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I remember watching…I think it was Dennis Miller’s old show on CNBC, back when he had on cool guests like Virginia Postrel and back when I got extended cable.

On this particular episode, he had on a panel of bloggers, one of who was Xeni Jardin, of Boing Boing fame. Something Xeni said has stuck with me for a while now. She said, “Blogs are the voice of the people!”

I knew right away that there was something wrong with her statement. “Yeah, it’s easy to say that when you’re blog gets a gajillion hits a day,” I thought to myself. At that point I was pretty sure that a lot of the blog hype was just that. Hype.

But it’s easy to be bitter and complain. The problem is that many bloggers, sick and tired of never being heard, start complaining, start ratcheting up the bitterness to 11. Those folks slowly devolve into a caricature of themselves, a one-dimensional homunculus that, ultimately, isn’t very interesting.

Having to decide between that and toil in obscurity, I’ll take the obscurity, thank you very much. I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I spent all my blogging time trying to pick fights with people or take radically different stances, just to get a rise out of someone here in the comments or through a link from another blog. Sure, okay, I’ve done it in the past (if you think I’m going to link to an example, dream on ;).

Besides, there is a very real freedom that comes from being one of the Great Unread. If you become popular, you acquire an audience…one that expects something out of you every day. I can’t do that. Some days, I’m just spent. Because I make my living as a copywriter, putting pixel to ethernet is the last thing I want to do when I come home sometimes. Maybe I would just like to have a beer and watch Mythbusters or 24.

Also, I would have to play the same tune over and over. I can throw down a political post, follow it up with something technical, then go for the jugular with a hockey rant. I’ve got no one to alienate.

Would I like more readers and more comments? Sure. But blogging is fun and if I have to start kissing up to A-listers or sending mass emails through the underground blogosphere every time I post something new, it would stop being fun and start being more like work.

I need less of that, don’cha know.

Update: Some criticism from Stowe Boyd.

_{np. Atomic Opera – Freak Show}

For Janice Michaels, it’s all about taking a stand. For Peter Davies, it’s a chance to play the part of a lifetime.

These reasons have led them and many others to sign on with the Rude Mechanicals, a professional protest troupe. The troupe, in operation since 1999, has experienced a groundswelling of sorts lately and not just from political activists. Many drama students, who study at nearby Huxtville Community College, have also joined the cause.

“It’s fantastic!” exclaims Colleen Wright, the leader of the Mechanicals. “We knew there was a lot of angst in the country right now, but we had no idea what sort of response we would get from the school.”

According to Wright’s estimates, 9 out of the 15 new recruits came from the campus. One of them is 20-year old drama major Peter Davies. Davies, born and raised in nearby Litton, was bitten by the acting bug early.

“I remember when I was 8 or 9 years old, I saw Peter Pan. Man, I knew right then that I wanted to fly just like him and fight nasty pirates.” Davies enrolled in acting classes a year after that. His last major role was that of Mortimer Brewster in the classic Arsenic and Old Lace during his senior year in high school.

When asked about his political leanings, and those of the Mechanicals, he replied, “I don’t care much about politics, though it’s hard to avoid, that’s for sure. All I know is that this is an opportunity for me to hone my acting skills.”

Not so for sophomore Janice Michaels. When President Bush won reelection in 2004, she knew deep down that the country was heading in the wrong direction.

“I turned to my best friend and said, ‘This is bad.’” Michaels recalled the day President Bush was re-inaugurated. Soon, she got involved with the local chapter of the College Democrats and even campaigned for Howard Dean to be the next Democratic National Chair. Still, she felt that there was more to do and that’s when she saw a flyer for the Rude Mechanicals on campus.

“When I saw that the Mechanicals were looking for some brave souls and open minds, I knew that I could help. It warms my heart seeing so many people standing up to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”

With growing numbers, the Rude Mechanicals have some big plans in store. Wright has said that they will be taking part in the Annual PETA Rally in downtown Huxtville next Saturday. When asked about any events after that, she just smiled.

“Let’s just say that it’s going to be unexpected and sudden and will take a lot of people by surprise. There might be some of us in, say, yellow HazMat suits.”

“I do know one thing: I want to get the new recruits involved in some proper protest training before summer kicks into high gear.”

Like most things in Texas, we grow our thunderstorms BIG. And we had a BIG storm roll through the lovely city of Frisco. We could just hear the thunder over the roar of the crowd and the PA. I was pretty sure the storm would pass over.

Then with 15:26 left in the game, the power died briefly. Immediately, the incandescent, low-powered lights came back, but the high-powered arena lights and the scoreboard. That came back briefly, but with only random green lights on the video screen, almost as if they were starting to show The Matrix on it.

It took them about five minutes to get the arena lights starting to warm up. The guys went on to win the game 6-2.

One more thing: the beer cart started closing up shop after power came back on. They’re supposed to stop selling with 10 minutes left.

We was robbed.

I was standing in line at Greenz, Dallas’ upscale salad bar. I was with a vegetarian friend who had something important to show me (she appreciates my penchant for weird things). The payoff? I had to buy her one of those $9 salads.

