I was happy last November to report that we were up to 20,000 visitors a month here as SHS. Well, since then, thanks to you all, we’ve passed the 25,000 mark. I am most grateful.
The issues we discuss here are often overlooked or given short shrift in the mainstream media. That’s the nature of the business, I guess. But the importance of human exceptionalism and the threats posed to human moral worth (from my perspective) by utilitarian medical ethics, assisted suicide, radical animal rights ideology, and the like—will determine the kind of society we leave to our posterity.
But how to focus attention on these somewhat arcane matters? Authoring books is the core of what I do, but those projects literally take years to do right and the market for what are called “mid list” books has shrunk considerably from when I began my literary career in 1987 with the publication of The Lawyer Book: A Nuts and Bolts Guide to Client Survival. (I am 2/3 done with the animal rights book project and anticipate that it will be published about this time next year.) Moreover, once a book is actually released, gaining attention for it in a world in which about 70,000 books are published each year can be difficult. The day of the big book tour is over unless one is a mega celebrity or received a 7-figure advance thereby justifying the publisher spending tens of thousands on publicity. If no one knows the book is out, it is a book nobody will read.
For years, I have also written (and still write) articles in response to news events, and I love doing it: But let’s face it, with the cacophony of views out there, few remember the columns they read even last week. Moreover, the media has a short attention span and is increasingly tabloid in its focus on the trials and tribulations of celebrities and pseudo celebrities, reducing the opportunities for commentary about bioethics and related issues in both electronic and printed media.
In such a milieu, I realized that only a sustained and focused output—that is hopefully interesting and entertaining—had any hope of maintaining attention to these core issues. But unlike my mentor Ralph Nader, I couldn’t run for president. So, I was a bit frustrated and at a loss about what to do. Then a friend suggested that I try my hand at blogging, which being somewhat set in my ways, was a foreign concept to me. But he was persuasive in his pitch that communication was in the midst of a revolution, and that I had to adapt or whither on the vine. So on January 27, 2005, he set up my Blogger account for me and I started Secondhand Smoke with an entry about human/animal chimeras, dubious about the impact it would have and worried about the time it would take from other advocacy endeavors.
No more. For the last three years we have had slow but steady growth. This blog now is read all over the world and by media, which often quote from it or use it as a resource to find other sources for stories. And, some of its entries get passed around by other bloggers, multiplying the effect.
Blogging has become a core activity of my work. The reactions of my readers, both those that agree and disagree, are very helpful letting me see how people are thinking about these issues, allowing me to fine tune my advocacy strategies. Blogging also allows me to follow stories for their duration, creating a good historical record, while at the same time, it focuses my thinking and stimulates ideas for further development in other media.
Are we the New York Times? Obviously not. Nor are we Little Green Footballs, Daily Kos, or The Corner. But I believe we are having an impact here. And it seems to be growing.
So, I will keep on keeping on, as we used to say in the 60s, hoping to continue our steady growth and grateful for your participation and support. I look forward to continuing our discourse.
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