I’m developing a post about “The Year of the Blog,” a series of significant events in 2004 that changed the blogosphere or at least people’s perception of it.
I’m asking for reader input on this topic. What significant event(s) of importance occurred in the blogosphere in 2004? Rathergate and the presidential election rank at the top. What impact did these and other events have on the blogosphere? What impact did bloggers have on them?
On a personal note, the year 2004 was significant for me. When I started blogging in November 2003, I had no idea it would have a noticable impact (at least to me) on my freelance writing career. My writing has received much more exposure from blogging than it has from writing the occasional newspaper op-ed. My column used to run twice a month on a few conservative sites. Now I write at least a column a day, albeit an unpolished one. Blogging has disciplined me to write practically every day, something I never did before.
Blogging is such an “open” medium, and it has exposed me to new markets and opportunities. Because of this blog and my devotion to it, I’ve been approached by a book agent, editors, an institute for Christian journalists and a director of a public policy institute (for speaking engagements), radio talk show hosts, columnists I respect and admire and many people who read and like my work. That’s why 2004 is significant to me. I can’t wait to see what 2005 will bring for myself and the rest of the blogosphere.
(On a side note, I’m also developing a piece about mainstream media’s distaste for the blogosphere. Power Line, the subject of a juvenile column written by a liberal, continues to respond. Scott “The Big Trunk” Johnson contacted the editor of the newspaper for some accountability. See this link for more info. Also, Evangelical Outpost discusses.)
Your input on “The Year of the Blog” post will greatly assist me. And spread the word about this post.
Thank you for reading my blog. You are very much appreciated. 
DC Bloggers, I’ll see you tonight!
(Carnival of the Vanities is up at The Radical Centrist. Very well-done, too.)
Update: Although the headline for this Washington Post (reg. req.) article reads “Internet Sparks Outpouring of Instant Donations,” it should read “Blogosphere Sparks Outpouring of Instant Donations.
It’s the truth. All the big (and mostly conservatives) bloggers have multiple posts on how and where to donate, sending traffic to Amazon.com and other sites, including at least one that crashed. See Kevin McCullough’s post.
Update II: Ugh! I politicized the disaster relief efforts in the previous update. Bad blogger. 
Update III (12/31): Yesterday Hugh Hewitt was kind enough to mention this post on his blog. But he inadvertently linked to a different blog. All day yesterday (and until he changes the link), hundreds (thousands?) of hits were racked up on another blogger’s site meter.
After a year of blogging and being nominated, I was finally selected by the Watcher’s Council. 
They liked the academic freedom/hate mail/David Horowitz post.
There are many widely publicized blogs and historic occurrences where blogs have helped shape the perspective of the world. There are many instances where bloggers get a voice to contend with mainstream media. These are all grand but are not the most significant force that the blogoshpere has brought to our culture.
The small voice. The typical individual blogger does not have the audience nor the voice to shout their message across the void. What they do have and what is most significant is the intimacy of contact with other bloggers. We hold hands with a few that hold hands with a few that hold hands with a few more. This intimate contact extends around the world and into regions that were never accessible to us before. Friendships are made across cultural, racial, economic, religious and boundary driven divides. Morals, ideas and opportunities are open for discussion. We find that people are people wherever they live.
… This is the real power of the blogosphere.
Take Care
Michael
Comment by Michael — 12.30.04 @ 9:37 am
LaShawn,
I think the chief thing that brought the blogosphere to prominence in 2004 was the fact that it was an election year.
I never imagined when I discovered my first blog back in late-2003 that I’d become such an avid blog reader, acquire such strong political opinions, or acquire my own little “blog” (my livejournal).
This year’s election did more to excite people’s interest in politics, the war, and news in general than many previous elections. Blogs came to the forefront because of this thirst for information; they also provided a platform for those of us who have a voice and chose to use it to discuss the issues that were on our minds. I think that blogs really helped inspire people to get out to vote as well; this medium showed us that individual voices matter, that we can be heard, and that we need to make our opinions known.
