Saturday, April 15, 2006

Blogrant, The Ties That Bind

tee bee

You didn't think Easter Weekend meant you were relieved of blogging, did you? This is a bonus piece, since it's all about blogging and bloggers, and everyone's blogging it.

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This is what the Washington Post finds to write about bloggers today:


SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. -- In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

Darfur, she finally decides. She will write about Darfur. The shame of it. The
culpability of all Americans, including herself, for doing nothing. She will write something so filled with outrage that it will accomplish the one thing above all she wants from her anger: to have an effect.

Read the whole thing, or just check out the fun photo of Ms. O'Connor.

The lady serves as Hugh Hewitt's textbook example of the Democratic left. Pare that down to certain factions that identify with certain goals of the Dem left, and he has a point.

Maha, a member of the Big Brass Alliance, has an interesting, funny and pointed defense of O'Connor: Damn right, she's angry.

But anger isn't bad, maha says. Not if you "sort out the righteous from the unrighteous" and allow "the mud to settle," maha quotes from Sam Keen's The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving*.

What can you say to that? If O'Connor wants to scream online, where only those who crave to (or stray to your site by accident) can hear you scream, I'm for that. Much better than having her prowl the freeways of Sherman Oaks, gunning for all those Rovian sociopaths she comes across. Just funnin' with ya, maha. But you get my point.

An interesting side note is Maryscott's claim that the author of the piece, Finkle, claims to have never read a blog before being pointed to hers by an e-mail (which I find a stretch). Maryscott and her readers are happy with the article, but not the pic.

The moral of the story is - as a conservative, I must have a moral - thanks to the myopic appeal of "the profile," this is what outsiders will continue to think of the blogosphere (A friend of mine actually gasped when she was told I was a blogger, and added, "You're not one of them?").

But sustained ignorance is a choice. We may not agree with it, and we may be, in maha's borrowing of Keen's words, outlaws; we may continue in our own ways to try to pierce that warm blanket of blissful ignorance, but we have to respect it.

As much as some might want to discount the hyperbolic rantings of Maryscott O'Connor and the WaPo's front page reinforcement of the culture's view of bloggers, it's disingenuous not to honor the ties that bind us to Maryscott.

Enjoy William Brennan's wonderful post on the article. And not just because he uses the penultimately excellent word "bower." Brennan's "divorced from the right" but as an independent finds his "new love [lefties who share moderate stances, I'm guessing] is even more outrageous than the kooks I’ve been railing against."

Whatever else this produced outside the blogosphere, Maryscott has provided some pretty rich fuel for our keyboards.

*Bless his heart, maha found an online source for the Keen material.

CP @ GMC.

22 Comments:

At 10:15 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

If that were the only way I could blog......I wouldn't. That kind of sustained rage will eat you up.

 
At 7:51 AM, Blogger Cassandra said...

That kind of 'netroots' nuttiness seems like the worst the blogosphere has to offer. It's a lot of what made me want to walk away from it all last October.

You'd think the MSM could turn out a more balanced view of blogging, but I guess it doesn't really serve their purpose to do so.

 
At 5:20 PM, Blogger Jane Bellwether said...

My dear Cassandra, I think you've hit on the point. The author knows nothing about blogs except what he's heard, and as most of us know, people who don't know about blogs expect them to be just like this lady's.

Which sells papers, and keeps people stuck with them for "news."

'Cause bloggers are crazy!

 
At 9:28 AM, Blogger camojack said...

...she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place"

To me, that one line (although cleverly taken out of context, if I do say so myself) sums it all up quite succinctly.

 
At 10:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not since Kelly Clarkson has a person been so embraced so quickly as America's sweetheart. I ♥ Maryscott

 
At 1:18 PM, Blogger Jane Bellwether said...

Next time you're down in L.A., Jeff, you can stop in and give her a smooch. Remember, she usually wakes up to her torment around 5am.

 
At 9:36 AM, Blogger Sky Captain said...

