The Internet is "Forever"

Yes. My "About Me" section talks up the usefulness of figuring out our ideas by expressing them. I feel strongly about this theory and, as a verbally incontinent loudmouth, I have no problem with the practice - as long as it's face to face. In any room. With anyone who will hear me. But, as a friend of mine says, the internet is "forever." The idea of committing myself to type that can never be entirely erased fills me with the same sort of dread as those beautifully bound diaries in which my every careless comment, grammatical error and bad idea can be preserved for posterity. No thanks. But, an academic blog is required for Cultural Studies 355 Visual Research Methods... and, if this is the scariest thing I do today, things are still pretty cush. If R.G. Collingwood, Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan are right and the "medium is the message," I'll be able to say things in this Blog-language that I couldn't say any other way. So, to the handfull of you who will be required to read this Blog for class, to the one or two others who will want to look at it (hi, Mom) and to any net surfers who get washed up on this odd shore, I offer this disclaimer: let's call this a "rough draft."