Yep. We got out of the house last night and blew some of the stink off.

You're shocked, right? I know. I know. We never leave this place. We're pathetic. We fully realize this and will be trying to remedy this in the coming months. Anyway, we made a start last night when we meandered down to Keegan's to attend the MOB Bash.

It was quite the experience.

I finally got to meet my wing man and his lovely wife. Gary, very chivalrously I thought, ignored the rudeness of my demand that he buy me a drink and bought me one anyway. Sweet man with a sweet wife, who I might add, does something that I could never do: she homeschools their three kids. Even better, though, she enthusiastically said, "it's fun." My hat's off. They disappeared before I could say goodbye, but it was very nice to finally meet Gary, even though he pointed out that he's very disappointed with me for this post.

As Keegan's was packed to the brim with bloggers (even a few who were liveblogging the event), it was kind of hard not to meet people. I was very fortunate to add Douglas of Belief Seeking Understanding, John of The First Ring (the other fellow Cake Eater City resident present at the party) Noodles of The People's Republic of Minnesota, Ellen of Mama Ellen and her husband Doug of Bogus Gold, the very enjoyable Cathy from Cathy In The Wright and Jordan from Jo's Attic (both of whom, very bravely, showed up in their jammies) to my acquaintance. I also was pleased to meet Flash from Centrisity, one of the few liberal bloggers amidst the the hordes of conservatives, Mitch Berg from Shot in the Dark, and two out of the four Fraters, Chad and Saint Paul.

There were, according to Mitch, lots of political and media movers and shakers there. I didn't meet any of them. Apparently I don't rate and that's just fine with me. Although, I did recognize local Republican activist/consultant Sarah Janacek, but that's only because she's on the news regularly. As far as the media people were concerned, well, I did meet Mischke's producer, who was a very nice guy and who doesn't deserve the fate of me not remembering his name. Sorry. I also met Bob Davis' producer, Kodiak. Scott Johnson from Powerline was there, too, and created quite the stir when he entered, but he was surrounded from the moment he entered Keegan's and there wasn't any opportunity for causal chit-chat, so I didn't meet him.

And just because I know those of you who don't live here are curious, yes, Lileks was in attendance. Gary, very wisely, brought his copies of Lileks' books along with him and got them signed. Gary said something about them going up on Ebay today, so you might want to check. (And, yes, he was joking. He's not giving up those suckers for love nor money.) So, did I meet the great man? you ask.

Nope.

All evening long I stood no further than ten feet away from Lileks. Could I work up the courage to chat with the man? Nope. I am the world's biggest chicken. I don't know exactly what it is about talking with people I admire: I freak out, then I freeze up. I don't want to sound like a blathering idiot, or clam up so I generally just avoid the situation entirely and dodge and duck around like a dolt. The husband has no fear, however, and went up and chatted with him. Of course, he had the cigar opening to work with (Lileks and crew had fired up, despite the bar not allowing for cigar smoking). During their brief conversation, the husband says he pointed me out to him. I doubt I rang a bell. The Giant Swede was there, as well, and the husband got to chatting with him and introduced me. It took me a few minutes to cotton on to the fact that he was, in fact, The Giant Swede. I know, stupid me, but he was introduced by his actual name and I didn't make the leap that he would be in attendance. (Neither did he seem gigantic. He's somewhere around 6'2"-6'4". I've got nephews who top him easily. That and I'm relatively short. Just about everyone's taller than me.) We had a lovely conversation with him about all sorts of stuff. A very nice man.

Anyway, we had a great time meetin' and greetin' and can't wait for the next gathering.

So long as it's not over at the State Fair.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Due to all my holiday frolicking (Wooh. Midnight Mass is really getting edgy!) I'd forgotten to check up on Mike Kinsley's Social Security columns in the WaPo.

You can read them here and here. My response to his bleg to the blogosphere can be found here.

