Listening to that smarmy Bobby Jindal give that sniveling speech the other night after Obama's address, I thought of the man who I always think of when I hear about the evils of big government.

My friend Pat McGuire, who is treasurer of Will County (or as we call it in Chicago, Jolietera, etcetera).

Today he forwarded me an e-mail about a St. Patrick's Day parade that's coming up. The e-mail included his offhand mention to the organizer:

I wrote him to say I wouldn't be attending the parade—doesn't he know I play football with women on Saturdays?—and to ask what happened to the poor woman:

A ain't sayin' Pat's a saint and neither is Pat.

But when Bobby Jindal talks about scaling back the government in times like these, it's Mary and Stan he's talking about, and that suicidal senior citizen.

I've been ruminating lately about bloggers (and some publishers) who don't understand the first thing about how and why readers read opinions.

We do not, primarily, read opinions, be they by bloggers or columnists, for some flash of insight we hope to get. We read them to get to know them. Once we get to know them, they can help us find our bearings. They're a fixed point, a reliable true north that helps us sort things out when the flotsam and jetsam hits the fan.

This morning I got an e-mail of disappointment from a regular reader (okay, it was my co-blogger, Kristen Ridley) who said she "zipped over to your blog this morning hoping you would have posted some comment on the speech." Well, the Obama speech just didn't inspire me to make a comment. I think I have an antipathy to these state-of-the-union-monsters in general. I couldn't stand to listen to them from Clinton or Bush, either. Without the benefit of my sage take, Ridley used Facebook to post her own smart note on the speech, which I told her "was what I wouldda said if I coulda laid tongue to it."

But the point is, I usually weigh in on major communication events, and my readers can usually rely on me to do so. So much so that I suppose I make some kind of statement when I don't post on a given matter.

All of this is my reply to the otherwise super-smart communication consultant who sent a note to all his contacts proudly announcing the second or third or fourth relaunch of his blog.

"Greetings from the Heart, Soul and Capital of Europe," he began cheerfully, breaking six months of silence. "After a long break spent working, relaxing and taking in what life in Europe's Capital has to offer … along comes another edition of [my blog] … Wishing you the best–and looking forward to your thoughts and comments."

Hey everybody, guess who's back? I am!!!

Opinions are like assholes: Everybody has one.

But reliable sparkers of ongoing conversations among a community organized around a common interest—well, this is why newspaper columnists write more than once a week, and why bloggers pay a heavy price for taking six months off.

You never know what kind of ideas you might pick up, reading your own client's Website.

My publishing patron McMurry has created a logo that every employee can customize for his or her own e-mail signature. Here are some nice ones people have created.

What's the idea? "Our culture, our services and our entire being as a business is about open expression, personal responsibility and innovation,” says CEO Chris McMurry in a story about "The Amazing New Morphing Logo." “What we have now is a logo that every staff member loves and can call their own, that is a conversation starter wherever we go, and that is alive, interesting and not just another run-of-mill symbol or treatment.”

(We're thinking about implementing the idea here at Murray's Freelance Writing, but we're not sure we trust Murray not to screw it up.)