I'm not a big fan of Andrew Sullivan generally speaking, but that was an interesting piece.

One thing that jumps out at me though is that Sullivan seems to have defined blogging as a very specific style, one that doesn't really completely reflect what a lot of us do. He seems to be presuming that the way he blogs is the way everyone blogs, and anyone who's a regular blog reader knows that just isn't so.

I dunno...on the one hand, I thought the piece was very insightful in some ways, but on the other it's married to what seems Sullivan's rather narrow overall view of what blogging is and how it's done.

I admit to having a secret fascination with Andrew Sullivan. There are moments when I vehemently disagree with him, for example, when he goes on another lame rant accusing African-Americans of being more homophobic than whites.

Still I find him an interesting writer who is not shy about stating his opinions.

Well, I read all of Sullivan's article. It's well written, but I think there's some other points that are missing.

What troubles me most about the blogs, taken collectively, is the "echo chamber" phenomenon where people seem isolate themselves in niches of like opinion. Sullivan does mention that opinion-oriented blogs link to those they oppose, but generally it's done as a form of ridicule, not as dialogue. Instead of discourse, we have repeated bouts of a virtual shouting match.

And that immediacy and ADD? Increasingly it causes opinion to replace information and fad to replace fact.

Maybe bloggers -- and commenters -- should have an equivalent of the Google "drunk email test." If only we all could through a few iterations of "Do you really mean to say that?" :-) And maybe a couple rounds of "Will this matter tomorrow? And next week?"

Sometimes I wish Andrew Sullivan could honestly present his views. Someone who runs a blog with no comments shouldn't be praising the immediacy of feedback of the medium. Comments are faster than other blog posts, and generally a better way to stay informed and be critiqued since commenters are generally already invested in keeping the blogger smart and informed, not tearing her down.

Also, what's up with him praising the instability of the text in blogging and the decentralization of the subject? I thought he hated post-modernism. Or is it like Matthew Yglesias once said of him: "He loathes academic postmodernists but doesn't seem to actually know anything about them."

Oh, man, that was such a good review of Sullivan's book I have to link it:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12177

Sully seems like a good guy, but until he allows comments on his blog, he really can't chide other writers for having thin skins.

Oh, and I blog because it's better than yelling at the teevee. And because it helps give others a forum to say crazy stuff.

Blogging is an ego sport. You do it because you think you have something to say that a) other people will find interesting or b) other people should listen to you because you're smart.

I'm both, of course; my ego is huge. *laughs*