As the Court Turns

Now how often does it happen that a government office holder starts to write a blog about the office he holds, and the goings on in the government entity he is a part of? Really, more often than you think.

Texas State Rep. Aaron Peña has maintained a blog on Blogger since 2005. North Carolina’s new governor, Beverly Perdue has started a blog on the state’s website. Former California governor Jerry Brown, now its Attorney General, also has a blog.

One reason, they say, that politicians maintain blogs is that it is a way to circumvent the mainstream media. It’s a clean, direct way to communicate to the voters without going through a media filter with all of their agendas.

And it’s a way for the public to be able to get an idea of what is going on inside government – again, without a filter.

One government entity that has maintained an element of opacity is Fort Bend County government. Unless you are a member of the media, it is almost impossible to know what is going on in county government: the public meetings are infrequent and always held when people are at work. Compare that to, let’s say, a school board. School board meetings take place in the evening, allowing anyone an opportunity to attend.

Where am I going with this?

Well, we just had a window open in Fort Bend County. Richard Morrison, newly elected Fort Bend County Commissioner for Precinct 1 has begun a blog. He has done this, he says, to write “about the "going ons" in Precinct 1, the Commissioner's Court and Fort Bend County as a whole.” Look on the sidebar. I have it on my blog roll now, right there next to Rep. Peña’s.

You should bookmark it, too.

As you can see, it’s an aptly named blog: “As the Court Turns,” alluding, I would guess, to the daily soap opera of long running (52 seasons!), “As the World Turns.”

But somehow I am reluctant to believe that this new blog by our new Democratic Commissioner will contain the same kind of lurid details that we see on the soap opera for which he has named his blog. I doubt, for instance whether Richard is going to be reporting on things on the order of the truth about whether Brian should tell Lucinda the truth about his sexuality. And whether Lucinda, having finally found happiness would be able to deal with that news.

But I wish he would.