He's back

I was away for about a week at the National Havurah Committee Summer Institute in New Hampshire, studying the Dead Sea Scrolls with a Catholic scholar from the Vatican, changing patterns of and approaches to Jewish mysticism and kabbalah with a longtime friend probably not best described as a Reform rabbi, and teaching a series of workshops on the Conservative responsa and proposed takannot on gay and lesbian issues--as well as filling my near-depleted spiritual tank to overflowing. Imbibing wisdom--and comradeship-- proved easier in the absence of a computer.

I'll be returning to teaching this fall, and coping with a number of other demands on my time and energies. I suspect my blogging will take a big hit, perhaps to re-emerge in a somewhat different form or format, probably with fewer entries and reduced effort to keep up with so many different topics of interest. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I've just posted a number of items that attracted my attention over the past week or so.

Democrats Court Liberal Bloggers

New York Times:

CHICAGO (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton refused Saturday to forsake campaign donations from lobbyists, turning aside challenges from her two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination with a rare defense of the special interest industry.

''A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans, they actually do,'' Clinton said, drawing boos and hisses from liberal bloggers at the second Yearly Kos convention....

Plunging headlong into the Internet era, all seven candidates fought for the support of the powerful and polarizing liberal blogosphere by promising universal health care, aggressive government spending and dramatic change from the Bush era.

Edwards received the loudest applause when he suggested his rivals were tinkering around the edges -- ''I just heard some discussion about negotiation, compromise'' -- rather than overhauling government. He said the nation needs ''big change, not small change.'' ...

The Kos convention is a sign of the times.

Gone are the days when candidates and political parties could talk to passive voters through mass media, largely controlling what messages were distributed, how the messages went out and who heard them. The Internet has help create millions of media outlets and given anyone the power to express an opinion or disseminate information in a global forum, and connect with others who have similar interests.

One thing most bloggers have in common -- regardless of their political leanings -- is an intense frustration with the political establishment, particularly in Washington. And so it was a convention dripping in irony when liberal bloggers welcomed the living symbols of the Democratic status quo -- seven presidential candidates.

An audience member asked the candidates whether they would hire an official White House blogger. Edwards said yes, ''and her name will be Elizabeth Edwards,'' his wife.

Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel said the next president shouldn't hire somebody to blog. ''Do it yourself.''

Naked comes a blogger--NOT

The Opinionator - New York Times Blog: By Chris Suellentrop

The equivalent of the blogosphere in the 1960s and 1970s, [The New Yorker’s Hendrik] Hertzberg says, was the “underground press.” Hertzberg attended several of “the ramshackle underground-press convocations that took place from time to time.” The fashionable look there was decidedly not normal: “The stereotypical look then was rock roadie or medieval wizard for men, groupie or earth mother for women.” Hertzberg adds:

"On my bathroom wall I have a photograph taken at one of these underground-press convocations. It shows a crowd of a hundred or so undergrounders in a discussion circle. I’m in the middle, in shaggy haircut, Lennonish eyeglasses, and turtleneck, earnestly making some point (probably about the need to avoid alienating the great mass of Americans). And, sure enough, if you make allowances for a certain number of extravagant mustaches and batik prints, the crowd does look kind of normal, most of it. Except that three of the young women listening (somewhat skeptically, I have to admit) are stark naked.

"No one naked around here. No chaos at YearlyKos. No “sweet smell of marijuana,” as the straight papers used to refer to it. No demands for revolution. No denunciations of bourgeois democracy. The Democratic National Committee Chairman is listened to respectfully and cheered enthusiastically."

What explains the new bourgeois left? Hertzberg’s theory: Because Vietnam was, “as Bob Dole might say, a ‘Democrat war,’ ” there was only one way to protest it. “You had to go to the left of the Dems,” he writes, “and if you hadn’t happened to have already acquired a moral/political compass, you might keep going till you ended up at the feet of Chairman Mao. This war is an all-Republican affair...

