CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Whew.

I feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

My friend/co-blogger Susan and I have officially handed over The Independent Eye to our esteemed colleague, Peggy.

If not familiar with The Eye, click on the link and check it out. Start back in the archives, back to the beginning-- Aug.13, 2006. Interesting stuff. If you love soap operas, you'll love The Independent Eye.

The Eye was a creative experiment, and we accomplished what we set out to do -- shine some light on some dirty backroom politics taking place in Stuart, IA.

Our blogging didn't erase the dirty politics, as evidenced by more recent posts by our pal Peggy. But like shining a flashlight on cockroaches in the middle of the night, it made it harder for the dirty politicians to survive without scrambling for cover.

And now, we pass the flashlight to Peggy for good...

Ahhh. Sweet relief.

You see, if you read enough of the comments, and the other back-and-forth, you will discover that the nasty-stupid-call-them-what-you-will underbelly of the Stuart populace didn't much care for me and Suz. We hit a nerve, crossed their territory one too many times. They tried to run us out by degrading us and our families, and while we continually beat them over the head with the truth -- and the truth HAS prevailed -- the bottom line is...you can't fix stupid.

Irritating, like hemroids, is the best way to describe some of the "anonymous" commenters we were dealing with. I believe I called them "a brood of vipers" in my final comment the other day...

Anyway, our friend Peggy is a bright, intuitive, "here's what I think" kinda gal, and a helluva good writer. And to top it all off, she lives in Stuart, and commands the respect of the vipers. She is kickin' blog butt and takin' names...and more power to her.

It's just time for me and Suz to move on. To let Stuart politics go.

So we officially passed the torch.

Peggy's been carrying the blog on her own, really, for some time now.

The vipers are happy, and so are we.

Susan and I are proud of The Eye...we created it, we designed it, we gave hours and hours of our personal time to it...and we ferreted out the truth and blogged it, much to the chagrin of our detractors.

The dirty Stuart politics will go on -- they have for eons -- but no longer do they go on under cover of complete darkness. The Eye, from its start, provided a much-needed checks-and-balances look atthe local political issues, and now Peggy carries the torch.

What direction Peggy takes The Eye is her business.

Suz and I said what we had to say, when it needed to be said, and we leave The Eye on our grounds, at our timing, in the most capable, talented bloggng hands in Stuart.

Here's looking at you, Stuart! It's been real!

Blog on, Peg!