We’re going country!

The worst thing that could happen to radio station managers in my former hometown in the middle of Wyoming was to wake up to the inevitable. For executives with abyssmal ratings, declining ad revenues, and a bored and unenthusiastic listenership, there was only one thing to do: go country. Sure there were already twice as many country-format stations, but . . .

I’m going country. These dispatches started as meditations inspired by travel. Somewhere along the line a whole lot of international economics and Desi life crept in. Despite being an eager dilletante, I’m neither an economist nor subcontinental. Without significantly further focusing on a more limited set of issues, this site runs the risk of moving even farther out into the long tail — that part of the web that is still valuable but rarely found. Without spending more time to read lots of blogs and share in their linky goodness and comment communities, I’ll never increase the number of sites linking here, which is the key to a wider readership. Plus, I’m weary of reading everything online and wondering whether it should become part of an entry here. Truth is, I’m really an old-fashion paper person, reading mainstream sources with their own very good digital counterparts and writing on a broader set of daily topics in my journal to crystalize my thoughts before making a fool of myself online. It’s impossible to move at blog-speed while living the glamorous life of an international playboy.

So I’m retrofitting, going back to basics. These articles are about understanding places and people (American and otherwise) via travel and photography. This summer Lisa and I are taking our own great Red State odyssey, and I want you all to be so ready for an American adventure that you’re breathless with anticipation. That can hardly happen if I keep going as I have been.

If you’re a few of the rare people who have been lured here recently by my outsourcing essay, by my disappointment with David Brooks (whose own writing on the supposed red-blue divide in America has been the sand in my shell), or by links to your own articles about India, please stick around for a little while longer; I’ll try to make it worth your while. If you like what you read, please link to me, leave me a comment, send me an e-mail, invite me to your carnival, whatever.

What? Still need a fix before I cut the cord?! Well, okay . . . 

• Amardeep Singh
• The Indiebloggies: Best of 2005
• I want my job to go to India
• Globalization & Flat World
• Outsourcing blog
• The Pace of White-Collar Outsourcing
• The truth about jobs
• Desicritics
• ACM On Offshoring & Impact On Jobs and ACM Study On Offshoring – Related Perspectives

Now here’s a little Dwight Yoakam for you. . . .