The Searchlight Mission

This blog is intended to accomplish three things. Most importantly, it is intended as a consumer education site. I have written and will continue to write essays of information, intended to aid consumers in pursuit of the best bargain available. The point of these is not to bring consumers up to a professional level of competence or knowledge about a field, but to inform them of the general pitfalls and bad business practices that end up causing consumers in the real world to have bad experiences, and information and strategies to prevent this from happening.



I hope you'll agree that what you're going to find here are not puff pieces by any stretch of the imagination. I'm going to point out things that most writers in a field won't tell you about. I'm going to identify myths, pitfalls, mistakes, omissions, and misleading statements commonly made not only by practicing alleged professionals, but also by the journalists who write about them (and incidentally, whose qualifications on these subjects are generally - although not always - limited to "I work for a publication that told me to write an article.") I am going to identify motives of those involved to the degree I reasonably can. I am going to try to cover all involved points of view. And I'm going to try to tell you the limitations of what I write. (And I'm always interested if someone wants to write one of these essays, particularly in areas I am not qualified in).



Almost as important to me, I want this blog to be a place to enjoy yourself. I'm going to start it with posts in categories of my personal interests. I'm always interested in the other point of view, as long as it is respectful. Even If I disagree with it, I'll likely post (or link to) things people send me as long as it is respectful, worthwhile, and intellectually honest. If someone has a real continuing contribution they want to make, I'll give them posting authority as cobloggers. If there is sufficient interest, I'll create new categories and subcategories.



Third, I do expect to make money at this eventually. I actually want to avoid advertising, so no BlogAds, at least for now. I have a business plan in place as to how I intend to make money, about which more as soon as the supporting elements are ready. For now, I’m going to put up a tip jar so that those who think what they find here is worth something can make a voluntary contribution. Think of it as a consultant who does the work, then lets you decide how much, if anything, the contents were worth to you. And I'm not doing this to advertise myself, although I wouldn't mind at all if someone wants me to contact me on their own hook for professional purposes (Agent within San Diego County, mortgages anywhere in California). But that is not the reason I'm doing this. The site is here because I happen to believe that the conditions have reached the point where the means of communication are sufficiently democratized, making it possible for an individual or small group with the right amount of knowledge and dedication to change things in these fields for the better.



I do hope to be paying essay authors and others who make large contributions eventually, but the site has to get to certain levels before I can do that. For now, bandwidth is sufficiently inexpensive that I want to start building the community. I believe that when the time comes when phase II goes operational as a sister site, those who go there will actually thank me while putting money in my wallet. The plan is for that to be something you've got to intentionally click the sister site link, while this stays here and anybody is welcome to come learn what they need to know for the cost of a few hours on the internet.