Chocolate and gold coins

Since I’ve started blogging, every once in a while I have received an email that had made me wonder why I am doing the blogging and the person writing to me isn’t. Regular readers of this blog know my complaints about receiving abuse, but I also get fair amounts of intelligent, insightful, beautifully written mail that has resulted in dialogues and friendships that I have come to cherish.

One such is with Michael Higgins.

Michael lives in Fairfax County, Virginia, and he first wrote to me in the days when I wrote just one blog, the one on cricket, 23 Yards. We soon started exchanging mails, often disagreeing, especially over economic and political matters. But our disagreements were civil, always a reasoned exchange of facts and logic, with no empty rhetoric, shrill polemic or, the one thing I dread, ad hominem attack. I told him a couple of times that he must start a blog, and to my delight – as a reader as much as a friend – he has finally obliged. It is called Chocolate and Gold Coins.

He explains the reasoning behind the name:

Chocolate and gold coins are two of my favorite commodities. And naming a blog that deals with economic issues after commodities makes sense, especially commodities that symbolize consumption and income. However, the name “Chocolate and Gold Coins” refers to something else. It refers to types of writing you might find on this blog.

Gold coins are something with intrinsic value. You might find something like that here buried deep under the rubbish if you search long enough. Chocolate is another commodity altogether. It is something to be enjoyed briefly and soon forgotten, like a frivolous but fun piece of writing. There will be more chocolate than gold in this blog. In any case, I hope you find something you like here.

He hasn’t been at it for too long, but I have found both chocolate and gold. You can taste some chocolate here and here; and enjoy some gold here and here. Do visit his site, I’m sure you’ll like it.