The Strident Centrist Blog

Jim Hightower, the Texas progressive, once said “the only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” Well, there are a few of us live humans there also, waving our red capes and dodging the careening cars left and right.

I’ve been wrestling with this inaugural post for several days, now, trying to come up with something pithy but not pompous about being a centrist. So far everything I’ve tried has been short on the former and long on the latter. Maybe that’s an indication that I shouldn’t worry about formal definitions and just let it roll.

So, that’s what I’ll do. As for What Is A Centrist, let’s just say it is someone who sees truth in a quote attributed to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

In addition to blog entries, from time to time I’ll be putting up some items under the “Screeds” heading in hopes of soliciting some comments and suggestions on some ideas I’m working on. When I do this I’ll let you know with a brief blog entry directing you to it.

I want to put in a word of thanks to the developers of the open source WordPress weblog engine script. It installed flawlessly with a few clicks of the mouse, and the clear documentation makes it a joy to work with. Hopefully I won’t screw it up too much as I try to tweak in a few things over time. Also deserving of kudos is Priss at Tech Wench, the developer of the prize-winning theme we’re using here as the Strident Centrist blog template. I like the stylized head and the yellow background seems fitting in view of the Hightower quote. What do you think?

Enjoy!