Open letter to the editor of The Washington Post
To the Editor
I have no idea how many people in this country are reading and writing on political blogs. I do know that the number is significant and growing.
While some commentators such as Hugh Hewitt may attribute a bit more influence to blogdom than it deserves there is no denying that its’ clout in the political world is growing daily, both in influence and in the coherence of its message.
Open letter to the editor of The Washington Post
To the Editor
I have no idea how many people in this country are reading and writing on political blogs. I do know that the number is significant and growing.
While some commentators such as Hugh Hewitt may attribute a bit more influence to blogdom than it deserves there is no denying that its’ clout in the political world is growing daily, both in influence and in the coherence of its message.
In David Finkel’s April 15 article “The Left, Online and Outraged” he focuses on Maryscott O’Conner who has been referred to as “The Goddess of the Blogosphere,” and her blog “My Left Wing.”
I have read a great deal of what has been published on “My Left Wing” recently and actually contributed a comment or two myself and I would like to try to correct the impression that Mr. Finkel may have unintentionally left with his readers of Maryscott O’Conner as some kind of Red Guard nut case.
In the last six years, America, in the view of many, has become nearly unrecognizable from what many of us believe to be our country. The policies of the Bush administration have created in the public mind an enormous amount of distrust, frustration and as Finkel points out anger, and rage.
While there exists a vast ocean of insult hurling, vitriolic, ad hominem nonsense clogging the bandwidth of the Internet, there are also islands of reasoned discussion, talent and intelligence as well, I believe that Maryscott O’Conner’s “My Left Wing” is such an island.
I have read many blogs and contributed to a few, from the bottom feeding semi literate collections of online ogres and trolls shouting at each other across their virtual school yard, to the upper crust exclusionary collections of media and entertainment celebrities who often seem to be more interested in the melodious sound of their own voices than the importance of any message they might have to convey.
While the lower end does not merit discussion here and the upper end seems to feel themselves to be Mandarins living in the Forbidden City of whom we in the hinterlands of public discourse would know little, Maryscott O’Conner and her associates at “My Left Wing” have created an accessible forum available to everyone.
Try to picture the pundits of the mainstream media or the high class prim, proper and oh so intellectual blogs as a symphony, a formal, structured and highly organized concert, given by George Will in a bow tie and played before a respectful and well-behaved audience.
To get a true image of Maryscott O’Conner’s “My Left Wing” you have to imagine a late night jam session in a smoky jazz or blues club, with underdressed musicians making individual musical statements as they feel them, before an audience doing much the same, with drinks and cigarettes in their hands and probably more underdressed than the musicians.
The individual notes and phrases of the musicians blend into a sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant whole and mix with the crowd noise and the smoky boozy flavor of the air and become a message far larger than the room.
More Bebop than Baroque, more Charlie Parker than Bach, sometimes you can dance to it and sometimes you just have to stand and scratch your head wondering if your ears are telling you the truth.
Sometimes emotions run high, the crowd gets surly and the musicians fight among themselves but if the Goddess is not in the middle of the fracas, in her role as instigator, proprietor and bouncer she soon has things straightened out.
I see My Left Wing as a late night democracy of the talented and the curious, who come to rant and to reason, to listen, to learn and to question.
I see it as diverse group of people learning to play together and Maryscott O’Conner as the virtual emcee presenting and encouraging, scolding and correcting, her ubiquitous presence inspiring in its’ energy and her voice the rhythm behind it all.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
http://sawdust.eponym.com/blog