A Blogging Query

How does one note, semi-ostentatiously, that one does not deign to blog about certain declasse subjects in the news or blogosphere, without blowing it by actually naming them? I gather some mass market celebrity throwaway put on its cover a prominent sticker promising a Par*s-Free issue, which rather defeats the stated purpose (while also highlighting how un-Par*s-Free its other issues tend to be). In this instance, I'm dancing around a Washington Post "fashion" piece which I deem unworthy of discussion here. My intellectual and high political hauteur will not be diminished by coverage of couture (and that which is, or isn't, covered by it).

ADDENDUM:The subject adverted to but not explicitly mentioned here is reportedly the third most often googled topic of the day. I remain resolute, but provide a link to the report:Broadsheet: Salon.com

Blogging milestones

I zoomed past blog post #1000 a few days ago without pausing to notice, and am now just past #1100, as I near the completion of four months doing this. Is anyone reading out there? Comments or suggestions?

Can Blogging Derail Your Career?

The Chronicle:

In the spring, Informed Comment took center stage in another arena — [Michigan Professor Juan]Cole's own career. After two departments recommended him for a tenured position at Yale University, a senior committee decided last month not to offer him the job after all. Although Yale has declined to explain its decision, numerous accounts in the news media have speculated that Cole's appointment was shot down because of views he expressed on his blog. We asked seven academic bloggers to weigh in on Cole's case and on the hazards of academic blogging.

From Juan Cole [responding to the seven]:

The ability to speak directly and immediately to the public on matters of one's expertise, and to bring to bear all one's skills to affect the public debate, is new and breathtaking. I have had some success in explaining the threat of Al Qaeda and suggesting how it should be combated, and have addressed U.S. counter-terrorism officials on numerous occasions on those matters. And then there is Iraq, about which I was one of the few U.S. historians to have written professionally before the 2003 war. In the summer of 2003, when the general mood of the administration, the news media, and the public was unrelievedly celebratory, I warned that a guerrilla war was building and that powerful sectarian forces such as the movement of Moktada al-Sadr were a gathering threat. I gained a hearing not only with broad segments of the public but also at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

I am a Middle East expert. I lived in the area for nearly 10 years, speak several of its languages, and have given my life to understanding its history and culture. Since September 11, 2001, my country has been profoundly involved with the region, both negatively and positively. Powerful economic and political forces in American society would like to monopolize the discourse on these matters for the sake of their own interests, which may not be the same as the interests of those of us in the general public. Obviously, such forces will attempt to smear and marginalize those with whom they disagree. Before the Internet, they might have had an easier time of it. Being in the middle of all this, trying to help mutual understanding, is what I trained for. Should I have been silent, published only years later in stolid academic prose in journals locked up in a handful of research libraries? And this for the sake of a "career"? The role of the public intellectual is my career. And it is a hell of a career. I recommend it.

Juan R.I. Cole is a professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His blog can be found at http://juancole.com

Judging a blog by its comments

What conclusions, if any, ought one draw from the quality of comments and discussion elicited by a prominent blogger?
If a large percentage of the commentators appear to be mean-spirited idiots, should one conclude anything about the blogger who attracts (and apparently feeds) them?
Does it matter it the blog comments are substantially moderated, or if it is more of a free for all (with very occasional deletions of self-posted comments)?
As a relatively new blogger who receives relatively few comments (and posts even fewer), I'm just wondering.

I come not to rethink AIPAC, but to bury it?

Prospects for Peace: By Daniel Levy

I have on several occasions expressed my concern at the closeness of the relationship between AIPAC, the Christian right, and the neo-cons. I think it is unhealthy for American Middle East policy, unhelpful for Israel, and unpalatable for the Jewish community. Either AIPAC should undergo a radical rethink or the majority of the Jewish community that supports Israel, but that also supports progressive policies, peace, and the Democratic party, should find a new vehicle for expressing its opinions.

Of course people will say “But Israel should not be politicized or made a partisan issue.” Sure, the very basic issue of supporting Israel, or its relationship to the US, need not be questioned. But beyond that, the debate on Middle East policy, on what’s best for America (and by the way, for Israel), who to talk to, how much to promote peace, etc. should be discussed politically as these are political questions.

Another blog I've just found. Read about Daniel Levy's background, and give his blog a try.