I've been banging on the same drum since I was sixteen and started watching Crossfire but hell, I'll bang it again: what a tremendous ass Kinsley is! Not only does he just not get it about Social Security, he also manages to diss the exact same group of people he went to for research material:

Just so I don't sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon, and I worked at a Web site for eight years. Some of my best friends are bloggers. Still, it's different when you purposely drop an idea into this bubbling cauldron and watch the reaction. What floored me was not just the volume and speed of the feedback but its seriousness and sophistication. Sure, there were some simpletons and some name-calling nasties echoing rote-learned propaganda. But we get those in letters to the editor. What we don't get, nearly as much, is smart and sincere intellectual engagement -- mostly from people who are not intellectuals by profession -- with obscure and tedious, but important, issues.{...}

Oh, I'm sure he didn't think that bit up there about bloggers not being "professional intellectuals" was a slam. I'm sure he thought he was being complimentary after having rolled those beady eyes of his at the mere thought of having to weed through a full inbox. He meant it as a compliment, I'm certain. A little MSM pat on the head. Good little blogger. Niiii-ce blogger. Remember the Milkbone I slipped you and don't bite me.

Chomp.

I may not be employed by a Beltway think tank or by some Ivy League university, but that does not mean I do not consider myself to be an intellectual. As much as I hate to refer to the dictionary, I find myself needing backup. The Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition defines intellectual as: "a person possessing a highly developed intellect." I'm sure we can split a few hairs about what "highly developed" means but if we really want to get down to the nitty gritty, well, that pretty much defines anyone who reads on a regular basis, doesn't it? Someone who thinks deep thoughts. Who has curiosity. Who wants to figure out how it works and thinks that, after coming up with something new, they can add something to the discussion and who then might put the fingers to the keyboard and pump something cohesive out. Is this person not an intellectual? We live in a free society which provides for an open exchange of ideas. Anyone with the chops and the know-how can take part. Despite his call for opinions, despite his implied pledge to that open society with a free flow of ideas, ironically (or not)Kinsley, it appears, would have it otherwise. Never mind the inconvenient fact that we the people actually have a stake in this very important discussion. That's the least of it according to the Gospel of Mike.

Yet, while I would like to think that anyone who is curious about the world can consider themselves to be an intellectual, this apparently is not the case. You need to have credentials. You need degrees hanging on the wall. After all, the very word "profession" implies that this is what you do to earn your daily bread. A professional intellectual would be one who paid his bills by thinking deep thoughts, because we all know nothing is worth anything unless you get paid for it. That's the standard we Capitalists have developed, so we'll stick with that. Hmmmm. Let's see. Can we find an example to prove Kinsley---and the rest of the world---wrong? To allow for deep thoughts to be thunk by anyone other than Los Angeles Times opinion page editors and members of the ivory tower? Aha! I've got it! Einstein! Albert Einstein was a patent clerk when he developed his Theory of Relativity. But Einstein didn't make enough to earn his daily bread by working on this Theory of Relativity, so he went to work at that infamous Swiss Patent Office. Does that mean Einstein---the man who explained what Newton could not---wasn't an intellectual?

If you use Kinsley's standards the answer would be "no." Einstein wouldn't have qualified. Accordingly, bloggers can come up with "intellectual engagement" but we're not "professional" intellectuals. In other words, bloggers are only good for a brief battle or two, like a reservist, but we'd best leave the fighting to the serious soldiers, like Kinsley. We might get ourselves killed otherwise.

Screw that.

Kinsley's cushy, protected, little paradigm is shifting. The vast wonder of the Internet is giving voice to millions of previously unheard people. That's got to be a be a little nervewracking if you're used to having to only bat back Robert Novak for the consumption of the average basic cable audience. I would bet anything that while he enjoyed the responses he received and---admittedly---was surprised at them, he still refuses to think that anyone could grasp the argument better than he could. That despite our responses, Kinsley probably thinks the blogosphere consists only of pajama-clad diletantes. Not surprisingly, this close-mindedness to what bloggers---let alone the common man or woman who hasn't set up a blog---are capable of is also why Kinsley refuses to see any argument other than his own regarding Social Security.

The man is, quite simply, a brick wall against which anything that's not of his own creation smashes.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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