PhotoDude.com

Fri. Oct 29, 2004

Sound and Rational Catblogging

Giving further evidence that the main stream media is several innings behind the pitch, the New York Times has just discovered catblogging.

It would seem unlikely that the two blogs’ authors could see eye-to-eye about anything. Yet Eschaton’s Duncan Black (known as Atrios) and Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds have both taken part in a growing practice: turning over a blog on Friday to cat photographs.

“It brings people together,” said Kevin Drum, who began the cat spotlight last year on his own blog, Calpundit (www.calpundit.com). “Both Atrios and Instapundit have done Friday catblogging. It goes to show you can agree on at least a few things.”

The New York Times: “On Fridays, Bloggers Sometimes Retract Their Claws”

Perhaps Kevin started the practice of “Friday Catblogging” last year, but some of us have been puttin’ kitties on the web years before it became “cool.” In fact, we are the home of the #1 Rotten Kitty in the whole Kingdom of Google. In addition, in April of 1996 when I first put Fuji online, if you’d told someone you were catblogging, they’d probably suspect you were talking about some form of animal abuse.

And perhaps it is. Witness the torture going on in my house at this very moment. Three cats in varying forms of domestic distress:

That last pose is called “Listening, But Ignoring You.”

But, indicative of the times in which we live, it’s near impossible to simply show your kitty pix without slipping in some punditry. Filling in as a “guestpundit” at Instapundit, Ann Althouse doesn’t even offer us a single kitty photo, yet she opines, “the linked article is about the tradition of Friday catblogging, so if you didn’t just come here from there, you might want to go over there and read about the warm, fuzzy alternative to blogging about politics. But, really, when is MSM going to notice how sound and rational much of the political blogging is?”

First question in response: when are bloggers going to realize that 90-98% of their reading public don’t have a clue what the hell an “MSM” is? Stop being lazy and spell it out in the name of being understood. Thank you (for the 90-98% who don’t know, I’m pretty sure “MSM” means “main stream media,” but I can’t really be certain).

Secondly … have you lost your freakin’ mind? You wonder when “main stream media” will notice “how sound and rational much of the political blogging is?” How about … when it becomes sound and rational?

I know I sound like a lone man in the wilderness (or a little boy crying wolf), but caught here in the cross fire between a left and a right that see only what their blinders allow, I’ve found precious little in blogs that is sound and rational. Maybe 10%. On a good day. Of which there have been very few lately. The rest is Sturm und Drang, spin and sputter (well, other than the catblogging). It is convincing only as an act of reverse psychology.

“Sound and rational” is singular, not binary. And we clearly live in a binary blogosphere.

There are those who show us kitties. And those who whine about the fact “MSM” notices the kitties, but not their allegedly sound and rational offerings.

I’ve had a gutful of your “sound and rational.” By all means, go out and vote your conscience next Tuesday, as I hope everyone will. But until then, shut up, already, and show me some kitties.

It’s time for you to begin weaning yourself, because a straight cold turkey withdrawal is going to be awfully hard after Tuesday. Show me some kitties. It will do the country good.