My blogging

[pecunium]

I write a personal blog. Those of you who flatter me by regular reading get to see cookery, aikido, the ramblings of my travels, some discusion of the art/craft of photography (as well as the occaisional picture). You also read about my dogs, snakes, the weather, the law (in it's misery, and majesty) and some of my personal life.

Added to that is the reason so many of you seem to have shown up, poltics (Yes, Bear, a lot of those you can take the credit for, though some have stumbled in from my hobby-horses in other fora).

Why do I do it... I could keep a journal, but I've tried that. It's more introspective, and things I wouldn't write in public are written in a few, but I'm a social animal. I like to share, so the chance for feedback is what keeps me going.

I also have passions (torture, being the one most people in the Blogosphere know me for, though aikido, cooking, gardening, and photography rate higher, in an absolute sense), and sharing them with like-minded people is nice.

But those aren't what make it truly worthwhile, why I put up with the various slings and arrows which come my way. An friend of mine is an author, he's said he writes about things which pain him. When I look at his work (the output of more than 40 years) I can see that.

My political rants tend to be the same.

I used to be a journalist. People enter journalism because they want to make the world a better place.

Most who try it end up as I did, not working in the press. Those who have made it, as a class, have failed us.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has a brilliant post detailing how they've failed. I was going to spout off on the subject, but she has a much more detailed, and wide-ranging, explantion of how they've failed us, and why she blogs.

In a lot of ways (with different subjects, and some overlap) her writing is much like mine, if better.

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

After the hell I went through working at that tiny newspaper, doing the political stuff, seeing how dirty politics is on such a local level, I can't be sure I'd go back. Now that I found out I could go back to school and do it the right way, I looked at the little link on the website that said JOURNALISM, and didn't click it.

Instead, I am meeting with the nursing department on Friday. Somehow I think I would be more productive on that level. I mean, if I was that turned off with no education and experience, imagine if I got into the big leagues? (Watch me do a story for the school paper and get hooked again. Heh.)

Seriously that post (that you linked to) just reminds me of what I saw but on a huger scale. That's why after my first CB meeting I was so disgusted. I figured if people could be that way about small things, what is it like magnified? And people trying to manipulate me, and the games, and then going after my children and find someone else had their children used against them...screw that. I'm not that strong.

[elf]

George F. Will once said in an interview that he'd never run out of things to write about, because the world irritates him. (The fact that I generally liked his commentaries was my first awareness of Republicans as not-necessarily-my-enemy, 'cos if some of 'em can think that coherently, obviously they don't all need to be taken into a dark pit and buried in fish guts.)

I came here for the politics, I think. Or law. (It certainly wasn't the cooking. I am bombarded by too much cooking commentary at home.) I like the other stuff, though, even the parts on subjects that bore me to tears; I have no interest in single-topic blogs. Not even topics I adore and am endlessly fascinated by (which does not include politics, which irritates the hell out of me, and I vaguely keep up with out of strained sense of self-preservation).

I don't like "journalism"--a type of writing in which the author is supposed to be invisible. I especially don't trust it. It's too easy to present bias without explanation, too easy to hide their own prejudices by just leaving out the factoids that would make that apparent.

But if they're also posting personal anecdotes, mini-rants, memes... their biases are visible. I've got a better idea of what topics they'll be careful and precise in discussing, and in which ones they'll gloss over the details. A better idea whether a particular post or essay is inspired by a desire to share crucial information with other people who need it, or by a personal agenda. (Not that I discount the ones done for personal agendas; some agendas I like. But I want to know what they are.)

Before I trust someone's commentary on the White House, I want to know which Hogwarts house he'd be sorted into.

My Astute Political Commentary

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I came here for the politics...

But stayed for the pie?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

When I was in high-school, and early college, I read will. I still read him on baseball.

But stuff like >this is why I gave up on him.

He's not an honest actor.


He's not an honest actor.