I think we need to coin yet another neologism, perhaps "blogvertigo" for that swoon a blogger feels when starting down another one of those endlessly branching (till the browser crashes) web expeditions while trying to decide what to save and what to comment on. Next thing you know you're at BoingBoing and the rest of the day is shot.
Relevant to the occasional mission of this blog (blogging about blogging about blogging) is this report of another happy outcome for a blogger:
Blog-novel to become paper-novel: Patrick Nielsen Hayden — blogger, senior editor for Tor Books — announces on his blog this morning that, "...I really did make a publication offer, on behalf of Tor Books, to a writer named John Scalzi for a science fiction novel he had serialized on his web journal. And he very graciously accepted."
categories: metablog
5:01:06 PM 
say what []
Too lazy to pad out to my front drive and pick up the Sunday Chronicle, I've been reading New York Times op eds and now skimming Slate.
There's a tight little William Saletan article from Thursday, Wise Counsel - Edwards copies Clinton's message—in invisible ink, that makes the point that John Edwards has mastered the Clinton technique of putting the focus on the audience, the potential voter: "I will be a champion for regular people in the White House every day," he says.
This is also how he addresses the flak he will take for having amassed a fortune as a personal-injury lawyer (what Republicans like to call a "trial lawyer" to distinguish, I suppose from the corporate attorneys they have no problems with).
My gut sense is that Edwards appeals like the characters in John Grisham's novels: they are scrappy, cynical Southerners who end up championing the poor and helpless against large impersonal forces, usually corporations, and winning.
I've always thought that political campaigns, especially presidential elections, are about competing stories. People vote (those who do vote) for the narrative they prefer. If that's the case, then Edwards' version of "the people versus the powerful" may present a very compelling alternative narrative to the current administration's thumbnail sketch.
categories: memewatch x-syndicate
10:18:06 AM say what []
In his op ed today, A War for Oil?, Tom Friedman mentions the president's recent soundbite:
Mr. Bush's recent attempt to hype the Iraqi threat by saying that an Iraqi attack on America — which is most unlikely — "would cripple our economy" was embarrassing. It made the president look as if he was groping for an excuse to go to war, absent a smoking gun.
It sure made me cringe. Who writes this stuff?
categories: x-syndicate
10:18:05 AM say what []
It looks like Slate launched a feature called Meme Watch back in November and refers, semifacetiously, to a MemeTracker™ device. Hey, as long as they pay us royalties!
No, honestly, the more of us tracking memes the better. Timothy Noah's latest column observes the ups and downs of the "Lucky Duckies" meme.
categories: memewatch x-syndicate
10:17:49 AM say what []
