This blog has ALS. My techie friends may rush to Google to find out what the latest Web 2.0 TLA is. However, ALS isn’t a three-letter acronym for some new Web 2.0 protocol. It doesn’t fit in the same category as RSS, XML, RPC, API, IBM, ETC.

No, ALS is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is a progressive neuromuscular disease that weakens and eventually destroys motor neurons. For my more medically oriented friends, do not worry about me. I do not physically have ALS. Instead, it is this blog that has ALS.

Those who have been reading my political blog entries connectedness is an important issue for me. “We are all in this together.”

John Donne wrote, “If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

So, why am I writing about ALS this morning? Last night, Kim and I went to hear Lowen and Navarro at Acoustic Celebration in Ridgefield. We first heard them at Falcon Ridge.

At Falcon Ridge, Eric Lowen was walking with a cane. We didn’t think much about it. However, up in Ridgefield, he was using a walker. It turns out that he has ALS. He joked about the moment of the concert that would have the most drama in it was as he was helped up the two steps to get to his seat on the stage.

Acoustic Celebration takes place in St. Stephen’s Episcopal church. Kim and I were sitting in the front row. We were about twelve feet from Lowen and Navarro as they sang. As they started, it struck me that they are a good example about what blogs are really about.

We can spend our time talking about political blogs, marketing blogs, A-lists and long tails, but that isn’t really what blogs are about. Blogs are a place where we can have raw, real connections between people. Blogs are where we sit twelve feet from the performer and have a personal connection with them. Throughout the concert there were times you could hear people singing along in the audience. Between songs they talk with the audience and did a lot of requests.

At the end, everyone came up to the front and gathered around close as they sang, “We belong”. That is what good blogging is about. That is what good music is about. It is what good politics is about. “We belong to the thunder… We belong together…”

So, this blog has ALS, along with Eric. We belong together. Please check out the ALS organization. This blog has the longing of a military wife as her husband serves in Iraq. It has the long ordeal of a guy going through complications of heart surgery. It has the stories of people who help others, like a teacher in New Haven, or people that went to help with Katrina relief efforts.

We belong to the thunder, we belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under... We belong, we belong, we belong together