Blogging Blogs #1
So, this is a blog that I used to read years ago. Of course, the biggest and most obvious problem with it is that Mr. Chomsky hasn't posted in quite a long while. In fact, there's only 5 months of archives. I would be very interested to know what he would say about the further developments of the world. I mean... a lot has happened since July 20004. Seriously, Noam Chomsky is one of the most brilliant and astute political analysts in our age...and he can't even keep his blog updated.
Regardless of the lack of updates for nearly 2 years, it's pretty clear that this is what Ms. Blood would refer to as a notebook. I'm not in the habit of categorizing or labelling things, especially since more often than not, those categories are invarably categorically wrong. Not wrong in the sense, that nothing can be learned from them, seeing as how, the distinctions that Blood draws are interesting and useful, but instead in the sense that most blogs (and most things in general), will almost always defy any attempt to categorize.
No one fits in one broad demographic, and the only way to be definite about identifying any one person is to get as specific as possible. Instead of the general "Doctor," or even the slightly more specifc, "Doctor of parapsychological philosophy, who is white and male and incredibly good looking," it is important that people will not know exactly who you are talking about until you say, "The Good Doctor Kuha." No one fits into only one demographic except in the very deliberate and specific, usually the demographic that contains only that person, "John Smith," or whatever.
That being said, categories can be useful. While my own blog experiements have consisted mainly of notebook-style posting, there is some filtering, and every now and again a little "blogging," though I find that kind of writing to be exceedingly boring, unless they filter it out a little bit and only discuss the interesting events with a little bit of "notebook-like" analysis, or if their "bloggging," their diary-like posting is in some other way interesting.
And so, by saying that Mr. Chomsky's blog is clearly a notebook, and a well-written, insigthful, and dreadfully out of date and mostly useless except in a historical sense, blog, is doing just that. Interestingly enough, there is very little (none that I can find) filtering and absolutely no 'blogging' on Turning the Tide. So it's a notebook; but it could be reasonably surmised, that if Mr. Chomsky had kept the blog going longer than five months, it may have evolved into something else, and thereby defying categorization in any sort of literal sense.
Hmm... This post was not so much aimed at analyzing TTT, as it was analyzing the categorization methods that Ms. Blood used. Of course, that's just as useful. Um... enjoy.
Regardless of the lack of updates for nearly 2 years, it's pretty clear that this is what Ms. Blood would refer to as a notebook. I'm not in the habit of categorizing or labelling things, especially since more often than not, those categories are invarably categorically wrong. Not wrong in the sense, that nothing can be learned from them, seeing as how, the distinctions that Blood draws are interesting and useful, but instead in the sense that most blogs (and most things in general), will almost always defy any attempt to categorize.
No one fits in one broad demographic, and the only way to be definite about identifying any one person is to get as specific as possible. Instead of the general "Doctor," or even the slightly more specifc, "Doctor of parapsychological philosophy, who is white and male and incredibly good looking," it is important that people will not know exactly who you are talking about until you say, "The Good Doctor Kuha." No one fits into only one demographic except in the very deliberate and specific, usually the demographic that contains only that person, "John Smith," or whatever.
That being said, categories can be useful. While my own blog experiements have consisted mainly of notebook-style posting, there is some filtering, and every now and again a little "blogging," though I find that kind of writing to be exceedingly boring, unless they filter it out a little bit and only discuss the interesting events with a little bit of "notebook-like" analysis, or if their "bloggging," their diary-like posting is in some other way interesting.
And so, by saying that Mr. Chomsky's blog is clearly a notebook, and a well-written, insigthful, and dreadfully out of date and mostly useless except in a historical sense, blog, is doing just that. Interestingly enough, there is very little (none that I can find) filtering and absolutely no 'blogging' on Turning the Tide. So it's a notebook; but it could be reasonably surmised, that if Mr. Chomsky had kept the blog going longer than five months, it may have evolved into something else, and thereby defying categorization in any sort of literal sense.
Hmm... This post was not so much aimed at analyzing TTT, as it was analyzing the categorization methods that Ms. Blood used. Of course, that's just as useful. Um... enjoy.
