A Dangerous Topic (and a Disclaimer)

Whenever I'm working diligently on a post — as I've been doing recently with my first essay on the state (and quality) of politics and government in America — my internal search engine continues to log acute issues of the day. Issues I want to blog on later, or at least reference in my ongoing analysis of humanity. I try not to become fully engrossed in these topics for fear of straying too far from (and losing continuity with) the core ideas of my current piece. Over the past two weeks, however, I became captivated by a political story of a different — and extremely potent — nature: slavery.

Now, before I dive into this one — a topic that's surely wince-worthy — I want to explain to my readers why I'm tackling it at all. Slavery, (or any of the associated racial issues that flow out of it), isn't a topic many people like to talk about in a public forum. It almost guarantees misunderstanding, anger, charges of racism, counter-charges of racial opportunism. It's a topic that screams "hand off!", and dares you to speak about it in any kind of analytical terms. It's etched into the American experience, yet is a topic we can't often be honest about, except in private, single-race/single-socio-economic groups. People steer clear because they're honestly afraid of how their opinions will be perceived, as if any critical analysis is tantamount to a pro-slavery, pro-racism stance. If you've read my first post, you know that I don't count myself among those people. I'm not afraid to speak about difficult concepts. I'm not afraid to challenge a belief because its parent topic is charged or dangerous. In fact, as many of my readers already know, I think these are exactly the type of issues we need to discuss. It's imperative that we discuss them. I know people will be offended, no matter what my actual intent, but I refuse to be a man held at bay by fear of public outcry. I believe that sharing our ideas is one of the most potent things we can do. That's why I'm blogging about slavery.

Now here comes the disclaimer: I understand.

I know that doesn't sound like a conventional disclaimer, but it's accurate. I grew up at the feet of a progressive mother who was absolutely outspoken about the needs for racial (and sexual) equality. My education in these subjects was thorough and robust, and it left no gray area — nothing to debate. Slavery was an absolute wrong. So was racism. So was any form of discrimination, or disapproval of someone for reasons other than how he or she behaved. I learned that I was no better (or worse) than anyone else — at least not out of the gate. This education served as one of my first moments of clarity — an early step on a road to enlightenment I'm still trying to walk.

In other words, I understand why it's wrong to be a racist, and I understand why anything growing out of racism is wrong. I get it. That's why I've included this "concept-specific" autobiography. As I write these words, I want you to know that I'm absent the beliefs that made slavery possible. So you can write me off as pretentious, or glib, or insensitive, but know that I believe as strongly in equality as I do the need to talk about difficult concepts.

One more thing — an extra disclaimer, if you will. Inasmuch as I feel a need to blog this topic, I accept that the onus is on me to deal respectfully with the issue; to underestimate its power, is to risk injury to those most affected by it. My words may be hard to chew, but there's no malice in them, no veiled hatred, no implied disrespect. They're just my attempt to explore this topic in a meaningful way, without causing harm to anyone. It's a difficult task, even on a good day. That said, I'm throwing my hat into the ring. I hope some of you will join me there.

Thus endeth the disclaimer.

The Apology

So what was the story that started this whole thing? Two weeks ago, CNN posted a news story on slavery. Here's the first line:

"The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow."

If you're even modestly educated, you can probably catch the drift of the story without reading it yourself. It's exactly what you'd expect: a bunch of (mostly) white politicians, apologizing — on record — for the sins of our fathers (and forefathers). They condemn slavery, and vow to eradicate the tangible vestiges of it that continue to confound the African-American community. All in all, a rousing, passionate, and positive act; a gesture that portends — even promises — peace and racial harmony in our time. It should have made me proud, right? It didn't. It left me stunned, and even a little angry. I stared at the article, and mouthed the only thing that came to mind:

Why are we apologizing for slavery?

It's a powerful question, isn't it? It's dangerous. It smacks of racism, even though it's straightforward, reasonable, and linguistically neutral. It's reasonable. Yet, it's a question people just don't seem to ask. As if they've been robbed of the right to ask. As if asking would become an instant stain on them. For the briefest moment, I forgot myself and fell into that trap: I felt ashamed for asking. I was actually tempted to scold myself, and never speak of my knee-jerk reaction to anyone. Then I remembered myself.

There's no shame in asking a question — even a difficult one. If you read this blog, you know I hold that as a core belief. I even mentioned it again in my prologue. Asking questions is the only way to start a substantive dialogue, and the biggest gateway to understanding. This question — instead of being an outpouring of insensitivity or some hidden inner prejudice — was a prelude to critical analysis. An invitation to explore myself and those around me, and a way to forge a useful public dialogue. By the end of that day, I had shared the article with a dozen people.

What's Wrong with an Apology?

An amazing thing happened as I gathered reactions to the apology: I discovered that I wasn't unique. Everyone I talked to had a similar reaction: irritation and disbelief, verbalized in minor variations of "Why? What for? It's 2008!" and followed by some form of:

"My family never owned slaves."

