SAVING THE WORLD by Steve Nadis
I’d fallen out of touch with a good friend (at least we used to be good friends; more on that later), mentioning in an email that I’d started blogging during the intervening months. I didn’t hear anything from him until several more months had passed, which was surprising since he’d normally been a prompt respondent. Finally, a note came two days ago. He said he’d been so thrown by my message that he didn’t know what to say. He’d always looked askance on blogging, considering it a form of “mind vomit” and was amazed that I–someone he used to look up to (don’t ask me why; I never told him to)–would engage in such a worthless pasttime. In any case, he was leaving in a few days for East Africa, where he’d be for many months, working as a public health specialist in the fight against the AIDS epidemic. He did not say that my blogging had exactly prompted him to leave the continent, but reading between the lines I was left with no other interpretation. Which is a roundabout way of saying that CALL ME SNAKE is anything but worthless. If it helped drive this man to East Africa, and if his presence there helps to save at least one live, how could anyone consider my blog anything less than a godsend?
Ive done a lot of aid work in the developing world and find this offensive. Claiming credit for this blog in the fight against AIDS, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Dear ClaraB — I am truly humbled by your note. And a bit shamed, if you must know. I surely did not claim credit for saving lives, or a live, but said that MIGHT be a consequence. Now I realize that that, too, may have been a stretch.
Hey, ClaraB–does the term "tongue in cheek" mean anything to you? Now, if Snake had said he had single-handedly cured AIDS using a box of Wet-Wipes and 12 gallons of Listerine–that would be offensive.
The more important questions is, why are blogs the equivalent of "mind vomit", but journals and diaries (perhaps even a journal detailing ones important work in the fight against AIDS?) are important documentation? Sounds like paper snobbery to me.
Hey gatemouth, thanks once again for coming to my defense against the forces that are trying to do me in. And I agree with you on another point: Im all for saving paper.