Remembering "history back"

I don't know that we--the W-B-a-net-sphere--need to keep beating up on WILK's Steve Corbett for very much longer. I made my point in a loud and grotesque electronic manner. And perhaps an unstated part of my point should have been as follows...

Much unlike him, I've demonstrated a propensity for being ahead of things, not behind them. Case in point, I blogged and then some years later they invented a term to describe such an electronic endeavor.

Ten years ago or so, I embedded the emails of people who both encouraged me as well as those who absolutely detested me. And then years later Blogger and other similar outfits enabled commenting by readers.

I introduced what is know known as the local blogosphere to embedded YouTube videos. And I also taught a few locals how to produce rather than embed said videos.

When all that was available on the Internet was the latest news from fledgling newspaper sites, I managed to spirit telling documents out of City Hall without ever having stepped foot into that hallowed place.

Most importantly, I also clearly demonstrated that a properly deployed $100 Kodak camera could literally devastate a local politico much faster than any 4,000-word diatribe ever could.

My point is this. Steve Corbett can call me a wanna-be journalist if that helps to stroke his gargantuan out-of-control ego that is likely headed to the Ego Hall of Fame one day. He can chastise me, belittle me and keep on reminding me that I am not what he once thought he was--a journalist.

But the undeniable truth is that I never once tried to pass myself off as a "journalist." In fact, if you've been reading this usual swill of mine since near it's inception, it's always been known as an alternative opinion, or an ersatz, off-the-wall and acerbic supplement of sorts to the local newspapers.

And if you long-time readers remember correctly, when Wilkes-Barre Online was first launched back before the advent of MySpace, Twitter, Facebook or WILKNewsRadio.com, it included the highly visible disclaimer, "Pennsylvania's Most Punctuationally-Challenged Web Site," a clear reference to the fact that I was an unabashed slacker in both high school and college. I know I've gotten better at punctuating over the years, but my shortcomings in this area also suggest that I'd be a complete fool to declare myself a journalist.

Still though, for whatever reason, Corbett's ridiculous antics suggest that he perceives blogs to be some sort of threat to his imagined journalistic supremacy. And that's perfectly fine with me. But don't make the mistake of thinking that I believe myself to be anything that I am not. I'm just a guy with some skills, an attitude, a computer, a camera and the instincts of a certifiable genius by way of heredity.

But my original point still stands.

If Corbett was thinking important issues and breaking news just a couple of short years ago, if he was ahead of the curve rather than wastefully and foolishly taunting his "coal-cracker" of an audience with boasts of "I am a Mexican," and "I am a Feminist," he wouldn't now be rushing to the Marcellus Shale issue far too late to make a discernible difference.

But, hey. Why should you have to endure my "ego trip," while the words of others, namely Harold, are readily available?

Over at Circumlocution for Dummies, you'll find Mark Cour. He's been writing about this stuff for years. Seriously. And before that, he's been relentlessly fighting for a better Wilkes-Barre. He's a guy who won't back down in a tussle. Plus, he does his homework, and knows his stuff. Ask any reporter who's used his site as an unattributed source for an "exclusive" story. Oh, and he's been in this "blogging" game since before there was a word for it. Impressive.

Now, the way I recall things, an ego trip has to come from within. And I while I thank Harold for the overly kind words capable of making me blush, I also reiterate that I have always been on the cutting-edge of this electronic forum, something that Steve Corbett cannot make claim to in his chosen field of journalistic endeavoring.

He's the journalist. And I'm the lowly blogger.

He's the expert, he's the know-it-all. And I'm the wanna-be.

He's late coming to the natural gas party. And I've always been ahead of the curve.

And as my barely-educated grandfather said to me many years ago after a 3-on-1 bus stop fistfight went horribly wrong for me, "It is what it is, not what you might want to make of it."

And in closing, I'll put this one in the hands of my three or four readers.

Am I stroking my ego, as the Great Corbett would have you believe?

Or am I just stating facts?

Am I, as a blogger, a threat to his self-perceived and lofty preeminence?

Or am I simply providing an alternative voice?

Later