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Archive for the 'Academic Blogging' Category

The CNN/Something Awful Debate

Published by William Beutler on August 17, 2007 in Academic Blogging, Asymmetrical Media, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, CNN, Debates, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Message Boards, Mike Gravel, New York Times, Seriously, Tech Blogosphere and YouTube. 8 Comments

Inspired by the recent CNN/YouTube debate, today’s New York Times asked several media observers to imagine other ways in which the Web 2.0 world might influence presidential politics. I found Matt Bai’s suggestion particularly interesting:

Maybe someday soon the candidates will have laptop computers at their lecterns, and we’ll hang a giant screen behind the stage. Then, as one candidate is talking, the others will use instant messaging to create a kind of scrolling commentary and critique, and all the comments will appear overhead. While John Edwards is decrying special interests, Bill Richardson might type: “Gee, John, what exactly would you call the trial lawyers?” Or Christopher Dodd might write: “Why is Kucinich still talking? LOL.”

It’s a neat idea. This year’s Personal Democracy Forum tried something similar, with audience members’ comments appearing on a screen behind the panelists. That worked all right, though it did distract from those onstage.

For a presidential debate then, the comments would indeed have to come from the candidates — not to mention, they need something to do while they wait five or ten minutes for their next turn.

And what if CNN teamed up with uber-message board Something Awful? Well, I believe it might look a little something like this:

Democratic Debate as co-sponsored by Something Awful

P.S. I also noticed that the Times titled Tom Brokaw’s contribution “Sip and Spin.” Now, I’m perfectly fine with potential presidents answering questions from snowmen, but if you know whence the phrase come — no, not the toy — well, isn’t that a little undignified?

Update: Something Awful has found this post. Of course, they don’t seem to care for it and even rescinded the initial link. But the poster did concede:

The picture is pretty much SA I guess.

And as you can see in the comments, this post has been blessed with one of the most sincere statements a latter-day message boarder can offer. Thanks, guys.

Updated again: Okay, the people on this SA board seemed to like it a bit more.

George W. Bush Fears Bill Clinton

Published by Not Paul Begala on May 18, 2007 in Academic Blogging, George W. Bush, Investigations, Meatspace and National Politics. 0 Comments

The headline is meant to catch your attention — but seriously, 42 and his conduct in the White House explains more about how 43 runs the White House than any other force in all of modern history and politics. Rove admires Clinton’s skill and has studied the mistakes Clinton made.

Obviously, one thing that consumed Clinton at all times was investigations. Just like this administration, they fought them off, stalled and blamed them on partisan witch hunts. The one that got them was the independent prosecutor, Ken Starr.

Doesn’t it make sense that Bush, who’s already been burnt by a special prosecutor named Patrick Fitzgerald, would want to keep in place an Attorney General who actually tried to get a sick man to overrule his acting AG?

Talk about loyalty. With Gonzales at the helm, why would anyone worry about Justice investigating the White House? But, an independent AG — and who knows what the White House may be able to get through this Senate now — might appoint a special prosecutor to deal with one of the 100 or so scandals that afflict this administration. And toss aside the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation for the moment as a necessary pain to help distract the media from the scandal until the 2004 election was over.

A Senate no-confidence ote might be enough to bring down Gonzo if there are 65-plus votes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House begs their allies in the Senate to save them on this one.

George W. Bush does, after all, fear Bill Clinton’s fate.

5/20 update:

A footnote: Speculation in Washington legal circles is that President Bush has been reluctant to get rid of Gonzales for fear that Senate Democrats would not confirm his successor without a commitment to name a special prosecutor in the U.S. attorneys case.

Thanks for making me look smart, Bob.

Etiquette

Published by Not Paul Begala on March 19, 2007 in Academic Blogging, C-SPAN, Congress, Seriously and YouTube. 0 Comments

You think you might have your cell phone turned off while you’re on the floor of the House of Representatives debating the war in Iraq. Or not:

Listen during the silence. Apparently, the House Chamber is actually a movie theater, and at least one member of Congress is that one guy. And that guy is a jerk. (Via Atrios.)

And don’t miss the chyron about midway through the video:

C-SPAN: Gonzales has Bush's "confidence"

Okay, now he’s toast.

Chung Chung!

Published by William Beutler on March 14, 2007 in Academic Blogging, Entertainment, Fred Thompson and Michael Kinsley. 1 Comment

Or doink doink or donk donk, or thunk thunk or perhaps merely clunk clunk. TWoP says chung chung.

