About the Writer

 

Thought I'd put up a new photo...the old one is almost 2 years old now!

 

Let me introduce myself: my name is Charles Herrera and I am a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.  Currently, this is a solo project, though I may add a collaborator or two later in order to spice things up.  Here’s a neat little site with more information about me.

About the Blog:

I started this in September 2009 quite simply because I love politics and current events, and I seem to have an opinion on just about everything.  In addition, even after finishing schoolwork, activities, eating, etc. I have a lot of time on my hands.  Hopefully that will stay relatively stable throughout my college career, but who knows?

Looking for New Age philosophy, or any of that nonsense?  Keep moving; the “New Age” in the title of this blog only refers to the fact that, well, we’re currently experiencing anything but “politics as usual” – if anything, I doubt we’ll be going back to that any time soon.

Looking for Andrew Breitbart-style demagoguery?  This isn’t the blog for you either.  I am very passionate about various issues, but I explain things very rationally, and I back up my arguments with mainstream media reports to avoid a potential repeat of the Shirley Sherrod incident.  Go ahead, fact-check me; I’m not afraid.

I am still working on my posting frequency; during the school year I am fairly reliable about posting, but it seems that over the summer my brain decided to go on vacation even though I’m hard at work!  However, I can guarantee that there will be at least one post each week from me, even during the summer.  During the past school year, I generally posted two articles each week, and that frequency is something that I will be looking to improve as I get more comfortable with my voice and college work.

For the sake of disclosure, like any reasonably-obsessed student of politics, I will likely take various internships in the field during the summer months. No matter where I end up working, or what I end up doing, this blog is completely independent of whatever organization I happen to be working for or otherwise affiliated with. I write whatever I feel like writing, and the views I express are completely my own and are in no way representative of the views of the organization and shouldn’t be taken as such.  My long-time readers know, and it is quite apparent from my posts, that I am fiercely independent; I will not allow this blog to become just a mouthpiece for any campaign or political organization.

More about Me:

You may be asking, “Why should I listen to what a mere college student has to say?”

Well, it makes sense for me to do this because I was always that kid in high school: the one who would bring in the day’s copy of The New York Times to contribute to class discussion and ruin everyone’s curve in history and government/civics classes.  In addition, I am going to major in political science as soon as I can figure out where the department office is and drop off my paperwork…  Besides, people always refer to students as the “leaders of tomorrow”.  Why not hear one out?

I consider myself to be fairly in the middle of the political spectrum; I am in favor of some of the Democrats’ ideas, but some things that the Republicans come up with do not sound too bad either.  On social issues, I am a bit more liberal, but fiscally I tend to be slightly more conservative.  The list goes on and on far too long to talk about on this page.  You should read my posts instead.

You can e-mail me about the blog at feedback [at] newageofpolitics [dot] com.  Also, if there’s something you’d like me to cover on the blog, perhaps an important issue that the mainstream media has largely ignored, for example, send me links to an article or two and I may just write it up.  If you have general comments on my writing, send it to bassitone [at] newageofpolitics [dot] com.  The second writer is around here somewhere, just trying to get him to write something.

I am also on LinkedIn.

On the other hand, you can follow me on Twitter: @bassitone

Feel free to become a fan of (or “like”, I guess is the current term) the official Facebook page of The New Age of Politics here (it’s still very much a work in progress, but if you happen to have any ideas on how to improve it other than adding a picture, drop me a line in the suggestion box!)