Curmudgeon

As most of you who've read the back issues at the Edge know, my goal is a thoughtful discussion of events and general goings on in the Eve meilieu; to provide insight as well as entertainment.  Of course as Jenny, my former research librarian, likes to remind me, entertainment at Fiddler's Edge, with its Wall o' Text (tm) approach to blogging, can be sparse.  I tell her to think of it as elegance achieved through restraint.

However, I fear I've let you down of late.  It's been brought to my attention that I've become something of a curmudgeon. 

And looking back over the last we months of posts I do see a marked uptick in axe grinding at the expense of thoughtful analysis.  Now, there's nothing wrong with grinding the odd axe, particularly if the axe being ground calls out or illustrates a crucial point.  Even the odd bit of curmudgeoning can be entertaining and inform or illuminate.

However, while routine and gratuitous curmudgeoning can be entertaining, it rarely adds value to a point or argument and can, in fact, be a distraction.  In short, while aging cranks get lots of attention, they are rarely persuasive no matter how convincing the content of their arguments.  Besides, the land of curmudgeons is well populated. If you're jonesing for that sort of entertainment, you don't need 'ol Mord.

With that in mind, I will take extra care with the application of curmudgeonese; use it more sparingly to enhance rather than stand in for the commentary and analysis I serve up here.