Blog Culture

A "blog" sounds like something your doctor takes a sample of by poking a cotton swab deep into the back of your throat to then send away to the lab for analysis. This connotation may have something to do with why I come to the scene relatively late.

But this post from Glenn Greenwald has a whole lot to do with what draws me into the fray despite my initial reluctance to, perhaps, open up and say "ah." I'm particularly interested in this passage:

There is much to learn from the contempt expressed by John Yoo, Joe Klein and Jon Alter towards blogs -- i.e., a collection of hundreds of thousands of politically engaged citizens who are dissatisfied with the prevailing political and media power centers and have created their own instruments for expressing and activating that dissatisfaction.

Greenwald's article is not about blog culture, but then again it is. In this post he takes on those who would classify bloggers as "parasites" on the mainstream media. These are the same people who attempt to minimize the relevance of the blogosphere by calling it so much "mouthing off at home," (as opposed to those who mouth off in front of the camera) thus trivializing the research and writing done by a number of very committed and (often) informed readers.

One of the truly remarkable things about the blogosphere--especially politically, but maybe that's just how I relate to it all--is the level of engagement it fosters among those who might not otherwise get involved if they couldn't do so from their homes, work centers or schools, and often at little or no cost. I'm absolutely blown away by the sheer range of information, analysis and opinion that the Internet delivers to my desktop every day, and the more I read and write the more I want to read and write about what I'm reading and writing. I dunno. Sounds like an actual dialogue gaining ground among a whole lot of people who have traditionally had little opportunity to get past the glossy and polished exterior of the media at-large (or our political institutions or professional sports franchises, you name it). This is, I believe, what we call progress and empowerment, and exactly what our country proclaims--loudly and repeatedly all across the globe--to stand for.