ZVTS Turns Ten

I can't believe I made it this far, but here we are.  After a decade, I'm still a dirty hippie lefty blogger, and believe it or not people are still paying attention to what I say.

There are a lot of people I'd like to thank for the last ten years in no particular order:

Bon Tindle:  A dear friend and activist who I've known for over a decade now, and was here to help me get started.  It's always a pleasure to have her grace my place with her presence, and I learn so much from her even today.  She's still fighting the good fight in Springfield, Missouri and still kicking ass.

Martin Longman:  I got my start blogging over at BooMan Tribune, and enough people liked my work there on the 2007-2008 financial crisis that I decided to get my own place about ten years ago.  Martin's community is still going strong, and you can find him writing for several places.

Imani Gandy:  The world-famous Angry Black Lady herself, Imani is senior legal analyst over at ReWire News these days, fighting for repro rights and blocking fools on social media.  I went from a scrub nobody to my D-List status today because of her help, she's still an awesome friend and I've met so many other great people because of her.

John Cole:  The old man at Balloon Juice, where I got my big break as a contributor all those many years ago.  I haven't written for the Juice in a while, they still have a strong staff and several of you are avid readers over there.  I did write for them for years frankly, and should again.  John is a reformed wingnut who always reminds me people can change for the better (even if they hate all life on earth.)

Elon James White:  The force behind This Week In Blackness, the man turned a website into a podcast empire and then TV,  major news sites, and has a wonderful wife and daughter to boot.  He too gave me a shot, one I should have taken more advantage of, but he proved to me that being black on the internet is a good thing.

Steve M:  The man behind the legendary blog No More Mister Nice Blog, it was Steve who saw in my somebody who wasn't terrible at this gig, and gave me the opportunity to guest write for his place on a number of occasions.

Betty Cracker:  The anti-Florida Man herself, I've known Betty since her jolly days at Rumproast and now Balloon Juice, and she's always been outstanding to read, sticking it to Florida politics the way I do with Ohio and Kentucky.

Ian Boudreau: My favorite misanthropic freelance games writer, Ian is a die-hard Crusader Kings II fan, cat owner, former ground pounder and reminds me most of the time not to be too much of an ass on Twitter.  He's a good guy overall, even if that really is his haircut.

There are a lot of other people I know and want to thank too: the delightfully foul-mouthed Minna Hong, librarian goddess Emily Hauser, Chicago sports master Dave von Ebers, the best bloggers in Michigan, Chris Savage and LOLGOP, giant art and science nerd and author Tom Levenson, MRE-fan Soonergrunt, and most of all?

You, the readers of ZVTS and sticking with me for ten years.

Thanks for that.  Seriously.  I never thought I'd be writing this piece.  Or at all.

From the bottom of my heart, I want you all to know how much I appreciate all of you.