Friday, August 19, 2005
This Is Your Brain on Blogs
Last summer, I would have blogged the hell out of John Roberts, Karl Rove, Cindy Sheehan, and all the other characters in the news these days. This August, not so much. It's outrage fatigue, pure and simple. Last year, there was hope that the Bush shitrain might stop in January. But when January arrived and the forecast promised four more years of rain, it suddenly got a lot harder for me to keep providing the same level of bloggy goodness day in and day out. (There have been weeks since January when I've posted more at The Hits Just Keep On Comin' than I have here--because that blog has utterly no political content at all, and as such often is a hell of a lot more fun to write.)
In addition to feeling outrage fatigue, I sometimes get discouraged at the lack of response to what I'm doing. Not that I am ungrateful for those readers I have, but there are days (and weeks) when doing this feels like shouting into the void. Not that shouting into the void--like doing good for its own sake without expectation of reward--doesn't have value. It's just human nature to get tired of it after a while.
Still, I am not entirely discouraged, because it turns out that blogging is probably good for my brain, and some brains are perfectly wired to do it. Ann Althouse, who, it turns out, is based right here in Madison, dug up a scholarly study on blogging and its effects on bloggers. In addition to the study itself, Ann provides her own comment on how it feels to blog. It's a feeling many of us share, I am sure, when we feel like the blogging is going well, and when we feel like it isn't.
Worth a Thousand Words: Also at Ann's site, some great pictures of Madison in the late summer. Click the link to see why we all love it here. Of course, last night, the nearby suburb of Stoughton (note to the national media: the first syllable rhymes with toe, not cow) was hit by a massive tornado that demolished three dozen homes--so it's not always peaceful and placid. According to the Weather Channel, more tornadoes were reported in southern Wisconsin last night than the state usually reports in a normal year.
Recommended Reading: Paul Krugman places a wakeup call to all of us who've forgotten the fact, largely proven, that the Republicans stole the presidential election in 2000 and suppressed the vote sufficiently to capture it in 2004. If Democrats don't succeed in forcing some sort of reforms into the electoral process, it won't matter who the party's candidates are in 2006 and 2008, or how they frame their positions. The bastards on the other side will steal it again.
Last summer, I would have blogged the hell out of John Roberts, Karl Rove, Cindy Sheehan, and all the other characters in the news these days. This August, not so much. It's outrage fatigue, pure and simple. Last year, there was hope that the Bush shitrain might stop in January. But when January arrived and the forecast promised four more years of rain, it suddenly got a lot harder for me to keep providing the same level of bloggy goodness day in and day out. (There have been weeks since January when I've posted more at The Hits Just Keep On Comin' than I have here--because that blog has utterly no political content at all, and as such often is a hell of a lot more fun to write.)
In addition to feeling outrage fatigue, I sometimes get discouraged at the lack of response to what I'm doing. Not that I am ungrateful for those readers I have, but there are days (and weeks) when doing this feels like shouting into the void. Not that shouting into the void--like doing good for its own sake without expectation of reward--doesn't have value. It's just human nature to get tired of it after a while.
Still, I am not entirely discouraged, because it turns out that blogging is probably good for my brain, and some brains are perfectly wired to do it. Ann Althouse, who, it turns out, is based right here in Madison, dug up a scholarly study on blogging and its effects on bloggers. In addition to the study itself, Ann provides her own comment on how it feels to blog. It's a feeling many of us share, I am sure, when we feel like the blogging is going well, and when we feel like it isn't.
Worth a Thousand Words: Also at Ann's site, some great pictures of Madison in the late summer. Click the link to see why we all love it here. Of course, last night, the nearby suburb of Stoughton (note to the national media: the first syllable rhymes with toe, not cow) was hit by a massive tornado that demolished three dozen homes--so it's not always peaceful and placid. According to the Weather Channel, more tornadoes were reported in southern Wisconsin last night than the state usually reports in a normal year.
Recommended Reading: Paul Krugman places a wakeup call to all of us who've forgotten the fact, largely proven, that the Republicans stole the presidential election in 2000 and suppressed the vote sufficiently to capture it in 2004. If Democrats don't succeed in forcing some sort of reforms into the electoral process, it won't matter who the party's candidates are in 2006 and 2008, or how they frame their positions. The bastards on the other side will steal it again.
