purpose:
the purpose of 'cobb, the blog' is to attempt to represent what i consider to be the 'old school' of african american politics and culture to a broad and critical audience. it will be personal and political, biased and informative, hopefully insightful and often humorous.

i have been writing online for almost a decade now, and i have been trying to be consistently philosophical, provocative, perceptive and articulate. i spent a lot of time and established various reputations as a host at cafe utne, at the sfgate, at the slate fray, on the well, in salon's table talk and other places. more recently however, i have retreated to a more private forum. some folks whose opinion i respect told me that i should share my unique flavor with a broader audience. blogging seems to be the way to go.

[it's not] about me:
i consider myself somewhat atypical only in that i am compelled to write and connect with people and ideas. other than that, i am the fairly typical college-educated professional black man married with three children head of household. in college, i both worked for the rainbow coalition and was an avid fan of thomas sowell. i was a fairly competent breakdancer and computer science student, and of course i loved both wynton marsalis and grandmaster flash. i think i represent the progressive edge of the old-school.

cobb:
i have two middle names. when i was a kid, i was small. people used to say that my name was bigger than i was, and that i would have to grow into it. cobb is, in my estimation, the most conservative part of my name. let's see how i wear it.

m.d.c.bowen
december 2002

My blogger code: B5 d++ t+ k+ s++ u- f++ i o+ x-- e l c- (decode it!)