By TOM HONIG
A singer I met several years ago told me that she had grown tired of her voice and even her interpretation of music that she sang. She decided to take a couple years off and just listen to the sounds of others.
Only the shampoo bottle in my shower caddy knows the truth about my own singing voice, but I understand the emotion completely. It's an explanation of why this site went silent over the past 45 days or so. With so many people inveighing on so many subjects -- from Twitter, Facebook, blogs, op-eds, newspaper columns, talk radio, on and on -- adding even a few words on this modest site seemed, I don't know, redundant.
Still, the impact of the written word, both the writing of it and the reading of it, does seem to be a worthwhile endeavor. So after a break, I've decided to start back up again. That's in way of explanation to those who actually asked what has happened to the Santa Cruz Observer.
The hiatus was particularly worthwhile in that I read the words of others more than I had -- the words of trustworthy journalists like Robert Samuelson, Fareed Zakaria and Tom Friedman -- as well as book writers like Graham Greene and a more obscure writer by the name of Frederick Reiken. It's worth noting that there is wisdom in the world, far from the reaches of cable news shows, talk radio and especially the talking points of the politicians, who are good at one thing and one thing only -- saying things to prospective voters that they apparently want to hear.
So that's why you've heard nothing from this end lately. It was all about listening more and talking less.