I have no clue what frequency I’ll be writing, but my hope is to dedicate a couple hours each week to writing. Whether these will be fruitful hours or not is and will remain for some time an open question. So, expect a post a week, maybe two. The next post will come out on Monday.
My plan is to keep posts between 500-800 words. Long enough to delve below the surface of a particular question or problem, but not so long as to make every post an exposition. Putting a cap on word count will help me keep posts focused. One of the biggest challenges I have faced in trying to think and write about CA is that it can become an expansive conversation, with many intersecting threads that go back decades. Rather than one long manifesto, this will make writing, reading, and discussing more manageable.
It will also allow me to reflect on feedback I receive. While I’ve done a fair amount of research in the last few months—reading old newspaper reports, legal documents, and other archived materials—I know there is much I have missed, nuance and context that have been lost in time.
So I encourage conversations about the posts or about this effort more broadly. For that reason, I have opened comments on the blog, but you can also comment to me on twitter (@iankennedy7), on the Columbia Flyer facebook page, or you can send me an email (handle is the same as twitter, but put a “.” between my first and last name and address @gmail).
Finally, because I have to say it, everything I write here reflects my personal beliefs and opinions, and not those of any other person or entity. Obviously, I have inherent biases that anyone is welcome to question.
But this blog and my writing is a good faith exercise in community dialogue and an attempt to add perspective, context, and information to a matter—the governance and future of the Columbia Association—that has not been subject to sufficient consideration and conversation. During the first few decades of CA’s existence, its actions and deliberations were exhaustively covered by multiple regional and local newspapers. These days, you will generally only see the Columbia Association in the newspapers as an advertiser.
I am not suggesting that I can fill that information void, but I hope to close it at least a little.