We took a seat near a window. The rear view mirror of a Benz reflected the sunlight and I blinked my eyes to chase the spots away.

“Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

“Mmf,” she mumbled, her mouth full of romaine lettuce and red onions. She dug through her jacket pocket and handed me a crumpled piece of paper.

—————————————————————————–
URGENT BULLETTIN

TO: ALL PETA MEBERS
RE: RECENT RUMORS OF ESPIONAGE

ATTENTION ALL PETA MEMBERS!!!

THERE HAVE BEEN RUMORS SURFACING AS OF LATE CLAIMING THAT PETA CAHPTERS AROUND THE COUNTRY HAVE BEEN INFILTRATED! IN ANALYZING THESE REPORTS, WE HAVE NOTED SOME SIMILAR CHARACATERISTICS EXHIBITED BY THOSE THOUGHT TO BE SPIES!! BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE FOLLOWING:

• RED NOSES
• FLOPPY SHOES
• WHITE FACES…REALLY WHITE FACES
• 8 OR 9 PASENGERS GETTING OUT OF A COMPACT CAR (I.E. VOLKSWAGEN BEETLES, FORD FESTIVAS, PONTIAC FIEROS, ETC.)
• NEED TO DIVE INTO BARRELS
• JUGGLING

SHOULD YOU SEE ANY OF THESE SIGNS EXHIBITED BY MEBERS OF PETA, YOU ARE TO REPORT THEM TO YOUR LOCAL PETA CAHPTER OFFICERS IMMEDIATELY!!!!

—————————————————————————–

“Good God,” I whispered.

“What, what is it?”

“It’s one of the signs.”

“Signs, what signs?”

“The end of life, the world, everything we know.” She was puzzled or she was trying to get a piece of a crouton from between her cheek and molar. I couldn’t tell or care, for that matter, because I was off on one of my unnecessary, long-winded diatribes.

“This is the first sign. Nostradamus predicted that there would be 40.5 signs signaling the end of the world–”

“Wait, 40.5–”

“Please!” I recollected myself, “Nostradamus predicted that a well-known political action group would be infiltrated, AND I QUOTE (I always shout that for some reason):

’2 times 20 they shall come
Reaping the harvest sown by bitter souls
Ashen faces, crimson hair
Shall bring Famine’s scythe down…’”

There was silence, then “Whoa.”

“Whoa? WHOA?!! In the end, you won’t be saying, ‘Whoa!’, you’ll be saying, ‘Holy shit, there goes the whole enchilada, Bubbo!”

^
Backstory: Circus Company Goes on Trial in Spy Suit

Only in America…

It would seem that among us that publish on the Web, the wise and reserved voices are few and far between (though I can think of one). Quite often and sadly, it seems that the price of entry that one must pay as a blogger is to be a keening and overzealous creature that easily succumbs to fits of passion.

Specifically, I’m referring to this post by Mr. John Dowdell in which he was forced to comment on a couple of items that bloggers have missed the boat on. I had a feeling that most of the online publishers would get the DOJ/Google legal battle wrong on their scorecards, whether by sheer ignorance or simply a lever by which to generate traffic (BTW, this post from Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Watch lays out why this request isn’t a big deal, though there is always room for precedent).

But what really got me going was the response to the story about the Washington Post. Deborah Howell, the WaPo Ombudsman, got quite a bit of impolite email in her inbox over a column she wrote on Jack Abramoff. A couple of choice excerpts:

Michael Crowley of the New Republic said in his blog that “while for all practical purposes this is indisputably a Republican scandal, the narrow liberal-blogger definition of whether any Democrats took money ‘from Abramoff’ — which neatly excludes contributions he directed his clients to make — amounts to foolish semantics.”

These facts have been reported many times in The Post and elsewhere. So why would it cause me to be called a “right-wing whore” and much worse?

…and…

But it is profoundly distressing if political discourse has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in an argument. This unbounded, unreasoning rage is not going to help this newspaper, this country or democracy.

Also, consider this: one item on the WaPo blog was singled out by Kossacks, resulting in off-topic comments and personal assaults. Because of this, the Post had to close comments on their blog, which was rewarded with further derision.

I once felt ashamed to be a blogger. Now? I understand that something has to be said.

It doesn’t get any plainer than this: if you expect this form of communication to grow and to thrive, you MUST accept the responsibility that comes with having a blog.

It’s not just from the perspective of Google et.al. (fact: I’ve seen posts that I made ten years ago on the Bruce Campbell Usenet group still show up in searches). Words have a lasting effect. They can be used to easily convince someone of something that may not be true, they can slander, and they can cut, sometimes very deeply. When you have a large audience (as I do not…yet), it is especially imperative that you practice restraint and exercise caution in what you say. In the case of Kos and Charles Johnson (just to name two), there are those among their regular audience that will take what they say and play out it to the extreme.

Well, you might be asking, what can an online journalist/blogger do? Fact check, for one. Maybe write that rough draft when you’re feeling that need to shake the pillars of Heaven with your righteous anger, but save it and look it over when you’ve cooled down. Why? Well, I reckon getting hit with a libel suit is no fun. You can save yourself a lot of hassle when you choose your words carefully.

