So I’m blogging now, and I’m single. What’s the first thing you do before a first date? You google the guy, of course. This can make it harder to make up an impressive backstory for yourself, since the guy is going to be doing the same to you.

But... what if some internet company could do it for you? For a fee, they could spontaneously create 10 to 20 blogs that just happen to mention you from time to time. Most of the posts would laud your intelligence and try to retell your latest anecdotes (of course, with the disclaimer, that you really had to hear it for yourself; your charisma is part of the telling.) A few blogs would recount how you broke someone’s heart, but that you are still friends. Others would allude, tastefully, to your sexual prowess.

And just to add that touch of realism, a few blogs would claim that you’re a total jerk.

Of course, the blogs would have to have all sorts of other entries about the events of the day, so that people would believe that they are real. Autopunditry.

Ok, never mind. I’m out to go Cruise for Dean.

 Alas a Blog links to Mother Goose Rocks. Who knew?  

 Frogs and Ravens writes,

I did think about going back to my old journals from grad school and comparing my observations then with my sense of it now. My thought is that it would help me make more sense of what the experience was like, and to reflect on the stories I want to tell myself about my life and self as a scholar and historian. Unfortunately, those particular years seem to be stored at my parents' and thus inaccessible. It would be an interesting exercise, though, so maybe I'll try to visit my parents at home this summer (if I can afford it) and dig through the boxes in the garage.

Sometimes it’s nice to have things left at your parents. And not to look at them for a long, long, time.

(Also, hey, what’s with your permalinks?)

 God, how did I miss the sign-up for the vast left-wing conspiracy? Do I always just show up too late and have to sign up for the worst events?

Seriously, is this what we have to do to get rid of Bush? Do we have any hard-working elves out there? Or are we just too damn nice?

 Nice post from the Stop Bush in 04 blog:

The result has been a poisoning of the public political discourse in the US; one that has yet to be understood by Democrats and others who shrug off wingnut radio and cable as harmless "entertainment" for the unwashed (i.e.: angry white male) demographic. More important than the ugly character assassination, lies and unchallenged assumptions of the genre is the fact that the substance, tone and daily message of the "shows" are driven not by the creative efforts and half-full-to-empty heads of the ideologues in front of the microphones, but rather by Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee.

Those chemical weapon “mobile factories” found in Iraq -- it turns out, were actually balloon factories. Thank god we took those out of commission.

Where has the Invisible Adjunct gone? 404?

I had no idea the push for gay marriage was not actually started by gay activists. According to this piece in the Boston Globe,  

Ironically, American lesbian and gay activists didn't choose marriage as an issue; marriage was thrust upon them. Although isolated same-sex couples sought to marry as far back as 1970, the organized lesbian- and gay-rights movement opposed pushing for marriage; some thought it too conventional a goal, while others thought it dangerously out of reach...

Then, in May 1993, while the rest of the country was debating Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Hawaii Supreme Court declared that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples amounted to sex discrimination. In response, the religious right barnstormed the nation warning against ''gay marriage''-with an odd result. For both straight and gay folks, the phrase was transformed from an oxymoron into a real possibility.

To the surprise of many longtime activists, the issue brought mainstream lesbians and gay men out in droves.

Odd to think that two of the most visible gay rights issues of the past decade were not originally high priorities for gay and lesbian political activists. The whole Don’t Ask Don’t Tell fiasco was the result of an offhand, apparently unplanned comment from Bill Clinton; gay marriage was in part due to conservative activist trying to “protect” marriage from gays even before it had been brought up as a major issue.

 I really need to give more thought to my choice in shoes…

Some people look at the Puma Blowjob Ads and see a harmless, if entertaining, bit of fluff. Then there are...
[The Minor Fall, The Major Lift]

This post from Frogs and Ravens really struck a nerve. I’ve been reading a lot of blogs of “postacademic” people, or people who are pre-postacademic. Frog writes,

Well, no. First, most academic research of the type I enjoy takes place, well, in academe, so to be cast out of it reduces those opportunities (as far as I can tell, with my limited experience). But here's the catch-22: in order to be in academe, I need to be a member of the faculty, but my experiences have positioned me as a teaching-line faculty, not a researcher/post-doc!

 Research, yeah, that was the draw for me as well. God help me but I’ve been reading academic journals now, and am starting to buy books from university’s presses again. I keep wondering “to what end?” I’ve toyed with the idea of continuing some academic research projects, but it just seems so incongruous with the rest of my life now.

Update: there seems to be some problem with froggy permalinks.

Facing the usual issues about starting blogs. First of all, of course, why bother? I recently read the article about scholar blogs in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and felt a lot of nostalgia. Just a few years back I was working on a PhD in comparative literature at Stanford. I got caught up in the high tech boom and now I work in software development. Hard for that not to happen, living right in the middle of the revolution, trying to get by on a student stipend. So though blogs I’ve been peeking into the life of grad students, to a very different Stanford, and feeling a kind of envy for the blog community that wasn’t there when I was a student. Even tales of picnics in the humanities center.  

Update: Those must have been really cool shoes...

Update: I must see those shoes. Post a link or something.

 Doc Searls writes very approvingly of Howard Dean’s blog. Howard Dean takes notice of Doc Searls taking notice. And I hate to admit it, but I had no idea that Howard Dean blogged. Hey, I was only indoctrinated just last week.