update

I'm getting ready to lead a group in England for a year. I thought I should make sure this still works. More to come.

Wither Blogging

I've been contemplating the blog of late. As my sabbatical draws to a close and I prepare (eagerly!) to return to campus, the classroom, and the routine of a structured life, I've been reading some things about new media, "Web 2.0," the future of journalism, and blogs. I have more questions than answers.

The blog phenomenon has become personalized. Early on, some super-star bloggers gained large numbers of readers: Drudge, Huffington, etc. But now that blogging has gone mainstream, and anybody and everybody can have a blog, most bloggers have only a few readers, and those are largely family and close friends. Some blogs, such as this one, appear to have no audience at all!

So of what utility is the blog?

Certainly there is the instrospective "diary" aspect. Writing helps to organize thought and allows for personal reflection in ways that few other human activities allow. But if one is writing solely for oneself, a word processor fills the bill. Why write in a public space that is accessible to others -- even if the others are small in number?

The "Christmas letter" aspect of blogging is attractive. Given that only those who are interested in one's personal life will be reading, the blog allows those few to access updates on the daily life of a friend or loved one regularly. Some may use Twitter or an SNS such as Facebook for this purpose, with the blog supplementing for longer posts. This is particularly attractive for those who are engaged in something of special interest. For example, I've encouraged students who are on study abroad or other extended travel experiences to blog. This not only saves having to write the same thing in dozens of emails, but provides a lasting record for their own use after they return. The travel blog is the ideal combination of diary and Christmas letter functions.

Some of those I've read (Clay Shirky, most recently) have suggested blogs as "conversations" with other bloggers within a small circle of those with similar interests. I don't have a very good mental picture yet of how this might work, but I think it's worth exploring. A community of persons who read one another's blogs offers opportunities for some ongoing wrestling with ideas of common concern. Granted, a listserv or wiki might fulfill this function as well or better, but the blog community has the potential, at least, to be more open and inviting to those on the periphery.

My friend, Lynn Clark at Denver U. recently facebooked a link to a piece by Australian journalism instructor, Julie Posetti, which suggested the blog as an educational tool. I experimented with a class blog in Intro to Mass Media several years ago, and it didn't get off the ground. Our campus Moodle server (affectionately named "Katie" for reasons that will be obscur outside of Lutheran circles) offers a blogging function limited to those registered for a particular course. The tools are there, I just have to figure out how to employ them.

It seems to me that, even as we near two decades of the web, that we are still, to a large extent, in the place that faced the whole of the internet in the '80s and '90s, television in the '40s, radio in the '20s -- we have a tool, but nobody is quite sure how to use it. Some in the business and commercial world have learned to turn a buck with these new technologies. Educationally, however, I'm not sure we have.

Holidays

Long time, no blog. The holiday season, a publisher's deadline, a sick parent in the hospital, and general laziness have pushed the blog project lower on the list of priorities. That, and nothing has pushed my button for awhile now.

Oh yes, the economy is in the tank. Corporate greed has come back to bite us, the Bush administration has been asleep at the watch post for eight years of regulatory failure, and the administration and Congress have generally screwed up the bailout. But what good will blogging do? The best we can hope for is a new President who will slowly nudge things in the right direction. I worry that the expectations will far surpass what can possibly be accomplished by a mere mortal, but hope for a positive outcome in the first 100 days, nevertheless.

My real rant, however, is the weather. Not that blogging will improve that either, but I really do miss global warming. The Upper Midwest has been hammered again for a second year. If the pattern continues to match 2008, and we are visited once again by 500 year-level spring floods, the impact will be severe. Actually, from what I read, ten years or so of mini-Ice Age is part of the predicted pattern of global climate change. After getting cold for a decade, things will get hot again... fast. So while my back aches from shoveling snow and chipping ice, I can take heart that in a few years, when the floods have become permanent, I may be lounging in my shorts on the shore of my newly lakefront property. Perhaps then General Motors will be willing to build an affordable electric car, or we'll seriously examine bringing back passenger rail in the U.S.

So at this end of the year I look forward to better days to come -- should I live long enough to see them.

Election Night

John McCain gave a good concession speech on election night. He sounded like the old John McCain -- the one I used to respect and even thought about crossing party lines to vote for once, a long time ago. That was before he became an angry old man, bowing to the rabid Right of his party and following the very disciples of Karl Rove who trashed McCain and his family in 2000.

