The article kind of implies that it’s become difficult to have much of an impact, with a blog. These days, a blogger is just one of a million others, and no level of shock or snark is likely to stand out from that mass these days, whereas ten years ago nobody was prepared for the anonymous, foul-mouthed fury of “The Rock Critical List.”

“In some ways the R.C.L. was an advance glimpse of the free-for-all of semi-anonymous invective that is the blogosphere.”

-Simon Reynolds, as quoted by The Morning News.

It should be mentioned that Reynolds observation is itself quite old; since the dawn of blogging, critics have been decrying its cruel and semi-anonymous practitioners, and the negative tone they generate. The resultant defense of blogging is just as old, but for all that, there may be some insight that can be wrung from the debate. It’s just hard to imagine what that insight might be.

Link via the Awl.

• A story of in-laws who can’t take a joke [Just wait 'til Poland calls its lawyers]
• A tale of a website that posted 36 great songs to kill yourself to [Everyone's got an opinion]
• A yarn about the same website, now posting songs to make you give up suicide [Don't give up]
• A legend about a legend reading his book [Nick Cave reads from Bunny Munro]
• A fable wherein a writer dislikes newspaper corrections, and learns a valuable lesson [Corrections are so boring]
• A parable that illustrates how it’s okay for print journalists to rip-off bloggers, but not the other way around [Bloggers: It's not like they're people]

• We started off a slow week with a link to an analysis of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. [All in all...]
• We noted the passing of Edward Kennedy. [RIP: Edward Kennedy]
• Let no mediocre attempt at comedy escape our watchful eye. [LARF!]
• Somebody has to take those haughty Star Trek fans down. [Set phasers to outrage]
• Self promotion. [Console Beauty Contest]
• We joined the chorus lamenting the cancellation of Reading Rainbow. [Butterfly in the skyyyyyy!]

• We linked to an XKCD comic because, well why not? [Oh man, it’s like looking into a mirror]
• We discovered how to use feminine wiles, and felt ashamed about it. [The Internet can teach you]
• We observed the intense political awareness of professional wrestling. [The spandex barometer]
• We experienced status anxiety in response to Douglas Copeland’s wandering eye for interior design. [Structural infidelity]
• We noted the passing of Les Paul, genius and innovator. [RIP: Les Paul]
• We freaked out a little at the thought of George W. Bush holding back a rabid vice president. [Here’s a scary thought...]
• We were shocked to learn that Twitter is useful for remotely controlling hacked PCs. [Twitter is very useful!]
• We saved you the time it would take to read Jonathan Yardley’s piece on Pride and Prejudice. [Shorter Jonathan Yardley]

- From Techdirt comes the news that the publication of a Catcher in the Rye “sequel” has been blocked. They ask, since when did he U.S. ban books? There you have it: What obscenity couldn’t do, copyright can.

- On second thought: From Slashdot comes a story of a couple who’ve been sentenced to serve a year and a day in jail for distributing obscene materials on the Internet.

- But it’s not all bad news at Slashdot; they’ve also got a story about a giant, world-spanning colony of ants.

- Meanwhile, over at The Awl, they celebrated the birth of Franz Kafka, and mourned the death of Mollie Sugden, this week.

- Well, the big story on a lot of blogs this week was of course the death of Michael Jackson. We’ll only link to two posts that relate, because you’ve probably seen as much as you’d ever want to about MJ, over the past week. First, Jezebel asks, Was Michael Jackson More Normal Than we Thought?

- Also, the increased traffic from web surfers looking for Jackson news nearly crushed some major news sites. (Via.)

- And, finally, This Recording has posted a piece from the J. D. Salinger of Comic Strips, Bill Watterson; an appreciation of the classic strip, Krazy Kat, from the forward of a new collection. (Via.)

- Hey, remember how I said that AIG was a shoo-in to take top honors in The Consumerist’s Worst Company In America contest? Nailed it. Well, me and about 600,000,000 other people – we nailed it.

- Did you know that little boys have tons of homosexual experiences that are so darn fun, that it makes them susceptible to recruitment? Well, if you are a member of the Maine state legislature you do, thanks to a helpful email from a colleague. Allegedly.

- More chilling warnings to parents, this time from the Baroness. No, not that Baroness, this one.