Amazingly enough, with the election over I find myself still thirsty for information, and my favorite political/military blogs continue near the top of my “to do” list nearly every day.
Comment by Lornkanaga — 12.30.04 @ 10:19 am
If anything, blogs became essential reading in 2004. If you want to know what’s going on in the world the blogosphere is becoming the best source of information. Rathergate and the presidential election both helped make blogs essential reading.
I’m also encouraged by the number of fellow Christians that are blogging. It appears that Christians especially understand the blog medium and are using it to its fullest potential.
Finally, the blogosphere has become more specialized. No longer are blogs confined to simply political commentary. You can find someone blogging on just about any subject.
Comment by Daddypundit — 12.30.04 @ 10:28 am
Didn’t you start blogging in Nov. 2003?
Comment by LawWife — 12.30.04 @ 10:39 am
LawWife - Another reader saw that, too. Thanks.
Comment by LB — 12.30.04 @ 10:42 am
LaShawn,
Thanks your efforts, I look forward to checking your site 2-3 times per day. I love the fact you weave politics and faith together. Blogs are essential today to understand culture and the varied forces impacting it.
It is so exciting to have one’s thoughts and opinions validated by so many thoughtful folks. God Bless you and your family.
Comment by Steve Baker — 12.30.04 @ 11:42 am
We live in momentous times. The wonder of the internet continues to evolve and grow.
The primary driving force behind the First Amendment of the United States Constitution was the belief that good ideas will win over poorer ones if all are given voice.
The internet and the BLOGs have given life to that idea. We no longer have effective gatekeepers of information and opinion typified by editors of newspapers and television “reporters”. The BLOGs have given voice to the masses.
In my view the BLOGs and the internet have two equally positive outputs. The first that comes to everyone’s mind is the ability of conservatives to fire back at people like Rather and Coleman.
The other, which may have more impact in the long run, is the need of the other side to say something and no limits on space and no editor to help make a sensible story out of the senseless. If you have a dumb idea that you haven’t fully thought out (in my view this covers most “liberal” thought), the last place to express it is to an open forum for the world to see and challenge.
In the marketplace of ideas, I think we have the better product. Now it is displayed side by side with the opposition. Typical of the other side is the output of Coleman and the Democratic Underground.
I invite anyone to contrast and compare Powerline and La Shawn Barber’s BLOG with the Democratic Underground and Daily KOS. None of these are fringe products, they represent heavily viewed presentations from the right and left.
I’ll agree that I am biased. But I think we win on almost every comparison.
2005 should be an awesome year.
Comment by Allan Yackey — 12.30.04 @ 11:51 am
Random Stuff
LaShawn Barber asks what events in 2004 changed the blogosphere or people’s perceptions of it. Stop by and contribute a comment.
Trackback by Daddypundit — 12.30.04 @ 12:19 pm
The most important event of this year, as far as blogs go for me, was when I realized that I was seeing stories on FoxNews AFTER I’d already read about them on blogs. I expect the MSM to be behind the bell curve, but not Fox. This was an epiphany.
Comment by Bucktowndusty — 12.30.04 @ 1:06 pm
I just recently started my own blog back at the beginning of this month, so I am a noob! Having said that, I have come to realize that blogging, changes oneself. In my endeavor to assist my fellow businessmen and women in living their faith through their businesses, I realized that it assists me in doing the same for myself. That I derive so much personally from doing this blog. Maybe because it is so focused, but I think that it is that sharing and receiving. Reality without filters.
Comment by Chrysostomos — 12.30.04 @ 1:13 pm
One of the interesting things that has developed this year is, besides the elections, blogs are becoming a source for first-hand reporting of world news. One example of this was http://www.postmodernclog.com and the Ukrainian elections / Orange Revolution.
Another example is how my first thought after I heard of the tsunami was “Who do I know blogging from that part of the world? Are they okay? What are they seeing?”
