Another Big Step Forward

We are elated about the positive coverage of the book by David Gallagher in today's NY Times Business section, titled "A Rift Among Bloggers." There doesn't turn out to be all that much of a rift, but we sure are happy about the coverage. We are trying to wrap up nominations shorty, but please feel free to nominate any post by any blogger that has any bearing on 9/11 or ITS AFTERMATH. Thanks for your interest.

Enough Controversy

The notion that bloggers are divided into camps is simplistic and ill-serving. Certainly there are those who are bunched toward the ends of the continuum; but the vast majority, including myself, span many interests and approaches. This is not a "warblogger" book, this is a book about war by bloggers.

SOME PLEASANT PRESS COVERAGE

from EPN, even if it makes my September 11 television-watching sound a bit more dramatic than it was.

MORE NOMINATIONS

And don't forget the first and second rounds of nominations. There was a good conversation with a publisher recently, and we're optimistic.

Expanded Jeff Jarvis and sermon.

Dave Winer's September 11 page was nominated. Dave Winer is, of course, one of the original bloggers, and his page is a model of useful information, but one can see why it wouldn't translate particularly well to the printed page. One of the tragedies of the eventual book is that the people like Dave Winer and Tony Pierce who do the most to take advantage of the hyper-dimensional nature of the Internet medium are the ones least able to be translated into print.

Sarah Bunting.

Neill Hamilton.

Jami Attenberg: September 11, September 12, September 13.

100 words.

Claude Scales.

Paul Frankenstein, (scroll down for September 11-18).

Andrew Glasser.

Arthur Stock.

Nick Mark.

The Fray, September 14-15 (Cato and Yukon).

Reid Stott.

Thrasymachus, September 13.

Bjorn Staerk.

Johnson, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

There's a September 24 post from Susanna Cornett that I made a note I wanted to nominate, but her archives appear to be down. Jason Soon also got nominations for posts made in December, but his archives appear to be down, also.

Den Beste, October 4, October 11, April 6.

Donald Sensing.

Matt Welch (but see Tom Tomorrow).

Oliver Willis (but surely there's a counter-nomination out there?)

Glenn Frazier.

Last Page.

Jay Caruso.

Jane Galt (April 23 -- archive is munged).

Sorry For the Delay

PLEASE ALLOW MAX AND I TO ACCEPT FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY CONFUSION AND ALLOW ME TO RESTATE OUR PURPOSE AND PLANS NOW: We are accepting nominations from ANY AND ALL BLOGGERS for posts that relate in any way to September 11 and its aftermath for inclusion in a book which will present the best of blogger's work in this regard to the world. Proceeds will go to charity. We are looking for somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-100 individual essays. We have around 100 nominations already and are trying to get through them.

We will post the third round of nominations on the book site shortly and we apologize for the delay. There is still time to make your recommendations: just send the URL of your nominated post/essay/blog to Max Power at safblog@yahoo.com We are looking for the best possible writing, not the work of the most popular and/or most heavily visited bloggers. The work will stand on its own. Glenn Reynolds will make the final decisions after all the nominations have been posted and you all have had time to make your comments, suggestions, etc.

After the essays are compiled, we will need ALL of your help in getting the word out about the book. The object is to represent the best work of the blogger community to the world, and give the proceeds to a good cause - that's it. Thanks for your support.

Round 2 of Suggestions

1) Note that I'm merely coding and passing along the majority of suggestions I receive (with a lighter editing touch for others' nominations than for self-nominations). If one seems atypical, it's because of someone's atypical tastes, and I wasn't editing heavily enough.

2) I'm not thrilled with "Blog Nation" for a title, either. So I'm certainly open to a different name. Suggestions?

3) Some authors have thanked me for the nominations, but, again, I'm just the messenger. Thank your readers.

And now, some nominations. Again, still not a complete list, I'm just trying to put them out there at least as fast as they're coming in.

Josh Trevino, and on September 13.

Andrew Sullivan (in the Sunday Times, though), and the "Moral Equivalence Again" entry.

Sgt. Stryker.

Cathy Seipp, who is an honorary blogger, I suppose.

Jane Galt.

Asparagirl.

An omnibus of Glenn Reynolds' works:
Tom Clancy was right, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, September 14, September 17, September 20, September 23, September 28, October 3, October 5, October 8, and October 17.

Matt Welch: September 17, September 20, September 25, September 29, September 30.

Ken Layne: October 11 and December 9.

Shiloh Bucher: November 18, November 20, December 5.

Pejman Yousefzadeh.

A bunch of people have nominated Oriana Fallaci's work, which has been admirable, but not actually from a weblog. Plus, her lawyers haven't been happy about having the translations blogged.

