Duck broken

I didn't just break my duck at Synod today - I think my will to live got a bit broken too. But I did speak, very, very briefly - guess why? Because the Provincial Web Site was under discussion, and I felt moved to put in a plea for interactivity. I wasn't the first person to use the word "blog", because a previous speaker had suggested that Martin Luther had really done a sort of blog, but the reaction was depressingly familiar.

It seems that the very openness of this kind of communication is too difficult to handle. People might say unguarded things which other people might then read and be misled by. Oh. That's it, then. Like Guardian Unlimited, I suppose? (Sorry - I've forgotten the html for a link, and I'm still not chez moi) Or is it that basically we lack the confidence to recognise that there will always be people to whom you don't listen, and other folk who are daft enough not to know that? There are of course issues about undesired comment - but people who don't themselves blog don't know that we all deal with this perfectly well using the facilities provided, and that deleting unwanted stuff isn't rocket science. And no-one who doesn't blog understands the diversity of acquaintance that the medium opens up, and the possibilities for initiation offered by what can be anonymous participation in discussion.

I'll keep plugging away. I'm happy to realise that old - and new - acquaintances know about my doings because they read this stuff, and I welcome comment on it. At least here I can have the last word - unlike in Synod, where random speakers can always be swept aside by paternalistic closing remarks.

But it's funny that I still come away feeling like a rebellious teenager ....