Let me begin here by thanking my sister Laura for turning over to me, if only temporarily, her cyberspace.  I hope not to embarrass her. But I confess here and now, as I quaff the third margarita I was able to wring out of my cocktail shaker, the chances of avoiding shame are disappearing like the lime-flavored salt (Crate & Barrel!) on my margarita glass (Crate & Barrel!) rim.

It is the Third of July and most decent Americans are in their cups, giddy that tomorrow is a holiday and they get to fire up the grill and pop brewskis again, as they have done for the last two days. Some wander listlessly in tank tops, sunburned, preparing to slump onto the Styrofoam cooler. Others watch home improvement shows, as my wife is doing. Still others, it seems, holler nonsensically from their cribs instead of sleeping, as my daughter is doing.

So be it. This is a free country. That’s what this holiday is all about.

I have here no grand statement about Independence or Democracy, no reflections on the cheeky screed with which our Founding Hell-Raisers dissed their frilly-cuffed, fancy-pantsed overloads lo those many years ago. I asked Tammy for one earlier and she ignored me.

No, I offer you just one question, a question I heard asked earlier in the living room, shortly before Miss Julia was exiled to the typing room here with me:

"Are you pooping again?"

The young lady has had a productive day. That is all I will say on the subject.

Moving on. What is it, exactly, that you all talk about here in the blogosphere? Anything and everything, I suppose, answering my own question. You see, I belong to the Old Media. I write for a newspaper and I am probably stodgier and/or dumber than others in my trade about adapting to new stuff. Plus I am so preoccupied with baby-rearing that I seldom find time to read blogs, including, I deeply regret to say, my dear sister’s.

(Tammy interrupts: I am instructed to say that Tammy reads 11-D religiously and happens to be much more technologically savvy than her husband. Very well.)

But I am very interested in how blogging will change my trade, and would welcome thoughts on that subject. I hold no illusions about our (the MSM’s–do I have that right?) corner on the news-gathering market. We can be slow, dumb, superficial, cowardly — and arrogant about our franchise. Competition can correct that, to some degree. I was impressed at how bloggers ran circles around the MSM during that flap over the forged letter in Dan Rather/60 Minutes piece on GWB’s courageous National Guard service during the Vietnam War.

So where do things go from here? Do individual or small-group Web sites become influential news sources, on the order of newspapers and magazines? Do they lurk in the background as gadflies and debunkers, pointing up the folly of the plodding MSM and occasionally scooping them, but never acting on a par with them?

Do they need editors? Would they start to suck as soon as they got them?

Weigh in, o blog people.