*sigh* It's all coming down to this?

There are days I wonder if the "golden era" of Eastern Shore blogs has come and gone, with little real change effected.

I just checked my "favorites" list and under "Eastern Shore Blogs" I have 18 different blogs listed. Now let me see...we have Salisbury News, operated by one Joe Albero. Because of his, shall we say, attitude, we have now FOUR bloggers (by my count) who started their blogs to take issue with his. And this doesn't count Gunpowder Chronicle who has his own differences with Joe but also writes on a number of other topics instead of being all anti-Joe, all the time.

And then we have the grandfather of the local bloggers, Duvafiles, which up until yesterday had its own parody site called Duvalies. (As of today it's now a private website.) One person who's been suspected of being the operator of Duvalies formerly had his own website called Justice For All?, that man being former County Executive candidate Charles Jannace. He shut down JFA? after the election, joining the ranks of other late lamented blogs like Fertilizer for our Bay and Westside Wisdom.

Looking to the east in Worcester County, it's pretty much an all-out flaming war between three of their local blogs as the folks behind Worcester, WorcesterRight, and Integrity Matters Only Sometimes are battling in and out of their various comment sections. When I noted a comment about one of these folks becoming "the Joe Albero of Worcester County" I started to wonder if the local blogging scene has jumped the shark.

To change gears a bit, I'm going to take all of my readers back and do a little bit of history as far as the local blogging scene goes. This history is as good as my memory is, so maybe a better term would be a "narrative."

The first local blog I became aware of was Duvafiles. What got me started reading it was the hullabaloo back in early 2005 when Bill Duvall made his infamous "wetback" comment that got him in a lot of hot water. Being of fair mind, I was curious about the context that it was written in, and I enjoyed his use of the various character names for local personalities.

A month or two later, I discovered the original Delmarva Dealings site along with the Justice For All? site and started perusing those and commenting occasionally. This was also about the time I started my original blog called ttown's right wing conspiracy. So there were only a handful of local sites back then, plus one that wasn't truly local but run by a local native who lived upstate called Goldwater's Oracle. Now it's known as Gunpowder Chronicle.

About the fall of 2005, a certain commenter and photographer who posted frequently with Charles Jannace became fairly well known. His name was Joe Albero. Together they blew the lid off problems at the Salisbury wastewater treatment plant and at the Salisbury Zoo. I suppose it can be argued that in the next year or so both these men became local celebrities and they parlayed their newly found fame in different directions. With help from Joe Albero, Charles Jannace entered the political arena; and with help from Jannace's website, Albero branched out into his own site, originally known as National Joe-A-Graphic but evolving into what's now known as Salisbury News.

Meanwhile, new players came into the local blogging scene. Delmarva Dealings left us for awhile but returned late last year. Crabbin' and Delmar DustPan were among the most-read out of about 8-10 blogs that debuted in the early part of last year, and both are still around. It wasn't until close to the end of the year, after a nasty divorce of sorts between Jannace and Albero, that many of these new bloggers came online. These anti-Albero blogs (The Maryland Townie, Paranoia and the Homunculus Photographer, Joey Albero is an American Idol, and Yh8 are four) became bases on which to flame Albero while Joe worked on trying to "out" the people behind them.

So we have the abovementioned feuds going on. It makes for (sometimes) interesting reading but unfortunately all of this infighting is what's giving the blogging "profession" a black eye.

Now I sit here and toil on a little website that I call monoblogue. Like the rest of these folks, I'm based out of the Salisbury area. But I like to think I'm just a little different, particularly since I don't focus on local issues as much as the Albero site does, nor do I focus on personalities like the anti-Albero sites do. I suppose some of this is because I'm part of a larger group of bloggers throughout the state of Maryland. If you look at the members of the Maryland Bloggers Alliance, you'll find that I'm politically way to the right of a few of them, particularly Bruce at Crablaw and Stephanie at Jousting for Justice.

But when we in the MBA have disagreements, we focus on the argument and not the personalities behind them. We treat each other with respect and complement each other when it's due. It's actually a nice experience sometimes to get through the "Eastern Shore Blogs" part of my reading and on to the "Maryland Bloggers Alliance" folder I have. At times I get through the Eastern Shore blogs and feel like I need a shower. (And I'm sure that some people will read this and start slinging blame at others.)

Now I've never met any of my MBA cohorts; however, I have met a few local bloggers, including Charles Jannace when he was still on his JFA? site. On a few occasions, I have played pool with Joe Albero and a group of friends; also, I've met "Cato" from Delmarva Dealings and may be working more closely with him on certain items in the future. I have zero problems with them personally, but that could be a matter of being relatively close in our political views. It could be that I'd get along with my fellow bloggers on the left, but there would have to be more civility shown than I've seen on some of their sites.

I guess the other comment I have is about "outing" bloggers and commenters. In most cases, I've commented either with my full name or under "Michael" which is probably just as good. (It depends on how I'm signed up for the website.) So it's not like I hide what I say behind some assumed name. Besides, I also keep a log of what I consider my best comments here. (Just click on "My feedback" under Internal Links.) It's also no secret that I already hold a political position, and I have a disclaimer that notes that my views aren't necessarily those of the Wicomico County Republican Party. I don't speak for them and Lord knows they don't always speak for me!

But it's needless to say that I'm becoming quite disappointed with most of the local blogging scene, as it's sinking down to the level of "gotcha!" politics. With the Salisbury City Council elections upcoming (and national ones on the horizon), now is not the time for the Eastern Shore blogs to descend to the level of tabloids. Many complained about the Daily Times and how it slants the news, but right now the local blogs are hardly better. And because I get tarred with their brush anyway (anyone remember Ron Alessi? Or the situation with the Wicomico County Republican Club?) I'm taking it on myself to call bullshit on that. It's time for all you children to settle down and play nice.