Comment by TulipGirl — 12.30.04 @ 2:12 pm
Allen (you too, La Shawn)-
I wholeheartedly agree. Occasionally I visit the liberal sites that you mentionned. Every time I am amazed at the lack of coherent thought (although, having read the DNC platform, I shouldn’t have been too surprised). Everything comes down to Bush is bad and I don’t care what you say.
As an example - He is bad because he did not rush to the cameras to make a statement about the Tsunami. Instead, from Crawford, he ordered military flights and naval ships to the area, authorized 25 million dollars in cash aid, contacted the leaders of all the nations involved, organized a coalition of four nations to provide aid. These actions, according to the bloggers, reveal a complete lack of sensitivity and caring.
On the other hand, Bill Clinton organized nothing, but he did rush to the cameras urging someone to take action. This, according to the bloggers, was the mark of a real leader. some wished that he could be back in the Oval Office.
Comment by Rick — 12.30.04 @ 2:15 pm
You may have listed this as part of the 2004 election, but in case you hadn’t:
The Vietnam Vets who were scorned and maligned in the 60’s were able to tell their side of the story this year thanks to the blogsphere.
Apart from what the Swift Vets had to tell us about Kerry, many Vietnam Vets vets were able to show us how many lies were told about them that have continued to this day.
I feel the Vietnam Vets’ ability to tell THEIR SIDE of the story has done a lot to help them, and us, heal the wounds caused by Vietnam. This (being able to tell their side) wouldn’t have happened without the blogsphere.
Comment by Chris Josephson — 12.30.04 @ 3:00 pm
For me, a significant blogging event is coming from south of our border, from Venezuela, whose democracy is sliding into castrodom.
But Venezuelans, about a half-dozen of them, all blogging in English, have gotten the word to us, told us how they feel about this, explained the strange details out to us.
During the horrific August 15 recall referendum on dictator Hugo Chavez, sanctified by that naive dictator’s friend, Jimmy Carter, anyone reading the blogs could learn, from different sources, exactly what that vote was like, what the conditions of voting were all over the country, what the exit polls in different parts of the country said, and what the different insiders were thinking and hearing. It was very minute-by-minute, and many of these bloggers didn’t even know each other. Because of this, we in the States were able to piece together a very realistic picture of what was happening there, in all its excitement and agony. We felt every emotion, too. And when the fraudulent results were suddenly announced the next morning, against all we had learned throughout the day earlier, indeed the months earlier, we knew enough to know it was unequivocally a fraud. Just like Ukraine. The mainstream media never noticed. But we knew.
And bad as it was, bloggers remained there to get the word out to us, and we have since seen rising numbers of editorials about this horror show get out over time. Slowly, surely, word is getting out and the communists running Venezuela are screaming. They’ve installed an intrusive new media muzzle law that is damping television and radio coverage, and intimidating print reporters.
But the bloggers? They too could have been arrested and they didn’t flinch. Instead, they called Chavez a fat clown just to test the law and risked a real possibility of arrest, same as the brave Iranian bloggers. These bloggers are heroes and they will soon be the only people left to get the word out to us and the curtain of tyranny descends on that once lovely country.
But because of them, we know what’s going on.
It’s all because of brave Venezuelan bloggers like Miguel Octavio, Daniel Duquenal and Aleksander Boyd. The bloggers.
Comment by A.M. Mora y Leon — 12.30.04 @ 3:08 pm
Some of these brave Venezuelan blogs worth noting:
http://www.daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/
http://www.vcrisis.com/
One more thought:
One incredibly interesting and cool detail in the history of the blogosphere is that our own President this month held a ‘Bloggers Summit’ with the Iraqi bloggers from ‘Iraq the Model.’ At that summit, the White House staffers told the Iraqis that they considered reading the blogs part of their jobs. That’s where our own president gets his information! Fascinatingly enough, he’s doing a rather good job as president, though, and right on the cutting edge of the information revolution. Good job President Bush!
