Cliopatria and Global Blogging ...

by Cliopatria

Instapundit, Joi Ito, and London Calling are asking"Where's the Global Blogger?" George Miller at London Calling says:"I'm looking forward to Britapundit, Francopundit, Europundit, Russopundit, Afropundit, and Asiapundit. And I hope someday there will be a Globalpundit who will provide a link to all those blogs that none of us have the time to read." To that, one of his readers comments:"I think the global blog of the future will be a group blog with correspondents on multiple continents."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you have met the future and it is here. Hala Fattah reports at Cliopatria from Aman, Jordan. Sharon Howard posts here from Wales. Manan Ahmed, a native of Pakistan, keeps us posted on south Asia; and Jonathan Dresner covers east Asia for us from Hawaii. Swarthmore's Tim Burke and Instapundit's brother, Jonathan Reynolds, help keep us up to speed on east and west African affairs. Rob MacDougall and Greg Robinson have special, first hand experience of English- and French-speaking Canada and their complex relations with the United States.

It is no insult to them to observe that Cliopatria is more cosmopolitan than its comparable cohorts, Crooked Timber, Liberty & Power, and The Volokh Conspiracy. There's an important role in blogging for specialization of all kinds and that's one reason why our specialists are so diverse in background, expertise, and interests.

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Jonathan Dresner - 12/26/2004

He's one of us. It goes without saying.

Ralph E. Luker - 12/26/2004

I don't know why I forget to say that. Nor do I understand why you don't just go ahead and say "... smarter and better looking brother ..."

Jonathan T. Reynolds - 12/26/2004

That's "Instapundit's better looking brother, Jonathan Reynolds...

Jonathan Dresner - 12/26/2004

I'm not convinced that his "energy" is entirely a virtue. Rather than filtering material, he seems to post a link to everything he reads (and approves of) as soon as he reads it, along with a knee-jerk reaction. Styles and needs vary, but I'd rather see smart overviews than streams of consciousness. I already have a stream of consciousness, thank you very much.

Ralph E. Luker - 12/26/2004

Sure. Reynolds has a point of view and it's obvious in most of what he posts. That seems to me to be his perogative. What is extra-ordinary is his energy. There just isn't anyone on the American left who matches it. Atrios might have had the potential to do it, but the quality of his work has just continued to deteriorate since the election.

Jonathan Dresner - 12/26/2004

With all due respect to Glenn Reynolds' achievement, Instapundit is a partisan blog, not a general one. And though I'm a fan of well-done epigrammatic links, Reynolds' technique is too abbreviated and assumes too much political affinity to be useful to most of us.