- Techdirt’s had a productive day. First up is a link to a Cory Doctorow piece that asks why there isn’t a fan-use exemption to the copyright law? As with many of these sorts of essays against strict copyright laws, there’s a lot of talk about how strict copyrights are financially hurting content-owners, which makes sense. Hit them where they live, right? Surely they’ll come around when they realize that they can make more money off their intellectual property if it was more useful to consumers; strict copyrights make content less useful. However, pragmatic as it seems, essays focused on media companies’ bottom lines often elide a couple of critical factors: big-ass multinational corporations don’t like change, and they don’t like uncertainty. They don’t want to throw their content to the mob, which would force them to experiment with business models that may or may not work, or might require inspired, creative tweaking. They want sure things, guaranteed number-one smash hits, and the same tight-fisted control over the right to sell the same thing a million times over. Eloquence aside, you’ll never convince the business that its wrong about rights-issues. The bankruptcies will do that. Or, they’ll legislate themselves into a gilded immortality.

- Another one from Techdirt: “Mathew Ingram points out that at a recent panel discussion the CEO of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton, said: ‘I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the internet. Period.’”

Not a fan of porn then, Mr. Ingram? No? Well, here’s part of a more serious response to the errant crap-train that apparently derailed and escaped from Ingram’s mouth; from Mike Masnick: “I recently wrote up something for Open Forum talking about how every threat is really an opportunity. A threat just means that someone else may have figured out how to serve your customers/community better. That should be seen as an opportunity for you to serve your community/customers better.” I love how copyright reformers keep giving rights-holders the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that those holders give one toot about serving their customers better. It’s so cute!

- From Slashdot comes a link to a pretty harrowing news story: A video has emerged of a lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg accusing Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom of corruption, money laundering, and the murder of one Rodrigo Rosenberg. The video was taped some time before Rosenberg’s assassination, and was handed out by his family at his funeral. Expect to get sick of the phrase “beyond the grave” over the next week or two.

- Also from Slashdot: Cold-war KGB files are now available online. And, coming soon, science books. Who said nothing good has come from the Internet?

- Zulkey.com has an interview with William Lobdell, author of Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace. It’s fascinating reading. In fact, I’d heard a radio interview with Lobdell a while back that made me want to read his book, but I completely forgot about it until I saw this latest interview. Thank you Zulkey.com – who says nothing good has come from the – no, wait, I’ve done that one already. Good think I went back and checked! Who says bloggers don’t revise?

- A book about invented languages? Count me in! Well, I mean, if it’s any good. Oh, and the author wrote about the history of the Klingon language for Slate, recently. Hey, did you know that there’s a new Star Trek movie out?! How did I miss that?!!!?

- Lydia Kiesling at the Millions blog likes Neuromancer. We agree. And, um, have nothing to add.

- At the Guardian, Kathryn Hughes spotlights The Marvellous Hairy Girls, by Merry Wiesner-Hanks. It’s a book about the Gonzales sisters, three women afflicted with hypertrichosis universalis, a disease that causes abnormal hair-growth all over the human body. This book: Scientific interest or freak-show voyeurism, which? It sounds science-y, but I haven’t seen the word furry appear in text that often since I stopped reading Something Awful every day. (Oddly enough, my workplace blocks it, so I have to catch up with it on the weekends.)

Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed seeing all of these news stories again – I certainly did! Have a nice weekend.

- From a news round-up at Bookninja: “Check out HC’s new online catalogue here. Quite nice! Bravo, HC! (Note: I still hate your boss.) And so very very paperless. (if you print it, I’ll send assassins to your house or store, I swear).” We agree with the assessment of the catalogue, but . assassins? What kind of assassins would a site called Bookninja dispatch? Italian Mafioso? Russian crime syndicate hit-men?

- Coming up in May: The First Annual Millions Walking Tour of NYC Indie Book Stores. This sounds like great fun, so it’s too bad for me that I’m on the other side of the continent. I suppose I might find a way to make it to New York, but then I wouldn’t have enough money for books when I got there.

- From Indexed: Plotting denial on the graph of life.

- It is once again time for the annual Worst Company in America tournament, over at the Consumerist. The first match-up this year is AIG vs. Target. Hmm . I miss the commentary of previous years. Then again, it seems the safe money in this contest is going to be on AIG walking it.

- Also from Consumerist, speculation that Borders might be about to go under. That’s depressing. What will happen to our Borders’ Bucks?

- SF Signal asks several people who the funniest writers are in the history of SF/F; Intentionally or unintentionally funny? We nominate Heinlein, conditional upon the answer to that question.

- From CJR: “The Financial Times runs an excellent analysis by columnist John Authers looking at how the ‘cult of equity’ has been dead wrong.

“It’s something we’ve touched on here and there-that the idea that investing in stocks always works over the long haul has been proven utterly false, but Authers really nail its coffin shut and looks at some of the other serious implications of the bust.” Look upon our portfolio, ye leveraged, and despair.

- From Slashdot: “European researchers have taken a step towards replicating the functioning of the brain in silicon, creating new custom chip with the equivalent of 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections.” For a lot of people we know that would be just about 199,999 neurons too many.