Comment by A.M. Mora y Leon — 12.30.04 @ 3:20 pm
I think an event that lead up to Rathergate that was a product of the blogs was the proof that “Christmas in Cambodia” was a lie in more ways than the fact that Nixon was not President in 1968. This lie was exposed by the Swift Vets in early May but it got no coverage by the MSM - that is really strange isn’t it the MSM would not cover a major lie by a Presidential candidate. It got a lot of coverage in late May by blogs and in June by “Talk Radio”.
Had the blogs not goten the ball rolling it would not have been covered as much as it was by the radio. It was this awareness that JFK was not the “war hero” the MSM tried to convince us he was that frightened the DNC and the MSM. This fear caused them to fabricate an attack on Bush’s military record to try and divert attention from Kerry’s bogus record. Do not forget that Rathergate was part of a combined DNC/MSM smear on Bush that was started in late Aug and called “Favored Son” or something similar. Viacom was not the only participant in this smear- they just were the only ones stupid enough to publish their bogus documentation.Other big name participants were: NYT,LAT,ABC,CNN,+ NBC as well as a host of smaller fry. Again it was the distrust (by the people)of JFK generated by the blogs flogging “Christmas in Cambodia” during the DN Convention that generated a small *NEGATIVE* bounce for JFK and galvanized the MSM/DNC smear of Bush.
This reason behind Rathegate was discussed in early Sep by some folk but it never got much play. To the reason for the smear on the President is almost as important as the smear itself. Both are the direct reslut of the blogs doing what *SHOULD* have been done by at least one member of the MSM.
Rod Stanton
Cerritos
Comment by Rod Stanton — 12.30.04 @ 3:24 pm
What significant event(s) of importance occurred in the blogosphere in 2004?
Personally, I know the Swift Boat Vets for Truth got me started on the blogosphere. I became a Swift Boat supporter because of one blog/site, and I know for a fact that the Swiftees had THE MAJOR impact on the 2004 election, and they did indeed “Sink Kerry Swiftly!” The idea that a small group of believers and supporters can have an impact on an election is empowering. And the fact that still to this day nothing has really been debunked shows that that the media totally will pick and choose what it wants to report as the “news”, and they aren’t really into truth finding as much as they are into sound bites.
Before 2004, I never even knew what a blog was. I read FOX news on the web and Rush, but that was about it. Now, I have entire folders of Zines and Blogs (yours at the top of the list) and I spend about 1-2 hours a day reading the web and getting news from there instead of watching TV, and I certainly never watch the local news anymore nor the syndicated versions of nightly news.
It has changed my life forever. No longer will I let newspapers like the Star Tribune (in MN we call it the Red Tribune) feed me their biased version of the news, and no longer will I have to just eat it and believe it to be true. Now, people have other means of obtaining news instead of published papers. I know for a fact I am more informed about issues because of blogs, and I have more exposure to more ideas, and more opportunity to follow-up on things and I can decide my opinion instead of a newspaper. It is so true what people say, that the blogosphere is the “New Media” and the “Old Media” is dying, or is already dead. And all I can say is, “It’s about time!!!”
That is why you see the stuff going on right now with the “Star Tribune” and “Power Line.” A newspaper columnist is openly slandering the Best Blog of 2004 winner (Power Line) in the very pages of the newspaper. The old media is realizing that they have LOST their monopolizing hold on the minds of the populace, and that they soon will be rendered irrelevant. A more educated society will never allow itself to be held captive by the status quo. It’s not a bad thing, as long as readers realize that there may be an agenda to a blog that they are reading, but at least I’ve found most bloggers state their agenda or it is transparent, which is more than I can say for the newspapers.
The blogosphere is our modern day “Enlightenment.” I, for one, welcome it.
And as a post note, what really hits this close to home it that I am in the military and I get emails and read blogs from soldiers overseas, and they are doing a hell of a lot of good over there, but the media won’t report it. The “real” news is more good than bad, but the old media has already predetermined the outcome so everything is published to fit their agenda. Which we all know, by the way, is defeat.
Comment by ThaLeena — 12.30.04 @ 3:34 pm
Blogging at midnight from the courthouse where Tom Daschle was trying to prop up the dead indian vote — and wanted no witnesses.
