Hi Kari....The experience is actually quite good. You folks started this as a way to "gather round the water cooler" and in my estimation you've done well. There are a score of thoughtful discussions conducted politely. The posts and responses remain understandable and discussable. Even the [few] curmudgeons seem restrained. Is there a danger in losing this intimacy by adding more bells and whistles ? Perhaps you might consider letting the stew simmer for a while.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

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I was thinking exactly opposite. Two or three short months, whatever it has been, of BlueOregon has been a breakneck ride on the internet tsunami, or torrent, or whatever it is. It just don't stop. On an individual website, such as this one, that one, pick one, new posts pile on top and push down older posts before I'm done discussing and seeing others' comments. People don't seem to multi-post process -- an idea comes up, they say the first thing they think of, and they're done with it ready for the next sortie and if there is idle time before the next post comes along, they too often use it to slander taunt torque twist argue wheeze contradict or jibe whoever else sets out a comment. Instead of following half-or-a-dozen posts at the same time, up and down the stack, sampling the commentaria.

But even this description is wrong as soon as it's posted. It's not like that on this blog. But it is so. By spells. It seems to run in a weekly spurt cycle, with a flood Fri and Sat when everyone is off work. Some weeks have been more quibbley and some weeks have run less quibbley. Also, the tone shifts with news of events of the world. Like, Randy went ga-ga poetic over a picture of a volcano for petessake. (Me too :-)

It's like that, (squabbling back 'n' forth comments) on a lot of websites, some with clear rhythms and some just plain chaos. There's a lot of blogs and sites out there, a lot. And then there is the churn and extension of all of them collectively. Maybe the 'psychology of the web' or whatever you call it, when all the blogs together seem to make a coordinated turn, like a school of fish or a flock of birds. It's a feeling of 'the whole internet' advanced a new development. Like Wireless Markup Language. Of course it is not "all" the blogs -- some never change, some never stop changing and establish a base to begin with.

Vaguely expressed here, but the process really exists out there. And it has been that wider 'internet sea-change' that seems to be what's propelling the "breakneck ride" feeling, not anything in any one blog that's doing it. Indeed, here it looks like "bells and whistles."

Anyway, I had been thinking about ideas to 'sculpt' BlueOregon blog in real-time, while it's moving, and I've got some to share. I'm in a dither not knowing where to start and not knowing where to find the time for it. Which is a big dither to solve for everyone -- who has time for blogging?

And just as I get a handle on what I'm going to write first and when I'm going to write it ... ka-POW, somebody tromps on the gas and the whole internet lurches off in a new direction, infatuation, bells and whistles gee whiz Mr. Science.

So, here, now, it's email me my BlueOregon. What won't they think of next. I don't KNOW whether it's a good idea or not, there isn't any time to think about it. Leave it available and I can decide later. If I don't decide immediately, is it taken away as an option? Can I turn it off if I turn it on? Who knows? Gut check and go.

So the latest thing, since the first debate last week, (speaking of politics), is the way the blog masses derailed, or dethroned, the old cable TV monopoly on spinning politics or political moves. Cable TV talking pundits are not ceding this development quickly. The bloggers have already run right over them, though, and are half-a-league, half-a-league, half-a-league onward, down the road of progress, gut checked and gone. But it happened, I 'felt' it, just in the words that flew everywhere on the net the morning after the debate.

So, I said all that as a set-up so I could say this: Among a bunch of voices who started saying the same thing I was thinking -- the internet has broken the back of the cable TV 24/7 news channel monopoly, the internet is not leading politics anywhere, (yet), it simply stopped politics' old way of going -- several of us tried to express it in a short sticky meme and one blog blurted out the winner. (Winner for a day, that is.) On the MotherJones.com blog, the best caption for the tipping point when internet 'news' overpowered cable TV 'news', -- ta-da: Spam beats spin.

So maybe more email is a good thing ...

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