...furthermore, a good number of blacks still hold out the hope of surviving with dignity within the bowels of the present national capitalist order. They believe that in time they will be able to achieve capitalist status; or at second best, they will penetrate the upper levels of the wage distribuion. More schooling, especially on the higher levels; affirmative action stimuli into the upper reaches of the hierarchy of control within the division of labor; more intensive involvement in capitalist party political affairs; stepping up the pace of establishment of black business enterprises--these and other parthways are relied on to bring about the millenium within the existing capitalist social relations...

Hi, Pauli...

Thanks for responding to my closing of the web site. In the future I will use it to put forth my opinions on a series of issues. The above citation is from some stuff I wrote about thirty years ago. You will be seeing more of this type of thing in the future. I will call the series "Pithy Sayings". It was indeed an extremely painful decision for me to make to close the site. At the same time it was a necessary decision. As you well know, the web site was a continuation of what used to be the "H-Letter" of many years ago.

Way back in the day (c. 1987) I conceived an instrument for communication among the large and growing number of descendants of Henry and Emily Hogan. At that time most were concentrated in the Northeast. However, there was a significant number on the West Coast and others were scattered throughout the country--even in New Mexico and Arizona. The intent was to get everyone to know each other through the sharing of news commonly generated or otherwise commonly enjoyed. A significant offshoot of that project was the creation of a data bank of information on members of the clan. Rather than going back in the distant past to drum up spurious information I concentrated instead on the current and future members of the clan. It was a tough chore then to collect the information and it still remains real tough to this very day. The "toughness" was simply lack of voluntary cooperation from family members in submission of information or in correcting errors in the data. Nevertheless, I tried as best as I could with the help of a few to keep at the task.

As I graduated from the Apple 2 to the SB-180 to the PC it became evident that a web site was the most appropriate way of continuing the work. The hogan-bliss web site was the result. I chose the name hogan-bliss because "hogan" was not available. "BLISS" was an acronym for "Black Life and Information Support Systems", a computer network which I had created when I served as Director of the New York State African American Institute. This tells you how the naming of the web site came about. The hogan-bliss name was readily available for use on the web, while hogan by itself was not.

In any event I had to spend an inordinate amount of time maintaining the site. This detracted me from some very important work in which I have been involved for decades. Sometimes the detraction was total, lasting for long periods of time. Of course this was personally painful. However, knowing that the work was useful to the family members was reward enough to make up for any hardship on my part. These rewards were especially fruitful during the times when preparations were being made for reunions--Orlando in 1997, Panama in 1999, Norfolk in 2007. The enthusiasm of all those who participated in each of these reunions and the eagerness to begin planning for the next one could only soothe the heart of a beast.

This is my swan song. The time has come for me to call it quits. I hope that this would be taken not with sadness but with the resolve to start all over again to do this sort of service from a newer and younger perspective. It is my hope that one or more of the younger family members would voluntarily take up this task. The fourth and fifth generation Hogans (measured from Henry Hogan) were born in the PC era. Computerized activities should be bread and butter to them. It should therefore be a natural activity for this group of young Hogan stalwarts. I toss out this challenge to my young cohorts. Go to it. Create a Hogan interactive site (like MyFace, YouTube, etc.) using Web2.0 tools, a site to which family members may contribute information to keep the site up-to-date as a vibrant activity. Fatima, Saladin, David come to mind as some of the potential leaders in this endeavor.

Well, I have blabbered too long. But as you can see it is hard to yield up to the generations a task which I had voluntarily accepted and which was enjoyed immensely. But the time has come. I am grieving with pain. The hogan-web site is no more. Let a new Hogan web site come into being, created and maintained by one or more young Hogans.

love,

lloyd