The Doc Searls Weblog : Thursday, March 20, 2003

Thursday, March 20, 2003

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Thursday, March 20, 2003
started 3/20/2003; 2:31:02 AM - last post 3/20/2003; 5:52:31 PM

Doc Searls - Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 6:31:02 AM (reads: 7593, responses: 11)

Take a (down)load off your friends

In a senseless act of generosity (which I covered yesterday), Glenn Fleishman offered his book — still selling for upwards of $30 on Amazon — for $0 in downloadable form. Since it's a heavy pile of bits (like, 32 megs or something), and about 10,000 copies have been downloaded, he's now geting slammed with a huge bandwidth bill. That hugely sucks..

Let's help him out.

Eat your spinnage

I get the LA Times every day, but I didn't learn about yesterday's Tim Rutten's blog piece by reading the paper. The heads-up came from The Heritage Foundation, which saw the piece as "the latest example of the traditional media's newfound appreciation of the growing influence of bloggers on America's public policy debates." That line came in a friendly email from the organization, which continued...

Our job at The Heritage Foundation is to provide useful resources - objective data and conservative analysis and commentary - to journalists, analysts and commentators of all stripes. But we aren't quite sure how to do this with the blogger community.

So this email is an invitation for you to participate in an experiment. For the next month, we will periodically email to you short notices about significant Heritage studies, publications and events. At the end of the month, let us know if these notices were helpful. If not, tell us at any time, and you won't get any more. If you find you only want those notices regarding specific issue areas - foreign policy, welfare reform, etc. - we'll limit our future emails to you thusly. If you want to continue receiving all of the notices, let us know that, too.

Regardless of your perspective on the issues of the day, we are confident you will find Heritage materials useful in your effort to provide the kind of incisive, immediate and thoughtful commentary and analysis made possible by blogging.

I wrote back thanking them for their offer, and asking permission to blog it, which they kindly gave. I also suggested they start blogging themselves, much as Jupiter Research does.

This is a first (for me, at least), and I believe The Heritage Foundation deserves kudos for its gracious combination of permission- and gonzo marketing. (Even though this post by Brian Linse shows this was a form letter.)

Not too coincidentally, Heritage is a conservative think tank. On the whole, conservative thinkers are far more clueful about the Web and its authority structure than their liberal counterparts — as both the Rutten piece (which was almost entirely about warbloggers) and this emailing attest.

Liberalism may not be absent from the blogging world, but it's certainly impotent. The only voices on the left with any firepower on Web are Michael Moore and Robert Byrd, and neither one of them blog (though Moore uses the Web quite intentionally, which Byrd does not).

Okay, there's Eric Alterman.

Want to see how little peaceblogging actually counts? Wagging the Tale of War, which I wrote yesterday, got a whopping eight inbound links on Technorati. Total visits for the day were 1908, which is somewhere between half and a third of what I get on the average Wednesday. As a percentage of my Technorati Cosmos (all the inbound links in the last 24 hours or so), my peace post hardly did any better than two other posts — Sixth Column (about blogging itself) and RSS for Webcasts — and lost by one link to Book support.

My point isn't about me. I'm just in a position to witness first-hand the complete absence of a peaceblogging movement. There's no Glenn Reynolds on blogging's left. No Andrew Sullivan or Charles Johnson. Even Brian Linse's Lefty Blogroll is thick with bloggers who not only support the war, but are pro-war in general.

Of course, we're making this assessment at the very moment when the political pendulum has swung about as far as it can in the rightward direction: on the first full day of a war that enjoys full-bore media support and a huge approval rating.

It'll be interesting to see what develops as the war unfolds.

[Later...] Shelley points out that there's lots of peacemongering (including blogging) going on, away from the pulpits and spotlights. I agree. But in this post I'm talking about blogs.

Maybe you can have a movement without leaders. I've been saying for some time that the blogging world is a relatively leaderless place (Clay's power distribution curves withstanding). But social movements, such as the ones for and against war, tend to have leaders. The warbloggers have some. The peacebloggers don't.