I was struck by the fact that when McCain first mentioned Obama in his speech, the Republican crowd booed and McCain had to settle them down (twice or three times). When Obama mentioned McCain, the crowd in Grant Park cheered. A telling difference.

If McCain had run as himself, rather than jumping on board with the far right and the Rovian advisers, he'd have been much better off. He may even have won.

But the greater loss is the damage done to our system of government by all of the hateful rumors. News reports this week tell of people flocking to gun stores to stock up on weapons, before Obama does away with the Second Amendment (Obama has publicly stated his support for gun rights). I talked to a guy this week who is convince Obama will soon form a secret police force (a la Stalin), and a woman visibly upset because al Quaeda will soon be welcomed to resume operations on U.S. soil under an Obama administration.

All of these things are absurd, and John McCain would be the first to say so. But the damage has been done. People actually believe the lies that are used as campaign fear tactics.

When you sow nastiness and hate, that's what you reap. One conciliatory speech at the end doesn't undo months of negativity.

Denmark & Germany

I got back from Europe on Wednesday evening. The jet lag is beginning to clear. The lag was rough this time around, but the trip was good.

The conference of the Association of Internet Researchers in Copenhagen went well. This organization and this conference are among the few truly international and interdisciplinary groups I've found in academia. Others claim to be international, and then 95% of those in attendance turn out to be North Americans. This one is different, and far more interesting. It's also kept intentionally small, which is a plus.

Copenhagen is a neat place (I was there once in the mid-'70s and again in the early '80s and of COURSE, nothing has changed (?)), but extremely expensive. Danes have opted out of the Euro and kept their own currency, the Krone. It's about 5 Krone to the dollar at the moment, which is a very poor rate. The dollar ain't worth crap anywhere (though I hear it's going up right now), but was particularly worthless in Denmark. A beer generally runs about $12 -- of course, that's for a half liter (a little more than 16 ounces), but still.... I did find some bargain beer for only about $5, but that's still not cheap. At least Danish beer is very good, which helps make it more of a value.

The fashion in Denmark these days is VERY short skirts and high boots. Danes also use bicycles more than cars. Women in short skirts on bicycles create interesting sight-seeing opportunities. That much was free.

Still jet-lagged at the end of a 5-day conference, I managed to oversleep and miss my flight to Berlin on Sunday. I've never missed a plane before, and this was highly embarrassing. It was also expensive, as I had to buy a train ticket and travel 8 hours with 6 changes for a trip that should have taken about an hour by plane. Danish trains are very good, and everything is both English and Danish. The German ICE trains are very fast (about 140 mph!) but the Germans are not at all patient with American dumkoffs who don't speak German.

I got to Wittenberg about 9 p.m. and crashed for the night, but spent all day Monday seeing the Luther sites. Two museums I wanted to see were closed on Mondays, but most things were open. I also got some good photos. Wittenberg is in the former East zone, and things have brightened up a lot since the '70s, but they still have a ways to go. Lots of vacant buildings in various states of disrepair. I had hoped to see Eisleben (also part of the Luther World Heritage Site) and perhaps the Wartburg Castle at Eisenach, but my missed plane excluded that.

Steve Godsall-Myers of the ELCA Wittenberg Center explained to me that the locals are perplexed about all this Lutheran stuff in the old city of Wittenberg The Communists pretty much killed religion during their time in Germany. Local people know tourists come to learn about Luther, but they don't know much about him themselves. He was presented as a political figure during the Communist era, who rebelled against foreign taxation. A Russian military cemetery is across the road from the Castle Church where Luther is buried. Interesting contrast.

Returning home, the market is down, Obama's numbers are up, and I've got tons of stuff to do. Best get to it.

Sabbatical

"Academic leave," commonly called "sabbatical."

Everyone offers congratulations on the sabbatical. It's supposed to be a high honor. Actually, it's a lot like being back in grad school, slaving on a dissertation all over again. The writing requirement hangs over one's head like a pall. I was missing being in the classroom before classes even started. If nothing else, academic leave strengthens one's vocation for teaching.

Some people do fun things and travel to exotic places for sabbatical. That was not possible for me for a variety of personal and family reasons. So perhaps some of the problem is that I'm not terribly excited about my project in the first place. It's something that must be done. A chore. A necessary step on the road to (hopefully) promotion someday. Bad idea.

Summer is over and the project has officially begun. At least the writer's block and procrastination passed during the summer months. Now, on to the project. But I'd still rather be teaching.