The blog-oconomy and Joining the Dots: 11 years in a turning world

Dear Reader,

I join the dots so you don’t have to and I’ve been doing it every single day since 2012.

So what I have learnt in 11 years of blogging? Hundreds and hundreds of things I wouldn’t otherwise know about how things are connected and what’s the context within which they happen.

An early blog was about the sausage factory factor in news production because I had just been to the Shock of the News exhibition at The National Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 2012. The situation, arguably, remains much the same, 11 years on.

Back in 2012, I recounted my own personal America-and-guns story, which had me arriving at the local Walmart, near our now-sold holiday home in Garrett County, Maryland, and finding that I could buy a gun but not a bottle of wine! For that, I had to go to a liquor store. My blog noted: “While I admire the inclination to temperance and the authorities’ commitment to the public good, I could not help but wonder what America would be if this balance were reversed”. In th…