Like Michael Kinsley, I’ve never seen a full episode of “Law & Order,” so I’m sure there’s a better analogy — but in the will-FDT-run-or-won’t-he whodunit, will this prove to be the smoking gun?

Stylebook Over Substance

Published by William Beutler on March 3, 2007 in Academic Blogging, Language, MSM vs. Blogs, Netroots and Washington Post. 1 Comment

The week before last, a front-page Washington Post story detailed the pressure currently being applied by the online left to Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a moderate Democrat from Northern California. In all it was well-researched and informative — though you can’t tell from reading the Ellen Tauscher Weekly that it’s written by erstwhile BlogPAC operative Bob Brigham, this story tells you — but it also made two errors I found a little puzzling. See if you can tell from the opening graf:

The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party’s left wing had already settled on their new enemy: Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), the outspoken chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

Or the tenth:

Democratic leaders want their activists to focus on beating Republicans. But the grass roots and Net roots believe the political tide is shifting their way, and they can provide the money, ground troops and buzz to challenge Democratic incumbents they don’t like. MoveOn.org had two Bay Area chapters before the election; now it has 15, and they could all go to work against Tauscher in a primary. “Absolutely, we could take her out,” said Markos Moulitsas Zúniga — better known as Kos — the Bay Area blogger behind the influential Daily Kos site.

See it? Since when is the “netroots” the “Net-roots” or the “Net roots”? And need it even be “Netroots”? Not to mention “grass-roots” and “grass roots.” Odd. Newspapers are given to preferring capitalization of recent coinages and separating new compound words, but even that was rendered here inconsistently. I decided to contact Michael Grunwald, who co-wrote the story and last July was the agreeable subject of a slightly critical post here, also pertaining to the use of language. Just as he did then, Grunwald got back to me quickly:

I wrote the story and I wrote “netroots.” I was surprised to see that someone changed it to “Net roots”; I think it makes us look like we’ve just discovered them there Internets.

Quite. Grunwald said he would find out what the Post stylebook called for and, in contrast to the week and a half it took me to get this post on the web, he had the answer in twenty minutes:

So: I spoke to the head of our copy desk: Net roots is one of the latest additions to our stylebook. He says “we’re conservative on the onewordlowercase-ization thing.” For example, Post style is Web site, not website. He also points out that Post style is grass roots, not grassroots — which is what I wrote — so at least we’re consistent.

Consistently preposterous, in my opinion — Web site? — but there you have it.

Incidentally, for all our conservatism on the onewordlowercase-ization thing, Post style is stylebook, not style book.

There you have it. “Net roots” is the Post’s peculiar preference, and the rest are typos. Yet this is not applied evenly across the website: at The Fix, Chris Cillizza gets away with plain old “netroots,” and in the news pages, Charles Babington got away with the same, so long as he threw “scare quotes” around it (even in quotation).

The online and dead tree bureaus of the WaPoCo are separate entities and so maintain separate policies, and this is surely one of them. I won’t go so far as to say this is a reason why newspapers are losing out to the web, but by refusing to acknowledge political phrases as they are actually used, the Post’s editors are undercutting the credibility of their own reporters. Consistency is good, but being consistently correct is better.

The Judge and the Raccoon

Published by William Beutler on December 16, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Entertainment, Second Life, Seriously and Terrorism. 1 Comment

Richard Posner in Second LifeSecond Life has grown substantially over the past year and, since the summer, has been attracting the occasional celebrity participant. Most are just one-shot interviews, such as with former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Kurt Vonnegut — although Duran Duran claims to be building an island concert venue.

Last week, law and economics guru Judge Richard Posner joined the list, showing up to discuss his latest book, “Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency” and other issues.

Wager James Au of New World Notes hosted the event, also has the transcript and many pictures from the event, including this bit I’d like to repurpose:

Raccoon in Second LifeJRP: Is that a raccoon? Kear Nevzerov: I’m a “furry”. Not sure how I got this way. JRP: I think it’s Al Qaeda. KN: I’m really an IP lawyer from DC. Honest. JRP: I like your tail.

The overall discussion was worthwhile, but let’s admit it: When a public intellectual enters a 3-D virtual world, this is what we we’re rooting for.

P.S. In addition to being a blogger himself, Posner appeared on Instapundit’s podcast this summer, also to discuss the book.

