Seventeen years ago this afternoon Compatible Creatures sprung forth out into the InterWebs.

And later that evening in April 2007, my first post — aptly entitled, ‘Word‘ — was published, and from then henceforth life hasn’t been the same. The first-ever post was wordly-short and notedly on point:

In an age where events are known so fast and everybody just about everywhere can instantly become aware of every corner of the globe even the smallest little word can carry a big weight.

And the little word here today is “palliate,” which means to try and make a wrong or an offense seem less severe, mitigate the circumstances. And palliate is just what the Bush Black House is now doing with the announcement that Scott Bloch, Bush-appointed head of the US Office of Special Counsel, will lead a sweeping investigation into Karl Rove’s politicking with taxpayer money and breaking a ton of federal laws while doing it.

Bloch himself was recently investigated by the IG of the Office of Personnel Management for pushing a right-wing agenda down the throats of federal employees.

So all Bloch is doing is an obvious attempt to try and bury Rove’s political wrongdoing by creating an intense investigation and then, By Golly, there was no indication of any lawbreaking on Rove’s part. Bush/Cheney/Rove are just trying to palliate the whole mess.

Lie, lie, and monkeys can fly.

In those long-ago days, the Iraqi war was the most prominent news item (in fact, most-likely way-dominated the cycles near-about completely), and the last 17 years haven’t been pretty in so many words. The blog has been a focal, important aspect of my life — 17 years ago I had no idea Compatible Creatures would last this long and encompass 4,607 posts (including this one). Although there are fewer posts lately — maybe old-age laziness coupled with the standstill-horror of so many shitty aspects of really-bad disaster, from American democracy to climate change the cause — each one still carries the wonderful weight of expression and creative joy I’ve felt about writing since the early 1960s.

Prior to that original post that day, Eric Metze, my longtime blog administrator/go-to IT guy, tapped in the appropriate code and brought Compatible Creatures to life with a two-word exclamation: “Woo-hoo!”

And what better way to put the icing on the birthday cake:

Another somewhat successful spin around the sun, or not, yet here we are once again…

(Image out front is a screenshot of that original post.)