The reality is that I am a political junkie. Always have been. When I was in sixth grade, I hated then-President Reagan. I remember once in class, as we discussed the Cold War and US-USSR relations, that I said of Reagan “I think he is a trigger-happy actor who can’t tell the difference between movies and reality.” My teached didn’t like that comment very much: I got thirteen ‘referrals’ that year. [Referrals are bad.] Later, when my mom visited Mr. Coletto, he told her that I was very smart, but said “It’s just too bad that he is so cynical.”

Anyhow, besides being fascinated by politics, I also happen to be extremely liberal when it comes to my political and social views [as if you did not know this]. A leftist, some might label me. A progressive, others might say. I’d not argue with either assesment.

Thus it has pained me for much of my adolescent/adult life to deal with receiving political information through the mass media. Major newspapers, local television, network news, and cable news all are the primary means for most people - within the U.S. or beyond it - to ‘get the news’. Even during my Internet infancy, the news resources that I knew of and turned to were nothing but offshoots of the gigantic media conglomerates who dominate the other media.

So it was a sweet twist of fate that you, dear reader (xtina), began exposing me to the underbelly of the Internet beast: blogs. Sure, most blogs have almost nothing to do with politics. But the beauty of blogs and blogging, is that there exist whole communities of blogs focused on just about any and every interest out there. Politics - not being an obscure topic - therefore has literally thousands of politically-bent blogs. A time of sifting through the clutter, accidentally clicking on links here and there, and next thing you know I am ‘plugged in’ to the liberal, progressive, leftist blogosphere. The beauty of this is not that the ideas there reflect my ideology. Rather, what is stimulating is the availability of information and ideas that add substance and depth the my worldview. Many of my favorite blogs, such as Lying Media Bastards, No More Mr. Nice Blog, and Suburban Guerilla, are tremedous resources not just for their viewpoints, but for the fact that they are able to parse so much of the media maelstrom, locate articles - most often from very mainstream media outlets - that reveal the political workings of the goverment that too often end up ‘under the radar’ of most Americans, due to the fact that they are often burried beneath the flashy, lurid, and simple stories that editors prefer to dominate their headlines and lead stories.

So I guess I just wanted to issue a big THANKS to all of you out there on the Internet who contribute to the exposure and dissemination of important political information - information that I too often missed in my youth, information that today feeds my decisions, activism, and ability to understand the tricky world out there.