Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

And so you did.

Yes, blogs are ALMOST entirely second-string Op-Ed pieces with a lot of interesting ideas, most based on the opposite of the facts of the matter. Which makes them even more interesting, because we all know how the facts and the truth really don't work in the entertainment biz.. (Similar to what HAS happened in journalism-as-entertainment, of course.)

As I just pointed out on the Iraq thread.

Bloggers who don't understand what Jonathon (an?) Delacour wrote about a couple months ago, to effect, "I wonder if blogging makes people fucktarded arrogant pieces of shit posing as intelligence."

To which I would offer slight correction to J.D. because he might understand:

It is both cause-and-effect, Karnac!

It was and largely is still today, THE most arrogant fucktards (as those who posted against me on the Iraq thread) who were, naturally and of COURSE, the ones who were first and are SO attracted to the ability to use the Net as a bull-horn.

A bull-horn which can be used to bully people.

Like the ones that bullied everybody to raise $50 MILLION for Mr. Trippi to blow.

And all with the best of intentions...:-D

Well fuck you all, who are so proud of yourselves. You have shouted me out of this thread. (But that's NOT why I may have to quit writing for a time.)

This sounds too much like the wail of incumbents who have too much invested in the previous distribution system. My father (who is 73) once confided to me that the problem with this world is that "there's just too many goddamm people."

Using the New Yorker example: it really is a showcase of great writing (and pays mightily well). But I and many promising writers have just given up submitting stuff to publications that take months even to return your manuscript. Blogging offers immediacy and rapid response. Rather than looking at mainstream publications as "filters," I regard them as roadblocks.

yes. as you know, i began my blog with great reluctance, kicking and screaming that i had no time for such a shallow pursuit--but then I slowly but surely noticed that bloggers are more intelligent than most people. In fact, bloggers blog because they think much more, and more deeply, about important things that most ordinary people do not want bother themselves with. thanks for the gift of blog. pythagoras is often said to have been the first blogger--via papyrus.

Interesting paraphrase, JT.

What I actually wrote was:

"But I allowed myself to be distracted by another issue—the fact that someone who lacks even a rudimentary understanding of how to approach modest films like Kore’eda’s Maborosi and After Life (let alone Ozu’s films) can dismiss them out of hand; saying, in effect, "I don’t know the slightest thing about this but pay close attention while I forcefully express my opinion". Is it my imagination or does the Internet (and do weblogs) encourage this confidence based on ignorance?"

In the context of this conversation, I'd modify bw's statements so that they read "[some] bloggers are more intelligent than most people" and "[some] bloggers blog because they think much more, and more deeply, about important things that most ordinary people". From my own experience, Sturgeon’s Law (“Ninety percent of everything is crud”) operates just as much in Blogaria as anywhere else.

Well, what happens if you're a self-publishing online journalist, who ditches the log format in favor of a magazine-style format, writes pieces of substantial length that are researched over hours or even days, and returns to some articles later to append follow-ups?

You'd have no reason to call it a blog. I classify my Drupal site as a "civ": constructing informative viewpoints. see my piece Blogs: What They Really Are. I quote Rebecca Blood here: "As weblog software evolves into content management software, look for a surge of other kinds of online publications, many of which will be updated periodically instead of continually." So I have an other kind of online publication.

Civilities offers RSS feeds, and aggregates with other blogs. But I don't call it a blog, anymore than Pythagoras's first papyrus or Tim Berners-Lee's first web page was. I don't see myself as a blogger, but as a journalactivist.

Jon

I called in to the show too late to tell them about my mother, 71 years old, always politically active, a lifetime writer of Letters to the Editor of the NY Times (mostly unpublished of course), who now has a blog, and is blossoming.

Also, I wanted to point out that their show was every bit as male and every bit as boring as their view of the blogosphere. Why bother discussing how boring something is. Is that good radio? See the problem?

HA!

I agree about the NPR show-- it was "same old, same old"-- full of the same tired all-male perspectives about communications.

Bring on the blogs.