Comment by tarpon — 12.30.04 @ 4:58 pm
La Shawn, I just discovered your blog before Christmas with a link from Worldmagblog regarding Kwanza.Now it is on my favorites list. Thanks for adding your literate voice to my blogging. Of note, I discovered the new word “blog” in World Magazine a year or 2 ago(I’ve lost track of time) and was immediately intrigued. It took awhile longer before I was reading some and still longer to get up the courage to comment. My husband asked me if I am a “blogger”. Since I don’t have a blog of my own, what am I? I find the additions to our English language fascinating. Maybe you could also compose a list with the appropriate definitions. One word mentioned above, was noob, I have no idea what this means! Anyway, I home-school my 4th grader and consider blogging an ideal way for me to keep up with current events from a Christian perspective and makes me a better teacher of History as well as current events.
Comment by Andrea — 12.30.04 @ 5:18 pm
I hope this helps. Click on my name for a roundup of the top outrages of Election 2004. I have linked to many of the most important posts from various blogs and other sources that shaped the year. The best part is that the links are in one place. They will come in handy when the next election cycle starts.
Comment by salt1907 — 12.30.04 @ 6:09 pm
How about Arafat’s death? Conservative bloggers told the truth about that terrorist while the MSM would have us all believe that he was a saint.
Comment by RepJ — 12.30.04 @ 6:19 pm
I had a good year, due to blogs. Bush elected, Daschle defeated, Arafat dead.
The Swifties and the Dan Rather affair were the most significant contributions of blogs.
My awareness of what is really going on in Iraqa I owe to bloggers. God bless Iraq the Model and many others. But we are failing to get the word out and I fear we may lose by winning.
Bless you,
Miriam
Comment by Miriam Sawyer — 12.30.04 @ 9:11 pm
I’ll tell you what, aside from all the obvious things
that occured in ‘04, one that HAS changed my perspective,
is that I discovered so many other places to gain insight
hereon. You’d be one of those. Who’d a thunk it huh? An
atheist paying you daily visits. Happy New Year young lady.
Steel
Comment by Steel Turman — 12.30.04 @ 11:07 pm
One of the most significant blog events of 2004 was the amount of campaign money raised by lefty blogs. Blogs like dailyKos and Atrios raised millions of dollars, and not only for the presidential campaign, but for all kinds of congressional and senate races, as well as 527s and other special causes. I’d guess that alltogether at least $100 million was raised.
OK, so it didn’t work out in the end. But they did help Democrats raise as much money as Republicans for the first time in recent memory, and they almost beat an icumbent war-time president, which didn’t seem at all possible in 2003. There’s a glimmer of hope that liberal blogs will finally help counter the grip that corporations have had on the campaign process.
For some reason the righty bloggers only concentrated on Soros (I guess they like bogeyman conspiracies), but the real money came from $50 donations on the internet. Thousands and thousands of people that care so strongly for their country that they put their money where their mouth was, only to be called traitors by the likes of Ann Coulter … shrill indeed.
Comment by miguel — 12.31.04 @ 12:15 am
Oh, I forgot to add another point about democrats giving. I don’t think the same campaign fundraising strategy will ever work for republicans because republicans don’t like to give as much. One of the basic underlying core values of republicans is that greed is good, giving is antithetical to their being.
For all the breast-thumping on the conservative blogs lately about the tsunami of tsunami giving, I would bet that democrats have given more. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but giving goes hand in hand with being a ‘bleeding heart’, so it seems logical.
Comment by miguel — 12.31.04 @ 1:30 am
It’s my own fault that I politicized the relief efforts in my post. I’d be a hypocrite to delete commenters who do the same.
Comment by La Shawn — 12.31.04 @ 8:15 am
Blogs are new to me as of this year. I started reading Hugh Hewitt’s blog because I listen to his radio program. The Dan Rather phony memo incident caused me to start reading other blogs like Powerline and Little Green Footballs. Somewhere I came across a link to this blog and was delighted both with its content and the way it looks.
