Wednesday, December 01, 2004
 yes it was very nice of the instapundit to link to my book last night. November 30, 2004
BACK BEFORE THE ELECTION, Tony Pierce was a bit, er, uncharitable where I was concerned. But that won't stop me from mentioning his new book. I haven't read it, but I liked the last one.
I got interviewed by a reporter who's doing a story on blogs and the election, and who seemed anxious to gin up more conflict between me and Jeff Jarvis than I thought was really there. I do think that a few people got a bit excited for a while. But I see blogs as intensely personal. And just as you'd forgive a friend or relative a bit of overexcitability on a key subject or two, I think you should do the same with fellow-bloggers.
posted at 11:17 PM by Glenn Reynolds and i would hate to appear uncharitable about his post but, well, ive never pretended to be a fine southern gentleman of refined sensibilities
who tells people to sod off and then calls them uncharitable after the dust has settled. un·char·i·ta·ble ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-chr-t-bl)
adj.
Exhibiting no charity or generosity.
Unfair or unkind: uncharitable remarks. if i remember clearly the issue was that i had some criticism about glenn's blog, and i said so in a manner that i considered fair.
when i debated those criticisms in both jeff jarvis's comments, and mine, i was always polite toward glenn even when others simply wrote him off as being a right wing tool.
i suggested the glenn could easily dispell any future criticism if he simply wrote a disclaimer saying, among other things, that he was not a news service, he was indeed biased, and he is a republican.
the debate that day rose to the point that glenn wrote a post about it and indeed created a three-point disclaimer that included his admission to favoring the president in the upcoming election, that he was of course a biased human being, and was as slanted as some other fine websites.
his third point of the disclaimer was "3. If this bothers you, please sod off and go read Atrios or Kos."
i had a few minutes to kill while waiting for a ride to the subway stop so i wrote 15 other points that i would have liked to have seen him add to his disclaimer.
i thought it was funny.
the washington post thought it was worthy of quoting almost in its entirety.
me, i think it's far less charitable to ignore people. i think the worst thing you can do to someone is turn your back on them.
 instapundit.com is a fine blog. glenn reynolds is a perfectly nice man. does he play the role of a lawyer in the way that he links to blogs and stories (only linking/mentioning pro-bush points)? of course.
is he still more biased than even matt drudge? sadly yes.
so am i being uncharitable when i say, hey the pundit has no pajamas?
am i crazy to think, hell no?
the way i see it most of blogging is criticizing. some of it is thinking up solutions, but most of it is saying things like, rather got it wrong, bush is a failure.
what was different about this criticism to the instapundit is that i wasnt some raving lefty who was all, instapundit = hitler. i was someone saying that i read the instapundit every day just like hundreds of thousands of other people, and im not arguing about his politics, i just dont like the fact that he is so obviously biased yet pretends not to be.
period.
if i truly had malice towards prof reynolds i would have either picked apart each of his posts during the week in question
or i would have totally ignored him.
the last thing i would have done was offer some friendly blogger advice. peer to peer, as it were.
and yes, one who gets a fraction of another's hits is still a peer, simply for the fact that we have each posted several times a day for years.
the idea of constructive criticism is to help others become better. i have received a lot of constructive criticism over the years and i accepted some of it into practice.
to ask a law professor to consider presenting both sides with a little more frequency, i still dont think is too much to ask for. similarily i still dont think that it is in glenn's best interest to be more biased and slanted than drudge.
rush & hannity have made a living off of it but i seriously doubt that the blogfather is interested in going down that path any further than he already has.
or does he?
maybe one day he will humor me with an instant message interview and we can go over some of this and talk about blogging in general. i think most people who catch me online or through email know that i can be far more charitable than they expect.
and i do appreciate glenn linking to my book.
that was very nice.
and it was nice of him to say he liked the last one.
(this one is better)
today's shave your pussy day + aaron made the new header + marc canter
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