For those who have found their way here, greetings! This forum will serve as a revival or continuation of “Will Grigg’s Birch Blog,” which has met an untimely and unwarranted demise.

Consigned to an inauspicious and inaccessible corner of the web, the Birch Blog has been condemned to a slow death through suffocation.

News of its passing will be greeted with the rending of garments and howls of anguished disbelief … or not. I know that there will be at least a few of you, who — brows furrowed in puzzlement and eyes brimming with unshed tears — will ask, “Why did this happen?” I honestly can’t answer that question, which isn’t the same as saying I can’t answer that question honestly. If and when I learn the answer to that question, I will share it with you immediately. Suffice it for now to say: The ways of the public relations priesthood are dark and inscrutable, and very rarely pleasant.

The name of this forum — Pro Libertate — is also the motto inscribed on the Wallace family crest. Yes, as in William Wallace, whose namesake is my oldest son, seen in the lower left-hand corner of the family photo (six years old at the time). Next to him is the radiantly lovely Korrin, aka the Sun Around Whom I Revolve. Seated in the place of honor on her first birthday is Katrina Antigone. Curled within the shelter of his father’s left arm is Jefferson Leonidas, not quite three years old at the time of this celebration. Next to him is Isaiah Athanasius, four years old and precociously camera-conscious. Not pictured above is our youngest, Sophia Faith, born almost exactly one year later (January 25, 2005).

It is my intention to use this forum for the unexpurgated defense of individual liberty under God’s law, and unstinting opposition to everyone and everything that threatens it. I will also, from time to time, dilate upon other subjects of interest, such as music, literature, physical culture, and — particularly — religion. As I have said before, I reserve to myself the right to become more intelligent on any subject, and recognize that I have literally everything to learn. Which is why I not only invite feedback, I demand it. This alone represents a dramatic change in format from the Birch Blog, a forum in which no reader feedback was allowed.

The blogosphere is supposed to be interactive: I tell you what I think, and you do likewise. As the Lord said through Isaiah: Come, let us reason together.