from elsewhere

I agree with *, *. I think you are barking up the right tree. There is the physical unfurling - postcard-size expanded; and there is the socio-political (sorry!) unfurling. also, as blogging is a form of direct democracy. Of course, the media will be sniffy. They like to think the only valid oratory is theirs. They'll say blogging is an idle activity, full of undereducated mouthy nonsense. They'll use that idea to damn the culture per se. Of course blogging is varied in nature, quality, and relevance. Personally, I like and celebrate that. It doesn't bother me that one has to wade through shite to find what one wants. Blogging is no different in that respect to anything else. The media et al would have us think the media itself is valid naturally and a priori; ratified as it is by public schools, government, the establishment itself. Their estimations are, though, merely the product of self-interest. Take mainstream music outlets in comparison with myspace as an outlet. No contest - myspace is just more interesting, more diverse, more easily accessible, more communal, and with excellent feedback facilities, being truly reciprocal and interactive; unlike the pale versions of same offered by the mainstream. Television: we have 100s of cable channels in our house. Might as well be three or four, though; as they are all saying the same things and targetted at the same demographic. Again, they would have us believe tv offers choice and diversity. In fact, it offers no such thing. Maybe it did once, but those days are over. Before I had the internet, I was lucky if I ever saw anything - on that other screen, tv - which spoke to me. If I did, it was almost always a load of crap, cobbled together by someone who knew less than I did. I got to thinking eventually that all those heady science documentories I used to watch, and which were above my head because I'm not a scientist, were probably just as bad, flawed, laughable to those in the know. The real problem in all these things is that only a select few have access to broadcasting. They atre socially-inbred, coming from the same schools, same backgrounds. That form of incest is just as corrupting and grubby as the familial kind, to my mind. And though they look like they disagree - thus offering a kind of demonstrable dialectical construct, upon which we as a society can feel free, dynamic etc. - they are utterly unified in all important aspects. Left / Right - it's all capitalist materialism. Thus one gets Diane Abbott hobknobbing with Michael Portillo. I think it's time to bring back the stocks for that kind of thing, and stack up on rotten fruit.

it was 12:40 PM