"All the people who owned slaves are dead."

"All the slaves, and all their children, and all their children's children are dead."

"My family wasn't even in America then."

"The Africans were sold into slavery by their own."

"It was 150 years ago: isn't it about time it stopped being an excuse?"

What's more, I realized that I wasn't on new ground: I'd been seeing those reactions my whole life. Every discussion of apologies for slavery, or reparations, or how the need for affirmative action grew out of slavery-borne injustice, had evoked similar variations of these responses. I'm not going to opine on the validity or invalidity of any of them. When it comes to an issue like this — or any polarizing, radicalizing, hate-inspiring topic — logic, rationality, and even truth can take a beating. It doesn't matter if those statements are a hundred percent true; they can't stand up against the classic block of the "racist" label. The issue has inertia that instantly invalidates them, by which I mean, squashes them without critical response or refutal. In the final analysis, they're just insufficient.

But, it turns out that none of those "responses" were components of my knee-jerk reaction. I realized that my reaction — my objection — was borne of history.

Slavery vs. Racism: The Real Issue

Like most Americans, I've been witness to racial disparity and strife for most of my life. I've listened to heated racial debates, and seen the fallout in my community, country, and world. I've heard from people of all colors, and from all corners of my life, and had friends who were seemingly stymied by their race, instead of merely footnoted by it. I've let the media pour their ideas into and over me, and read history books that are often cited as seminal works on race issues. I've been affected by all of it. And I've been driven to learn even more than what my mother taught me. As a result, I now know a lot about slavery, and about the Jim Crow laws. I understand the damage white America caused to black America, and know that there are still undressed wounds. But none of that comes close to showing slavery and it's now dead offspring laws as tangible problems of the current day.

No. In the end, talk of slavery in America today is mostly a distraction: as long as we're engaged in passionate discussions and apologies about an institution that's now absent from the American landscape, we have no drive to tackle the core issue. The one that allowed slavery to rise. The one that remains 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The one that helped create and sustain Jim Crow laws for nearly a hundred years. The one that's really to blame for the discrimination felt by African-Americans in 2008: racism.

Let me clarify this: Racism is a problem for today. Slavery isn't.

Don't believe me? Look around.

Racism still practically courses through the hearts of many Americans: its effects are in evidence in too many communities, reported on too many news shows, and are still a tangible negative force in the lives of many African-Americans. I'm sad to say that it's almost inescapable. But there are no slaves in America. It's a fact that's pretty easy to check, even if there are some interesting attempts to prove otherwise. (There are anthropologists, politicians, scholars, and activists who talk about political or socio-economic slavery; who cleverly use media statistics, censuses, and the hard feelings of those affected by hatred to prove a de facto state of slavery. And, of course, there are many self-appointed experts -- read: wags; contrarians — who will point to a news article about some unfortunate soul chained in a basement for 12 years, and cite that as proof that my assertion is wrong. Fortunately, de facto anything is usually nothing, and the middle-income monster who imprisons his housekeeper isn't proof of institutional slavery — which is what we're really discussing.)

And unlike the institutions of slavery, which can be dismantled through legislation, racism is borne of the intangible. Legislation can't dismantle prejudice. Legislation can't assuage the primal fears, feelings of superiority, and rampant misunderstandings that fuel racist beliefs. Legislation is not a cure-all. In fact, in the case Jim Crow, legislation actually made matters worse. Despite emancipation, racism remained largely unchecked after the Civil War. It seeped quickly back into the halls of power, and turned the legislative mechanisms that had stopped slavery into new tools for institutional prejudice. It created a framework for segregation and abuse that lasted nearly a hundred years.

But again, how are slavery or Jim Crow actually relevant today? They're important points of history, to be sure — and people still point at their fading echoes as proof that they haven't really become history — but are they true drivers for change? Can we defeat racism when we only see it in the rearview mirror, and if we only color it as a legacy of slavery, instead of a precursor? Let's go back to what started this: The apology, and why I objected to it.

Slavery's End: Count the Heroes, Count the Dead

A long time ago, white Americans embraced slavery as a good and proper thing. (For the record, they were part of a much larger club. Nations the world over embraced it just as eagerly, and just as brutally. Truly, it was never just an American problem...) It was good business. It was commerce. It was the natural order. It was a mandate from God. And it had staying power. Nobody seemed to realize that it was also an abomination.

Then came men like Abraham Lincoln.

Now, I'm not going to point to Lincoln as if he was the first white person to step out of line on the issue of slavery. In fact, according to some historians, Lincoln was late to the party, and inconsistent in his condemnations. Other historians have even suggested that his objections weren't organic, but a savvy political reflection of some of the growing Northern social consciousness. In any case, Lincoln is still a good example; his fame casts him as an archetype for all the whites who stood against the institution of slavery. Those people are at the core of my objection.