Elizabeth Edwards Viciously Attacks Ann Coulter

Jon Swift:

It's really sad the way Elizabeth Edwards has debased our political dialogue by confronting pundits with their own words and threatening their livelihoods. If John Edwards is elected President, this will just give his wife a bigger platform to use the language of hate against political commentators like Coulter who are only trying to make a living. If Coulter is silenced then all we will have left is Jules Crittenden, who is neither pleasing to look at nor particularly funny. America would only have itself to blame.

This is nicely done. My first visit to Jon Swift; undoubtedly not my last. Check out his collected Amazon book reviews, and the Uncyclopedia (all new to me, clever, and funny).

Digby Speaks: The Netroots Revolution

The Nation: Digby

Editor's Note: The pseudonymous blogger known as Digby has been passionately writing about politics on Hullabaloo since 2002. On June 19, when she accepted the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award on behalf of the progressive blogosphere at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC, Digby remained an enigma, choosing not to reveal her name as she delivered these remarks about the evolution of the netroots into a political force.
******************************

The other day Tim Russert agreed "absolutely" with his gracious host, concerned centrist Sean Hannity, that the Democratic party was being unduly influenced by bloggers who were dragging the party kicking and screaming to the left. ...

So... the netroots is... a revolution. A revolutionary participatory democracy. And, in this way, the left is more effective than the right. Whether by temperament or philosophy, we are simply better suited to the free-form, constantly changing nature of these new political communities.

Leiter Reports: Martha Nussbaum and Wikipedia: A Case Study in the Unreliability of Information on the Internet

Leiter Reports::

Some philosophers will recall the curious spectacle awhile back of the philosopher of mind David Chalmers intervening in a Wikipedia discussion to correct misstatements of his views about consciousness, only to be 'told off' by an anonymous Wikipedia editor! (Chalmers himself took a more charitable view of the matter.)

Now we have Wikipedia foolishness redux, this time with the entry on Martha Nussbaum (this is a link to the current version, which may change, hopefully for the better!). A scholar who actually knows something about Nussbaum's work posted a corrected entry (you can see it here or here: Download martha_nussbaumwiki.rtf ), only to have it promptly undone by an anonymous editor who deemed it 'unsourced'! I invite readers who have some patience for dealing with Wikipedia's hordes of ill-informed (and often biased) anonymous editors to see about getting the current version in line with the accurate version.

More macho than thou

VideoJug:
There seems to be a certain concern about machismo resonating throughout the political blogosphere. The debate has become a bit theoretical, and perhaps excessively high falutin' in its rhetoric, for my tastes. Here is a more practical contribution to the discourse.

3 months, 660 postings...

and good night, and Shabbat shalom.

My 600th blog post

Somewhere in the past few postings (depending on how one counts some of my Soprano postings, which I subsequently consolidated into fewer, longer entries), I passed my 600th blog posting, just a bit short of my three month anniversary (I started blogging on the ides of March).

To a greater degree than I expected, I've been relying on large numbers of clippings from other sources, rather than penning (keyboarding) lengthy posts of my own. Partly that reflects some deadness of spirit in me over the course of my father's illness and death, from which I am only just beginning to take more active control of things, both emotionally and, perhaps, physically. There have been other tragedies in the lives of people close to me. Mechanical cut and pastes have come easier than confronting and trying to express more tempestuous feelings, and have helped to pass the time when I've wanted distractions from some of those feelings. Which has been pretty often.

Blogging has brought me to read differently, with a constant eye out for interesting/ arresting/ surprising/ humorous/ especially strikingly written nuggets in the flood of information washing over us. There has been much more on the Middle East/Israel than I would have expected, and rather less of bioethics. My initial focus on L'Affaire Kaplan has calmed considerably, although many of the deeper problems revealed by that episode have not been resolved, and I've become significantly alienated from the law school community that I've considered my primary intellectual home at the University. My efforts to provoke a sustained discussion of professional education and the nature of the educational community have largely fallen flat. That does not come as much of a surprise, but it is a disappointment.

This has been a more one-way vehicle of expression than I anticipated, more a public diary than an interactive conversation or discussion board. I'm still coming to terms with how I feel about that, and whether I am prepared to change my preferred form of expression, or the highly eclectic (and unfocused) content of my postings, or my expressed standards for publishing reader comments, in order to attract a more consistent readership or a larger number of publishable responses. For now, I don't think so. While I have never kept a private diary for more than a few entries, whatever I am doing here seems to suit me, at least during this period of largely home-bound medical leave. If, as I hope, I am able to return to classroom teaching this fall, that may change.

