March 19, 2024

To Blog or not to Blog

Jan. 10, 2007
I got you something really nice for Christmas this year that you won’t get from almost any other forward-thinking newspaper editor in the country.
What is it? Take a guess. Give up?
Okay, here it is. I’m going to spare you the torture of reading an Editor’s Blog.
Blogging is the new hot trend in journalism, even though there are millions of blogs in cyberspace already, wiggling like mental spermatozoa in search of a brain to fertilize.
Blogs from editors and reporters are hatching on newspaper websites like a bogful of frog eggs. And mostly, they‘re about as tasty.
You hear a lot about blogs these days. Bloggers caught Dan Rather and 60 Minutes in a blunder when they pointed out that George Bush’s service records for the National Guard had been faked, apparently by Democrats.
But who’s got the time to read this stuff, other than political junkies?
According to a website called blogherald.com, there are currently 62 million blogs competing for your attention ‘round the world. That’s balanced by the comforting fact that 97% of all people on earth don’t have a blog to call their own. Imagine.
Isn’t life short enough without trolling the Internet to read the thoughts of some 14-year-old in Boise? I can’t even keep up with my monthly copy of Vanity Fair, not to mention the stack of books by my bed that have been gathering dust for a year or so.
Currently, it’s popular in journalistic circles to fritter away the day jotting down the fascinating things that happened behind the scenes at the storm drain appraisal meeting at the county offices, or what candidate X really meant when he called candidate Y a picklehead at the Moose Club meeting.
As you can imagine, it’s fascinating stuff, and many editors and reporters like to “personalize” their blogs by regaling you with maudlin tales of what they ate at Christmas dinner (goose fritters with pickled hog jowls) and folksy stuff about their batty in-laws, like you might happen to give a rip. What’s fascinating is that so many media people are dishing up this mundane stuff and imagining that anyone cares.
It makes you wonder: who’s writing stories for the newspapers or reporting the TV news if their staffs are busy blogging?
True, there are a few independent ranters in Northern Michigan whose blogs produce some interesting stuff that’s worth checking out. As a bonus, it keeps them busy blogging at their computers, rather than out walking around bugging people (Jehovah’s Witnesses, take note).
But methinks the trend towards blogging by newspaper reporters and editors is not such a good thing. It’s like Norman Mailer’s claim that a boxer shouldn’t have sex the night before a fight because all of his best work goes out the window, so to speak.
Plus, take it from me; as a class, newspaper reporters and editors tend to be among the most boring people in the world. For proof of that, trying reading some of their blogs sometime.
***
On the other hand, if I did write a blog, I‘d probably throw in some stuff like this:
Saddam‘s Last Dance:
Okay, so it wasn‘t pretty and his guards said some mean things to Saddam before he checked out. Rude of them -- certainly no tea party.
But I‘ve got a funny feeling that there‘s no “right“ way to do a nice hanging, and it turns out that‘s true. According to an article called “The Process of Judicial Hanging“ by Richard Clark, there are four methods, ranging in degrees of nastiness:
• The short drop method: Maybe you‘ll get lucky and break your neck, but most likely you‘ll slowly strangle to death. Very entertaining for the folks who enjoyed a good hanging up to the 1850s.
• Suspension hanging: The Taliban in Afghanistan like this one. It involves getting dangled from the barrel of a tank or being lifted by the neck from a crane for slow strangulation. Nice guys.
• The standard drop: You get dumped a distance of four-to-six feet. Popular in America until the early 20th century. The Nazis got this treatment at Nuremburg. Probably Saddam too.
• The Long Drop: Invented by the British in 1872 as a humane way to break the hangee‘s neck with a long plunge followed by a sharp jerk to the neck. The long drop “ruptures the spinal cord causing instant deep unconsciousness and rapid death.“ On the downside, your head can fly off if you don‘t wear a scarf.
None of those for me, thanks.

Cloned Cattle
Foodies in Europe are in a dither over the introduction of cloned cattle and whether it‘s safe to eat.
Makes you wonder: why not bypass the whole life-cycle thing entirely and just start creating pure meat in biochemical vats?
Ghastly idea, but it would eliminate the animal cruelty of factory farms and raise interesting questions as to whether meat created in vats has a soul.
Instead of picking out some poor lobster from a tank for your dinner or knocking a frightened cow on the head, you‘d simply tell your waiter, “I‘ll have a slice of Vat No. 3 with the veal parmigiana treatment, please.“
Any of you food freaks got comments on cloned meat? Our Letters page is getting a little skimpy lately...

Polar Bears
Wow, even the Bush administration is acknowledging that polar bears deserve to be on the Endangered Species List because their habitat is disappearing due to global warming. They‘re drowning for lack of ice or starving for lack of the seal breathing holes in the ice through which they hunt.
Considering what a disastrous winter we‘ve had in terms of the no-snow impact on the ski industry and its cascading effect on restaurants, hotels, jobs, etc., the problems of global warming are striking home.
Locally, the City of Charlevoix has been a leader in signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, joining 300 towns and counties across the country in a vow to take what actions are possible to limit global warming. The Traverse City Commission will consider signing at its Jan. 15 meeting. We should urge every town in Northern Michigan to get on board before we‘re in the same pickle as the polar bears.

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