884 Why blog?

Michael DeBakey, the famous heart surgeon, is interviewed in today's Wall Street Journal (March 8, 2005). He is 96, and although a light eater who doesn't drink or smoke, he believes "work" provides the boost to longevity.

I would agree that keeping the brain active and challenged is important, but work in your chosen profession doesn't always do that. My final two years--the years that pushed me into setting a retirement target--were spent in mind numbing meetings about the design, construction and decorating of a new building which would house my library. Others, like my husband and the associate dean who oversaw the project, thrive on that sort of thing. For someone who lives for information, it is a mind shriveling experience. I pouted, I whined. I lost part of the sight in my left eye--and although I can't prove it, I think my body was refusing to look at one more electrical or plumbing scheme. I was not a nice person to be around--especially as I saw chunks of MY square feet reassigned to administrative space (afterall, isn't everything free on the internet?). And eventually, when my part of the task was completed, I put in my letter of resignation. It isn't fun to go to work that way.

So there are other ways to keep your mind busy and exercising. Volunteering. Reading. Writing poetry and essays. Attending concerts and lectures and workshops. Even selective TV viewing can occasionally inspire a brain cell to take notice. Even blogging. Hugh Hewitt has a lot more faith in blogging than I do--he's written an entire book on it. Even in his little career guide, "In, but not of" he has a brief chapter on the blog.

"The advantage of blogging is that it will oblige you to live in the world of ideas and debates, and to do so at the modern pace. . . Because blogging is the genuine marketplace of ideas, your site will prosper if you are any good."

Well, blogging does keep me investigating, reading and writing, the three things I really enjoyed about my profession. However, Hewitt hasn't got it quite right. There are some really awful blogs out there that get a lot of traffic, and some terrific ones that get very little. There are a lot of blogs with only two or three entries and disappeared owner/writers. There are others that had a great run for a year or two, and then died but still float around in cyberspace. Then too, the world doesn't need five thousand David Horowitzes or Pat Buchanans or Susan Estriches--they've got that territory covered. There are some flag waving good old boys and some deep dyed commies blogging who just ought to pack it up for awhile.

Setting aside the teen-age angst blogs written in instant messenger English, and the 20-something let's-go-get-drunk-after-work blogs, I've been most disappointed in the blogs written by women. It's not that they shouldn't write about day to day life--I do that--it is after all, a diary. (I never knew there were so many miscarriage stories out there.) But somewhere there should be women who are not professional journalists who write with the same investigative and writing skills as the top male bloggers (I'm excluding the two blondes who get interviewed everytime the story needs a female blogger). I put the published pundits (like Michelle Malkin) in a separate category because they've already got a track record and ran their flags up the blogpole when they saw the possibilities and the extra income.

When Hewitt talks about an "information reformation" and blogs changing the world, he isn't talking about diaries like mine, and unfortunately, he isn't talking about women in general.