Feb 25 2008
Captain’s Quarters Going Into Dry Dock
It is sad for me to hear Ed Morrissey is closing up his blog to join a confederation of conservative bloggers over at Hot Air. I have a lot of respect for Hot Air and Ed Morrissey, but I think the power of the Internet and Blogosphere was the independent voices of what was the electronic pamphleteers. I wish Captain Ed and Hot Air the best of luck in their new venture. Still, I will miss the independence of Ed Morrissey’s Premier Blog. Cheers, to all!
And Iowahawk has closed up shop temporarily until that one website removes all of Iowa’s posts.
Damn, I don’t like Hot Air. One thing I liked about Ed was that he had his own blog.
And Iowahawk has closed up shop temporarily until that one website removes all of Iowa’s posts.
?????
Which website?
I guess I agree with you. I, like Terrye, am not really a fan of Hot Air. I look occasionally, but not daily.
I started to blog a year ago. I had written an about three page response to an article that I had read at Redstate…and one of the guys there asked me to start posting a “diary’ on their site. Humorously, I’ve since been banned from that site. I had a post with tits in it. My bad.
But at the same time I started posting there, I clicked on the blogspot thingy, and within minutes had my first post. I was a blogger. Really. People could read my writing. I was published.
Man, was that weird. I really didn’t have a thought out agenda. I figured that I would post when I wanted. Cross-post at Redstate.
And I posit that in my posting, all I am posting are my thoughts about different things, issues, experiences, whatever, when I want to, with whatever thoughts are evoked by circumstance or event as they occur. It is an open diary. A web log.
Then, you start getting comments. Now, that’s cool. When you forty or fifty comments on a post, you got wood. Now you worry about posting comments on other peoples’ sites because maybe your whoring for page views. Trying to drive the traffic. Why am I posting this comment on your site, instead of noting your post and writing this on my site? Am I whoring for page views? Or, simply talking to your other readers. That we, your readers, share your writing and our comments on your site are just a measure of the inclusiveness I think most of us–your readers–feel we have with each other. Although we remain faceless and anonymous.
So you start to get some real traffic. And then your real life intrudes. Days are spent doing important things. Paying bills. Going to your son’s practise. Coaching a basketball team. Things that are ultimately more important than anything you can write.
And your readership drops off.
What does Captain Ed gain with Hot Air? Prolly a day off. Hard to keep driving numbers when you’re the star. I’ve asked a couple of guys to share blogging at my site. Guys I trust. Guys with whom friendship means we can disagree to the most strident level of humanly possible disagreement, and still remain friends. But there is a level of fear out there. Nobody wants to get caught blogging.
Telling the truth. Unvarnished. Straight. Truth. Might be wrong. But this is the truth as I see it now. Challenge me and I will respond. Challenge me with stupid? I’ll point that out. As you will point out when I am stupid.
Fair is fair.
So, as this comment approaches “novella” length I’ll end by simply saying that what you do here is good, journeyman work. Captain Ed has done some truly world-class journalism. And I think that it has been in part his independence that has allowed him to speak his mind, with only “his” filter to filter what we read.
Group-think is not a good thing. There are rituals that I believe we must share. But celebrating a ritual is not necessarily succumbing to group-think. Blowing up fireworks on July 4 is a necessary ritual. Agreeing that King George III was crazy is an opinion. Although true.
I hope that he is going to be able to enjoy the relaxation that a step away from driving page hits will enable. I hope his independence won’t suffer as he tries to become a member of a group.
There. I’m done.