Good Intentions

So a college friend and I have created a new blog over at The Book of Pop. Over there you’ll find our writings and musings on various aspects of pop culture, which we’ve broken down and responded to.

If you’re interested in that sort of thing, check it out. If not, well…check it out anyway!

Orrin Kerr, over at The Volokh Conspiracy (to your right, conveniently), is contending that law student blogs are dead, and we have killed them, you and I. (Not exactly in those words, mind you.)

I’d probably tend to disagree, based on the various links I and others have, most of which are law student blogs. I think a lot of us blog because we need to vent, or we need an outlet that isn’t a memo, or a Socratic method session, or a weak-ass discussion on the Commerce Clause or something. For me, blogging has always been about me, the writer, and not you, the reader. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy having an audience, but I primarily do this for me. It’s my outlet for all the words and thoughts I have in my head.

A number of the comments on Mr. Kerr’s post say that law students are afraid to blog about school because of being reprimanded by either the school or later on by a potential employer. I say, bring it on. If an employer wants to take issue with something I’ve written, the least they could do is ask for an explanation. My school happens to be a state school, with public records, and while I try not to be too specific in my identification of people, it’s a public building and therefore is fair game for my musings.

Other commenters talked about how all of us law student bloggers are either:

1. Whiners, whining about our lives and how hard law school is. To that I say: Eat me. Move along if I whine too much for you.

or,

2. Stupid, and therefore cannot blog substantively about legal issues, so we resort to blogging about “clothes, recipes, and literature.” I’m sure I could attempt at writing something semi-coherent and halfway-interesting about some legal topic, but, as I said, I do this to escape that stuff. If I wanted to write a memo or an appellate brief, I would. If I wanted to write for law review, I’d try out (and I might, I haven’t decided how much I hate myself). If there is some issue I do want to talk about, I will try to couch it in layman’s terms, perhaps sprinkled with some bona fide legal analysis. But really, I just talk about funny happenings and random stuff.

So really, if you don’t like it, caveat emptor, all sales are final, all warranties exclaimed, and this blog is being sold “as is.”

Like I mentioned previously, I tripped over a variety of social media tools yesterday–Plurk, Jaiku, HelloTxt, and I’ve already been using Twitter pretty extensively.

But does all of this lead to too much connectivity? Are we too plugged in?

As Danielle mentioned over in The Road to Waco, what happened to letter writing? Epistles! There was a whole novel form based on epistles back in the early days of the Union–the epistolary novel, 19th century brainchild for rich people who wanted to take their minds off how rich they were. The novel was a series of letters passed back and forth from the main characters, and that is how the action of the plot was driven forward.

I had a penpal back in third grade. It was a fun experience, and I’d like to try that again. Anyone know of any penpal sites?

Good Lord. I’m back. It feels odd. Really odd.

When I pressed “Delete” on my old blog, it felt…good. Really good. Like I had chained something up and threw it into a river while it kicked and screamed. You know, Mafia style. Cement shoes. I honestly didn’t think I’d start another one.

But then I thought, Wait. You’ve been wanting to keep writing, haven’t you? Why don’t you just start anew? This is a new phase in your life, so why not try that out?

Ok self, here we go.

I’m really going to try to keep up with it too. More to come later.