One of the broader implications of this situation is what it means for blogging as a whole.

Before I go further, I think it is deeply disingenuous to claim that what goes for Boing Boing does not make a statement about the reputation of blogging in general - as the third most widely read blog on the internet, what happens here does have a much greater impact than on just these specific readers and writers.

Blogging as an activity is in a critical stage right now. With court cases and legal situations happening all over the world, from protestors in China to what happened to Josh Wolf not long ago, what it means to be a blogger is currently being decided. We have legal expectations of and protections for journalists, and whether these get extended to bloggers is currently up in the air.

In particular, I feel like the BB crew here is saying that they are not journalists and thus are not beholden to the public record (whether or not they choose to allow one they are claiming is at their own discretion). If that's what they have chosen, that's fine... but I also feel that if we are not allowed to expect them to behave like journalists, then they are also not due journalistic protections like the ability not to name sources should they find themselves with legally controversial material.

Where I find this to be of concern is how this will influence the history of blogging in the future. As prominent bloggers, making a very public statement of subjectivity and artistic whim influences public and potentially legal opinion of blogging as a whole. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen, but I hope that the authors and readers of this site will think about this as a meta-issue.

Check out this LA Times article a friend sent me on this yesterday:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nicholas18jul18,0,7022711.story

http://joefrank.com/

Joe Frank is hilarious and awesome. Highly recommended. I stumbled on his work one Sunday night, listening to public radio. It was the most peculiar thing I had ever heard on the radio, and I was fascinated. I've been trying to catch up on his stuff every chance I get.

I've been to a laughter circle. There's a group that goes around doing this, training people to lead laughter circles. It's really wonderful. Not something I'd do as a hobby, but it's very relaxing and de-stressing.

Check them out:

http://worldlaughtertour.com/

Wow, that's sleazy. This is a pretty obvious copy of Elope's Madman hat.

I just got one of these at Disneyland (for a comfortable $28, I might add). According to the Elope website, it's been manufactured since 2006.

Way to go, creeps.