"Why do YOU blog?"

It's a fair question my friend Linda asked me, when I told her I was thinking of starting a blog. It is the blogger's existential question, and it deserves an answer.

Once upon a time, I dabbled in journalism. And I've always been full of opinions. (So full that they occasionally leak all over the place. Terribly embarassing in the right company, terribly fun in the wrong.) That's nothing unique; many journalists have opinions. A newsroom is a loud place, and it's not just from the ringing phones and humming computers. It can get dangerous. They ought to post signs reading "Beware Low-Flying Opinions."

Now those journalists whose opinions are interesting, or at least controversial, end up with columns.

Not those who can shout the loudest. They become TV personalities.

Problem is, to become a columnist at one of those esteemed (more or less) edifices of journalistic endeavour requires that one be, you know, a journalist.

And I'm not.

But I still have that journalistic experience, that writing impulse, and those leaking opinions. It all adds up to an inner columnist. He wants to go outside and play. And I'm letting him.