Chapter 17: Blogs in the Machine

Watching as the site came into view, I was surprised. Had I expected something as strange as the sound of blog? Talking Points Memo, my first destination in the blog-osphere, was already famous; here an outraged blogger had kept the Trent Lott story alive when mainstream journalists had ignored it after Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party in December, 2002. First a khaki field filled my screen, followed by a broad white band down the middle, the blogger’s writing space. It held a long, scrollable stack of messages, each labeled with a date and time. Next to the masthead there was a small portrait of the blogger, Joshua Micah Marshall. Hair uncombed, chin cupped in his hand, staring perhaps at a computer screen (the blue reflected in his eyeglasses), he looked to me like a virtual Trajan, exalted by his column.