State of the Blog Address].

My Fellow Blogospherians, Medievalists, Academics, Bowtie Wearers:

As many new blogs are created, all of us in the blogosphere share a great privilege: We've been placed in The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem by the links of the people we mutually link to. And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly-formed blogs of the world. (Applause.)

Seven months ago, I sat in a bathrobe before my computer and renewed my commitment to the guiding ideal of babble for all. This evening I will set forth policies to advance that ideal on this blog and around the blogosphere.

Today, with a healthy, growing list of incoming links, with more readers wasting their work day checking the Wordhoard, with my blog an active force for good in the world -- the state of my blog is confident and strong. (Applause.)

Our generation has been blessed -- by the expansion of opportunity, by advances in wysiwyg html coding applications, by the computer literacy purchased by our parents' sacrifice to buy us an Atari when we were young. Now, as we see a little gray in the mirror -- or no hair at all, in my case -- (laughter) -- and we watch our children IM one another, we ask the question: What will be the state of this blog? Members of the Blogosphere, the choices we make together will answer that question. Over the next several months, on issue after issue, let us do what readers of Unlocked Wordhoard have always done, and build a better world for our children and our grandchildren through commenting on the latest minutiae of Battlestar Galactica. (Applause.)

First, we must be good stewards of our blogroll, and renew the updated links on which millions of our fellow blogospherians rely. Unlocked Wordhoard's blogroll is the fastest growing of any major blog containing the word "Wordhoard" in the world. In the past few month, we provided links to every person who links to us, overcome a sudden re-structuring of the Ecosystym, opened up new links to other bloggers, persecuted people who say stupid things, raised the hackles of our readership to its highest level in history, and in the last year alone, the Unlocked Wordhoard has added dozens of new links. (Applause.)

Our second great responsibility to our children and grandchildren is to honor and to pass along the values that sustain a free blogosphere. So many of my generation, after a long journey, have come home to family and faith, and are determined to bring up responsible, moral children who don't turn up Nickelodeon too loud while we're trying to read. Blogs are not the source of these values, but blogs should never undermine them, unless they are porn blogs specifically dedicated to that goal.

Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined as a union created for the sole purpose of shuttling children from one appointment to another. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a pledge to protect the institution of marriage by allowing my wife some computer time as well, rather than hogging the whole thing for myself. If that fails, I support the creation of a special fund to buy a laptop so that I can blog while she surfs her sites. (Applause.)

Our third responsibility to future generations is to leave them an Unlocked Wordhoard that is safe from danger, and protected by peace. We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy -- and chief among them is freedom from fear. Therefore, I pledge to you that our blog will never dissect the latest gossip about Brangelina, nor will it make puerile calls for the immediate impeachment of any political figure of either party. No one need fear the Wordhoard.

In these few months, the Wordhoard has seen the unfolding of large events. We have known times of sorrow, and hours of uncertainty, and days of victory. In all this history, even when we have posted really moronic things, we have seen comment threads that were relatively troll-free. The attack on intelligent discourse in the blogosphere has reaffirmed our confidence in blogosphere's power to waste many hours of the workday. We are all part of a great venture: To extend the promise of inane babble in this blog, to comment on things about which we know nothing, and to spread the chuckles that ironic posts bring.

As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "I really wish I could have a blog -- if only computers would be invented before my death. Alas, I'll simply have to comfort myself by smoking cigarettes out of very long, silly-looking cigarette holders." And we post in the blogosphere where the biggest posts are unread because of short attention-spans. The dissolution of the Backstreet Boys was only a dream -- until it was fulfilled. The creation of a feature-length Firefly film was only a dream -- until it was achieved. The promotion of public discourse about modern medievalism was only a dream -- until, one day, it was accomplished. Our generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads: It leads to more posts resulting in hatemail from Tolkien fans.

Thank you, and may God bless the Unlocked Wordhoard. (Applause.)