I don’t know about feeling guilty about blogging without restraint, but I do think that’s a pretty low view to have of fellow human beings! (speaking as one who has often upbraided himself for gnatizing my fellows- though I’m myself just a poor worm most of the time)

[If you saw the nasty things these "fellow human beings" wrote about me, I'm certain your assessment would change. - Admin]

I blog myself, but I think that one of the factors that should be borne in mind is that many people blog while remaining ambivalent about it. It just happens to be the technology that’s there. I’ve no doubt I’d have attended a few more public meetings and interacted with a few newspapers’ letter page facilities had the internet not been around. I’ve sent emails in a similar vein online. It’s just that the pool of debate offered by the blogosphere is so tempting, and represents a natural continuum of other online communications. Why blog? becomes Why not blog?

I find Kathleen Parker’s argument like that of a Victorian lady who couldn’t appreciate why the plebs wanted their own little gardens when there was no way they were ever going to be fully presentable to the broader society 365 days a year with servants offering drinks on the lawn. I suppose I just took to heart the old Voltaire quote:

‘Let us cultivate our garden’ “Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

I think that in a blog one minds ones own business in a public way. There is no doubt that our interests lie ‘out there’ where the newspapers and the pundits cavort; yet not many are cut out to join that dance directly, and in some ways the media circus just got out of hand and blogs are the natural antidote.

There- proof that I need to ramble and it’s a good job there’s plenty of space out there on the blogosphere.

To the dismay of the MSM, the blogosphere didn’t go away in 2005. Here are some of the more memorable moments in the clash of the bloggers vs. MSM…

Kathleen Parker thinks the world is going to Hell in a handbasket because of “bloggies” who are “the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility – the angry offspring of narcissism’s quickie marriage…

She raises a good point: without facts or links, bloggers are simply spreading rumors and attacking. I do not know or read blogs that are like this, but there are some in both the conservative and liberal blogger reads.

If bloggers want the same recognition as the MSM they will need to be above the rest and report the facts.

Don’t be like the sensitive Democrats who think they cannot be criticized—ever. There is always a rotten apple in every crowd, so rise above them and blog honestly and with standards.

Columnist Kathleen Parker triggered another round of MSM animosity in the blogosphere this week with a blog-bashing piece titled “Lord Of The Blogs.” While the article offered some pointed criticisms that no honest blogger could fairly refute, its ov…

I was thinking about what this (my) blog will become and what do I want to post when I read LaShawn Barber’s comments on Kathleen Parker’s column entitled “Lord of the Blogs.”

Can I avoid being what Ms. Parker describes? I suppose by linking to …

Eric cites LaShawn Barber, who in turn is reacting to

Anyone trying to characterize the blogosphere as a whole takes on an impossible task.

Once you get beyond mechanical descriptions of what blogs are, and how they work, the incredible variety in terms of purpose, quality, and viewpoints in the blogosphere confounds nearly any attempt to make a meaningful general statement about it.

Ms. Parker was being critical of some parts of this environment, and was clumsy in her expression of that criticism. I hope the extensive reaction to her column will provide her with a more complete and considered view of blogging.

Also another reason Parker may be miffed is because the blogsphere is a democratic leveler and fact verifier of sorts when used in its best sense. Far from the MSM obsessing over the quality of its product as Parker asserts, the sordid Rathergate and Jayson Blair episodes, and the even more sordid and inaccurate reporting on Hurricane Katrina, shows that Parker is engaging in wishful thinking.

The blogosphere means that the NY Times, CNN and others at once Olympian levels can no longer get away with it unchallenged. Anyone with a computer and web access and fingers with sufficient strength to type Google.com can take on arrogant media dictators and arrogant experts, and show their theories and activities to be false or dubious.

That may be what rankles many blog critics- that “guys in pajamas”, the despised “little people” as Leona Helmsley infamously put it, can make the high and mighty look stupid, not by simple polemical raving and ranting, but by measuring the high and mighty against widely available empirical evidence.

As regards anonymous commentary, I see nothing wrong with it per se, nor do I see how it is “cowardly” to not leave an email address. There are valid reasons for anonymity, ranging from privacy concerns, to fears of retaliation. National Review had an article a few months back about an adjunct professor who dared to post some “incorrect thoughts” in an online format. The college administration came down on him like a ton of bricks and harassed him out of his job. He is now in court against them for wrongful dismissal, with all the time and expense that entails. The same circumstances face people working for employers engaging in shoddy, unethical or illegal practices. It is easy for those who do not have to face such realities to talk about cowardice.

Where anonymous commentary goes wrong is with deliberate slander, vicious personal attacks against blog owners or other posters, and deliberatively disruptive and/or spamming tactics. Measures can be taken against such. The fact is that people can fake profiles and email addresses very easily. Site owners control abuse mostly by IP address not email. Does leaving a bogus email address versus an anonymous posting make people less “cowardly”? That is dubious. There is a valid place and valid circumstances for privacy and anonymity online.