Slavery didn't end by accident. Slavery wasn't dissolved by apathy. It didn't just wither away and die of old age, or fade into oblivion like some absurd fad. Slavery went down hard, under the weight of war and blood and sacrifice. Good white men surrendered themselves to dust so that black America could be free. And I'm not just talking about the Civil War. I'm talking about the ongoing struggle of race in America: the one where white Americans for more than a hundred years continued to tear down the walls of institutional prejudice; the one where white presidents and legislators fought (sometimes even against their own parties and constituencies) to dismantle voting prohibitions, segregated schools, and discriminatory hiring practices; the one where white teenagers faced off against hate groups in the deep south because they believed in equality; the one where white politicians and public officials tore down Jim Crow laws, and continue to stand vigilant against the ongoing ripples of racism I alluded to above.

I'm talking about heroes in the epic struggle of race in America. The people who are all but forgotten every time someone musters a new apology for slavery, or suggests that white America hasn't really made amends.

You see, it's not that I object to the apology — it turns out I don't. Apologies are good. Apologies are important. Apologies reveal our commitment to repent and repair. I object to the marginalization of our historic struggle to make things right. I object to the notion that the countless sacrifices of our fathers and forefathers aren't even a down payment on this debt. I object to the fact that no attention is paid to the heroes and the dead.

Conclusion

In closing, I can't help but wonder if I've achieved anything here. I've added my 2,500 words to the public record, and possibly spawned some new discourse, but I still can't answer the fundamental questions. I don't know why 150 years of renunciation, pain, and penance doesn't count for an apology. Or how we can disregard the told (and untold) sacrifices that finally stripped slavery out of the American superstructure. I don't know why we're so focused on that long dead institution, that we let it obscure the real issues of the day, and propagate the idea that its parent prejudice was actually its child and heir. And I don't know how any of that leads to a racism-free tomorrow.

In my research, I found many quotes from prominent African-Americans who believe that this apology, however symbolic, has healing power; that this late tenth-party gesture is a potent salve for their entire race. I honestly hope they're right, even as I wonder why they believe it, and why they've been waiting for it — and why they don't seem to remember the heroes and the dead.

If they are right, then maybe this apology will be the last apology. Maybe with it said and done, we'll finally be able to focus on racism in the 21st century. After all, isn't that the real burden for today?

What's This? A Recipe???

So you might be wondering: "How is this relevant?" It's not. I just like cookies. And if you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I mentioned recipes as occasional content here. This counts as one of those occasions.

About This Recipe

I've been searching for a really good — great, in fact — chocolate chip cookie recipe for about 15 years now. I'd always loved to cook, but I was never much of a baker, so I didn't want to start from scratch. And before the internet was a real part of my life, all I could do was look at commercial cookbooks, and poll people I thought of as decent bakers. But I never found a recipe that produced the ideal homemade flavor I remembered from childhood. Then came the internet: not just a career space for me, but a new part of my daily routine. I redoubled my search and started baking all over again.

I still didn't have much luck, but I was persistent: lots of ingredients, lots of oven lightings, and lots of mediocre cookies. Finally, I was inspired to just start working with other recipes, and tweaking individual ingredients in a search for the right mix. This recipe is the current iteration of the tweaking process. It's not 100% where I want it to be, but it makes a mighty good cookie. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

By the way, if you're wondering about the name — the base recipe is one of the many Famous Amos recipes out there. I’m not so famous, and I’m not Amos...

The Recipe

1 ¼ Cups Packed Dark Brown Sugar
¾ Cup White Sugar
1 ½ Cups Butter (Soft but not melted)
½ Cup Vegetable Oil (Canola, Corn, or even Olive)
2 Eggs
2 Tbsp. Vanilla Extract
4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 ½ Tsp. Salt
½ Tsp. Cream of Tartar
1 Tsp. Baking Soda
2 ½ Cups Semi-Sweet or Dark Chocolate Chips (Milk chocolate chips work too, but they make a swee-eet cookie – use at your own risk!)

Makes: a ridiculous amount of cookies.

Thoroughly cream Sugars, Butter, Oil, Egg, and Vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine Flour, Salt, Cream of Tartar, and Baking Soda. Add dry ingredients by halves into the wet ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Add Chocolate chips (and the nuts of your choice if you’re into that kind of thing). You’ll want to bake these cookies right away, and make sure not to chill or refrigerate the dough — they lose flavor and consistency if chilled. (If you do need to refrigerate, just make sure you let the dough come back to room temperature before you start baking. That will help preserve at least some of the original flavor.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Drop cookies by heaping tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes, but beware: the cookies will not brown. (11 minutes is just about right in my oven.) Let cookies stand on the cookie sheet for 1 minute before transferring to cooling rack. (The cookies are incredibly soft and gooey when they first come out of the oven; without the standing time, you can end up with a lot of misshapen and broken cookies. They’ll taste fine, but you might just be ridiculed by friends and loved ones for not making nice, round cookies...)

Eat and enjoy! I'll be back soon with another deep post.

Postscript: An Updated Recipe

Only a week after posting this recipe, I've done some additional tweaking — so the one you see above has changed from what was originally posted. If you tried and liked the original, you'll probably like this one even more. If you haven't tried the original, skip it and try this one instead.

