THIS POST WILL ALWAYS BE ON TOP.
I shut down this blog thirteen years ago. The reason was due to its popularity and the great deal of attention it earned. Not all of the attention was desired, of course. It seems I made plenty of enemies in some places that I cannot really mention. I know who they are, they know who they are, they know I know who they are, and on and on into the rabbit hole. To avoid a no-knock from a three-letter I closed Scipio. One of these sent Esquire Magazine to Oklahoma City to interview me.
Is Obama Fascist? Profile of Return of Scipio Blogger Mike Austin (esquire.com)
As I was teaching at that time, some of my colleagues and parents were outraged that any man—especially a teacher—could possibly hold the views I held and indeed still hold. There was a group of colleagues and parents who organized a letter campaign to get me fired. It tremendously backfired, as another and much larger group of parents organized a letter campaign to keep me on as their children’s teacher. Naturally, there was quite a lot of disruption at the school. I was told by the school superintendent that I could either blog or teach—not both. Ok then.
I happily retired from teaching in June of 2019. I have never felt so free: to go, to say, to do and to write whatever I damn well want. And I do. And I would rather gaze daily into a wall-sized picture of Hillary Clinton than ever enter into another classroom. Twenty-seven years of teaching in three countries is enough. I have paid my dues. That part of my life is over and done.
I have no intention of starting another blog like The Return of Scipio. I will write here at Scipio from time to time to record random thoughts about this, about that and about the other. I also will post here comments I have made across the web. These will be mainly for my own amusement.
I regularly update my website at mikeaustin.org. I am also developing another website where I can post videos and photos of all my bikepacking and backpacking journeys I have done since 2015. At my site of mikeaustin.org, because of the security protocols of its host, I can no longer post photos without going through a tedious process involving an FTP manager. I will avoid all of this at my new domain and host manager. I will be using WordPress. I should have it up and running in mid-February of 2023, right before I leave for the jungles of northern Guatemala. I will be able to load photos and commentary from any computer in the world.