Time Immortal

Jay Currie writes in with a comment about this article.

My born again virginity will come as a bit of a surprise to my three boys…

These guys can’t even be funny without being cliched.

Jay

That’s one other thing that I didn’t bother to mention in my article, but which is worth commenting on, because the comments of Scott Reid and Andrew Potter demonstrate that they — and much of the media, of which they are representative — are rather alarmingly out of touch with the concept of blogging, its fast pace, and its methods.

The dismissal of bloggers as basement-dwelling, laptop-wielding, mouth-breathing virgins is just a charicature, and then not a very accurate one. One recalls how Andrew Coyne live-blogged the Mark Steyn/Maclean’s “trial” in front of the BCHRT — at times from his BlackBerry (I also submit that Coyne is probably not a “mouth breather,” likely not a “basement dweller,” and almost assuredly not a “virgin”). My own blog, in like manner to Twitter, is set up to receive blog posts from my cell phone, just in case I’m on the road and have something to post. As yet, that hasn’t happened…but hey, I was a Scout: Be Prepared! (Shut up, Scar from The Lion King…)

Yes, many bloggers use their laptops, but not all of them do. As mentioned, I do about 90% of my blogging from a desktop PC (and then one that is not situated in a basement). Realistically, I do almost all of my blogging from whatever computer my USB key full of portable applications is plugged into, be that a laptop or a desktop.

Other bloggers I know use email to post messages to their sites (I do that at times as well), and it’s even possible to blog from one’s iPod these days, what with the advent of the Web-capable iPod Touch (the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The iPhone“). If one has a cell phone, one can blog, from anywhere one gets reception…and many people do just that. Hence mo-blogging plugins for e.g. Wordpress. Hence Twitter.

Speaking of iPods:

And then we get into the business side of things. Some bloggers can almost live off of the money they bring in due to advertising on their blogs (sadly, I do not fit into this category either), and many have at least turned their site into a source of supplemental revenue. That takes at least a measure of business savvy. Companies like Amazon.com add to a blogger’s ability to generate revenue, by offering “affiliate”-type programs which award revenue-generating links with a percentage commission of resultant sales.

In short, blogging is not the realm of pimply-faced basement dwellers; the most successful bloggers are, in many respects, the exact inverse of that sort of person. And more generally, bloggers are “everymen” (and “everywomen”). They are married…or single. They live alone…or with someone. That someone might be their parents, but is more likely a roommate, or a spouse. They might use a laptop…or they might use any other piece of Web-enabled technology. They might be funny…or serious. They might have kids…or not. They might be virgins…but most probably aren’t. They might be religious…or they might not be. If they met each other on the street, they’d probably strike each other as…normal people, going about their respective lives. They might hit it off and have a beer, or they might not ever notice each other at all.

I think it’s these last points that really terrify the media, that scare the likes of Reid and Potter. In their day, these men would have been the voices of national opinion, and would have been the people to whom others looked when attempting to form their own opinions. When all there was to spread the news was the print media, radio, and television (all fields which it is not easy to get into), such men as Potter and Reid would have been near-kings, and powerful to a certain extent.

Now?

Well…not so much. Now anybody who wants to can articulate his or her opinion and have that opinion read by people as far as half a world away. (Time Immortal’s top five visiting countries are, in order, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Sweden.) And other people, who agree or disagree with that opinion, can respond, sharing their agreement or disagreement with the writer through the use of comments forms or contact pages. Massive, sweeping dialogues can occur, opinions can be formed, shared, dissected, and re-shaped, and real-world changes can occur…without anyone having to do anything so old-fashioned as picking up a newspaper, reading an article therein, and firing off a letter to the editor.

And that, I think, must just burn Andrew Potter’s ass.

But he doesn’t understand this “new media.” And when he tries to insult it, he comes off sounding…well…every bit as lame and as old-fashioned as many bloggers tend to think that the print media actually is.

The manufactured “scandal” resulting from this? Sarah Palin sometimes uses her personal email account for state business. ZOMG!!!!!one111!!five! Clearly, she’s dishonest and can’t be trusted with the Vice Presidential office!

Democrat supporters have absolutely no consistency. First, they mock John McCain for his inability to use email¹. Now, they’re attacking Palin for being too email savvy? Which one is it, children?

The tech-savvy governor has one [BlackBerry] (which allow users to read and send e-mails) for state business, another for personal matters, but those worlds intertwine.

Palin routinely uses a private e-mail account to conduct state business. Others in the governor’s office sometimes use personal e-mail accounts too.

Shocking, I tell you. Government workers with personal email accounts? How very frightening? Is there no end to the corruption of this Republican VP nominee?

The practice raises questions about backdoor secrecy in an administration that vowed during the 2006 campaign to be “open and transparent.”

Even before the McCain campaign plucked Palin from Alaska, a controversy was brewing over e-mails in the governor’s office. Was the administration trying to get around the public records law through broad exemptions or private e-mail accounts?

Activists, still fighting to obtain hundreds of e-mails that were withheld from public records requests earlier this year, say that’s what it looks like.

Yes, it’s all secrets and conspiracy, isn’t it?

Or could it just be that Palin takes her job…y’know…seriously? Could it be that she sometimes uses her personal account for state business because she is a 24/7 kind of governor, even when she leaves the “work” Blackberry at home for some reason? Is it even wrong to use a personal email account for work-related correspondence? If so, then I suppose that me and pretty much everyone I’ve ever worked with should be hauled before our respective managers, shouldn’t we?

I get that the Left and the media (but I do repeat myself) are trying to dig up something — anything — with which to crucify Palin. But let’s remember what has happened here: someone has hacked Palin’s private email account, and has shared its contents with the world. That’s a federal crime, last time I checked…and one could argue that the various news agencies picking up this story in any kind of detail are complicit in that crime. This is what it has come to: so desperate are the Democrats for anything to use against Palin that they will even accept, as resources in that fight, the ill-gotten spoils of illegal activities by their supporters.

There’s your “hope” and “change” right there, methinks.

Personally, I find it reassuring that Palin isn’t above using her personal email account for business purposes. It’s just…practical. I mean, it’s all well and good that correspondence comes to one’s BlackBerry…if one brings the BlackBerry along. But there are things that a BlackBerry isn’t as well-suited to doing, and that includes viewing and printing documents.

And there’s a question to be asked here: when an employee of the Alaskan government is away from the office, is there some manner of web-based portal which that employee can use to access his or her email online? And if not, then doesn’t it make even more sense for Palin to sometimes route work-related messages through her Yahoo! account (for example: to receive important attachments)?

Update: The hacker may have been identified.

The son of state Rep. Mike Kernell has been contacted by authorities in connection with a probe into the hacking of personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Kernell told The Tennessean.

Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, said his 20-year-old son David had been contacted by authorities investigating the hacking of Palin’s personal e-mail account, the newspaper reported on its Web site this afternoon.

The FBI and the Secret Service started a formal investigation Wednesday into the hacking, according to the Associated Press.

Well, doesn’t that just figure: the hacker is the son of a Democrat politician.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!