Blog Blizzard

Thanks so much to everyone who checked in yesterday. We have dozens of nominees we are currently sorting through. Please feel free to send in your comments on the nominees currently up, and please continue to make suggestions regarding your favorite 9/11-related blogs, including your own. Please help spread the word as well. We wish to represent the entire Blog Nation with this book (with caveats listed below).

Lots of Suggestions

This will not be a complete list, but just an initial sampling (nominations through the afternoon of April 16). Keep nominating (including authors named here if there are other writings that are missed--I know there's more out there from, inter alia, Reynolds, Lileks, and Den Beste), please don't be offended if I haven't gotten to your e-mail yet, and please don't be offended if I haven't had (or won't have) the chance to acknowledge your e-mails personally. (I never thought when I first got into blogging that I'd be blowing off e-mails from so many writers I respect.)

A request, though: please include the entire link in your e-mail.

Keep in mind that we don't have clearances or permissions from all of these people. The fact that a post has been nominated does not mean that the author of the post has agreed to be in the book, or has endorsed the project in any way.

A lot of people have suggested Jason Kottke's September 11 post. This will come in handy as source material (though a lot of links are dead, or link to copyrighted material by professional organizations), and I certainly remember reading that page on September 11 as I searched for information on the Web.

Brian Bernstein

Tristin Laughter.

Jeff Jarvis; and here; and here; and here (scroll down).

Last Page.

Jonathan Wishnia.

Tama Starr and Virginia Postrel on September 12 and September 13.

John Scalzi.

Lileks, September 13.

Andrew Sullivan, September 16.

Selections from Lane McFadden and his defense of the flag.

Bjørn Stærk; also this.

In a perfect world, where we could do a CD and costlessly get all the photographers of the world to donate their work, I'd love to use Tony Pierce's Dear Kids of Afghanistan and Dear Terrorists. The real problem is going to be getting the legal rights to use all of those photos--the Rev. Pierce is unique among bloggers the way he does photo-essays, and too much is lost without them. We'll probably have to let it go. A shame, because it would be such a clear refutation of the faux controversy around the selection process.

Steven Ovadia.

Gabrielle Taylor.

Rand Simberg's "Media Casualties Mount".

A non-blog piece by Glenn Reynolds.

Steven Den Beste.

Moira Breen's "A High Wind In The Isles".

Stephen Green.

Martin Devon.

Me, I'm off to find a route downtown that isn't blocked by anti-WTO protestors. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Lots of Interest

I just posted this on Photodude Reid Stott's site. Max is hard at work sorting through the dozens of nominations we have received. Thanks very much! He will start posting them for your consideration and edification shortly.

Nice to see so much interest in the 9/11 blog book. Interesting that some people are so quick, perhaps even eager, to find themselves excluded, since we seek to exclude no one.

Virtually all blogs are a hybrid of concerns and styles - as are the individuals who write them. I have found that if "traffic" is your goal, then "predictability," perhaps "reliability" makes that goal more readily achievable. As in anything, if people can categorize you and anticipate you, then they are more comfortable with you. That's where labels come from.

The beauty of the relationship between bloggers and 9/11 is that it was all spontaneous: regardless of your specific interests or areas of expertise, people jumped into the fray because it was necessary, because the horror focused our attention.

Of course some bloggers remained more interested in the aftermath of the attacks - which shortly turned into "war" - than others, who returned to their pre-9/11 concerns, and those who stayed interested became the "warbloggers." Perhaps some who feel left out feel some guilt over not pursuing the aftermath with a vigor that EVERYONE displayed regarding the event itself. Who knows?

But I can assure anyone who cares, this book is about ALL bloggers and 9/11. Nothing more and nothing less.

Cubbyholes Being Erected

More blogger book commentary from Reid Stott via Glenn Reynolds who also cautions against polarization - call it a fourth way.

But despite these new bumps and surges of convergence, we can't seem to get away from either/or and us/them. The truth is Jason wrote some very worthy things related to 9-11, whether anyone describes him as a "warblog" or not.

And on the other side of the coin, there are indeed people who may not have been First Wavers like Jason but were veteran bloggers long before 9-11, who consider themselves generally left of center, yet fully support the war on terrorism.

And don't care if they are published in a book or not.

So build me my own cubbyhole. No label, please.

Here's the thing: "warblogger" is a generic term meaning "sometimes comments on politics, foreign policy and the intertangled web of culture, religion, media, general wonkism as it relates to 9/11 and its aftermath." There is no "when the war is over" because the consequences of 9/11 will reach their tentacles into every nook and cranny of the future. I am unaware of any blogger who writes only on "war."

All I have ever stumbled across speak of whatever is on their minds at whatever time - we're talking about degrees here, not absolutes. Even the most misty, starry-eyed sensualist, or the most hardened digitalist has made some sort of commentary on 9/11 and its labyrinthine postscript. Maybe this is about jockeying for position, maybe it's rope-a-dope, maybe Colin Powell will sweep in and cuff our ears, but in the meantime just participate in the process.