Housekeeping

Wow, Blogger has changed a lot since 2002, no?  Back then I could kind of figure it out as I went, since there were rather fewer features.  But to log back in and not know where to start is disconcerting.  I'm going to try to figure out how to update the blogroll.  Hell, or just delete it.  Nobody is really out there anymore.

I hate to say I told you so, but blogs were indeed the CB radio of the 2000s.  I bet Razor will get all over my case for being purposely contrarian about this now (if he's even out there), but in a way I am sorry to come back and see the blighted landscape of what was once a lively and independent medium.  (One that I railed against with some real venom about 10 years ago, yes.  But still...)

The best bloggers turned pro.  Radley's got a real job at the Washington Post, where he has made himself a widely cited expert on policing.  Mike Totten is still in the Middle East, writing for a serious foreign policy outlet.  And good for them.  They deserve to be in that world of pro journalists; they enrich the conversation, and they got in (to one degree or another) because they showed their stuff on their blogs.

Meanwhile, Instapundit is still out there, but it turned into a Trumpista group blog so slowly I hardly noticed.  It's all layered and nuanced and couched with the usual "Trump is not perfect, but" sort of language.  But it's clear there is an editorial slant to the PJ Media sites, and they link to one another relentlessly.  (Also as I predicted.)

What are we to make of the smoldering remains spread before us, the dead links to once entertaining or thought-provoking voices, the mass exodus to Twitter, where nuance goes to die?  On our own site, there's a mixed bag to be found, of passionate statements on issues that turned out to be not so momentous after all, dismissals of the ones that were -- but also some writing that stands up after many years, opinions that forced me to reconstruct my worldview, and things that just made me laugh my ass off.

I am reminded, too, of Razor's impassioned railing against the blog phenomenon of "fisking," of launching a series of zingers at your opponents' arguments.  I found it entertaining at the time, but it turned out that Razor was right; fisking was simply Twitter culture in nascent form.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of me saying I'm not here to get nostalgic or try to recapture something.  I really just missed the daily exercise of putting my thoughts in order, on whatever subject, and seeing if I agree with myself.

One thing I will miss about that moment: there was an army of folks out there willing to explain why I was full of shit.  (And I was lucky enough to have two of them on the same site.)  If there is one thing I'm convinced of, it's that I don't have enough of that in my life.  Sure I have plenty of people willing to tell me I'm an asshole.  (Take a number, folks.)  But can they explain it?  Will they?  Despite what some will say is a particularly intemperate cultural moment, the truth is that it's always been easier to shout "bigot!" or "fascist!" and walk away.

So, once again, here I am pecking away at a keyboard that I have never fully mastered, despite the millions of words I've written.  Here goes nothing.