Updated: 7/26/08

A New Look for My Blog

Welcome back to The Frank Spot. I know you were probably expecting another deep, exhaustive post, but I wanted to interject a smaller essay on why my site design has already changed. This change will only be obvious to those of you who read Post 0.5 while I was building the site; the rest of you won't notice any change at all...

I started with a nifty little template called iTheme Techno. It was nice to look at, had some cool widget features, and really spoke to me on a creative level. It was also one of the most frustrating things I've ever played with on the web. Please know that I'm not criticizing any of the people involved with designing the template, or porting it to blogger — they all did wonderful jobs. But it's not easy to ensure functionality with every piece of third-party code that might be added. Sometimes, elements just don't work well together. That's what happened here. I mentioned a few template and widget problems at the end of Post 0.5; I stumbled into many, many more when I tried to integrate Intense Debate as my commenting system. So it was time to find another template.

I looked at about a hundred different designs; each had its own flair, its own positives and negatives, its own way to represent me. Ultimately, I picked the one you see now: Chocolate Candy. I liked the darker colors, subtle hues, and the general layout of the page. I would have preferred a right sidebar instead of a left one, but it was good start. (I may change the layout at some future point, but right now I'd rather focus on content.) Even so, it took me almost a week to get this new template up and running — and not without a lot of extra coding. If you visit in IE6, you might notice a few little CSS problems, but nothing to make me beat my fists on the desk and go without sleep. And the commenting system (including the recent comments widget) works pretty well.

I'll be tabling design tweaks for the foreseeable future, but I'd appreciate any feedback you'd care to provide about the layout, colors, flow, etc. I'd like to avoid tearing this one apart completely, or building a template from scratch, but I'll seriously consider anything you good folks suggest.

Coming Soon

It's taken me longer than I expected to get my next "real" post together: I'm working on it now, and you should see it sometime in the next two weeks. I promise it will be deep and entertaining, and just as long as you'd expect (read: worth waiting for). Later this week, I'll be posting a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I've been working on for quite a while. I don't know if baking cookies will keep you happy until I churn out my next philosophical rant, but I'm going to put the recipe up anyway. If you try it, I think you'll like it. If not, your friends just might. Either way, I hope you'll post your comments.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon.

Post 1.0 - The Real Stuff

Welcome to my blog, and welcome to my first "real" post. As prologue, let me explain why I count this as my first post when it isn't the first thing I've posted here. (My apologies to those of you who already know this from reading that other post!) I wrote a fairly prodigious (read: really long) entry as I was building this site, but disqualified it as Post 1.0 for its lack of relevancy and substance. It didn't add anything to the collective dialogue — it was just one man's first journey into the blogosphere. I wanted my first "real" post to explain what you'll find here. Who I am. What I want. That's why this post counts: it opens the world to the ideas behind the site. The ideas behind me.

My name is Frank. And I'm glad you're here.

The Philosophy of The Frank Spot

Warning: Dangerous waters ahead. Expert swimmers only beyond this point. (In other words: pretentious, contentious, and wordy — just like me!)

There's a question that troubles me daily: How do we define ourselves?

I know it's deep and existential — and perhaps not what many of you were expecting — but it's a question that sets the tone for much of this blog. Let me expand the question: What do we see when we look in the mirror, or watch others move through their day? How do we feel about what we see? What facets of a person do we use to summarize him? How do we DEFINE anyone?

I started by saying the question troubles me. In fact, it plagues me. It fills many sleepless nights with itself, and prods me at the worst possible moments. And not because I'm struggling to define myself. But because I RESIST definition.

Have I lost you? Sorry. Try this:

A man is defined not by any single deed, word, thought, or preference, but by the accumulated effect of his interactions with the world.

Got it? Read it again. This single statement, whether you regard it as wry, witty, self-indulgent, pretentious, or deep, says a lot about me and how I see the world. It functions both as a philosophical text byte — which you can feel free to pass along, with proper credit — and a watchcry for my daily life: don't try to define others in the passion of a moment. Resist when others define and dismiss you. Realize that there is more to any person than can be discovered quickly, or accidentally, or through any third-party retelling. Sadly, it's a lesson few people ever learn.

Don't believe me? Ask someone about George W. Bush. Or Hillary Clinton. Or Tom Cruise. Or Michael Jackson.

As soon as the question leaves your lips, a summary will be ready to fly. It'll probably be honest, which is good; negative, which could be valid; and rooted in very little substance. Unless you ask someone who knows the person intimately, the entirety of his or her summary will be based on...well...almost nothing. Most people have no personal experience with these figures, other than that which is manufactured for them, overheard by them, or spoon fed to them. Even if they've "researched" the person — by which I mean, Googled for recent articles, read blog entries, scanned the supermarket tabloids — they are still largely unenlightened. The very process is flawed. How much can be gleaned without real interaction, and less than a lifetime of it? Did you walk away from your last trip to the store confident that the clerks understood you? Did your short time in their presence constitute an accurate telling of who you are as a person? Can you really be measured in passing?

