Archive for the ‘Blogophilia’ Category

Fred Thompson, damn it

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 22, 2007

There’s nothing not to like about Fred Thompson, okay?

But I still haven’t seen the steak. Sizzle, yes. Yet he’s perceived as being so unconnected to the miasma of Washington insiderism (as if he never served in the Senate?) that even smart guys like Glenn Reynolds become almost thoughtless boosters. Check this out:

FRED THOMPSON ON CORRUPTION AND THE U.N.: “When Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il have as much say in U.N. matters as the entire populations of Poland and New Zealand, you’re going to have problems.”

I’m sorry. This is not original. It is not insightful. In fact, it’s not even bold: “You’re going to have problems”?

Fred — Glenn? — and, yes, NRO? This pedestrian observation is something any conservative, or indeed intellectually honest regardless of political stripe, observer of international relations and the UN could have made and probably has made, in some form or another, for the last 20 years. Yet for this he gets a syndicated column, which is picked up on NRO; a featured quote on Instapundit; millions of adoring right-wing bloggers?

Come on!

What is your policy prescription, Senator? Do we leave the UN? Defund it? Sue it? Level it? Audit it (again)?

I love Fred’s stage presence. I love his magical powers. He’s friends with a former boss of mine. He seems like a decent conservative.

Far be it from me to ask a question so banal as, “Where’s the beef?” But I’m at the barbecue. I’ve got my plate. The bun is open. I smell something cooking. But my stomach, she is growling. And the sun is arching into the west.

Posted in Blogophilia, Medialites, Politics and Poker | 15 Comments »

What’s Wrong with the World

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 16, 2007

Josh Trevino is back. Hat tip to Paul Cella.

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Now that is some navel!

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 12, 2007

Inside baseball to Nth degree from young Mickey Kaus. So why link to it? It’s kind of an exhibit A. To something.

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Mean man

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 10, 2007

Gawker is a mean, catty, sarcastic blog that sees fit to criticize everything and everyone in the Manhattan fishbowl without, of course, any actual bona fides of achievement in its authors’ own rights. Okay?

But some pictures are just so funny you have to link.

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The Fitch is back!

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 8, 2007

Radioactive Liberty awakens from its slumber — as only a communication from the IRS can awaken you!

Posted in Blogophilia | 2 Comments »

They told me to do this

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 5, 2007

Henry from Blogads did, that is. We go back a long way. He said to ask you:

“Please take my blog reader survey!”

It takes about ten minutes. You don’t get anything for doing it.

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“Roy L. Pearson Jr.”

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 3, 2007

I guess there’s a lot I still don’t understand about blogs. My WordPress blog stats tell me that far and away the number-one search term for surfers hitting this blog in the last two days is the phrase “Roy L. Pearson Jr.”

These are words that until this posting did not appear anywhere on this blog. And when I run the search myself, on Google, I don’t get Likelihood of Success.

Now it’s true that I did send the Roy L. Pearson story to Overlawyered, home of erstwhile blogger here David M. Nieporent, Esq., before they posted on it. I can document this (even though, it is also true, I was not credited). But is Google searching my Outlook files and working its way back to this blog? It’s not that bad. Not yet.

Can anyone explain this?

Posted in Blogophilia, Nuvo-Techno | 2 Comments »

Misunderestimating blogs

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 29, 2007

A VC in New York explains “Why 15 Million Is A Big Number”:

cNet suggests that the blogging bubble has burst. I don’t think it’s a bubble. I think its a revolution. We are taking over the media, slowly but surely. And this revolution isn’t going to burst. It may morph as new tools emerge that allow people to express themselves publicly.I think the more interesting number would be the percentage of internet audience time that is spent on social media. I am sure it’s still growing (maybe exponentially) and traditional media (including cnet) is declining.

There’s another number we’d like to know, too, or rather another set of numbers. I don’t have to tell a VC this, but: Who are the readers of the 15 million blogs? He cites a “ten to one rule” —

The 10 to 1 rule says that in social media, for every 10 readers you need one content creator. So 15 million bloggers will serve 150 million blog readers. That’s a ton of blog readers.

That’s interesting, if it’s true. “Rules” like that are the stuff myths are made of. But even if it’s a slice of that — who are the readers? I believe, because I am prejudiced, that it is a large percentage of “opinion leaders” and leaders of other sorts — political, commercial, technological. I don’t have to teach a VC the concept of demographics.

We both agree: Focusing on a single datum such as the growth in the number of blogs is silly. People don’t start new car or aircraft companies too often, either, but a hundred years ago they did. De facto barriers to entry, even those “erected” by a perception that there’s nothing special in starting just another blog in a crowded field, bespeak a maturation of the significance medium, not an apogee.

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Decent discourse in a virtual society

Posted by Ron Coleman on April 19, 2007

God forbid even a not-so-moderate political blogger suggests a limitation, a question, a caveat to a valued principle of the ideological charter on the Internet. He’s not just wrong — he’s an idiot, a complete dummy, or worse, and of course in instant time. I wonder if we can do anything about this, besides choosing to maintain standards on our own blogs. Here I edit out vulgar language and try to steer discussion — when there is any; this is not a well-established blog, after all — to a focus on the issues, not the adjectives, if I can. That takes time, work and patience. And of course some people are going to hate you no matter what you do.

Now, I enjoyed, and was not surprised by, the “finding” several weeks ago suggesting that left-wing blogs are — not a little, but a lot — more vulgar than those on my side of the aisle. But as Jonah Goldberg points out, our house could, not surprisingly, be a lot cleaner:

Standing up to political correctness has become an unlimited warrant to be rude for its own sake. And if you catch flak for it, you can just say you were defending free thought. Ann Coulter, for example, justifies her cruder barbs and insults on the grounds that she’s pushing back against the liberal thought police. Sometimes she’s even right. . . . I’m all in favor of acid wit and barbed satire. But too many partisans on both sides sound like Beavis and Butt-Head, tittering over trivia. . . .

The reality is that much of political correctness — the successful part — is a necessary attempt to redefine good manners in a sexually and racially integrated society. Good manners are simply those things you do to demonstrate respect to others and contribute to social decorum. Aren’t conservatives the natural defenders of proper manners?

I’ll say, but perhaps both Goldberg and I are those offensive things, cultural conservatives, whereas the dominant ~~right-wing~~ non-liberal ethic in the Internet tends to be libertarian. I posit that as part of the problem, along with Internet anonymity.

That, and the fact that I am always right, and you other ninnies just can’t stand this.

UPDATE: Radioactive Liberty has this all figured out, thank God.

Posted in Americana, Blogophilia, O Mores! | 20 Comments »