Billmon nails it!!

This is so right on. Thanks to Bill C. of thoughts . . .  and

American Samizdat  for the pointer to this LA Times piece (you'll need a

free subscription) by Billmon,

Blogging Sells, and Sells Out - http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-billmon26sep26,1,72

45002.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary. Clips:

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Even as it collectively achieves celebrity status for its

anti-establishment views, blogging is already being domesticated by its success. What

began as a spontaneous eruption of populist creativity is on the verge of being absorbed

by the media-industrial complex it claims to despise.

In the process, a

charmed circle of bloggers — those glib enough and ideologically safe enough to fit

within the conventional media punditocracy — is gaining larger audiences and greater

influence. But the passion and energy that made blogging such a potent alternative to

the corporate-owned media are in danger of being lost, or driven back to the outer

fringes of the Internet.

There's ample precedent for this. America has always

had a knack for absorbing, and taming, its cultural revolutionaries. The rise and long,

sad fall of rock 'n' roll is probably the most egregious example, while the music

industry's colonization of rap is a more recent one.

When I say blogging is

headed for a kind of commercialized senility, I'm talking primarily about political

blogs — those that have, or claim to have, something to say about government, economics,

foreign policy, etc. Not surprisingly, these are the blogs most likely to show up on the

media's radar screen . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Be at

peace