"George Loper admits he has an agenda: to get people chatting on his website about topics that interest him. And he's disappointed when there's no controversy brewing.

Because Loper is an unabashed Democrat, it's easy to assume his site will be all politics all the time. But on loper.org, you're as likely to find photographs of a male pine warbler taken recently in Big Meadows as you are snaps of the Democratic Convention, which he attended as a credentialed member of the press corps.

It's Loper's website, and he can pursue whatever he wants, whether it's politics or tatoos or go-karts.

Actually, loper.org is almost a dinosaur in today's blog universe. Remember when 'home pages' were the rage? His site, started in 1996, is still headlined, 'The Home Page of George Edward Loper, Editor Ludorum' - along with his smiling mug and a quote from W.B. Yeats.

'I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and do it in '94, '95, but couldn't figure out how to do it,' he says.

Like many Baby Boomers navigating the Internet, he eventually turned to his kids to provide the infrastructure.

Texas-born Loper did not seem destined to host Charlottesville's best-known Democratic forum. In fact, he imagined he'd go to the University of Texas, then law school, and then become a Republican senator.

'All that evaporated,' he recounts, 'with the war.' In 1967, the 1-A classified Loper applied for conscientious objector status, which typically wasn't given to Methodists, and he ended up in court.

'I started the process out of conviction the war was wrong,' says Loper. The lottery came in, and a high number put him out of the draft - but made his prospects for that Republican senator's seat very dim.

Nor does he have any intention of seeking office for his beloved Dems. 'I'm having too good a time,' replies Loper to a question about political aspirations that he's been asked many times before.

Instead, he stays busy with the site, where he posts stories that catch his interest. If there's something he wants to know more about, he'll ask Dave Sagarin to write an article.

And while the site is Loper-focused, readers shouldn't assume they know where he stands. 'I'm reluctant to express my own opinion on my web site,' he says. 'Sometimes I do it so people will know of a potential conflict of interest - or if I'm pissed off enough.'

But he's more interested in other people's opinions. 'The point is, what are people willing to be publicly accountable for? Unlike another well-known site, Waldo Jaquith's cvillenews.com, anonymous postings are the exception on Loper's site,and its powerful search engine means that opinions fired off in 1966 can still turn up today.

'I would say more than 50 percent of the stuff on the website I don't agree with,' Loper estimates. For instance, he drops this bombshell: 'I happen to be for the Meadowcreek Parkway.'

But Loper is not going voiceless. Always ahead of the Internet curve, he's started a blog.

Though he's been a Virginian for almost 30 years, Loper can still lapse into a Texas accent. And there are a couple of things he misses from the Lone Star State: the music and the 'raw politics,' which can make this state's look downright genteel" (Lisa Provence, The HooK, October 14, 2004)