Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
THE RITING ON THE WALL FOR ZENPUNDIT
jb expresses shock and awe.
THE RITING ON THE WALL FOR ZENPUNDIT
jb expresses shock and awe.
THE EYE THAT GLITTERS IS GOLD
Dave reveals the terrifying truth of the Blogosphere.
My strategy has always been to shoot for quality over quantity. Frankly, its a relatively thin demographic slice of the population that cares about or would understand many of the topics about which I enjoy writing. And going for quantity as a blogger is a huge amount of work – quality, ironically, comports far better with sloth :O)
MARSHALL MCLUHAN’S REVOLUTION IS HERE
I spoke to Critt Jarvis this morning on the telephone regarding a new project and also the acquisition of The New Rule-Set Project by Enterra Solution’s Stephen DeAngelis. Dr. Barnett explained the numerous advantages to this collaboration for him on his blog and for Critt’s part, he was made the new Director of Corporate Blogging. Now this is something entirely new but I expect that as striking as Critt’s title is today, in five years it will be as commonplace as a company having a Chief Information Officer or a Director of Human Resources.
Marshall McLuhan is seldom remembered these days but he was the insightful media guru who was most famous for his statement ” The medium is the message”. McLuhan left a large body of work on the fundamental relationship between media and people, thought and society and not only would he have immediately grasped the change implied in Critt’s new job but would have expected it.
New methods of communication actually re-train the mind to think somewhat differently than it did before. Socrates bemoaned the advent of literacy because texts were frozen in time, unlike rhetoricians, and people would inevitably lose their taste for the discipline of extended memorization. Joseph Pulitzer created the modern – who, what, where, sum it up in the first paragraph news frame that we are all familiar with and use to distinguish ” news” from other forms of literature. Television’s vapid mesmerization of the Baby Boomers led Newton Minow to condemn TV as a ” vast wasteland” but TV helped change how politicians and journalists behaved, how wars were fought, who exercised the right to vote and how justice is done in this country. The internet and blogging continue that cultural evolution, altering societal expectations and accelerating our decision cycle – to a certain extent, shifting our worldview.
Director of Corporate Blogging ? McLuhan would have been proud.
RECOMMENDED READING & DESULTORY COMMENTS
“What America Needs to Do to Achieve Its Foreign Policy Goals … Improving Intelligence Capabilities- Part V.” by William R. Polk at HNN.
When I mention ” the bipartisan foreign policy elite” I’m speaking about people like Ambasador Polk, whose exceptionally distinguished career epitomizes that demographic in all its virtues, vices and emoulments, from a Harvard PhD. to marrying into the European aristocracy. He’s actually a throwback to what used to be called ” The Eastern Establishment” that ran this nation until the 1970’s. I disagree with many of his views ( at times strenuously) but his breadth of experience should always get him a fair hearing. The man literally worked with giants.
” A Cruel, New Canada” by Geitner Simmons at Regions of Mind
Geitner’s heavy responsibilities as an editor and writer no longer leave him the time that he once had for blogging but his occasional posts still stand out for their quality and intelligence in a blogosphere all too often devoted to the partisan squabble of the moment. Anyone just starting out as a blogger should stroll through the archives at Regions and see the level they should be shooting for.
As an added bonus, Geitner has actor Ian McKellan and noted historian Robert McDougall in the same post. Must be a Scotch-Irish day or something in Omaha :o)
” Cindy Calls for Volunteers ” Vanderleun at American Digest
This one is admittedly a minor triviality. Vanderleun is also by the way, a thoughtful foreign policy blogger and there are other posts of his I might have featured– but this one….psychologically…had the same fascination for me as a rubbernecking a car crash. I read it three times over and I still feel both appalled and filled with pity.
” Germanic Jihad” by Younghusband
” Rules are Made to Be Broken” by Chirol
” Stalin Was Right” by Curzon
Always provocative. Ever thoughtful. A sense of humor as well as decorum. Articulate in multiple languages – I read a lot of blogs but I hang out at Coming Anarchy.
Bruce Kesler, businessman, activist and columnist has been exceptionally prolific of late ( unlike myself) but I liked his ” Constitutional Common Sense” on the Iraqi Constitutional process
” The Case Against Withdrawal” by Bradford Plumer.
Relatively new to my blogroll, Brad, who has guest blogged for Kevin Drum has great posts and an intelligent readership to spar with in the comment section, if you are so inclined.
““Nashi” – building civil society or a Kremlin jackboot?” by Peter Lavelle of Untimely Thoughts.
This is Peter’s weekly expert round-up on Russian affairs. A definite must read for me as the American MSM coverage of Russian politics usually ranges from the superficially mediocre but semi-accurate to the completely worthless. Untimely Thoughts is a useful antidote.
Finally, if you are reading this on Monday, Mr. Critt Jarvis has strongly suggested that you check out Dr. Barnett’s blog. He only gave me tantalizing hints via email so I’m in the dark like the rest of you.
That’s it.
BLOGGER HOUSEKEEPING& MISCELLANEOUS
I see that my blogroll needs tidying. Too many of you people are migrating to new URLs these days – Marc, Col, Dr. Milt to name a few,and I need to add a few more voices who were kind enough to link to Zenpundit on their own blogs. I’m pleased that I can find a home on blogs that stretch from the neocon Right to the antiwar Left – either I’m eminently fair and reasonable here or there’s a shortage of blogs starting with the letter ” Z” or both.
Regarding this site, not a few of you have suggested Zenpundit migrating off of blogger to a more professional stand alone website and a number of you, notably Younghusband of Coming Anarchy, offered me assistance for which I am grateful. Utimately, I
decided to take the lazy man’s route and send Mrs. Zenpundit back to school and let her become my webmaster when she’s ready – LOL ! Right now she’s busy mastering HTML and something called ” cascading tiles”(?) – whatever, better her than me.
When things are far enough along I’ll give readers a preview of the new blog and solicit commentary from my technically learned friends out there.
I will have some posts up today but they are apt to be shorter and lighter as I am working on a new project for work, a powerpoint presentation tentatively entitled ” Perception, Cognition and Worldviews” that I would like to be flexible enough to use both with students and for staff development training seminars. My theory here is to try to create educational products that are self-contained in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy so that they allow the user to bring an audience up the entire hierarchy of thinking or just target particular levels of thought and experience.