Tim Noah, Fire Your Fact Checker

Published by William Beutler on December 15, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Journalist Bloggers, MSM vs. Blogs, Rhetoric and Tom DeLay. 0 Comments

Mickey Kaus has joked that the upshot of blogging is “no deadlines and no editors in exchange for no money and no readers.” I guess that may be more than a joke:

Tim Noah, Dec. 14:

My Slate colleague and fellow Washington Monthly-style neoliberal Mickey Kaus (we also attended the same high school) will likely feel queasy when he discovers that his weblog is included in TomDeLay.com’s “Blog Roll” of linked sites, otherwise all hard-core right. Better shore up that left flank, Mickey!

Mickey Kaus, Dec. 9:

Welcome, Hammer readers!

Not only does Noah not read Kausfiles, but apparently Slate’s copy editors don’t either.

P.S. Blogroll is one word, it isn’t capitalized, and it doesn’t need scare quotes. Let me also direct your attention to:

The blogosphere and its impact on politics/the media/the arts/American life has been discussed to death. There is nothing left to say, particularly within the blogosphere itself. I propose that this topic be banned from all future public discourse.

Translation: I don’t have anything useful to say and I don’t want to bother thinking about it. Kaus may have ghettoized himself at Slate, but Noah is the irrelevant one.

The Libertarian Wallflower

Published by William Beutler on December 13, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Blog Fights, Daily Kos, Democrats, Internecine Battles, Libertarians, Rhetoric and The New Republic. 2 Comments

A week has now passed since Brink Lindsey’s so-called “Liberaltarian” essay for The New Republic (also available from Cato, where Lindsey is VP for research) hit the web and became an instant conversation piece around ideo-journalistic Washington.

One can trace the excitement surrounding Lindsey’s essay, and perhaps even the piece itself, to an early June post at Daily Kos, by site founder/show runner Markos Moulitsas. That entry, which he later described as “a throwaway blog post,” drew plenty of snickers from Beltway conservative types, but it certainly wasn’t ignored.

In October, the Cato Institute — typically identified with Republicans far more than Democrats — made Moulitsas’ arguments the centerpiece of the October edition of Cato Unbound. Just before the election, Moulitsas made his pitch for libertarians to pull a lever for the Dems in Reason magazine.

These articles drew plenty more attention, of which Lindsey’s article could be considered the latest entry. One need not buy into the notion of an uneasy left/libertarian fusionism being at all likely to replace the uneasy right/libertarian one to find it interesting — and indeed, for all the kind things said about Lindsey himself this past week, almost everybody’s wallets are staying firmly in pocket.

That’s a lot of pockets, too. Among the libertarians, liberals and conservatives who have weighed in on Lindsey’s essay:

Of course, not everyone who might be expected to comment has done so. Among those who have not weighed in since Lindsey’s article went up:

It’s not that he’s been away from the site. In fact, he’s posted 55 times (at the time of this writing) and on a wide array of topics, from the inevitability of Obama to general site maintenance. I realize that the pat response to these questions is “don’t complain about the free ice cream.” But I’m curious as to why Moulitsas has abruptly disengaged from the debate.

The cynical view would be that with the election now in the past and Democrats victorious, there is no longer any need to reach out to potential new voters. The slightly less cynical view, and the one I endorse, is that Moulitsas was using the term “libertarian” too loosely in the first place. Go back to his seminal post, and notice that he literally begins by seeking to describe why he likes rugged, outdoorsy, sometimes Mountain West politicians such as Senator-elect Jon Tester — and it goes on to deliberately ignore the profound differences between liberal and libertarian philosophies of government. Altogether, it sounds less like argument born of principles, and more like searching for a coherent way to describe his favored candidates.

Moulitsas’ influence currently runs strongly to matters campaign-related, but the interest surrounding his “Libertarian Democrat” post suggests that people are willing to give him a shot as an actual thinker as well. Alas, now that the liberaltarian concept has “crashed the gates” (if you will) it would seem he doesn’t have much more to add. (He announced in the June post that his “next book” will be about the libertarian Democrat. Is that still a go?) Unless he has the conviction to defend his arguments in the public ’sphere — or a whole lot more “throwaway” ideas — he may again find himself relegated to being just what he says he doesn’t want to be: An ATM for Democratic campaigns.

P.S. Does anybody else remember that at one time, Brink Lindsey was a blogger? His former site remains where it always was, the blogroll still a who’s who of the early right-libertarian blogosphere. His his final post in mid-2003 should be considered a classic of the genre. Excerpted:

I’ve lost the will to blog. Actually, I lost it some time ago, but I’ve been trudging along in hopes that I would find new inspiration. I haven’t. So enough. I’m hanging it up for a while. I plan to take the summer off — at least. Maybe I’ll come back in the fall, maybe I won’t.