Peacemongery is another matter. There's plenty that going on in the world. I like to think that much of the worldwide opposition to this war is an opposition to war itself; though I'm not sure to what degree that's true.

I am sure, however, that if markets are conversations, there isn't a conversation about peace in the blogosphere to equal the conversation about war.

Which of course means there's room for one. Maybe a good place to start is here.

Lots of feed/push back in the Discussions section. Keep checking back. I know one post should be up soon, listing all the influential peacebloggers I've insulted by not including them here.

Eric Norlin has an interesting response, too.

Sheila has a pile of links (scroll up) on all kinds of war/antiwar stuff.

J.D. Lasica weighs in with Portraying the Graphic Face of War, about how bigjo sources are readying their photojournlism battle plans.

Arnold points to Winterspeak's gag response to the Heritage mailing:

And you know what, discussing politics is kinda like a drug habit, it's initially a kick but then you feel tired all the time and you know it's probably not good for you in the long run. Folks from the Heritage have decided to devote a career to this stuff. Do I want opinions from the Heritage Foundation? No, I am very satisfied with my current sources of opinions. The idea of broadcasting or picking through policy points with think-tanks frightens me.

Brian Linse adds a few more words too.

Also Grant Henninger, Dave, David, Jason Kottke, Dr. Frank, Tim Jarrett, Greg Greene, Tom Tomorrow, Dan Gillmor, Bernie Dunham, Chastity Powers, AKMA...

Bonus links: Swarm Day tomorrow.

In the fun house

Just noticed the latest Get Your War On. Also Military Promises 'Huge Numbers' for Gulf War II: The Vengeance in The Onion. Oh, and Chastity Powers has joined the Wealth Bondage news team.

Handy

Ming explains Xpertweb. So does Mitch.

Welcome ablog!

Hey: I just discovered my friend George has a blog. I see he's already in the clue-passing spirit, saying Gartner's new corporate blog is "about as relaxed as a starched Oxford shirt."

I see Ted is picking up his blog pace a bit too, lately regretting that his new Nokia 3650 is useless stateside:

...built in camera, takes videos, ships with the real audio player... But so far my carrier here in the US (Cingular) won't let me use GPRS... so even though I have a phone capable of sending data to a website like Blogger, my phone company's network won't let me...

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Shelley - Re: Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 2:21:30 PM (reads: 959, responses: 1)

"Want to see how little peaceblogging counts"

Doc, try getting your face out of the buzz sheets and look around at the people who might be beneath your notice, points wise. For every 'name' who mouths support for war, there are several lesser known people who are concerned about the war, and express this concern. They don't have the numbers individually, but collectively they exist and they make an impact. If people such as yourself would stop sending Glenn Reynolds et al links, because you are so impressed by sheer volume of links, perhaps some of the people who talk about peace, would be heard.

The world who had wished for a peaceful resolution to the problems in Iraq exists outside of yours and Reynolds and others sphere. You just don't see it. Too busy looking into the light I guess.

Ultimately, what does it matter?

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jt - Re: Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 3:04:47 PM (reads: 614, responses: 0)

SOAPBOX(*STEPUP)

"Ultimately", Shelley...?

I agree with what-all You said prior to this comment, btw. But not this part, because IF You look at "ultimately" in the absolute sense of the term, THEN nothing matters and You end up with the depression of nihilism... Thaz why best to avoid absolutes, in my experience.

The choices each individual makes DO matter, in spite of the hit-count, jes like Ya said...!! Sure, some like You both, achieve "celebrity status" because thaz what people do. (http://weblog.delacour.net/archives/000805.html) Some have a wider range of influence, sure, yet each person's individual contribution matters equally, and hit don' matter none whether that contribution is done individually or collectively (other than the range of influence that might or might not be attained).

