Unplugged, Re-plugged

I've been on a blogging hiatus over the last two weeks; we've moved, and we only set the computer up last night. It's been a strange sensation to be away from blogging and from the internet for so long. I don't take the paper here (I refuse to give money to the Los Angeles Times) and I don't watch a lot of television, so I rely on the internet for most of my news, and while I've managed to find out about the "big" events (Arafat taking the introductory tour of hell, Cabinet resignations, Scott Peterson), I've felt sort of disoriented and disconnected. It got me thinking a little about the nature of the blogging phenomenon -- that while the blogosphere is much more dialogic than MSM news stations and newspapers, it's a community which depends upon its members being "plugged in," on being actively engaged with the world in a way that's different from finding the "news" on one's doorstep or on one's television screen every morning. And the blogosphere is also driven by individuals -- not by corporations or news organizations. Glenn Reynolds mentioned the fact recently that he's not going to be around forever, and I remember feeling somewhat shocked at what was, after all, a rather obvious idea -- that when Reynolds is gone, or decides to stop blogging, then Instapundit is gone. And the same goes, of course, for James Lileks, and Hugh Hewitt, and Roger Simon, and Rose Nunez . . . and all the bloggers, great and small, who currently comprise the blogosphere. Some have compared the blogosphere to the great eighteenth century tradition of pamphlets and tracts, and I think the comparison is apt. The blogosphere is a world in which individuals can have an impact far disproportionate to their "power"; it's a world which more closely approximates the "marketplace of ideas" than the once-mighty mainstream media ever achieved; it's a world of individual voices and ideas. And while my voice in it is a very tiny one, I'm glad to be back.