I’ve argued before that one need not actually be a blogger to be a part of the blogosphere, and three years later, Lindsey’s currency reinforces that.

Sometimes They Come Back… Again

Published by William Beutler on December 7, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Atrios, Blog Fights, Comment Sections, Metapost and Oregon. 13 Comments

Let’s get meta for a moment: When I arrived at work this morning, Blog P.I. hadn’t been updated for 36 hours. In my e-mail inbox, I see a WordPress trackback notification — and then another. And a comment. On a post from August? The things you can learn from trackbacks:

Because she missed a court date in Denver yesterday, there now is a warrant out for the arrest of Deb Frisch in Colorado.

I think I know what state she won’t be visiting anytime soon. And I may be late to the party, but it seems the party came to me:

Deb Frisch Traffic Spike at Blog P.I.

Frisch’s disturbing story has already been told, and I have nothing further to add, except to reaffirm the irony of the fact that Frisch’s academic focus is judgment and decision-making.

It’s plainly bad news for her — but it’s good news for Teh Squeaky Wheel — formerly known as Don’t Hire Deb — a smaller, right-wingier Eschaton created to obsess over closely follow every minor development since Frisch was first charged in Oregon. Frankly, they deserve each other. But I’ll give them a little credit for coining the word “Frischmas” — it lacks the originality of Fitzmas, but this ad hoc holiday actually arrived.

P.S. Mark my words — at some point I’ll get around to name-checking the final movie (one hopes) in this Stephen King adaptation train wreck.

P.P.S. Numbers are proprietary at least until I start tracking regularly on Alexa.

The Other Side of Wikiality

Published by William Beutler on December 3, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Entertainment, Washington Post and Wikipedia. 0 Comments

Last week I pointed out a promising development at Wikipedia — that at least one law professor is assigning his students to write entries for the online encyclopedia — and wondered if anybody would report on the fact. After all, the press Wikipedia gets tends to be skeptical at best.

I see nothing yet, but for the time being I will certainly settle for the article in today’s Washington Post by staff writer (and JewsRock.org co-founder) David Segal:

Casual readers might assume that Wikipedia’s goal is a complete account of all earthly knowledge, but the site maintains a rather elaborate set of criteria for admission. The several thousand unpaid volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia spend a lot of energy ensuring that people, bands, companies, and everything else meet what it calls “notability guidelines.” … Wikipedia jettisons more than 100 entries every day, many of them from people who posted autobiographies after registering on the site. (Writing your own entry, as we will see, is “strongly discouraged.”) The list of nominated rejects is posted each day on a page titled “articles for deletion,” and because all of Wikipedia is transparent and public, anyone can watch the editors’ votes roll in, and witness those ultimately deemed non-notable slink away, in real time, after getting cyber-gonged off the stage. Type “wikipedia deletion log” into Google for a peek at the latest.

Standards? Who knew?! Thanks to Mr. Segal, a few more Washingtonians than yesterday. Being primarily a music writer, Segal focuses on some of the bands and artists who didn’t make the cut:

The thumbs-up-or-down debates can rivet those in danger of Wiki deletion. Chicago composer and writer Matthew Dallman noticed last week that the fate of a biographical entry about him, which he says he didn’t write, was being debated and on Wednesday, it was gone. On Thursday, it was back. “It looks like the votes are running five to three in favor of deletion,” he said on the phone from his home in Chicago. “I’ve been watching for a few days and I’ve got to say, it’s really perplexing and very surreal. There’s this debate going on about me, but Wikipedia seems to dislike self-promotion, so saying anything on my own behalf would probably undermine my cause. It’s like I’m on trial and I can’t testify.”

It’s an interesting process to watch, as the votes trickle in and administrators state their reasons. To my knowledge, my only friend with a Wikipedia entry is policy maven, entrepreneur and columnist Phil Kerpen. His page just barely survived a deletion debate this summer, and is still the locus of an ongoing edit war.

Dallman, however, may not get the chance. Also this morning, he’s commented on the story at his own blog:

It looks like the page is going to be deleted. Oh well. The argument that my work hasn’t achieved recognition in the wider world, when compared to many, many other figures on Wikipedia, certainly isn’t wrong. As someone else in the Post article is quoted, its their site and they have their rules. The silver lining is that my take-away is the reminder, that if I do my work, and get it out there, then things like having a page on Wikipedia will take care of themselves.

Which is exactly the right attitude to have about it — and that ones’ own Wikipedia page is considered a status symbol at all is an interesting development. Maybe society can acclimate to something as apparently confusing as Wikipedia.