Doc, I would say that Your hit-count on the peace blog reflects the fact that You gave a mixed message, and that is not so easily accessible as to be grasped in a single pass. I wuz somewhat surprised to see You call it a blog for peace, given the following:

"If you have to crush a regime and its armies to end the far worse things they've been doing � as we did to Japan and Germany in World War II, and to the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan � your actions are entirely justifiable in the death-for-death and misery-for-misery moral economics of war. Inflict a lesser misery to end a greater one. End of story."

So Your post required a level of reflective thought that most don't appear to wanna get into.

Thought to comment yesterday but didn't, that it jes don't get much better 'n this:

"Some day our civilization will mature to the degree that we'll see the evil in that pattern � and therefore in ourselves � and not just in our enemies."

(However, I interpreted the above to also be pointing out the fact that our civilization is not there yet, thus the need for SOME wars. "Turn the other cheek" only works if a huge, overwhelming majority is practicing what they are preaching. Laws of "proper conduct during war" being a tough nut to crack and an oxymoron, to me anyhoo.)

SOAPBOX(*STEPDOWN...;-)

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jt - Re: Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 3:11:14 PM (reads: 438, responses: 0)

Shoot, forgot the main point, after I saw Shelley's reply...!!

Kudos to You, Doc (and cast of countless others), fer getting this e from Heritage House...!!!

Personally I rank this as high, or higher, than the Google purchase of Pyra..

..in signaling the sea-tide change, as well as the coming of age, of Bloggerville.

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lou josephs - groundwar underway

3/20/2003; 5:04:40 PM (reads: 474, responses: 0)

bbc reports, via radio 5 live. Tony Blair canned a speech, thats forthcoming from the uk. now 1800 utc.

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Scott Mace - Re: Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 6:40:52 PM (reads: 462, responses: 0)

This sure as heck looks like Michael Moore's Weblog:

http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/involved/operationoily.php

Scott Mace

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lou josephs - It's projo story

3/20/2003; 7:22:59 PM (reads: 453, responses: 0)

sheilas got the best links..

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lou josephs - memos

3/20/2003; 8:39:56 PM (reads: 467, responses: 0)

from cbs and abc www.myjamby.com/medianetwork warning heavy traffic...

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Greg Greene - Re: Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 8:45:25 PM (reads: 477, responses: 0)

( -- sorry, posting error -- )

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Greg Greene - Re: Thursday, March 20, 2003

3/20/2003; 8:45:36 PM (reads: 970, responses: 0)

Doc:
Not to take you to task or anything, but you ended up wide of the mark in your post on the paucity of liberal blogging. I'll spare you the full litany of evidence, but consider:

Eschaton draws about 15,000 unique visitors per day;
The Daily Kos, another liberal site, draws about 8,000 visitors per day;
The blogosphere ecosystem includes the Daily Kos, Eschaton, and Josh Marshall in its top ten, and Kevin Drum, Max Sawicky, Jeralyn Merritt, Matthew Yglesias, James Capozzola, and The New Republic in its top 25.
The Blogstreet ranking by blog-importance quotient includes Josh Marshall, Eschaton, Tom Tomorrow, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and the frequently left-libertarian Boing Boing in its top 25.
200 bloggers have signed onto the PeaceBlogs list in just its first 60 hours of existence.
One can find a great deal of war-skeptical sentiment in the less political precincts of the blogosphere — see, e.g., Kottke, Megnut, and Dave Winer.

That's not to totally discount what you said — from all appearances, the right clearly has somewhat more throw weight than the left. But there's more to the left on the web than Robert Byrd. =, Just trying to widen your perspective.

Best regards—
Greg Greene
greenehouse.blogspot.com

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lou josephs - BBC's website is down

3/20/2003; 9:42:55 PM (reads: 472, responses: 1)

Can't trace route. No dns.

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lou josephs - Re: BBC's website is down

3/20/2003; 9:52:31 PM (reads: 543, responses: 0)

outage 2229 to 2248 utc...not using linux...

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