Enough navel gazing for the moment. Thanks to readers for their interest, and occasional kind (or instructive) words, whether or not published. The Sopranos may have finished (although one can now start over at the beginning with DVDs, as Jews do every year with the Biblical text), but I'll try to keep on keeping on, for some time to come. Onward. Or whatever. (Cut to black.)

Bloggers' Code of Conduct: From a Higher Authority

'I may attack a certain point of view which I consider false, but I will never attack a person who preaches it. I have always a high regard for the individual who is honest and moral, even when I am not in agreement with him. Such a relation is in accord with the concept of kavod habriyot, for beloved is man for he is created in the image of God.' —Rav Joseph Soloveitchik

Posted by "Jewish Bloggers for Responsible Speech Online"

David Brooks on Al Gore's "Vulcan Utopia"

From The New York Times:

Fortunately, another technology is here to save us. “The Internet is perhaps the greatest source of hope for re-establishing an open communications environment in which the conversation of democracy can flourish,” he writes. The Internet will restore reason, logic and the pursuit of truth.

The first response to this argument is: Has Al Gore ever actually looked at the Internet? He spends much of this book praising cold, dispassionate logic, but is that really what he finds on most political blogs or in his e-mail folder?

Go animalistic on me, David!

Transcending "time management"

Althouse: Time management expert does an interview with me and considers it "a bust.":

I'm sure my point was that if you do something that you love, that is intrinsically rewarding, you don't have to think of making time for it. It makes its own time. The trick is to find your way into a life where you do what you love, something with intrinsic value for you. I blog about what interests me; blogging is a process of being interested in things.

Good morning, graduates...

The Morning News - A Word of Advice by The Writers:

Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll spare me a minute, I’d like to offer a few pieces of advice for today’s graduates…

Ask not, ever. Some people will say your college years are the best of your life—ignore them. I find that, sometimes, when your miss your bus, you can run really fast and catch up to it at the next stop!

Also: Write more letters, especially if you’re in jail. Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation. And for God’s sake don’t stomp on flaming paper bags. If you’re bi-curious, experiment now; that window is about to close...

And not everyone needs a blog—I’m just saying...

I love the smell of sliming blogs in the morning

The Opinionator - New York Times Blog:

Maybe Giuliani has an outside chance at the G.O.P. nomination, but could a pro-choice Republican win the general election? The Atlantic’s Ross Douthat doesn’t think so: “Frankly, if Giuliani being the Republican nominee doesn’t prompt a third-party run by a pro-life candidate that cuts into his general-election support, then social conservatives ought to retire from politics out of sheer embarrassment.”

Giuliani isn’t the only Republican candidate whose candidacy is suffering because of an abortion-related controversy. One prominent conservative blogger ruled out supporting Mitt Romney after learning that Romney’s wife, Ann, gave $150 to Planned Parenthood in 1994. “It is not because Ann Romney gave money to Planned Parenthood,” writes Erick Erickson at RedState. “It is because this is the straw that broke the camel’s back — one light piece of straw piled on a mountain of political opportunism and reckless vacillation.”

A ringing call for less civility, more vigorous argument?

My wife is an academic librarian, much involved in web discourse (and generally conflict-averse). Wonder what she will think of this piece?
From Inside Higher Ed:
Good at Reviewing Books But Not Each Other
By Steven J. Bell

Perhaps what the library profession needs to do, if it wants to be taken seriously as a science, is to realize that we need to be accepting of rigorous discourse. We need to learn that there’s something special about it, and that we do a disservice to ourselves and our profession when we fail to do all we can to encourage it. Despite the chill factor that has descended on the library profession there may be some hope. We need to look at how other disciplines stimulate and support discourse. At our conferences and through online communities we need to engage in discussions about how to encourage discourse and appropriate ways in which to engage. We need to hear from scholars in other disciplines with experience in discourse so that we can better understand how to inspire ourselves and our colleagues to be both constructively critical and accepting of criticism. We need to focus on the content, and resist the temptation to make it about personalities.