Navel-gazing in the Canadian Blogosphere

Whooee! Elijah, over to The Experiment, seems to have just noticed that the Canajun boogeysphere spends a lotta time navel-gazin’, nit-pickin' and contemplatin’ conspiracies. Elijah is complainin' that too many Pergressive Boogers is kvetchin' about possible gummint censorship and not enough is boogin' on important news, 'specially the Asian monsoons and the floods that been killin' so many hunnerts of poor souls in Bangladesh an' India. Elijah seems to be disgruntled an' discouraged by the pettiness of us boogers.

Not so hasty, sez I. This whole personal publishing power to the people is relatively new. Boogin’ publishers is just tryin’ to stake their claim in the infoworld. We’re neofighters in a field that goes back to Gutenberg.

While there were a few ProgBloggers yammerin’ about gummint boog-blockin’, there were plenty of others postin’ on other stuff. Some of the ones postin’ on the boog ban was also postin’ on stuff like MMP, SPP, DND, Hillier, O’Connor, handguns, arctic sovereignty, EyeRack, EyeRan, Mother Earth, nuclear energy, Harper, Bush and a whole raft of other topics.

There were hardly any (I didn’t see more than 1 or 2) PB boogs on the bridge collapse. And, yer right, there weren’t much on the Asia floods, neither. I see in Elijah's own 10 most recent posts, there’s nothin’ about them floods. Don’t he care, either?

The purpose of aggregators, like PB, is to give a quick choice of a variety of boog stories so’s the readers can choose which ones to bother readin’. There’s a wide variety of topics. Sure, there’s a little too much navel-gazin’ an’ introspective paranoia. There’s back’n'forth flame wars. There’s cheap shots and name-callin’. Welcome to the internets.

A week after the catastrophe, the bigass MSM is still carryin’ the bridge story as their lede while the Asian floods are on the back pages. This Merka-centric reportage is so typical that it gets little notice or is felt to be not worth mentioning.

Boogers often do write about disasters and often post links to sites where readers can donate to relief efforts. Not every single booger is gonna write about what Elijah’d prefer. Drawin’ conclusions from what is NOT written is speculative and doesn’t prove anything, sez I. I’ve never written about the Rwanda genocide. Does that mean that you can accurately interpret the lack of written work as a lack of concern?

I reckon a lotta PBer’s would really welcome a well-written boog story comparin’ the coverage of Minneapolis and Bangladesh.

Boogers is just individuals. We ain’t got bigass expense accounts to send ourselves to Bangladesh. We still depend on the MSM to report hard news from faraway places. If you started boogin’ and thought it was an alternative to the MSM, you were wrong. Fer the most part, boogs are opinion pieces. Maybe someday boogs’ll be an alternative news source. Right now, they’re mostly an alternative Op-Ed source.

JimBobby

PS: Most o' this here boog story was originally posted as a comment at The Experiment.

Thankless Task: PB Moderation

Whooee! Well, like some other Pergressive Boogers, I was gonna keep my yap shut on the dust-up goin' on with the moderators all fightin' an' boogers takin' sides an' nasty infightin' happenin' among the self-described lefty pundidiots. It's gettin' almost as bad as the House o' Comments. I was gonna clam up but I can't stop myself from yammerin' -- at least a little bit.

Mostly, the PB fracas is between ol' Scotty Tribe an' Polly Jones (aka Joanne, I guess). I known Scott fer quite a spell an' I count him as a friend. I ain't known Polly so long but we commented back an' forth on some feminist issues an' I reckon I see mostly eye-to-eye with Polly. She's always been civilized an' thoughtful an' polite. I like Polly.

What ain't been said enough in all the boog stories an' comments is how moderatin' is a thankless task. Nobuddy's makin' any money or gettin' much benefit by bein' in the PB modsquad. Scott's worked hard fer the pergressive boogin' community. He's a volunteer, ferchrissakes, so I reckon he oughta get some thanks along with any criticism. I ain't seein' much o' that.

Polly's apparently quit her modsquad job an' that's her prerogative. It's a volunteer job. There ain't any contract. If somebuddy finds the volunteer work they do to be unrewarding or stressful, they got every right to quit an' the rest of us owe 'em a big thanks fer the volunteer work they done.

I'd like to see Scott an' Polly shake hands an' bury the hatchet. I reckon that'd mean some crow-eatin' fer each of 'em. I'm pretty sure they'd feel better afterwards but I reckon that's between them 2. If they was to get together fer a coffee or get on the phone fer a good long gabfest, I betcha they'd both be happier. But, o' course, that's their bizness an' not mine. If it was my bizness, I'd make sure each of 'em did the Political Compass test before they get together.

We're dang lucky we got a few good Canajuns who take time to volunteer an' lend what help they can to the left side o' the Canajun boogeysphere. I figger us PB members all benefit from gettin' our boogs out in front of more readers thanks to Pergressive Boogers. ProgBlogs wouldn't exist without the volunteers who started it and continue to make it run.

Now, I'm talkin' to these folks -

Wayne Chu
Scott Tribe
John Baglow
Catnip
Joanne Costello
Jasmine Johansson
Devon Rowcliffe
Kyle Selmes
Saskboy

Thankee kindly fer all the work you folks put in.

Yores trooly,
JimBobby