Monday, September 08, 2003

Jeff Jarvis responds to Jonathan Alter on patriotism. Everyone, quick, go read Jona Hansen's book. 6:52:39 PM    comment []

The Rhino Times ran my letter in response to Orson Scott Card's letter in response to my letter about his column about the way New York intellectuals have ruined the culture. Immediately underneath my latest missive was a response from Card -- a typical and expected Rhino-style ambush, in this case entirely welcome because it puts Card's work on the same page with mine and thus saves me the trouble of writing any more letters on this very tired issue. Card has no ability to focus on the issues at hand, such as the way his choice of the word "kike" to provoke "New York intellectuals" might have been perceived by readers as a comment on the Jewishness of those New Yorkers, and whether the people responsible for our vulgar pop culture are truly intellectuals. Instead he's back into the blathersphere. To read Card's letters, you would think I attacked him on political grounds, or had some long-running feud with him. In fact, despite the fact that I'm more of a libertarian on social issues than he is, our politics seem to be not so far apart. But in his self-important Manichean worldview, any negative response to the specifics of his work must be part of a larger struggle in which he is both victim and hero. Whatever. 8:46:46 AM    comment []

Weblogs can turn campaigns into conversations, and David Hoggard is getting plenty of feedback. How he handles the sometimes heated discussion will say a lot about his potential as a council member... ...meanwhile, the John Edwards weblog reports on his decision to ditch his Senate seat and focus on a run for the White House... ...and the WSJ runs a (subscribers-only) column on the Dean campaign's use of the Web, including the strategy for snuffing out negative posts: donors give each time someone trolls, until the troll figures out he's actually making money for Dean through his flames and goes away. 8:26:05 AM    comment []