May 9, 2005

Arriving on the computer blog site of the Internet blogosphere.

Walter Cronkite is posting:
Arianna Huffington has exercised her renowned wisdom to give journalism another boost along the ever busier Internet. Her blog site promises to be an interesting challenge for those of us lucky enough to be invited to participate with our occasional contributions. Hopefully the product will be at least as interesting.

I'll launch my first contribution right here: Arianna, I offer this first editorial opinion that you settle for "interesting" and recognize that it is not a synonym for "entertaining."
And, moreover, I offer this addendum as well to this my first editorial opinion, Arianna, to be merged into your already formidable wisdom, wisdom celebrated across the continents, that you recognize that by "interesting" I mean insufferably tedious.

13 comments:

Joan said...

"...insufferably tedious."

Hee!

Contributors said...

Walter Cronkite's a Democrat!?!?!

Who besides those who watched him on the CBS News ever would've guessed?!?!

Meade said...

"old Cronkite"

and that was way back in 1975, rhyming with "a pair of old Greek shoes."

Simon Kenton said...

Mis-spent youth - we used to put a premium on the ability to 'maintain,' to display a mild, mellow, rational and calm outward demeanor despite neural kaleidoscopy. As a skill, it was a lot rarer than we suspected. Why, it's even just possible that all the times we thought ourselves meta-cool, we were actually acting a lot like young, giggling stoned horses' asses.

And that's my impression of the Huffington blog. I read a string of the entries. Respectful disagreement with you: to me it was less 'insufferably tedious,' than it was 'insufferably cute.' There's this here internet, and it gives us a great way to reach out to the proles. MUCH nicer than barbeques and Rotary meetings; it's so Virtual. Don't have to be around all that greasy meat and those earnest lumpish clods. So, let's go ahead and be cute, and o so funny, and see if we can slick over the condescension, and let these turkeys know we'll allow them to vote for us next time.

Just based on the prose styles, I think the Huffington contributors maintain about as well as we did.

Harkonnendog said...

Better to remain blogless and be thought a fool, than to Huffington and remove all doubt.

Actually I think the comedians will do pretty well. But the actors, politicians, and hanger on celebrity types, like Cronkite, are just going to be exposed. I can't wait!

TBMD said...

As the LA Weekly article suggests, Huff may be a right wing mole - after all, what's more distructive to the left than letting them talk?

Unknown said...

Totally lame, but Cusack's was okay--a first person narrative about an event closed to everyone else. He gets it.

What's with Cronkite's non-post and non-platform?? And Corzine's fifth-grade "this is what a senator does" lesson? I not stoopit!

Tilo Reber said...

Checked out Arianna's site. We are suppose to tell the difference between this site and an MSM editoral page how?

Max Blumenthal's shrill attack on James Taranto did remind me of the fever swamp logic that you get at Daily KOS. So maybe there is some similarity starting to develop - a least with a certain segment of the blogosphere.

Blumenthal is determined to alert us to the growing danger of a theocracy. Despite the fact that church attendance is lower than ever in our history, and despite the fact that our country did not turn into a theocracy when Christian believe was much more common and taken more seriously, we are now to start loosing sleep over the specter of an imminent theocracy.

Blumenthal's argument is mostly a personal attack on Taranto, and so there is not much to analyse. His main attempt at refuting Taranto's argument about the disagreement within the religious community is to use a statement from the moral majority.

"These leaders have concluded that it is better to argue about denominational differences at another time. Right now, it is the agenda of those opposed to the Scriptures and the church which has brought us together."

Using this argument one could say that the extreme left wants to implement an Islamic theocracy because their agenda so often results in advancing the aspirations of the Islamists.

But beyond that, Blumenthal's quote makes it very clear that the moral majority are calling for a unified response to the agenda of their opposition. It is a defensive call, and it does not provide the least bit of evidence of an agenda for a theocracy. If this is the best quote that Blumenthal can produce to reinforce his point, then we have nothing to worry about.

If certain journalist feel that Arianna's site is going to be a place where they can come and let their hair down without having to answer to any editor, then this might just end up being a gold mine for other bloggers.

Jody said...

hmmm ya know Cronkite said the exact same thing about my site! ;)

Bruce Hayden said...

My favorite was the article about the wild horses. Did you know that 41 horses had been turned into dog food since the BLM changed their rules, and that Ford had saved another 52 of them? Makes me want to go out and buy an Expedition. (Actually, I would take Ann's TT in a heartbeat instead).

What Ms. DeGeneres seems to miss is that horses are rapid herbivores who left to themselves overgraze their range. This might not be a problem, except that we have killed off all their natural enemies.

And, there are, in fact, too many horses (and burros) for sale, being maintained at government expense. See: http://www.doi.gov/sales/q&a.htm

In any case, as an inane an article as I would expect from someone of her credentials.

Bruce Hayden said...

Whopps - I should have said too many horses and burros to adopt - Ms. DeGeneris is mad because those that cannot be adopted are being sold.

Bruce Hayden said...

They still have a way to go to figure this thing out. I clicked on the link to read more of the DeGeneris article, and ALL of the stories were blown up for me. So, I had to wade through pages and pages of the stuff before I got down to the article I wanted.

Contributors said...

Someone whould've told Ellen to use "The Misfits" as her film metaphor instead of one about a dance contest.

A catchy title is no excuse.