Man, there's some heavy breathing around here lately.
Frankly I'm sad that a lot of other worthy blogs with smaller audiences have just lost their links on Kos's blogroll. I highly esteem some of them, such as Glenn Greenwald, who will probably survive just fine without that link from Kos's page.
But Kos is not some avatar of political power here, people. I think we need to take a deep breath, put down our rolling pins and back slowly away from the table.
More below the fold.
Some posters tend to view Kos as a newly anointed power broker who's now flexing his muscles to effectively cut out posters, bloggers and peers who don't match his level of prominence.
"Power corrupting Kos?" I'm sorry, it is to laugh. WE are the ones who hold the power. All of us coming here all the time are what built Kos's profile. That means, in considerable part, he owes to us his higher profile. Heck, I doubt I'd know Kos if I saw him on the street.
I care more about all the people in this place who have been kind enough to favorably rate comments of mine; even recommend the few diaries I manage to produce in my busy schedule. I care more about all the people who I have never seen but have traded compliments with, had dialogues with, and even argued with. It's they, and not Kos in particular, who I really like and care about.
And the NAMES these people come up with! 'Lipstick Liberal?' 'Cletus from Canuckistan?' If I need a quick laugh, I usually just check the favorable clicks on comments. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
In fact blogging has really started to get me interested in freelance writing again; a field in which I once made a decent living but gave up some time ago.
Here's my point.
Let's just remember that we are creatures of free will here. We're the ones who went out and worked for our candidates and shoveled out our hard-earned dollars to, so they stood a chance in the last election. All of us coming here all the time is what built Kos's profile. That means he owes to US - the community - his higher profile. I could be perfectly happy tomorrow on another blogsite, and probably be a more prominent diarist in other places to boot.
I'm actually excited about that. Kos's site has gotten huge. Maybe this growing audience should consider other places. I've signed up at Maryscott's site, and at Booman's, and will probably try to do a couple others.
And I STILL enjoy Kos's crib.
I firmly believe that chopping a blogroll to his preferences is entirely Kos's right; the poor schmendrick lays out the cost for the servers, the routers, and the bandwidth.
I also however believe that chopping down a blogroll of smaller blogsites doesn't really mesh with the whole concept of the Internets and the blogosphere, which is essentially an egalitarian and democratic enterprise.
Growing too attached to anything is a way to increase the misery in your life.
In the end, all of this is kinda insignificant.