Alas! The gentleman I've often considered the last best conservative hope of South Dakota's blogosphere is stepping out of the arena... or at least to an interesting conference room in the annex across the street next to the Fry'n Pan.
Dr. Ken Blanchard, professor of political science at Northern State University, announces it's time to blog more science than politics:
I have been posting on this blog since 2005 and running it for last several years. It has been a labor of love, but I have decided that it is a burden I can no longer afford. I need to divert more of my time to my scholarly pursuits.
I have established a new blog: Natural Right and Biology. Beginning immediately, that is where most of my blogging time will be spent. I invite all of my readers to check out the new blog and, if you are interested, join in the discussion. There will be political topics, to be sure; but the focus will be much narrower [Ken Blanchard, "Time for a Change," South Dakota Politics, 2012.11.29].
Dr. Blanchard's humble hope that he has made a significant contribution to the local blogosphere is correct. His posts have been the most intelligent regular conservative writing in the South Dakota blogosphere. I ache at the prospect of his sensible, scholarly voice yielding the conservative blogging floor in my RSS feed to the party-press-release hackery of Dakota War College and the racist, sexist rantings of the Gordon Howie medicine show.
Perhaps fellow Aberdonian (and fellow Ken!) Ken Santema can fill this gap. On the new SoDakLiberty, Santema has been coming about as close as a libertarian can to coherent thought and useful political observations.
I anticipate a scolding from Dr. Blanchard for this statement, but I can't resist: it seems telling that an educated (and educating!) Republican would trade political blogging for something more scientific. Defending Darwinian biology in the context of classical philosophy shows one more way that sensible thinkers just don't fit in today's perverted shadow of the party of Lincoln.
Oh, Corey...every time you call out Gordon my little heart goes pitter-pat. Today's post by whomever "Brad Ford" is was just awful in it's logic. It was so bad I kind of thought that maybe the entire blog is one large piece of performance art. Tea party Democrats? Seriously?
Dr. Blanchard seems to be part of a trend. My former fellow-blogger turned media scholar, Erin, informs that the the more literate and educated bloggers are leaving blogging to prevent being identified with the War College types She says that women, aside from some food bloggers, have shunned the blog as a medium for discussion, and the few who have tried political blogging soon abandon it.
I have serious qualms about blogging, but keep at it out of the hope that something can be done to rescue a potentially valuable medium from the undertow of ignorance and ill will that dominates it. Aside from a few blogs, such as yours, it is hard to find anything valuable or socially and intellectually redeeming.
South Dakota Politics has not been quite a shining example of discourse, even though it has been presided over by professors. In its early stages, now largely removed from the archives, it participated in the personal insults and abuse and the partisan scurrility of the kind that War College has immersed itself--a baptism by cess pool.
The problem has been while professors are guaranteed freedom of expression, there is an official reminder in their working contracts that they do represent their institutions and profession, and the public judges higher learning as a whole by the way they conduct themselves. South Dakota Politics has troubled academics when it has lapsed into expressions for which the facts and the reasoning can be called into question. Nevertheless, it is regrettable that Dr. Blanchard has decided to mute his voice.
Blogs can be anything. Good, bad, evil, filled with ignorance, or stunning examples of everyman journalism and thought.
Perhaps Blanchard can separate politics and partisanship. They are not the same. Those (including Obama) who attack politics when they should be hammering on blind partisanship do language and thought little good.
I suspect the real reason people leave blogging is that it is just as much a time sink as writing a book or dissertation even if they are not the same. It is easier to say that I quit blogging because of the scurilous nature of other blogs than to say, I just don't have time to do a good job of blogging and am burned out.
It is a bit like quitting painting because there are so many bad painters.
Cory: at the risk of getting all teary eyed, your post really means something to me. I have frequently recommended your blog as one of the best in the business and I repeat that now. I have enjoyed our exchanges over the years and I suspect that our readers have profited from them. SDP will remain open for the time being, and you may hear from me again. For now, I love you and I salute you.
Thank you, Ken. I will continue to welcome your voice and your challenges to mine, whenever you have time to share.
Oh, and Vi, you are absolutely right: "Tea Party Democrats" are a figment of Gordon's imagination, another great example of right-wing propagandists trying to make something true by saying it lots of times.