What's blogging for?

Blogs are interesting not really for what they say but for how they connect. Some blogs are purely informational; I go to Eschaton and to Daily Kos primarily for their rapid feed of new political developments. (Some kossacks, such as DarkSyde, Jerome a Paris, and bonddad, are quite insightful; some, like Pastor Dan, are moving; and some, like Bob Johnson, are terrifically funny. But I encounter these writers as a result of keeping up, not because I keep up with them particularly.) On the right-wing blogosphere, this can lead to a massive echo-chamber effect (or maybe that's just Malkin's big empty head) or, as Truman Capote would have said about Glenn Reynolds, "that's not blogging, that's teletyping."

I go to Ron Silliman and The Rude Pundit for range of reading and for their ability to make connections across diverse terrains. If paralepsis is to have any value, I hope it's of this type.