Blogging:

On October 6, 2011 my brother, Randy Smiley, reacted strongly to the idea that social media now rules and blogging is dead. Tell that to “Huffington Post, Dailykos, Think Progress, and Fact Check,” he wrote. I would go a bit farther and say that many newspapers, magazines, reporters, and news services also have blogs. In many ways blogs are like magazines or newspapers. The communication is primarily in one direction; it goes from the author to whatever audience the author is able to draw.  It is difficult and annoying for the reader to leave a comment on a Google Blog. It is much easier to leave a comment on a Word Press Blog, but there is a trade off. Google blocks most of the spam, whereas Word Press merely marks it and leaves it to the blogger to throw it out.

Obviously, blogs were not really meant to be interactive. That is why so many people are finding Face Book, and G+ more attractive, which is as it should be. Far too many people were trying to interact with family members on blogs. Doing so was awkward and far too public. I suppose that twitter also has a place in this fast pace world, but the number of characters it allows makes it far too restrictive for any in depth discussions.

I like the idea that a private individual can become influential by creating a blog like Digby's Hullabaloo. Granted that the odds are greatly stacked against your blog ever becoming that influential, but displaying your rants, opinions or stories where they are available to the public still offers something in the way of catharsis. It still allowed my brother to yell “TAKE THAT, ASSHOLE!” I am afraid that I also display that kind of anger far too often in this blog, but that is, at least to some extent, what this blog is for. It is why I have a blog rather than face book. It allows friends and family to ignore the political opinions they do not like without having to ignore me. I might add that some of them also find my fiction that objectionable, but that is their problem. If they do not like it, they can join the vast majority of the people in this world by not reading it.