Of course not. That's my point. No one can. But the process starts anyway. A few moments with CNN, and three data points from the internet, makes John Smith feel properly armed to characterize anyone. It doesn't matter that he's violating a core belief about his own complexity. He condenses what he's seen into a solid, practical block. Something he can defend with the self-righteous airs of someone "in-the-know." A definition. And it's not something we reserve for the famous; we do it with just about everyone.

In truth, definitions don't make our lives any easier. They are convenient, but not beneficial. People are difficult to understand: they have different faiths, cultures, and ideologies; they do things we wouldn't, and feel things we can't. Definitions can't bridge that gap. They are roadblocks to dialogue. They create new problems. And we respond with more definitions. It's a self-sustaining cycle of diminishing returns and growing strife.

But there is a way to break it: Stop.

Step away from the tendency to make easy, largely uninformed decisions about people. Take a moment to reconsider those folks you've already defined, and effectively closed your mind about. Think about how much information you used when you wrote your summary of any given person: where it came from; how accurate it was; how your emotions might have colored it. Be willing to accept that your definition might be as flawed as the process you used to build it. If you can do that, you may just be ready to do a little more.

Now before I go any further, let me answer two simple, but important, questions:

Why Blog? Why Now?

I talk a lot. To those of you who know me, this is no surprise. For those of you who will get to know me through this blog, it will become apparent in time (if it hasn't already). But I don't just talk a lot. I listen a lot. And I spend twice as much time evaluating what I hear as I do listening or talking. This is possible mostly because I've spent more than 20 years as a chronic insomniac. That's given me quite a bit of time to contemplate myself and my world. And to contemplate you.

That's right. You heard me. I contemplate YOU: what you do and say; how you walk, talk, and drive; whether you know how to use spell check; if you type in ALL CAPS; if you have any bad habits; if you don't understand the rules of polite society; if you're a loudmouth or an ass; or if you just don't put much thought into your ideas, opinions and beliefs. Now, some of you wags may suggest that this passage connotes blatant hypocrisy; as if I'm defining people by those single traits, while railing against that sin in my blog. If you think that, you're dead wrong. I can notice traits without using them to define the whole person. And you should too. So before you get all huffy and click "Next BLOG," please be assured that I subject myself to similar scrutiny every moment of every day. I strive to be better tomorrow than I am today. I believe some others do too. But there's a twist.

Until now, I've been talking only about how we define ourselves. In reality, that's only half the issue. We define everything we see. Not just people, but world events, politics, issues of faith and humanity, crime and punishment, the price of peas in Peoria. It's become habitual, or maybe even genetic. At some point in our collective evolution, we decided that life — meaning EVERYTHING — needed to be categorized, summarized, and compartmentalized. At some point, we decided we didn't have the time, capacity, need, or desire to do anything else. We decided it was all right to read the dust jacket instead of the book, and patted ourselves on the back for how insightful the dust jacket had made us. We felt clever for the mental energy we'd saved, and the time we hadn't wasted digging for something more. And unfortunately, we started a dangerous tide of deliberate ignorance that washed us into a world of misery, distrust, and hate.

Now let's go back to the original question — how do we define ourselves? — and read it this way: how do we define anything, and is it bad that we do? If you've been reading along, you know my opinion: we mostly define things with incomplete (and often insignificant) data, then move to action based on these flimsy pretexts. If I'm right, then even our basic judgment is suspect, and that's bad. The solution is to break away from the pat definitions you use for people. If you can do that, you might be able to break free of the definitions you use for everything else. And there, my friends, lies progress.

So, again: Why create this blog, and why now?

As I mentioned above, I like to talk — a lot. And not just about safe things. I start conversations about difficult topics — issues of the day, personal beliefs, faith, politics, humanity, inhumanity. I like to see how others think, and see how their ideas can affect my own. I like to be challenged, and I like to challenge others.

Before I go on, let me re-frame the definition problem: people are often held prisoner by their beliefs, no matter how valid they are, or from whence they came. Perhaps it's due to time constraints, lack of energy, or lack of ambition. Perhaps they're blind to their own natures. Perhaps they just suffer from know-it-all-itis. No matter what the cause, I meet people every day who just don't put much thought or effort into who they are, or what they believe. They read blankly from their definition files, and disregard anything that clashes with the summaries they've intoned. If they decide to know me, I feel obligated to challenge them. Not specifically what they believe, but why they believe it. I challenge the idea that they've really considered all the facts, and that they can express them effectively. I challenge them to reopen closed files and evaluate new data. Basically, I challenge them to challenge themselves.

How does this answer those two questions? I had thought about blogging many times, but I had always discounted it. I didn't know what to say, couldn't find the time, didn't see the point. For whatever reason, it just wasn't the right thing for me. Then I got a new job in a different city.

