...explicitly partisan treatments of a body of material, of the type increasingly common in the greater blogosphere (at least in terms of what seems to attract the widest audience), are more likely to be flawed compared to treatments that strive for understanding over all else. Compared to the partisan treatments, yes, these latter tend to end up looking more "neutral".

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

...the way that I read them - as complete volumes. What I think is going to happen is (as the author noted) the "i-Tunes-ization" of the printed word - pick a meme, a riff, and run with it, whether it makes sense given the larger context of the work or not. The important thing is whether the isolated cite supports the riff, not whether the totality of the work does so.

Have I mentioned that: a) I'm a curmudgeonly young fart, and b) I listen to albums rather than singles?

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

but not on vinyl, I'll bet:-)

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Ian Pears' brilliant novel "An Instance Of The Fingerpost".

In it, you'll find the following words of Marco da Cola, a Venetian visiting Oxford in 1663:

...The one thing that detained me was the newspaper, a journal printed in London and then distributed around the country, a most novel idea. It was surprisingly frank about affairs, containing reports not only of domestic matters but also detailed accounts of events in foreign places which interested me greatly.

I was later informed, however, that they were milk and water in comparison to a few years previously, when the passion of faction brought forth a whole host of such organs. For the King, against the King, for Parliament, for the army, for or against this or that.

Cromwell, and then the returned King Charles, did their best to restore some form of order, rightly surmising that such stuff merely lulls people into thinking that they understand matters of state. And a more foolish notion can hardly be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything.

Such liberties do nothing but convert the grubby hacksters who produce these tracts into men of influence, so that they strut around as though they were gentlemen of quality. Anyone who has ever met one of these English journalists (so called, I believe, because they are paid by the day, like any common ditch-digger) will know how ridiculous that is.

...of "MSM" into it and change the vernacular, it could be a contemporary blog post - only thing missing would be the flood of comments from adherents. Nothing new under the sun, I guess.

It's interesting in that, at least in my opinion, the stage that we're at with the blogosphere is somewhat analogous to that described in the quote. My impression is that there's more a war for eyeballs going on right now than there was in the beginning, when the main thing being celebrated was how low the bar was one now had to hop over in order to speak one's mind to a mass audience. A lot of what's being said now, though more explicitly partisan, seems somewhat "cooled down" in the sense that it's frequently pretty formulaic.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.