The attitude of the MSM toward bloggers is amusing. They remind me of how Nietzsche affected the British author, Joan Morris. We asked her about her spiritual journey and she said that she became a Christian by reading Nietzsche. She grew up an atheist and had always taken atheism for granted. Then she started reading Nietzsche. She said that he spent so much time and energy railing against God that she decided there might be something there. She studied further, became a Christian and joined the Catholic Church.
Nick Coleman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune rails against bloggers, especially the Powerline crew. Even if you’ve never heard of a blog before, you can’t help but wonder if why these “bloggers” have so much influence. If I were to summarize Coleman’s column, I would say, “These bloggers have really ticked Coleman off and he used his newspaper column to say a lot of bad things about them.” He said, they operate “without oversight, disclosure of conflicts of interest, or professional standards.” Yet when a Powerline person called the Star Tribune to find out what their standards and oversight were and the answer was not forthcoming. Having watched various “professionals” not do very much about fellow professionals who have behaved unethically, I don’t have much faith in standards being enforced.
I used to read Nick Coleman’s column regularly when he was published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He was a delight to read. Now he has turned into a bitter old man. How sad. Is it the fault of the bloggers? Yes. In the same way that automobile makers put buggy whip manufacturers out of work. Whether it is Nick Coleman’s hissy-fit or the patronizing, dismissive comments of the network anchormen it looks as though bloggers are having a tremendous impact.
Dan Rather put his 25 years of credibility on the line by looking us in the eye and saying that the memos CBS was using to try to smear President Bush came from “an unimpeachable source.” The bloggers took Rather down. This year wasn’t the birth of the blog but it was the year a lot of us realized that not to read blogs was to be uninformed.
Comment by Evon Bachaus — 12.31.04 @ 10:31 am
MSNBC just had a news segment which talked about how blogs are being used to locate people missing after the earthquake and resulting tsunami.
Comment by Evon Bachaus — 12.31.04 @ 11:55 am
Thanks for commenting, Evon. This is an exciting time for the blogging revolution!
Comment by La Shawn — 12.31.04 @ 12:01 pm
I second the Swift Boat Vets. The blogs kept them on the radar until the MSM were forced to deal with them, and then kept telling the truth even when the NYT didn’t bother to actually investigate them but rather just refuted them.
The Swift Boat Vets’ story is what influenced me to be against Kerry more than anything.
Comment by PlutosDad — 12.31.04 @ 12:23 pm
La Shawn…
Cetainly the election itself provided energy to the inevitable rise of blogging (for the all the reasons stated elsewhere above). And the election polarization created by some demo candidates flying in the face of God Almighty intensified the normal level of energy by born-again Christians. And I suspect just as they voted in overwhelming numbers, likewise they were empassioned to blog & network. Perhaps many believe as I do… “Truth will prevail, and Truth at the speed-of-light will prevail at the speed of Light”.
Secondly, let me suggest that this year’s announcement of an Internet Evangelism Day (4/24/2005) is a form of official recognition by Christians of this God-given tool we call the internet. Suddenly even a Christian ‘Blogging University’ has arisen to train ecapable Christians in this new tool.
And lastly, let me propose that My.Yahoo’s web-based aggregator (beta) serves as a signal from popular portals that the last vestige of old media has been broken — the wire service… to be replaced by Really Simple Syndication (RSS). That Google bought Blogger and IPO’d on Wall Street… probably added market-credible evidence on top of everything else.
Congrats on using this new tool to query your readership! God bless.
Neil
Comment by IndyChristian — 12.31.04 @ 1:57 pm
La Shawn:
Congratulations to Blogs and Radio and Fox News for straightening out America’s “stinginess’ as accused by the UN and Euro Weenies and NY Times etc..
And thanks for discussing other issues this week - the Tsunami has had enough coverage.
