This one goes out to our thousands and thousands of friends

Andrew Sullivan has a nice little apologia for blogging in the current Atlantic. It's called "Why I Blog," and here [SPOILER ALERT] is his conclusion:

Words, of all sorts, have never seemed so now.

Words: gotta love 'em. As Hamlet once said. But in case you are not as "now" as me or Andrew Sullivan, here's a summary of his article in picture form:

"There are times, in fact, when a blogger feels less like a writer than an online disc jockey, mixing samples of tunes and generating new melodies through mashups while also making his own music."

"Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive."

Blogging is also like cloning, baggy jeans, AIDS awareness, startups, ecstasy, Don't Ask Don't Tell, McMansions, and Kosovo.

(Blogging is so 90s.)

"If you compare the meandering, questioning, unresolved dialogues of Plato with the definitive, logical treatises of Aristotle, you see the difference between a skeptic’s spirit translated into writing and a spirit that seeks to bring some finality to the argument."

If there's anything bloggers love more than humbly accepting the transient, imperfect nature of their form, it's comparing themselves to Plato. "Why I blog is because it reminds me of being the founding father of Western thought."

That's why I blog, too.

Catch you on the slopes, wiggaz

It's all a blog.

I was just thinking about political blogs and "The Daily Show" and old time political cartoons. That blog would really write itself, though. Just stew on it for a second.
My skills as a playwright of imagined histories -- though I prefer "situation creator" of imagined histories-- have really been growing lately [sound of all readers pretending like they didn't notice] so I thought I'd share with you this latest scene I wrote about hanging out with your friends during yesteryear...if one of your friends during yesteryear was an old time political cartoonist.

Political Cartoonist: Hey guys. I was just thinking: aren't taxation and tariffs almost exactly like two tiny pigs dressed in baby clothes? And what about these industrial monopolies? Could they be more a giant fat person with skinny legs and a top hat and a thousand arms?
Friends: [gales of laughter]
Political Cartoonist: And everything is well labeled!
Friends: [gales of laughter]

laughter dies down

Friend 1: On a more serious note, we have got to do something about this infant mortality rate.
Friend 2: Agreed.
Friend 3: Seriously. At the very least it's just incredibly depressing.