Welcome to The Shadow-Liner. As I am new to the business of blogging, I feel obligated to explain my motivations and worries concerning what has now become a well-established institution of the Information Age.

I have toyed with the idea of starting up a blog (note to self, I need to find some synonyms for "blog") for several months, in part due to the encouragement of a friend, The Wandering Wolverine. While I cannot abide his passion for U of M football, I have the deepest respect for the head he has upon his shoulders and heart that beats in his chest. Indeed, I hope my inchoate thoughts will one day reach a maturity comparable to his own.

But while I may fill this initial entry with flattery for my friend, a blog seems to be more about self-flattery. Given the innumerable logs out there, why should someone read mine? While I express timidity about the development of my ideas, my intellectual arrogance is apparently sufficient to make me think I deserve a tiny corner of the internet.

Indeed, I am touched that anyone is reading this. But I will admit from the beginning that I intend this to be more a cathartic experiment than a path to e-glory. Since graduating college my listeners have been few, and I must admit that my mind is befuddled with internal dialog. By writing ideas down, I can later critique them more objectively; by opening them to comments from others, they are refined further.

My musings will cover politics, culture, religion, and philosophy. My postings will assuredly be of arbitrary frequency, although I have a backlog of many prospective posts that may be uploaded in quick succession at this early stage. I am about to finish the first volume of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, so do not be surprised if I spend a great deal of time commenting upon it. It is an election year, but I think that there are plenty of people talking about its vagaries already--I'll try not to be redundant.

And the name? I may not be taking my first command of a ship, but I sit on the verge of accepting the captaincy of the rest of my life. I can only pray that I prove worthy of the charge granted me.