A lot of complaining goes on, around my workplace, about the whole blah-blah-blah-blogging thing, but finally this weekend, I took the time to read Andrew Sullivan’s treatise on the matter in the November Atlantic Monthly, and I’ve got to say it made me feel a lot better.

You should read it, too, since you’re here, which means you read blogs, if not blog yourself: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

I also felt much better today after tracking down this poem, parts of which had been floating through my head all morning. It’s recited aboard a boat somewhere in the bowels of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory — I recall it from the original, though it seems too good for Tim Burton to have passed up.  (Did Dahl write it? Or is it a famous literary gem by someone else that I missed along the way?)

In any case, for me, it equates nicely — if a bit on the melodramatic, macabre side — to the whole blogging thing: 

There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing