Maybe I was wrong being against the proposed blogger code of good niceness. I’m seeing it a whole new –– a whole special, new! — way!

Times Square Skyline

Originally uploaded by Ron Coleman.

I am constantly impressed at the phenomenon of lurking on email lists and the roughly equivalent one of reading blogs without commenting. I realize that in fact most people do these things and do not contribute to discussions. It was the same in school; most people do not wish to speak up in class. Yet here you can do so anonymously. There is no grading. Still you remain, mostly, silent. And what I crave is your society. Connection.

You demur. I wish I had an ounce of that humility (others also wish I did). But the one thing I couldn’t stand in the old newsprint days was that They, by virtue of having a printing press, could say, and I had to just read.

Today was a good day for a humble blog — no, I’m no Ali Eteraz! — with about 700 unique readers. I got about 40 comments, also a lot, but it was from about 15 people. That ratio amazes me. You can say what you think! You can disagree with the writer! You can agree with the writer!

“Nope. No thanks, just looking. Go on.”

I guess it takes all kinds… mostly the other kind, in fact.

Mickey Kaus is terrible with permalinking so I am just pickup this entire segment of Kausfiles from last Friday and reprinting it here based on some moral or legal right thing. It is just such a geshmakeh example of inside-baseball, personal, navel-gazing, self-referential, inside-out, yummy catty witchy blogging, featuring one of my favorite targets, the Unhinged One himself:

Howie Carr condemned Imus? If memory serves, Howie Carr’s radio show was the most offensive radio program I’d ever heard when I listened to it during the 2000 New Hampshire primary–more offensive, in terms of ethnic insensitivity and general sneering inhumanity than anything I’ve seen attributed to Imus’s broadcast.

**–In 2004, I appear to have blogged that when I tuned in again that year, “Carr’s show wasn’t vile anymore.” I defer to my 2004 self on that issue. Still. …

Update–Sullivan Unhinging Watch: I thought the above post was pretty clear about Carr’s show: Vile in 2000! Not vile in 2004. Andrew Sullivan seems to believe this is a contradiction, and proceeds to condescendingly defend me while soliciting similar forgiveness because he’s a “human being” and “blogging in real time” and therefore guilty of some “minor inconsistencies.” (Like ‘Yes, war!’ and ‘Sorry, mistake!‘) No thanks. … P.S.: Sullivan declares the asterisked graf above was “subsequently added.” I forget, but think the whole thing was posted at the same time. … P.P.S.: What happened to “Faggot-Guy“? I thought I was Faggot-Guy. You just can’t rely on some people.

Oh, Mickey, on you I can rely! At least when it comes to Andrew Sullivan.

I read Kausfiles (Mickey Kaus) every day. You should, at least every other day. It’s usually not so time sensitive so you don’t have to do it every day. He’s pretty much the best on the media front and I like his political analysis, too.

What else?

I read Instapundit several times a day. It’s my starting point. Of course I’m all over Dean’s World, where I’m a contributor again. I read all the blogs on my blogroll, of course, but not as regularly as these three. (Kaus isn’t on my blogroll because he’s never linked here. You know — blogroll, logroll?)

Of course I was weaned on Andrew Sullivan but he rounded the bend about five years ago and isn’t coming back.

I also read Above the Law every day, and I check out Overlawyered to see if David Nieporent is still alive (he is). I also check out and sometimes write for a special-interest Jewish blog called Beyond BT — it’s so full of jargon and inside baseball, though, that I don’t blogroll it here.

On IP, which I also blog about (of course), I think the best thing going for thoroughness and style, though her focus is narrow, is Counterfeit Chic. When I’m desperate for a story to steal (and “enhance”) I go straight to Seattle Trademark Lawyer and Internet Cases, and I’m seldom disappointed. I would do the same with the Technology and Marketing Law Blog but Eric Goldman is so good — and our views on the law are so simpatico — that I would just end up lifting his whole blog wholesale, so I have to discipline myself.

No one asked me, but those are my regular haunts.

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