Living in Rochester and working in Buffalo means a long daily commute: three hours a day in good traffic conditions. But, I'm lucky enough to share the car with two other deep thinkers, people rare in their willingness to explore ideas and beliefs that conflict with their own. Instead of riding in silence, or mindlessly bopping along to the tunes of the day, we spend most of our time in respectful, good-natured debate. We explore many tough issues — including the ones you're never supposed to talk about around the holiday table — and always end the ride knowing a little more than we did when we began, even if we still disagree. After one particularly spirited debate, the idea of a Frank blog came to mind like a shot: maybe people outside the car would appreciate some intelligent discourse about topics that make many people nervous. Maybe I was the guy to provide it. Ultimately, I was motivated by the drive. This blog is an aborning child of every deep conversation I've ever had, and every spirited debate. The spark that gave it life was Interstate 90.

(It's important to remember that I don't restrict my deep conversations to long car rides. I challenge everyone I know, as often as I can. Almost every visit with friends includes some quality discussion time. An evening at my house (the real Frank Spot) is like a salon of old — a roundtable of intelligent, open-minded people discussing important topics of the day. Lots of fun, and often a big headache...)

Now let's talk about what you'll find here.

About: The Frank Spot

If you're still reading, it's probably because I haven't told you enough about what you'll find in this blog. I've been busy setting a complex stage for what could be a contentious, anger-inducing, brawl as easily as it can be intelligent discourse. I'm sorry about that. I wanted to weed out the people my words couldn't reach before I delved too deeply into the content. Now that you're here, let's get to it.

The Frank Spot is mainly about ideas. It's about sharing them as a way to challenge them. As you've probably grokked, I decry the entire definition framework — it's easy, selfish, and petty; it divorces us from our better nature, makes us lazy, angry, sometime hateful. It spills out of us in little passive-aggressive comments, and big, overt displays of malevolence. It prevents us from evolving. So what is The Frank Spot? It's a rebellion against the dullness and crime of preconceived notions and everyday thought. It's my plea: lets break the cycle of easy answers and the bad judgment they spawn, and reconsider everything we've already dismissed. Let's look at ourselves and each other, and really consider what we see. Let's stop thinking we know more about everything than we do.

Why Should You Read My Blog?

At this point, unless you know me and enjoy my frequent rants, you're probably asking yourself why you should spend any time with The Frank Spot. Well, maybe you shouldn't. But you can. Here's why I think you might want to: the simple act of sharing ideas is the foundation of growth. For all of us. It really doesn't matter where those ideas come from, or if they're good ones or bad ones. The process — the act of talking, listening, and evaluating — is what's important. Don't be carved in stone. Don't hide behind what you already know. Join me in this frank spot and take a walk through some new ideas, or at least look at old ideas through someone else's lenses.

The Lighter Side (Or: What About Some Fun Stuff?)

So you're probably wondering: is this what every post will be like? Pretentious, aggressive, a little insulting? Undermining core belief structures? In a word: No.

Although I intend to devote a lot of time to the "core issues" of humanity, philosophy, politics, et al, I'll also be blogging about mundane and funny things: my job; the crazy thing that happened on the way to Wegman's; movies I've liked or hated; creative writing. I'll even be posting some recipes for those of you who cook (and, incidentally, for those of you who don't...). So, even though the site is built on a framework of deep thought and potential conflict, there will be plenty of lighter content. If you don't believe me, you'll just have to check back and see.

In Closing: a Postscript

I'm sure a few of you are still wondering: Why The Frank Spot? What's with the eponymous blog name? Is he that arrogant? Well, probably. But that's not why I picked it . I've lived my whole life with a name that's a gainfully employed adjective: to be frank is to be candid, up-front, honest; direct and unreserved in speech; straightforward and sincere without inhibition or subterfuge; direct and undisguised. I've always tried to live up to that, and I wanted my blog to do the same. I wanted a place where I could be myself, and be candid about everything. I wanted a place where Frank could be frank. Which reminds me:

Don't just read The Frank Spot. Pass my posts around. Use my essays as opportunities to share your own beliefs, and explore others'. Jump in with both feet: when you're done reading, don't just mutter to yourself and move on. Click the comments link and start typing. I don't care if you agree with me or not— if you share a little, we all win a little. If you share a lot....well...you get the idea.

So that's it. I've introduced The Frank Spot — in about a million words! I hope you'll come back to read the next million.

Peace.

Blogging from the Ground Up - Post 0.5

Welcome to my blog. Before you start reading — something I hope you'll stay and do — I have to point out that the Frank Spot is still just a touch under construction So even though you're reading this, my first blog entry, you should know that it isn't my "official" first entry. That's coming shortly.

