The Razor and the Blogosphere
I just stopped by Den Beste’s site. As some of you may know, he has given up on blogging, which is fine with me as long as he takes up writing articles and books. Steven Den Beste has the rare ability of explaining complex scientific phenomena and showing how it relates to everyday life. He replaced a void in my life left by the death of Stephen Jay Gould, who himself replaced the great Carl Sagan. However for whatever reason he has decided to give up on the blogosphere.
I can’t say I blame him. He wrote that he felt USS Clueless was becoming a chore, and given his readership which numbered at its height hundreds of thousands, it must have felt like one helluva chore. I’ll admit that I’ve been plugging away at The Razor for 3 years now and have yet to enjoy similar success, and do succumb to the occasional “I’m writing for the Void”, but nevertheless come running back to write and sort my thoughts out on something that interests me.
I feel similarly about Day By Day. It has been on hiatus for six months just as it was about to hit the big time. Chris Muir called off the strip for reasons of a “family crisis”. The good news is that there is announcement saying that the strip will be back Dec 1. Has the Kerry campaign kidnapped his cocker spaniel and threatened to feed it to a hundred hungry squirrels unless he stopped the thoughtful – and Right-leaning – comic? Only Chris knows and he’s not talking (Don’t worry, Chris: Sparky will be back soon). Nevertheless I’ll be happy to see the misadventures of the Day By Day crew back on my monitor at work soon.
Like anything else, the blogosphere is changing. In some ways it’s good: we have seen the rise of Dean Esmay’s Dean’s World - which is hands down my favorite blog out there. We’ve also seen the humor of Allahpundit (who hasn’t posted in 9 days, hmmm…), as well as the power of the blogosphere to uncover an “institutional lie” (Rathergate). In some ways it is bad though: Instapundit has consolidated it’s hold as the “homepage” of the blogosphere. Andrew Sullivan has lost his senses. There has definitely been a big die-off over the past years of blogs, many of which appeared soon after Sept 11. Call it a DenBestian extinction after an Instapunditian Boom.
So we live in a blogosphere that has changed alot over the past few years. The Razor remains a part of that blogosphere, for whatever it’s worth – and it is worth alot to me. It is my mouth that allows me to scream at the world, and while it may not change it, who knows? Maybe, just maybe, it will.
I wanted to write something about The Razor’s 3rd anniversary, so I guess this is it.
