Blogs, Blather, and Credentials

For the moment I only have two blog links up, one to 'Andrew Sullivan' and one to 'Ragged Thots'. I'll also put up 'Healing Iraq', even though its author has quit updating (the situation in Iraq is too hot and too violent to concentrate). These three are my role models for what a good blog should be. Sullivan is a pro, quite literally. While I am less sure of George on 'Ragged Thots' his blog is smart and personal, while Zeyad at 'Healing Iraq' presents a brilliant portrait of Iraqi society you won't find in the MSM. Unless, perhaps, you read Anthony Shaddid. These three blogs present an ideal that I wish to aim for.

This is important because most blogs and virtually all comments responding to political blogs are blather. Some of it is less solipsistic than others but still, blather. When I get off my high horse though I realize that this is just what may make blogland a revolutionary instrument. Mass media for the masses and by the masses. Its demotic nature, available to anyone with a desire to communicate, leads to a lot of dross, but one man's dross is another man's nugget.

So why do I think I may have anything to say? For many, everything I write will be the same self-absorbed blather I am complaining of. And that's fine. I am discovering that the true value of a blog is the writing of it, not the reading of it. The effect on the author is key: it makes one think more systematically and seriously before posting. A half-formed thought that seems brilliant appears vapid and trite when reduced to print. But it is better when printed. The embarrassment leads to self knowledge, and hopefully to improvement.

So what are my credentials? Well, I wrote a book once and a publisher was willing to print it. It was reviewed well but sold poorly. I've published six or seven articles, two of which I am proud of, and a handful of encyclopedia type entries, one of which I am very proud of because it impressed an historian I greatly respect.

What else? I believe I was the first person to use the always useful phrase "his mind turned to bat shit" back in the early 70's. I also created a joke that entered the general population (like a successful virus). That last one may be the most creative thing I ever did.

That's it. Those are my credentials. Oh, yes! I earned a Ph.D from a demanding professor, and I can read Latin. And children and cats like me. How's that?