"What the heck is he talking about?" I don't know which one of you said it, or if you used more invectives, but I definitely heard it...in advance...while typing. (Could blogs be windows into the future? Find out in a future blog!) No, no. Let me explain:

I've been working to create my blog for about three weeks now. And it occurred to me that I could create an "unofficial" blog entry that gives me content to play with as I build, AND documents my odyssey from ignorant non-blogger (read: member of the unwashed masses) to enlightened blog guru. (Okay: maybe "guru" is a little boastful, but it's my blog, and I'll boast if I like.) I've decided to make it "unofficial" because I'm not sure I want to count this as my first real entry. There's something so blasé and unimaginative (not to mention dizzyingly self-referential) in blogging about blogging, no matter how amusing the readers will find my frustrating journey.

No — ultimately, I want my first "real" blog entry to be about something important. Something provocative. Something that bites into the social or political problems that are the meals of the modern news media. As I mention in my sidebar, I want to be relevant. So in short, blogging about starting my first blog ain't gonna cut it. Therefore:

Welcome to Post 0.5 (or: Creating a Blog Sounded So Easy, But Really Wasn't)

Finding the Right Site

Once I decided to start a blog, I had few decisions to make. The first, most basic one: what blog tool/site to use. I took a casual stroll through the myriad world of blogging products, and started gathering a list of things I liked. It took more than a week to examine the rich feature set that powered the blogosphere, but I came away from the analysis with a fairly simple list of what I wanted:

• Hosted — Yes, I'm a web guy, but I don't have my own server, and didn't feel like building one to host myself.
• Free — I wasn't sure I'd like it or stick with it, so this was key.
• Flexible — I like to have a lot of control, so I wanted something that gave me control over almost everything: design, scripts, widgets, etc.
• Well-known — a site that people are using a lot; so I can get my thoughts out to a large audience.
• Nice design — a site that looks nice when you get to it, not just when you're on a blog. Not too ad-heavy, not too cluttered/busy, not loud and obnoxious.
• Cool templates to pick from — I knew I'd start with a basic template and go from there, but why not start with a cool one so I don't have to hate my blog while I'm building it.
• A name that's easy to type and say — Sorry Aeonity; not only am I still not sure how to say your name, but most people have dropped the "a" from Aeon. That means I'd have to stop and spell you every time I tell someone where to find my blog. Not intuitive at all...

Now that my requirements were in hand, I was ready to go back and make a decision. I started Googling again, and clicked every "demo" and "tour" link I found. I asked friends who blogged what they thought of sites X, Y, and Z. And I read a hundred reviews. I had a short list in about a week, but then I was stuck: I couldn't make a final decision because I couldn't see behind the login screen. No matter how good the marketing was, there were questions I just couldn't answer. It was quite a pickle. Ultimately, I realized I'd have bite the bullet: start building blogs from my short list, and decide which one really met my needs. My first stop: WordPress.

The domain I wanted was available: www.frankspot.wordpress.com. I grabbed it, and started building my first prototype. I picked a template, selected my widgets and add-ons, added a header image and stylized logo, greeked up some text, and published. It looked cool, but not quite right. The template I picked was left-justified, and it looked fine in the little preview window. But full screen, it looked — well — wonky. I went behind the scenes to change it, and quickly found that I couldn't tweak the CSS without adding some coin to the mix. In fact, I was pretty hobbled in the customization area, if I wanted to keep my wallet closed. There were many great features: it was fast, and slick, and easy to use, and had brand recognition. But, the fact that they'd hidden the CSS from non-paying customers irked me, and not just a little. So, I left my greeked WordPress blog where it was (pushed all the way to the left!) and moved on to Blogger (which, incidentally, one of my carpool buddies recommended).

New host, new URL, new attempt. I went back to the drawing board. I browsed through templates, add-ons, etc., and the Blogger iteration of The Frank Spot was poised to take shape.

The Template and Widget Quagmire (Or: How Hard Can it Be When You Have Lots of Choices?)

Picking a template for WordPress was a relatively short process: they offered a few dozen standard (read: free) templates, some of which were pretty good. I could also upload a third-party template from one of the many gifted designers in the blogosphere. But, just like the ability to customize the CSS, use of a third-party template required the tacit approval of my wallet. And my wallet wasn't interested. "Blog free or die," it said crisply from my nightstand. "Maybe Blogger has more free templates."

Indeed. Through its interface, Blogger has about the same number of templates as WordPress. Sharp and easy to understand, if a little understated. But Blogger supports pretty much any third-party template you can find, or any template you care to build. Three seconds with Google showed me an amazing number of sites devoted to Blogger templates. For every cool WordPress template out there, there were at least two cool Blogger templates. In fact, there were almost too many.

"Too many?" you ask, pursing your lips and raising one eyebrow. "Yes," I say confidently. "Too many." So many, that I wasted an entire day downloading, unzipping, and testing templates. Some were wrong for one reason, some were wrong for another reason. Some were wrong because I was just too picky. It was in the wee hours of the next morning that I found one that seemed to have the most promise: iTheme. Nice look, good color and backgrounds, and the ability to open/close and reorder the side widgets. I locked it in place with all defaults intact, pasted my greeked text from WordPress, and took the second iteration of my blog online.

"Much better," said my wallet. "And without any involvement from me." I offered a snarky smile, put something heavy on top of my wallet, and went to bed.

