As I compose this post, Ubi Libertas Blog is about five months shy of its sixth anniversary — established October 9th, 2020, to be precise.
It’s been one helluva ride, hasn’t it?
Before there was Ubi Libertas Blog here on WordPress, I’d been publishing daily posts to my personal Facebook page, mostly thoughts on culture and politics. Twelve years prior to that, I’d launched another blog, which ran on Blogspot for four-and-a-half years.
My WordPress plan comes up for renewal a month from now. Though quirky, this platform has been good to me the last six years. It costs real money, however, and my budget simply can’t absorb the blow this year.
So now I have decisions to make.
First, I must answer a fundamental question: Am I done? In other words, have I said all that I have to say?
Oh hell no. But like virtually everything else I do and pursue these days, my public journaling will need to be cheap or free.
I could return to publishing content daily to Facebook, but that platform doesn’t offer the kind of creative flexibility I prefer. Which leads me back to Blogspot.
Since I’ve never monetized Ubi Libertas Blog, I don’t require the array of commercial tools that WordPress offers (and Blogspot lacks). It was always overkill anyway. And Blogspot is still free, just like it was in 2008.
To make today’s long story a bit shorter, I’ve secured a domain — ubilibertasblog.blogspot.com.
I’ll mess around with theme and layout. I expect to begin publishing there before my WordPress plan expires, so there’ll be some overlap.
It’s my intent to retain ownership of this domain, ubilibertas.blog. I can afford that, I think. All of this content — now 1,926 posts and counting — will remain here as a sort of archive.
Naturally, I’ll post prominent links on each site leading back to the other. If you subscribe to my posts, via either WordPress or e-mail, keep an eye out for information on how to do the same over on Blogspot.
Anyway, that’s the plan. There may be a hiccup or two along the way, but because I have time to sort things out, complications should be few.
As always, I appreciate you taking time out of your life to read what I write. It means a lot.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Stephen Stills (1969)
We have no choice but to carry on.
Headlamp. Hemostats. Heeler. Those three things come together whenever I discover a tick on Miss Smudge.
I check her a dozen times a day. Sometimes I’ll go a week without finding a single one. And then there are times like this morning, when I picked three off of her.
It always begins as a wrestling match, as you’d expect. She settles down eventually and tolerates me twisting her into awkward positions while I work.
She never complains. She’s uncomfortable, of course, and it’s not unusual for me to pull out a small clump of hair along with a latched tick. Nary a whimper nor a whine.
So yeah, she’s a real trooper. But that’s not the best part.
When it’s all over and I release her, she loves on me. She licks my face. She’s grateful. She knows.
And the next time I approach her with headlamp and hemostats, she doesn’t run away. She hops up onto the bed or the couch and waits for me.
I’ve never had a dog who acts like that. It speaks volumes about Smudge and the bond we share.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable