So here’s another thing about blogging: it forces you to stay informed about whatever it is you’re writing about. Writing about politics almost every day, the way I did, I had to research all kinds of things in order to keep ahead of my commentors who, it can safely be said, were nit-picky ideologues largely blind to reality. (Present company excluded, mostly.) I got to the point where I knew what they were going to argue, and I adjusted my research and writing to head them off.
So today, a week post-blog, I had lunch with a friend of mine with whom I regularly argue politics, and he brought up an obscure aspect of the Chrysler bankruptcy having to do with who gets what priority in a bankruptcy, and he said something that every instinct I’ve got says was wrong. (And I’ve got pretty good bankruptcy instincts, having ushered a couple of companies through the process.) But I didn’t know that what he was saying was wrong, because I hadn’t heard the argument and researched it, which I would have if I were still blogging.
So there I was, unsure of the facts in a way I haven’t been in years. In that moment I understood something about the value of blogging I hadn’t before.
Facts? We ain’t got no facts. Bloggers don’t need no facts! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ facts!
So here’s another thing about blogging: it forces you to stay informed about whatever it is you’re writing about. Writing about politics almost every day, the way I did, I had to research all kinds of things in order to keep ahead of my commentors who, it can safely be said, were nit-picky ideologues largely blind to reality. (Present company excluded, mostly.) I got to the point where I knew what they were going to argue, and I adjusted my research and writing to head them off.
So today, a week post-blog, I had lunch with a friend of mine with whom I regularly argue politics, and he brought up an obscure aspect of the Chrysler bankruptcy having to do with who gets what priority in a bankruptcy, and he said something that every instinct I’ve got says was wrong. (And I’ve got pretty good bankruptcy instincts, having ushered a couple of companies through the process.) But I didn’t know that what he was saying was wrong, because I hadn’t heard the argument and researched it, which I would have if I were still blogging.
So there I was, unsure of the facts in a way I haven’t been in years. In that moment I understood something about the value of blogging I hadn’t before.
Facts? We ain’t got no facts. Bloggers don’t need no facts! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ facts!
Fact you, fact hole.