Ruminatrix
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Sunday, Apr 27, 2003
Political or Personal?
(title suggested by Theo, who wants me to stop now so we can go cycling)
Being out of the loop this week, I got to the lively dmt thread about what's appropriate weblog material way too late to have anything useful to contribute. Yes, it's important to record our personal experiences, not just to pass along news or "meta-news" analysis, but the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.
I'm acutely aware of how easy it is to become dependent on a narrow range of sources for information (especially during a geopolitical crisis) -- even if that problem existed way before the Internet. And I know of the limited value of linking to sites such as the NY Times, which charges to read any article over one month old. Its policy offends my sense of how a "newspaper of record" should handle its archives, particularly since the storage costs of electronic material are so small compared to paper. Does that mean one shouldn't link to NYT? I don't think that's a logical conclusion. But that's another topic.
But as for this site: It looks like we've got room enough here for poetry and wordplay and sensory explorations and art and aesthetics and foodtalk and politics and technical expertise and stream of consciousness and much else besides, so let's each get on with what we like to do, or want to do or just do best.
I'd like to see more input from more contributors, and with a little less testosterone quotient in the mix too. In any case, some feedback helps keep us from isolation while we get stuff made -- be it art or writing or anything else. It makes life a little easier, a little livelier.