Comment by Frank Zavisca — 12.31.04 @ 3:22 pm
I wouldn’t classify the Swift Boats as a blog phenomenom. Of course it was discussed on blogs, but the cable news networks were the ones that really kept the story alive for over a month.
I still can’t believe that Kerry was accused of shooting himself on purpose and people actually believed them. I don’t think there has ever been a more despicable negative campaign in our nations history.
Comment by miguel — 12.31.04 @ 4:33 pm
plutosdad remarks: The Swift Boat Vets’ story is what influenced me to be against Kerry more than anything.
The same for me personally. The Swift Boat Vet and my revisiting Kerry’s unscripted remarks to the Fullbright Commission (as oppose to his opening remarks) are what really did it for me. The blogosphere had a huge effect in getting this information to me in a timely fashion. Ten years ago, with the more-or-less complete media black-out on the SBVT charges, I probably would have ended up shrugging my future and not changed my vote.
As it stands, here is something that I wrote in response to my research on Kerry and his influence on our abortive withdrawal from Vietnam:
Kerry’s lies and distortions at the Fulbright Commission, when combined with the negative associations from My Lai, were instrumental in creating a political environment in which unilateral withdrawal became the only option. There is nothing I can say which could express the level of disgust I have for a political opportunist who would throw away his own nation’s strategic interest for his short-term gain.
For people who are going to call me crazy, here is what I think should have happened (read this then call me crazy):
A successful model already existed in North vs. South Korea. By 1971, the Viet Cong had been reduced to a noneffective fighting force. Keeping Vietnam separated by an armisist line would have spared the lives of millions of people, and equally important would not have needlessly thrown away the sacrifice of American and South Vietnamese soldiers.
Comment by Carrick Talmadge — 12.31.04 @ 4:53 pm
Talk at the Barber Shop
La Shawn, one of my favorite Ladies of the ‘Sphere, has a question for you….
Trackback by A Likely Story — 01.01.05 @ 4:54 pm
Michael said it very eloquently in the first comment. I sum it up in one word:
COMMUNITY
We are a community.
In her comments Andrea said she doesn’t have a blog so what is she? Andrea, like me, you are a “reader.” But you and I are still part of the COMMUNITY.
And an exciting year it will be for us all….
Comment by Maggie — 01.01.05 @ 9:03 pm
Hi LaShawn,
Happy New Year! Since I’ve been in Arabic training over the last few months, I really haven’t had much time to blog much. However, allow me to state what was, in my mind, a major social event in 2004. One name, two words:
BILL COSBY!
The actor, comedian and philantropist gave Black America a much-needed kick in the past last May in Washington, DC, during a ceremony commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board. To astonishment, laughter and applause, Cosby took low-income blacks to the woodshet, mocking everything from urban fashion to black spending and speaking habits.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal,” he declared. “These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids — $500 sneakers for what? And won’t spend $200 for ‘Hooked on Phonics.’ . . .
“They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English,” he exclaimed. “I can’t even talk the way these people talk: ‘Why you ain’t,’ ‘Where you is’ . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!”
National Review Online’s Matt Rosenberg has a blogsite containing outtakes of Cosby’s remarks (that many in the media did not quote):
http://www.rosenblog.com/2004/05/23/outtakes_from_cosbys_speech_to_naacp.html
Happy New Year!
Comment by Dutch Martin — 01.02.05 @ 10:59 am
ur welcome to anything collated on
weblogworld [please typos de trop]
* There is the Fortune article
Sincerely,
A
Comment by andy — 01.03.05 @ 10:36 am
I think that the most important happening in the blogosphere is the gradual superation of mainstream media and the exposure they received (especially via the forged CBS memos, but not necessarily that alone) as an inherent autocratic, totalitarian and manipulative institution. From MTV to the NYT, they are in the business of manipulating the culture and engineer social changes that best suit their vested interests.
Now, with the blogosphere, we are at least somewhat empowered to counter that thrust, and replace it with the interests of ourselves, the common people.
BTW, excellent blog, La Shawn!
Comment by Eduardo — 01.06.05 @ 7:48 am