Someone is Wrong on the Internet AGAIN--and this time it's ERIC BOEHLERT!

Here's a great one: Glenn Greenwald talks to Erich Boehlert about Eric's new book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press. Boehlert has, for about the million-zillionth time, his finger on the pulse, and I'm sure to be taking a look at this book. His Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush is about as close to a tearjerker as any extremely detailed account of press coverage can be.

But! Right there in the middle of the conversation, Boehlert claims that until a couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post had never written a feature on a liberal blogger. Now, I would normally trust Eric to have it right, but in this case I've got to say it: Eric, Eric, Eric . . . where were you in the summer of 2005? How did you miss our own Barbara O'Brien, the Mahablogist and author of our own Blogging America: Political Discourse in a Digital Nation, right there on the cover of the Washington Post Magazine of July 17, 2005, in a feature written by David von Drehle? By my count, that means the Post actually featured a liberal blogger about four years ago.

Oh well, I assume we can trust Glenn Greenwald, anyway, when he signs off saying, "Well, Eric, you've written obviously one of the first books, and I think one of the best books on what political blogs are and what they do." Except Eric's book comes out five years after Barbara's (and Dan Gillmor's, for that matter). Perhaps, though, Glenn's half right. I certainly wouldn't put it past Mr. Boehlert to write one of the best books on just about anything.

UPDATE: You can find the comic featured here, and lots and lots of other good ones, at XKCD.

How blogging ended the newspaper industry

Or not, as explained perfectly by Allison Hantschel.

Also on this topic, please refer to John Nichols and Robert McChesney, two of this country's greatest media know-it-alls.

Linda Sawaya Live

Locals will want to note two great events coming up with Linda Sawaya, TV star and author of Alice's Kitchen:

1. Wednesday, March 4, from 4 to 7 pm at

Bale's Thriftway 12675 NW Cornell Road, Portland

A Lebanese cooking demonstration will focus on vegetarian

recipes for Lent.

2. Lebanese cooking demo at the Better Living Show at the Expo Center at the end of March, at the NW Natural Cooking stage . . . more details to follow.

Linda in person is every bit as wonderful as her cookbook, and both of these events will undoubtedly satisfy the soul as well as the palate.

Blogs make it to print, but not finally

In late 2003, I contacted Barbara O'Brien about an idea I'd had percolating for some time--an idea that Sarah Boxer would call "dreadful" (and David Kamp would disagree)--to assemble blog postings, specifically political blog postings, into a book. Barbara's book Blogging America (July 2004) was one of the first anthologies of blogs in print (the first is credited to Tony Pierce's Blook of 2002), to which which Barbara generously added much original material and commentary. Back then, I called it "editing the internet," and I perceived this as the Next Big Thing in publishing.

It did not (and still does not) make sense to me that there is naturally one world of content available on the web sitting beside another world of content available in print. Six years ago the overlap was fairly limited, though, and so the growth potential seemed enormous. Some months later, in May 2005, my own collection--call it my homage to Donald Rumsfeld--was published. In the crucial nine months between these two books, blogs had hit a tipping point, and the day that Untidy: The Blogs on Rumsfeld was published was also the day that The Huffington Post went online, and there was no looking back--bloggers had big-time readership in an instant. Other web-based news sites with original content inevitably took hold.

With blogs now firmly in American (and the World) psyche, an idea brought up by John Emerson in September 2006 will come to pass, and blogs will have their own national tabloid, The Printed Blog, as highlighted in this NYT article. Next Tuesday (1/27/09) will be a new day in bringing blog posts to print. Of course, I approve.

More on Obama's inaugural address

Listening to Mark Liberman's discussion on The World, I was struck by his declaration that Obama's "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," saying that it may become a historical moment of speechifying if, indeed, America does pick itself up, dust itself off, and begin the work of remaking itself.

Geoff Nunberg at Language Log singles out this phrase as a source of inspiration and an allusion to Jerome Kern's great tune, sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Swingtime. You can click on the link to his post to see Fred and Ginger do it in the movie. That version remains the standard, naturally, but here's another good one by Diana Krall:



But what are we picking ourselves up from? If Obama continues to hark back to classic Americana in his speeches, perhaps we can start to forget moments like these from the president who preceded him:



Maybe there is hope after all.

Mark Liberman saves The World!

Well, he didn't actually save it--it was a pretty good show anyway, but there was Mark Liberman on The World discussing Barack Obama's inauguration speech. Everyone knows Mark Liberman is co-author of our own Far from the Madding Gerund and co-founder of Language Log, but did you know Barack Obama is the current president of the United States? It's true.

You'll be hearing more about Barack Obama in the months and years to come, now that he's the president and all. For now you can listen to Mark Liberman on BBC's The World here. And those on the go can download it here.