MO Expat: Capitulation

Cross-posted at http://www.missouriexpatriate.com/2012/03/capitulation.html

Two years ago, while enduring sunsets at 4 p.m. along the Kentish Riviera and a successful grassroots efforts to make an anarchist's breakthrough track from 1992 the top song the week of Christmas, I began work on a novel approach to connecting everyday Missourians with their already approachable state representatives and senators in Jefferson City. Over the course of 27 months, over 35 lawmakers submitted their weekly capitol reports and various news releases for publication in Missives from Missouri.

Unfortunately, as I am now in the second year of my full-time radio job (and by full-time, I mean 60+ hours of news writing, copy editing, Cool Editing (I'm not bothering to upgrade to Audition), driving to and from council meetings, running the board during high school ball games, even getting to call some ball games, touring battlefields and on and on), time has gravely diminished to the point where maintaining Missives has become impossible to keep current.

It is with grave reluctance and disappointment that I announce that I am discontinuing updates on Missives. While a novel concept and one I enjoyed performing for much the past two years, the time and incentive required to maintain it has proven insufficient to warrant its continuation. (And if such incentive or marketability were to come up, I am very much open to the idea.)

However, I can claim a minor victory: since starting this blog, increased interest has been paid to weekly columns. In this session, sign-up buttons have appeared on each state representative's page and state senators' columns now appear under their media section. Several other blogs have also taken to posting weekly reports, contributing these two cents to the political discussion. Of course, Missives took some of the legwork out.

I'll continue to read reports as they come in, and will likely weigh in on some from time to time in The Missouri Expatriate. And again, I'd love to bring this back up. But for now, it's time to dial things down.