Don,

Without doubt, this is the craziest undertaking of my life. Why would I wish to risk public humiliation by creating an Internet forum to carry on a dialogue with another person? Worse yet, why would I recruit one of the few friends I have left – a high school classmate, no less – to participate in this crazy public spectacle?

Think about it. For more than five years, a few thousand emails or more between us, we have carried on a private correspondence in which we talked about whatever we wished – no topic was off limits. Well let me stop here for a minute to think about this. Maybe our private email correspondence was not so private after all. In the age of the W, we have learned that the FBI has been secretly authorized to collect information about and spy upon American citizens. I doubt the W would be much interested in what I think or write, but you might be a different story. How guilty would I be, do you think, if in the course of spying on you they might read one of my emails, which detailed the moral outrage I felt since the W declared war against the Iraqi people? Or one of my emails, which expressed how embarrassed I am to be an American citizen during the messianic age of the W? I’m afraid I would be guilty as charged. Very clever ploy on your part, my friend, to deflect the W’s spies to me – and you get off scott free! Expatriates have it so easy!

Well now, how does this first Dialogue post strike you? Is it exhibitionism run amok, an obscure type of intellectual pornography, or just an old man seeking to stave off old-age?

Take care,

LeRoy