A New Look and A New Approach

Some explanations are due the faithful readers. As you know this will be only the fourth post in December--that is about the number that you could expect in a week. News may slow down a little in December but life does not. We appreciate the continued interest in what was happening to the blog and our coverage of local events.

• My step-son received a call to report in mid-December to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah in preparation for a two year mission (click here to learn more about missions) in the Frankfort Germany Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. ( click here to learn more about the church.)

• Meanwhile another child, a member of the Temple Teens, was one of six "called back" for an audition at Blue Ridge Studios in Asheville for a national network show after the director had tryouts here and in Atlanta. Two friends died on the same day.

• From February through November, the blog provided nearly 100 posts. This required a lot of the trademark pictures, attending a lot of meetings, making a lot of calls, and extensive use of the web, and many requests for public information. Given other commitments it is not a pace of personal reporting that is sustainable. Meanwhile, however, a review of rapid developments in blogging have made it possible to provide news and information on a daily basis for readers. This required a lot of research, trial and error page design, and testing.

• The need for more coverage and analysis of local stories was clear as some local developments needed more reporting and analysis, but in the future these will be briefer but hopefully no less insightful.

A number of news items will be followed up in the weeks ahead. The Sanford Herald is looking backward to the top stories of 2008. Looking forward to 2009 the E-Lee Dispatch can see:

• A series of posts on the impact of the forgery relating to a single form filled with the Board of Elections that will only not "just go away" but becomes a and the e-Lee Dispatch will be unfolding some of the results. Great care has been taken because more than one or two people could find they will face significant changes in their life plans. This is not only going to turn out as a significant legal matter but also a number of personal tragedies.

• The completion of unfinished commentary on what happened in the last election based on continuing research since November.

• A community decision on what the Republican Party needs to mean to Lee County and the potential ouster of its leadership
• Developments in regard to BRAC that shift from reactive to proactive as new leadership takes responsibility for guiding Lee County's participation.

Below the regular post is a video clip that will remain on the site for several weeks. It was the first of a series that has been updated over time and will be updated over time. It has a very specific reason for being there. The nature of work and the economy over the last few decades is leading us back to a more fluid, less certain situation where there’s just as much work, but where fewer and fewer people will approach the workplace in the tidy box of “a job.”