The next morning, it was time to figure out which widgets I wanted. The template came with four, but I figured there'd be more I'd like. I'd seen enough blogs during my research to know I wanted things like a calendar for my archives, a section about me, a list of tags, etc. Enter the next set of problems.

First off, the default recent comments widget didn't really work. Comments weren't showing up as expected, and when they did, they were kind of ugly. I remembered some forum discussion about that particular widget not working properly in iTheme, and several bloggers had built their own replacements. I tried a few of them out, and finally landed on a pretty good one by Hackosphere. I plugged it in, it worked, and I was happy. I'd worry about customizing it later.

Next up: an "About" section...and a tremendous headache.
In addition to all the canned widgets it offers, Blogger also has a basic HTML/JavaScript widget, that lets you provide your own code. As a web guy, I was confident I could build a section in one flurry of typing, drop it in the page, and be done. Nothing is ever that easy.

I inserted my clever text, floated it around a Simpsons avatar of myself, and published. I previewed the page in FireFox and it looked great. I went to IE6, and "Where the heck is my text? Why is there a blank section?" I checked my code, refreshed my browser cache, chewed my lower lip, and then tried to move the widget. I was shocked to see that when the widget detached from the page (and became partly transparent) my picture and text were actually there — hiding behind the layer. Such a curious thing. I was even more shocked when I tried to move it in FF and the widget moved WITHOUT the content. Could my code have been that wrong? I really didn't think so.

I opened the widget, parsed the code, and decided to try a little more structure — I had wrongly presumed that the widget brought enough structure with it. I built a quick CSS (loaded on googlepages) and cut in some styled DIVs and Spans. In FF, all was well, and the content moved with the widget. In IE, the text was still lost in the background. I pondered for several minutes before I remembered some quirkiness I had seen on another project. I went to the CSS, and specified a 100% width on the container DIV. Bang! Now my content was visible in both browsers. I thought I was done.

I opened the site up to a few others, and the next problem appeared: if you collapsed or resized any of the widgets, the page would break when you reloaded it. The wrong widgets would be collapsed, and the "About" content would be hanging out alone UNDER its empty widget. Somehow, my static HTML text was wrecking havoc with the widget code. If I took it out, the page was fine. Back in, and broken. Again, most annoying. I searched the web, posted questions on template forums, pored over help files, but to no avail. I had to fix it myself.

Flash forward a few days. The problem rattled around in the back of my brain while I concentrated on other stuff. When I went back with fresh eyes, I decided to dissect my first solution. I wondered if the surrounding DIV was somehow to blame. I changed it to a SPAN, and bam! the blog worked perfectly in FF. Collapsing, expanding, moving — all fine. In IE, no more content. It was back behind the widget. Ignoring the snickers coming from my flattened wallet, I tried combining my solutions. I added a styled DIV (with 100% width) just inside the outer SPAN tags, and republished. FF? Still fine. IE? Hooray! It's there! But man, was I pooped. And confounded. What a weird (and completely incorrect!) way to build that content. (DIV tags don't go inside SPAN tags...) I decided I needed to document that experience in my blog...

What Happened to the Calendar Widget (Or: This is the Longest Post About Nothing in History)

Those of you paying close attention may remember that I mentioned an archive calendar widget. There's nothing wrong with the flat folder list archive that came with the template; I just liked the calendar look, and wanted to have one. I did a little searching, and found a custom archive widget that seemed a good fit for my blog. I downloaded it, unzipped it, and let out a long slow breath — with just a hint of a low, sliding whistle. There were many nested folders and some densely packed instructions in the unzipped folder. I had just lost three days fighting with my 40-word "About" widget, and the thought of this next installation sucked the energy out of me. In short: I didn't have the heart to install it. I saved it, and may get to it eventually, but for now, my readers will have to make due with the default.

WordPress vs. Blogger: Who Won?

I'm not sure when it happened — or even why, given the template and widget troubles I had with the site — but Blogger became the de facto winner of this contest. Although I still liked everything WordPress had to offer, I had invested far too much time into Blogger to give it up. I didn't realize I felt that way until I had written much of this 0.5 entry. I had fully intended to cross post this entry there so I could do a 1:1 comparison, but the idea started seeming silly. And despite the length of this entry, I'm not a man with an abundance of free time. So, Blogger it is...for now.

Final Thoughts (Or: OMG! What More Can He Have to Say?)

As I close this unofficial first entry, there are a still a number of challenges in front of me. In addition to wanting to insert a sub-title/subheading under the post title (without messing up the look and feel of the page), and change some of the default CSS, I haven't figured out how to remove deleted posts from the archive list, or comments about a deleted post from the comments list. It seemed pretty obvious to me that if you deleted a post, the archive entry and all associated comments would go with it. Clearly, I missed something along the way. I have a few last-ditch (and even drastic) things to try, and I may have to settle. But The Frank Spot, now firmly in place on Blogger, is open for business.

I hope to see you here.