Where’s my Swag?

Thanks to all of you who voted for me. It’s ridiculous, of course. The people who I allegedly “beat” are blogospheric godhead and I am quite disturbed that your standards have fallen so low. I worry about you people.

The Koufax awards are very dear to my heart. I won one for best commenter back in 2002 and it made me finally decide to go for it and get into this blogging thing on my own. (In those days everybody and his Jack Russell terrier didn’t have a blog. It seemed like something serious then.) The Koufaxes were a nice little community affair that represented our commitment to each other and the cause in a sea of libertarian and conservative ranting and chestbeating after 9/11 and the ’02 elections. It’s true that our community may have grown exponentially, but it still has a nice feel of down home solidarity even though we have become much more than a rag tag bunch of bloggers and blog readers. We are a gen-you-ine political constituency, now. They talk about us on the teevee and everything.

Blogging is becoming its own literary form. People have always written diary entries, pamphlets, letters or simple observations and essays. But never before could you publish and within minutes have direct criticism on what you’ve just written by dozens of readers and fellow writers. As a writer, it’s quite wonderful (and sometimes depressing) to know what your audience thinks right away. You aren’t stuck waiting for some literary snob or political critic to make you or break you; your validation or rejection is immediate and obvious. So, it’s really not the writer but the readership that makes this new format so innovative. They are as much a part of the piece as you are, critiquing, adding information, fine tuning the argument, helping you all along the way. In that sense, blogging is a collaborative writing medium which is very rare and very sweet. I appreciate “all four of my readers” more than you know.

Congrats to all the winners. If you haven’t checked out all the blogs and posts that were nominated, do yourself a favor and read them. It will blow your mind. Send a little more scratch over to Wampum while you are at it. It was a big burden to do this project and they are really good people for doing it.

Check them out here.

.