ALOHA, WELCOME & HELLO!!

I've been thinking about writing this blog for several months but, for one reason or another, I never got it started -- until recently.

I guess I needed a little inspiration and a nudge from an old friend, Dave Shippee, who bit the bullet recently and started his own blog which you can find at shippeesays.com. Ditto to Andy Thibault, who continues to pen his frequent, inciteful and insightful column "cool justice."

Check them out!

I chose the name Various Matters because I loved reading a column by that name appearing in the Norwich Bulletin, a daily newspaper up in Connecticut where I enjoyed a brief career progressing from reporter, to copy editor, to city editor, to state house correspondent, to Sunday columnist to, finally, managing editor after a pit-stop in DC where I served on Lowell Weicker's staff.

We called the column VMs back then, and it was a melange of club announcements, pithy news blurbs, personals and one-line classified. Various Matters was the best-read column of the newspaper -- and I hope that I can continue the VM tradition in some electronic fashion.

You can expect to read about politics here (of course) and also encounter some information about coping with certain health issues that I face on a daily basis. I'll also use VM as a platform for some thinking about the state of our country and its future. You can also expect to read an occasional blurb about provocative men and women who have made, and will continue to make, life interesting.