The silencing of a voice

Michael Lopez is closing down his blog. I can't argue with his reasons, since they're personal reasons and you can't really argue with the personal, but I'll miss reading him. I didn't agree with him all that often, but he was a very thoughtful poster who managed to create the best kind of disagreement: the kind where I say to myself, "Self, I disagree with that, but why?"

Michael promises to post something each day for the next week, and then he'll be pulling the plug -- apparently going so far as to delete the blog entirely. Well, I hope he at least saves his archives locally; he's generated too much material that I think he has every right to be proud of, even if he's now loathe to have it permanently available as a matter of Internet record.

I also hope that his retirement as an active blogger doesn't also signal his retirement as an active blog reader. And who knows, blogging can go in any number of directions: witness Steven Den Beste, who hung up his hat as a political blogger and instead went off to blog about nothing but anime. Maybe Michael will be back in some other form, after he's either recharged the batteries or found some new batteries.

But anyway, spend some time looking through the archives over at Highered Intelligence. There's a lot of good food for thought over there.