"She smokes a cigarette.."
Sounds like the notes for a bad 1980 pop-video, or the lyrics, or both.
Maybe it would be sung by a Belgian version of 99 Red Balloons Nena, or maybe 'Europe' trying to sound American.
God awful crap.

 
At 1:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

At least she got it right about the Democrats.

 
At 4:44 PM, Blogger KJ said...

Lookie there. A post disappeared.

Don't bring your troubles to my blog. I won't ban you, but keep it on topic.

 
At 6:55 PM, Blogger Noton Yalife said...

A person who threatens to take out their anger on someone else's private property because they don't like that person's opinions is accusing others of crypto-fascism?


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAH

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*gasp* *wheeze*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 
At 8:42 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

Nicely put MM.

 
At 8:43 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

I doubt this person even knows the definition of fascist.

 
At 6:38 AM, Blogger Pile On® said...

Well.....you don't know much about physics either.

Good day.

 
At 10:40 AM, Blogger Noton Yalife said...

Yeah, I wonder how we ever made it to the moon in the frictionlessness of space.

Oh, that's right, that was all done on a soundstage.



BTW, there's not a "No Trespass" sign on my front door either, but just see what happens when you break in.

 
At 10:53 AM, Blogger KJ said...

sonofabitch,

Am I your platform? Don't you have your own blog? You come here to pick a fight on my space with my few readers?

Miss Manners would not be pleased, but then again, manners are an old fashioned, fascist devise to make people be nice to one another.

Talk about the post, or at least be interesting, or go away.

 
At 4:23 PM, Blogger Noton Yalife said...

Well, that might be interesting... to a psychotherapist.

Maybe.

 
At 6:21 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

Come now people, let us not be bothered by a troll, we have a world to destroy.

And I would like to be home early tonight. I like to spend some quality time with the wife and youngun after a long day of serving my Zionist masters in planet destruction.

 
At 9:36 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

Your right somna, it wouldn't be interesting to a psychotherapist either.

But for a hundred and fifty bones an hour they might pretend.

 
At 9:48 AM, Blogger Noton Yalife said...

...and I always thought Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, Lenin, Tojo, Pol-Pot and others shot, gassed, starved, raped and tortured their dissidents. I didn't realized they killed over 120 million people by mocking them to death.

 
At 10:53 AM, Blogger KJ said...

somorebulsht,

It isn't your planet or your blog. This isn't a children's site, but no F bombs. That is not the tone we set here.

Besides, it isn't your planet. Socialsists don't believe in private property.

 
At 4:07 PM, Blogger Noton Yalife said...

Socratic Dialouge?

BEDEVERE:
What makes you think she is a witch?
VILLAGER #3:
Well, she turned me into a newt.
BEDEVERE:
A newt?
VILLAGER #3:
I got better.
VILLAGER #2:
Burn her anyway!
BEDEVERE:
Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
VILLAGER #1:
Are there?
BEDEVERE:
Tell me. What do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2:
Burn!
BEDEVERE:
And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1:
More witches!
VILLAGER #2:
Wood!
BEDEVERE:
So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3:
B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE:
Good! Heh heh.
CROWD:
Oh, yeah. Oh.
BEDEVERE:
So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1:
Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE:
Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #1:
Oh, yeah.
BEDEVERE:
Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No, it floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1:
Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE:
What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1:
Bread!
VILLAGER #2:
Apples!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, very small rocks!
ARTHUR:
A duck!
CROWD:
Oooh.
BEDEVERE:
Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:
If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE:
And therefore?
VILLAGER #2:
A witch!

 
At 8:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dr. Zira, I must caution you. Experimental brain surgery on these creatures is one thing, and I'm all in favor of it. But your behavior studies are another matter. To suggest that we can learn anything about the simian nature from a study of man is sheer nonsense. Why, man is a nuisance. He eats up his food supply in the forest, then migrates to our green belts and ravages our crops. The sooner he is exterminated, the better. It's a question of simian survival.

 

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