I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. The blog thing, that is. Afterall, does the Internet need another ultimately useless slate of daily updated blathering? And then today I read where nearly half of America has no desire to be on the Internet. For years I’ve been having a debate, often internal, about the usefulness of WWW. I remember the cries of “Revolution,” of how the Internet would change the face of reading, if not writing, and thinking. Of course to a degree it has, but my claim has always been that the Internet has no filter, nothing to help one differentiate the crap (see the final paragraph) from the not crap. That while quantity and access may improve, quality and the furthering of this country’s dumbing down will increase. Just because Joe Huntandpeck may be able to publish his short story for all to see, it doesn’t mean that the face of writing, the art and craft have or will be improved. The Internet has definitely made us all lazier while strengthening a great number of fingers and forearms. But will tomorrow’s kids know the beauty of scouring the microfiche files at the college library?
I know I sell god, as my brother and I call it, short. Where else can one find an Encyclopedia of Philosophy and a catalog for nose hair clippers in such close proximity and without leaving one’s increasingly more dusty desk? And the blogs are the new engines powering the vehicle (but more about that later).
Obviously I’ve decided to do it. I’ll start off simple: daily meanderings through sites I’ve discovered or issues I’ve spent more than thirty seconds pondering; book and movie reviews when I have a chance; and baseball. The latter will probably just creep in by osmosis, but everything else is up for grabs. I’m often told that I’m overly opinionated, my favorite words being “That is crap,” so this will be a place for me to more lucidly express my opinions. Enjoy, and for the love of god (heh!) let me know what you think!
posted by Jeff 4/17/2003