Yeah, it’s all common sense stuff, but if common sense were common, I wouldn’t be posting this, now would I?

Now…how’s that for a first post to TextPlanet?

–Black Sabbath, The Mob Rules

…or When the Wisdom of Crowds Fails.

So I’ve been watching with morbid fasci–err, I mean abundant intellectual curiosity on the recent kerfluffle/dustup/brouhaha between Digg and Steve Mallett of O’Reilly. I don’t know the full story, but as an online journalist, I feel both qualified and compelled to comment. ;)

Digg’s…what, a year old now? So, yeah, it’s a small community, getting bigger each day. It’s not quite the “Slashdot killer” for two reasons:

1. There’s enough room in the online ecosystem for both.
2. The simple fact that at this stage in the Digg community’s evolution, the necessary checks and balances haven’t arisen.

I’ll probably riff on the first bullet at some point in the future (until then, consider that email lists are still going strong in the age of push-button publishing).

Near as I can tell, there’s no order or strata to the Digg community. Right now, the Digg Nation is simply content to share in the experience together. So when the tribe perceives a common “threat”, the response is to come together and repel the threat as one.

Not having read Surowiecki’s book, I’d say that one of the fundamental weaknesses to any crowd’s collective intelligence is a common bias which leads to a snap judgment before all of the facts come to light. This conclusion is reinforced ad nauseum until it becomes a belief.

If anything, this whole experience has been a good lesson and has raised some important questions. How often does the collective wisdom fail a community? Are there necessary checks and balances both within and outside the community to prevent false conclusions from causing harm? If damage is done, can another collective viewpoint reverse it?

This isn’t enough to discredit the notion of collective intelligence, though I think this and other examples will drive home the point that even the wisdom of crowds can be built on a shaky foundation of false perceptions.

We were given a series of statements and we were asked to strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree, or agree with it. After 20 such statements, we assigned point values to each answer and based on that, we learned if we were right-leaning, left-leaning, or in the middle.

I remember this very well, because I ended up dead center.

During the 2004 election, I took many such tests online, some many times over. That way, I could answer according to my mood and calculate an average score. That average was one tick to the left.

What’s the meaning of all this? Other than that I might have too much time on my hands, it shows that I may have moved slightly to the left.

But you know what? I think that it would be foolish for me to rely on quizzes and Internet tests to determine my political beliefs. So let me tell you what I believe…

I love my country. I’m a Man of the World, but I make my home in the United States (and the best part of it, too). I root hard for our Olympic team, grill and watch fireworks on the 4th of July, and I would lay down my life for it.

But to paraphrase Conn Smythe’s quote about hockey: The United States must be a great country in order to survive the fools who run it. And there a lot of fools. Oh sure, there are good people who have the best interests of their country in mind when they volunteer for public service. But they are drowned out by the chorus of the troublemakers.

A shame really, as I could use that to comfort me in the wake of those who prefer sensationalism above legislating (though I’m afraid what they would do if they turned their attention to crafting laws). You know who I’m talking about. Both liberals and conservatives have experts in speaking claptrap. Anywhere there’s a reporter, a cameraman, or an unattended microphone, you’ll find them.

You know what’s especially hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing bout this? We are all too eager to accommodate them. From the entrenched big media to bloggers (yes, bloggers are just as guilty as the MSM in this instance), we celebrate the bigmouths. Their quotes are splattered across newspapers, TV, and blogs. Then the reflexive actions of criticism and defense begin, just as loudly.

Meanwhile, great ideas are ignored. Policy debate is stifled and we all suffer because we, as an electorate, remain uninformed of what’s really important. Our democracy weakens, allowing opportunity for more troublemakers who make big promises to fix things that you or I could easily fix if we took the time and got our hands dirty.

So, to make a long story short, I’m not only moderate, but I feel that We the People can do more for ourselves. We just need to ignore the loudmouths, roll up our sleeves, and get to work.

As such, I intend to make this online journal less about cults of personality and more on ideas.

Joyent is a software development company that provides small business teams with simple, powerful, minty fresh, web-based software. In other words, they’ve got programmers with mad web dev skills that can take that whole Web 2.0 thing by the horns and deliver something so perfectly awesome you’d need sunglasses to look upon it.

TextDrive is a hosting company that caters to advanced web users; the kind of folks that crave SSH, get their jollies messing with alternative web servers, and posting inane ramblings for public consumption. ;) In other words, they’ve got space for hosting some cool stuff…like web-based software.

So there’s the rub. TextDrive hosts Joyent software and what not and Joyent helps out with developing projects for TextDrive. Sounds pretty good and I’m hoping it lasts for a long, long time. There’s some hand wringing going on in the forum. Some people, in fact, are getting quite emotional. But the thing is this: deciding to pay for a year’s hosting is an investment and there is always risk with investing.

So congrats to David, Dean, Jason, and the rest of the gang. Now where’s my phatastic web stats package?