It's truly unfortunate, Mr Cope, that you rely solely on the, "handful of other socially inept obsessives who are aware of your every thought." to survive in your chosen career path. If your career's very existence did not rely completely on them, then I suppose the opening statement of your article of March 9th 2005 entitled, "If I Had My Drathers: Unclogging the blog fog." would have carried some weight. Surely, you must agree, Mr. Cope, that readers of opinion pieces are simply searching for a way to, "piss away ...hours," and it is your duty to help them, by, "throwing more useless crap into the...(metaphor removed)...landfill." Landfill is used, in the preceding case, in the literal sense. You don't like my punctuation style, Bill? BYTE ME. "No offense,..."
How low must you stoop for journalistic sizzle without substance? "No, offense.." may be the most unquestionably juvenile way to make oblique the insult of judgmental diatribe. I am disappointed that you, a professional journalist, so gloriously lofted before us as the avatar of literacy, could dredge up such bilge. I am not, myself, unlikely or unknown to use such a technique, but I am not a "professional journalist." I am a 30 year old high school dropout with a blog. It seems to me ironic that a pleasantly left-leaning individual such as yourself should not see the hidden inconsistency in your request to, "please excuse my reliance on old-fashioned paper and ink," in two small ways. First; anything "old-fashioned" is clearly in the domain of the conservatives, and is never to be sullied by the lip service of a liberal. Second; the trees, Bill, think about the trees.
Keep in mind, Bill, that I am not the force intent on revoking your license to refer to the "old-fashioned," nor to appear in newsprint. No more so than it was bloggers who flayed Dan Rather. Rather, Dan's cacophonous flogging from blogging was mere accompaniment to the media blitzkrieg symphony, and the conductor before the orchestra was most assuredly not a vast internet blogger cabal. Dan's lashing was by backlash of political whips, not blogs. It was the rocks other side of the aisle they were throwing, they just used blogs as slings. The use of the blogs is/was/will-be reported by many "real news" sources as if these blogs hold some weight in the overall journalistic scheme, so perhaps they do. Blaming the blogs for Dan's resignation is very nearsighted, though they have proven a popular scapegoat. I believe Dan Rather was dead-on with the assertions he made that lead to "BlogGate", and his departure is an unfortunate travesty. However, the blog, like any powerful tool (such as a newspaper), can be used for good or evil, honestly, or dishonestly. It is not the blog that is dishonest; it is the person writing it. Blogs don't ruin careers, political machinations ruin careers. Do you get what I'm driving at here yet, Bill?
If, Mr. Cope, you were to peruse my blog, The Snakepimp Times (www.snakepimp.blogspot.com) you would find nary a, "lol" nor would you find "IMHO." In fact, I don't believe that you would even find "OBO," which, of course, is an ubiquitous mutation of language used in the newspaper. Yes, most of my articles are short, but that is what is required to hold the attention of an internet audience. The graphics on my blog are extremely simple, and could not carry the overall message of the blog itself. My language is crass and confrontational, much like yours at times, mine is perhaps a bit more radical because of the given the restrictions of your media. Blogging specifically, and the internet generally, is the last and most vastly available outlet for truly free media. Blogging allows us (humankind) a broader perspective on the possible truths of a given situation, like a quantum probability field. There is no better medium than the internet for worldwide peer review of any subject. The tiniest exercise in discernment can separate the truly illiterate vanity bloggers from a blogger with an ability to use language somewhat, and those who have something legitimate to convey. I am saddened that you think all blogs are to blame for the linguistic ills of our culture. Many of those now engaged in frantic blogging are hard-working students who will grow up to be the next Dan Rather, or Hunter S. Thompson or...okay, Matt Drudge.
I respect, in general, your writing, and have enjoyed the great majority of your articles because I am the misanthrope you describe in your "If I Had My Drathers," article's opening paragraph. I respect, and mostly agree, with your politics, but you are too conservative. I lean so far to the left that I am unpublishable, even by my own standards. Was your use of the non-word "opinionizing" an intentional ruse to catch unwary bloggers-who-happen-to-read-print-too, or was it an "Easter Egg" like computer-programmers hide to entertain their astute-enough-to-get-it audience? Perhaps it was an honest-to-goodness mistake not to use the word "opining?" I am leaning towards the Easter Egg theory, because you go on to use "whole nother" (of which I am guilty, in verbal use) and "teevee." Perhaps it is just an attention check. Well, some of us are paying attention, Bill, and we all have blogs. One misstep on your part, and I will release the internet blog-people-hyenas.
lol,
Jeremy Anderson
This is perhaps, the alternate ending to the productive period of my own life, if I had chosen a different path.
