Sunday, March 25, 2007

What blogs are for

Ever since I started writing here, I've been wondering exactly what the hell I'm doing. While at times it is very cathartic to get things off my chest, I sometimes wonder if this isn't just getting me even more keyed up. A post from Glenn Greenwald at Salon helped put some things in perspective for me:
The point here -- as always -- is to try to force the media to write about the stories it covers in a more critical and factual manner, to compel them to abandon the cheap and lazy cliches that otherwise frame everything they write. That is one of the most critical functions of blogs, and it is one of the goals that is realistically attainable by bloggers and their readers working together.
I have no illusions that anyone in the mainstream media pays any attention whatsoever to this blog, but someone out there is reading it (I think), so at least I'm getting to put my own warped take on things out there in the stream of consciousness. I will not stop until I have wiped out idiocy in its entirety. Or until I come up with something better to do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Dave, there's no one here reading your blog. ... Wait a minute ... !

I find blogging is mainly useful for organizing my thoughts. I've abandoned more than one vehement screed when, in an attempt to find data to back up my argument, I found out I was wrong. Or it wasn't as bad as I'd thought.

I've heard blogs are also useful for communicating with friends, even if it's just old, rotting, stinky friends that are well past their due date, and not your fancy, new, "Austin" friends. ;)