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Tuesday, September 21, 2004

NAMES TO CONJURE WITH:
"On Chiron, wealth is competence!" he said. "Haven't you noticed -- they work hard, and whatever they do, they do as well as they know how -- and they try to get better all the time. It doesn't matter so much what they do as long as it's good. And everybody appreciates it. That's their currency --recognition, as you said ... recognition of competence. ...You just told us that's what everyone wants anyway. Well, the Chironians pay it direct instead in indirectly through symbols. Why make life complicated?" --Voyage From Yesteryear
Foretold in that novel two decades ago, the web's radical use of information as a medium of exchange continues to confound the simplistic theories of traditional economics. As examples of this spreading paradigm shift, consider the two latest sites to add my own to their blogrolls.

A blog which seems to be brand new today is the pleasingly titled Efficacy. With no content yet, and a list which contains the ilks of both Instapundit and Eschaton, it is too soon to know if this person is a righty, lefty, rigidly undecided, hopelessly confused, or envisions some big picture transcending us all. Time will tell.

There is no doubt about where What She Said! is coming from, intending to be a signpost to leftist women on the web. (Slogan: "The next time some guy asks you where all the female bloggers are, tell them What She Said!") This is run by The Goddess, who says she is a "High Priestess of Dianic & Aphrodesian Wicca", and writes "Right now, the only rule to get into the blogroll is to be female and have a blog that deals with liberal politics at least part time." Well, I could be said to do that, but as The Clenis would say, "It all depends on what deals with means."

Her filter has let some non-leftists slip through. She includes Electric Venom, whose author brags of being a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (along with the Wiccan's conservative competitor, Da Goddess, and the ever vigilant A Small Victory). But I don't think we're likely to see there such alternative voices as Claire Wolfe, or Jane Galt, or Sasha Castel, or Wendy McElroy.

The Goddess does seem to note some difference of approach between me and the others she lists, whose titles include Pinko Feminist Hellcat and Pissed off Wiccan for Peace. She singles me out for this otherwise unused parenthesis: "(satire)". This editorial comment was not attached to her listing of, for instance, Mad Kane, perhaps because Mad directs her parodies only against Our Noble Leader. Will illumination come after a spell, in a burst of pataphysical gnosis?
Das Missverhältniss aber zwischen der Grösse meiner Aufgabe und der Kleinheit meiner Zeitgenossen ist darin zum Ausdruck gekommen, dass man mich weder gehört, noch auch nur gesehn hat. ... Verwechselt mich vor Allem nicht! --Vorwort, Ecce Homo

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