From CURMUDGUCATION

I would probably not pick at NEA so much, were it not that I am paying them enough money each year to buy myself a nice toy, support a local food pantry, or get a bit ahead on paying off my kids’ college loans. But never have I forked over so much money for the privilege of belonging to an organization that annots me so much.

I say all that because I’m about to bitch about something that, on its face, is a trivial complaint. And yet, it seems completely symptomatic of NEA’s problems as an organization.

President-elect Lily Eskelsen Garcia used to have a blog; a nice personal site where she infrequently posted. But hey– she was actually using the internet, which seems to be a technological leap that the NEA leadership is largely unwilling to make. When it comes to technology, this is not your father’s NEA– it’s your grandfather’s. The NEA continues to closely resemble the GOP of the last two national elections– they know that the young people are out there playing with their twitters and using those interwebs, but they can’t seem to think of anything to do with the technology except either lock it up tight or use it to make cyber-versions of print magazines and glossy brochures.

So LEG’s blog was a nice touch, threatening to bring the NEA up to at least a decade ago. But now the blog is gone.

The title is still in place (“Lily’s Blackboard”) but the website has been replaced with a slick, glossy, cold, corporate website… Read the rest