Part-Time Pundit

Where in the World is John Bambenek?

So it’s been almost 2 months since I put anything on here and one may be tempted to think I’ve stopped blogging. To be fair, I’ve been tempted to stop blogging too. But mostly I’ve been working on paying gigs lately, writing courseware for SANS and I’m writing a book for The Illinois Citizens Coalition which will be pushing for a yes vote on the question whether to have a constitutional convention in Illinois when it is on the ballot in 2008.

I’ve also published the following articles:

What you say online can be used against you about social networking, government snooping and privacy.

iptables as a replacement for commercial enterprise firewalls which is obviously a technical article.

How Redstate.org is Responsible for the CNN/YouTube Republican Debate Screw-up which is kind of old news now.

I’m still here, stay tuned.

January 15th, 2008 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, Illinois, Illinois Consitutional Convention, Illinois Constitution, con-con | no comments

The Media Mob: “Written by partisans to be read by the naïve”

It seems standard fare for second-rate columnists to write broadsides against bloggers. It’s particularly ironic for the journalistic community to berate blogs for poor writing. After all, blogs have supplanted journalism for the literary gutter. To then boast displays the arrogance of someone who claims bragging rights for finished in second-to-last place.

It is true; blogs “produce minimal reportage”. However, most blogs don’t claim that they are even trying to report. Many bloggers quite clearly state they are giving their opinion on events. This is in contrast to most journalists who claim to report but merely shroud their opinion journalism in the faux cloak of “objective reporting.”

What blogs do accomplish, at least the few that actually try to be media instead of diary, is fact-check the “objective journalists.” This is where the real contempt for bloggers comes from. Blogs have outted journalistic frauds that would have gone undiscovered despite all the checks and balances in the traditional media.

It is true that our educational system has produced a couple of generations of people wholly intellectually unsuited for intelligent political discourse. That is not a problem of blogs, it is a problem of society. Let’s be honest, it’s not like reductionistic discourse doesn’t have a home in the traditional media too. Before blogs there were sound bites. Before blogs reporting, at least on political matters, was largely receiving faxes from the national parties and repeating their talking points. Fatuity is not unknown to the 24 hour news channels or the nightly news.

Blogs, for their part are quite easily played by the media and politicians alike. All a journalist has to do is criticize blogs and a previously unknown journalist becomes news of the hour on the Internet. Most bloggers do behave like yard apes. The only difference between most bloggers and most journalists is that the later has a sense of elitism about being an ape because they happen to wear a suit while doing it.

Blaming blogs of the “decay” of journalism is more than a little absurd. Journalism was already in a state of decay long before blogs because of their monopolistic attitudes that allowed them to get sloppy. Bloggers took the “journalistic” reigns because of the dramatic failure of the traditional media to (1) report the news effectively and accurately, (2) to be objective or at least honest about their bias, and (3) adapt to the information needs of society.

The free market requires many outlets so that consumers can pick the outlet that meets their needs. If no outlet exists, one will be created and so it was with blogs. That isn’t to say all blogs are worthy outlets, they aren’t. Most of the hundred or so million blogs get trivial amounts of traffic. However, there are serious blogs out there and serious organizations trying to get blogging professionalized (see the Media Bloggers Association which I am a part of).

It’s true that finding a decent blog is like finding a needle in a haystack, but with blogging soon to be on the decline to more serious players will stand out. For those nostalgic for the “good ole days” of journalism, this is decay. For society who wants and need solid, reliable and accurate information and opinion, it is progress. Painful progress, but progress nonetheless.

December 21st, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, Politics, The MSM | 3 comments

Light Activity

Sorry for the light activity, I’m working on something pretty big and it will be apparent when/if it happens.

In the meantime, I’ll put a few things up shortly.

October 2nd, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging | no comments

My Interview with Basil is Up

Basil of Basil’s Blog has posted his interview of me on his site.

September 23rd, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, Misc | one comment

Two Columns up

First:

The Daily Illini has my column Unions: Relics of the Past, Taxpayer Frustration up on there website.

Second:

MercatorNet has published my first paid freelance column, Who Needs Drugs? I Have a Blog a humorous look at blogger addiction. Enjoy!

Update:

I don’t think people realize the blogging article was part tounge-in-cheek… particularly because… hey! you’re at my blog. There’s a fair amount of self-deprecation in there. Bloggers need to stop taking themselves so seriously.  Really.

August 31st, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, DailyIllini, Politics, Unions, University of Illinois | 3 comments

Part-Time Pundit Gets a New Look

That’s right, I’ve finally moved over to WordPress and redid the site to look a little better. I’ll be tweaking the look over the next few days but this should load a whole lot faster now. I’ve also changed my comment policy to reflect that I’m using WordPress which is more conducive to control and less “spammy” than Movable Type.

Like the change? Hate it? Let me know.

August 24th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, Uncategorized | one comment

Press Release on BlogSoldiers is out

You can see it here:

Pentex Net, Inc. Acquires Blog Only Traffic Exchange, BlogSoldiers.com

BlogSoldiers.com, a premier blog traffic exchange, has been acquired by John Bambenek of Pentex Net, Inc. promising to provide new and more expansive services to the blogosphere.

Champaign, IL (PRWEB) August 16, 2006 — BlogSoldiers.com, a premier blog traffic exchange, has been acquired by John Bambenek of Pentex Net, Inc. promising to provide new and more expansive services to the blogosphere.

“Bloggers worldwide are excited about the acquisition and relaunch of BlogSoldiers.com. As an innovative resource available for bloggers to get more visibility for their content, BlogSoldiers is uniquely situated to provide advertising and traffic generation tools to the blogosphere. With the number of blogs increasing to over 50 million, it is a necessity to have a focused resource to provide affordable services to this community.

John Bambenek, CISSP, philanthropist and founder of Pentex Net, Inc. has spent over 10 years in the information technology industry building a reputation for expertise in information security. As a blogger and opinions journalist, he has shown passion for active political participation. He brings a combination of technological expertise and media savvy that will make BlogSoldiers a website to watch in the weeks to come.

BlogSoldiers is free to join and allows people to build traffic to their sites the first day they are on the site. It’s extremely easy and user-friendly for even novices to achieve results. In order to maximize your membership, it is important to understand how the traffic generation works. Basically users earn “credits” by surfing blogs and those credits are used when other people visit that user’s blog. Paid memberships allow users to pay for upgraded services and credits.

During the period of transition, BlogSoldiers is offering new member incentives like 50 bonus credits for joining, discounts on upgrades, and incentives for existing members such as referral bonuses and incentive credits.

BlogSoldiers offers many other resources for members with both Free and Paid memberships suck as banner and text advertisements and a blog directory. It also includes a blog education center, how-to videos, blog tools, and much more.

Pentex Net, Inc, owner of BlogSoldiers, is a provider of information technology and information security services.

August 16th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | BlogSoldiers, Blogging | one comment