Gods Whom the Gods Drive Mad?
So a blogger calling himself (and presumably not really named) Mithras published a particularly bile-filled "taxonomy" [1] of the right-wing blogosphere, including some language that would fall afoul of hate-speech codes at many universities. As pointed out on Volokh, it's pretty typical these days, barely enough to warrant a yawn, though it has gotten a lot of attention from
the usual suspects.
As I said, yawnworthy, except for the name of the blogger, who I'd not much followed before: Mithras. I've known some bloggers to pick pretty impressive names--take a look at Ex Post for some pretty impressive pseudonyms--but I don't think I've ever seen someone who chose a god as a nom-de-pixel.
Besides being a particularly interesting mythological figure--the Mithras legends bear some striking resemblances to Christianity in places--the name sticks out for me because there's a Temple of Mithras in London not far from where I now work. I've not been there, but maybe I'll put it on my list now.
In any event, I'm now curious: does anyone know of any other deific (or demonic) bloggers?
Update: The traditional welcome to Instapundit readers.
[1]: I'm a bit befuddled by Mithras' claim that his list is a "taxonomy." I'd think that the bare minimum required for anything to be a taxonomy would be an attempt at classification useful for blogs that aren't listed. What Mithras has published is useless for such purposes: for instance, is Three Years of Hell a "Volokh" or an "Instapundit"? I write about things Japanese a lot, so maybe I'm a "Malkin"?
Actually, it looks like Mithras has just decided it would be funny to spit out a list of insults and tack onto it some "science-y" word. I might take it more seriously the next time someone starts wailing about the poor state of science education in America.
Comments
"Kauket" springs to mind from our circle of acquaintances... she's of the Egyptian pantheon.
There are about a million people calling themselves Devi or variants thereof. Thinking back to Mono, there was a Zeus *and* a Jupiter... oh, and an Aphrodite, a really long time ago. I'm sure there are a lot of divinely-monikered web users really!
csfhwtr mykyblfPosted by: Verlaine | August 7, 2005 12:12 PM
Hmm... I see what you mean, but perhaps I should elaborate. I'd consider BBS's like Monochrome that had diary functions to be a kind of "proto-blog." And I'm not really thinking of Livejournal-style blogs, which are usually not aiming for readers outside their immediate circle of friends. In other words, where the name is more of a pseudonym than a handle. (I've used various things as handles, but 90% of the people who saw the handle knew me personally, so it wasn't much of a mask.)
Posted by: A. Rickey | August 7, 2005 02:32 PM
Good friend of mine posts over at Chaos-In-Motion under the name of Nyarlathotep, a fictional god. Does that count?
http://www.chaosinmotion.blogspot.com/
vasrhoPosted by: Granted | August 8, 2005 12:05 AM
Your web site is exactly the type of unfocused drivel we wrote about on ours. You go to Columbia Law School? (amazing). The Conservative Blog Taxononomy was actually a good piece on the whiny, geeky, vacuous right wing. You must be disappointed you were too Bush League to have made the list. We posted our own piece on the characteristics that seem to distinguish this fairly sickening right wing crowd. For a look in the mirror, see our post and follow up to the Taxonomy piece titled "The Whiny Right Wing" at
Posted by: rmg | August 8, 2005 06:19 AM
There's Jesus' General... which is ... like a god, I guess.
And, uh, most of the blogs out there could be labeled "Sterculian."
Posted by: Tony the Pony | August 8, 2005 02:03 PM
Granted: That's not a god, that's a plush toy! (Just kidding, and I'm sure your friend has seen it.)
RMG: I hope that made you feel better.
For what it's worth, yeah, I'm a geek. You're a blogger, mate: if you don't think there's a lot of geeks in the blogosphere, who do you think wrote the software in the first place?
vuocumoPosted by: A. Rickey | August 8, 2005 02:10 PM
There was/is a blogger who goes by Allah and even writes in the first person as Allah.
kpluve oeufPosted by: Diego | August 8, 2005 04:00 PM
rmg wrote: "Your web site is exactly the type of unfocused drivel we wrote about on ours."
When I first read that sentence, I skipped over the word "about" and it made perfect sense.
syciReading it again, I can only say that focused drivel is drivel, too.
Posted by: Jim C. | August 8, 2005 04:11 PM
rmg,
Don't be too amazed by the Columbia Law part. They let in all kinds of idiots, especially off the waiting list.
And those of us who actually want to make a better America try to name-call only when we can't help ourselves (admittedly it's sometimes irresistible), and not as a general modus operandi. Our bleeding hearts don't permit executing the conservatives en masse, so we had better think of ways to convert them instead, and sadly name-calling only seems to entrench them further and garner the moderates' sympathy. Bad strategery, comrade.
(I'd imagine that the geekery in the blogosphere has more to do with the number who are libertarians than who are code-writers, notwithstanding the overlap between those categories as represented by Eugene Volokh, among others.)
Posted by: PG | August 9, 2005 01:09 AM