Like a good blogger, I will use them as blogfodder. If anyone wants to answer the questions and forward them to Mr. Beutler, feel free. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about another political blog roundup -- at some point someone will realize that the loudest section of the blogosphere is surrounded by all these really interesting quiet sections -- nor about the idea of having an entry in a wiki, but what the heck.
1. What is your name, or blogging pseudonym?
Ahistoricality. You can find a discussion of my pseudonymity here
2. If it is a group blog, how many contributors does it have?
It is not; here, I blog alone.
3. If you can say, what do you do for a living, and what is your
background?
What have I already revealed? I'm an academic, educated at some very fine schools and at the feet of some extraordinary bloggers. Other than that, I can only refer you to My self-reported self-test and meme page
4. Where do you live, and/or have you lived since you started blogging?
I blog at home and at work. Sometimes on the road. I hate moving.
5. When did you start this blog?
November 7th, 2004.
6. What do you generally write about?
Politics, culture (especially great quotations), internet quizzes, politics, blog carnivals, technology and politics.
7. Do you state political opinions on this blog? If so, what are the
political leaning[s] of this blog?
Oh, absolutely. Well, according to internet quizzes -- which are rarely wrong -- I'm a socialist or social democrat, also known as an old school Democrat. I don't really like political labels all that much, mostly because I hate people telling me what I should think or what I do think without asking me.
8. Is there any objectionable content -- i.e. R-Rated -- on the site?
I've used a naughty word or two. That's about it, I think.
9. Do you consider yourself part of any communities along the lines of "Blogs for Bush" or the "Reality-Based Community"? Or any similar self-selected blog community?
I certainly have affinities for some of them, but decided a long time ago that joining organizations over which I had little or now control was a bad idea. Once they reach a certain size, they become symbolic but not powerful; small ones are hard to manage. I've been known to promote a petition or take a pledge or blog a day, but not to "brand" myself.
10. Are there any notable events, incidents or blog posts that an encyclopedia entry about your blog absolutely must include?
- Blog Against Disabilism Day: The Seeing Spouse was one of my best received posts.
- The Carnival of Bad History was one of my most successful posts ever in terms of traffic and raising my profile among smart bloggers.
- The DiagonAlley v. Ahistoricality blogwar was exciting.
- My Comments Policy has gotten quite a bit of notice, as well.
- I think this question should include "regular features or series": Thursday Verses, my dormant quotations collection.
- And I was proud of my Hypocrisy Watch index during the Terry Schiavo debacle, a theme that's come up again and again here.
- Probably my funniest post: The Diet of Penguins. It's also a spam magnet, for obvious reasons.
11. Would you say this blog is predominantly about politics or do you think it belongs more to another blog community?
A good deal of what I blog about here is politics, but a good deal isn't. Lots of times this really does serve as an old fashioned Web Log: a list of links I've been reading and finding interesting.
I don't know that it's a community, as such, but I've gotten involved in promoting and contributing to quite a few of the blog carnivals listed on my sidebar: Skeptics, Feminists, Satire and History are the front-runners.
12. Do you blog at any other sites, or are there any other blogs this one is close to?
Yes, I blog elsewhere, but there's little crossover. I have an excellent blogging relationship with Anne Zook, and Ralph Luker got me started and is a tireless inspiration. Mr. Jones and I disagree on many things, and we've been doing so productively for a long time.
4 comments:
Hi, William Beutler here. Blogopedia is certainly fair game as blogfodder, and I got the answers I was looking for. The site won't be a round-up (at least as compared to Memeorandum, Blogopedia, LeftyBlogs) and more of a resource -- and I definitely am going into the quieter, more interesting neighborhoods.
Also: I'm not going absolutely in alphabetical order, but the A-name still counts.
Thanks again
PK, Blogger Neophyte here. I truly was captivated [yes, as a former English major and professional editor I can tell you that the adverb "truly" truly can be placed here and still maintain grammatically sacrosanct]by both the questions and the answer related to the use of a blog pseudonym. I've been debating this in my head for the last week or so (the age of my blog). On the one hand, my ego cries out for broadcast; decorum and fear and a little bit of persona adventurism says, "Go with the pseudonym." Plus a little common sense. Last night I blogged somewhat anonymously with respect to a locally risky subject. But, as you yourself related, if someone wanted to, he or she could figure it all out very easily. I was about to criticize you for letting fear of publicity cause you to cloak your identity, as if this were related only to the academic world. Then I checked myself. What about me, eh?
I digress.
I must confess I came to your site via one word: Kierkegaard.
"I Leap for Kierkegaard."
Today I rediscovered an absolutely lovely S.K. quote that I first encountered in early sobriety: "...to be anxious for the next day is covetousness." [from Christian Discourses, Etc., Lowrie translation] Also: "One who rows a boat turns his back to the goal toward which he labours. So it is with the next day." Talk about understanding the concept of "one day at a time"!
Mr. Beutler: Sorry, I was going to e-mail you the responses, too, but you found me first. It's not a bad exercise; I've been meaning to put together a "best of" index anyway, so this is a good start. I'll be very interested to see how the project develops.
PK: The advantage of a pseudonym is that you can always say "hey, my real name is XZY" to individuals or "out loud" on the blog. Once you start under your own name, you're pretty well stuck with it, unless you abandon the project and create a new one (I know of at least one blogger who's done that five or six times that I know of: relentlessly creative, but lousy follow-through).
Kierkegaard is one of my favorite Christian theologians, and believe me, that's a very short list....
Ahistoricality -- Not a problem; I expect a lot more people to blog my correspondence. And glad to be of some help.
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