When I started blogging back in 2008 over on Live Journal, my philosophy was that I would write to make sense of my world. I really did not care whether anyone read the entries or not. It was, at the time, purely therapeutic allowing me to release emotions and put thoughts to digital paper. I wrote some pieces that were picked up and covered by other bloggers and mainstream media. Some of those pieces went global and because of my reporting, action was taken. For those of you around since the Live Journal days, you may remember the report I did on Cody Basham, the Texas Prison guard who said he wanted to “kill inmates.” As a direct result of my reports, Cody was escorted off of the TDCJ Byrd Unit at Huntsville and subsequently fired.
After that report, I began getting e-mails from people around the world telling me stories of injustice in their own countries and often just words of encouragement. I continued to write and share with the knowledge that others were reading and liking my work. Instead of writing for myself, I write to make sense of the world…our world. My initial philosophy has not changed. Writing stories, providing photo’s and video helps to make sense of the events that shape our lives…our existence. Sometime back, I moved the bulk of my material over to the WordPress servers because of the unreliability of Live Journal. (They keep getting DDOS attacked and are down more than they are up)
I am pleased to find that you folks are responding…in record numbers. In April, DMNEWSI had 18,500 views. We have people from 104 countries that come to DMNEWSI for a look at our world. These numbers are exciting and I appreciate the tremendous trust you have placed in the reporting on this blog. I am not sure why with so many people reading DMNEWSI, my Facebook page only has 148 likes. Of course, everything that is posted on the blog also goes on the Facebook page, however, breaking news and weather updates of interest to the United States sometime only appear as entries on Facebook.
At any rate, for whatever reason, I am glad you are here. I can be reached via e-mail at dmn@usa.com
