So why?

Last time I started blogging, I got lost in fonts and templates and ended up by forgetting the blog's name. If ever you stumble upon a completely messed up blog with a few nonsense lines, chances are high it's my lost one. Please don't tell me where it is. This time I've sworn not to go into the template thing.* There are more important issues.

I've been aware of the blogosphere for some time, but discovered its real value when the Lebanon crisis errupted this summer. For the last 3 months I was an addicted reader of Middle East (ME) blogs. Today my picture of ME and Islam has changed.

Why do I start a blog on my own?

• my booksmarks' list is overloaded
• my thoughts and experiences are spread all over the blogosphere
• my computer is not as reliable as it used to be
• my memory capacity (not the virtual one) isn't any better as I'm getting older.

So I decided to deposit my thoughts and comments in one (hopefully) secured place in a (hopfully) more structured manner.

Now about my hidden agenda. While reading the personal accounts and taking part in discussions, I started to feel like living in two different worlds. I read my German newspapers in the morning with my first cup of coffee. My second cup was reserved for ME blogosphere. The third cup in the afternoon was for a short visit in a German discussion board. All three were about ME. One day I thought I should buy a different coffee brand for the second cup to help my mind switch from the theoretical to the real ME.

So I'd like to spread some of my experience to my fellow citizens. I'm not yet sure, which method to use. First I thought about translating selected blog entries. This approach takes a lot of time, on the other hand I don't risk adding my own bias because I'd translate it verbatim.

Another possible concept is a sort of news agency covering the blog entries summarised by one German sentence on a weekly basis.

A lot of other ideas jumped to my head. Like portraying the bloggers, collecting different views on a specific topic - one issue that seems important to me is the question of the timing of a withdrawal from the US troops in Iraq. Then how about what Germans think of ME?

I'll cut off this musing and declare that ::digging deeper:: has no specific shape as yet. I can offer something else instead: it'll be filled with bias. I'm extremely biased towards the moderates, the innocent, the well-educated, the civilised and first and foremost towards children. I'm extremely biased against anonymous cowards, terrorists, fundamentalists, backbiters and first and foremost those who put at risk children's future.

I can see every reader nodding, as this sounds clear and simple. But it isn't. It all depends on definition. Whoever thinks I'm speaking of Islamist fundamentalists exclusively, barks up the wrong tree. Please, dear self-declared Liberals, dont triumph. I met some of you that I would easily declare as fundamentalists before you can drag me to discussing George W. Bush. I don't want to discuss him, because

1. this blog is about ME, not the US. Of course the US play a role but it shouldn't be overrated.
   
2. Bush is a very temporary matter that should not distract us from the more important question: the future. Want to discuss Hillary now? This is still about ME ;-)
   
3. I'm bored of the blame-game.

Glad I could clear those issues. Wait, there was a third... What was it about? Uh, yep, my money. I deeply respect the innovative ability of those who claim I'm being payed for what I'm writing. There's one tiny problem: I haven't received the money yet. I've been thinking very hardly about where the money is hidden- I mean, who doesn't need money? The only possibility is that those, who are so sure about me being payed, are so certain because they actually have my money. Please, if you come up here, bring my money with you. It's the last time I'm saying please in this context.

Some more musing (did I say I stopped it?). I'll establish the German part in a second blog, hopefully called :: nachgehakt :: which means digging deeper in... oh, you already guessed...



*Well, at least not for the first days ;-)**

** Oops, I did it again. But I'll stop now.