A quote from A Blogger's Big-Fish Fantasy that resonates with my thoughts on blogging (blog daily; keep in mind that my parents can be reading what I write):

If quality is the ultimate reader magnet, what makes a blog great? One ingredient is to write daily, according to Mr. Sifry, who said Technorati's rankings showed that daily bloggers tended to draw more readers.

Ms. Hourihan said she made postings to her blog (www.megnut.com) as if she were writing for a small group of readers, while being aware that a larger group might end up reading it. "My guiding principle is always to write with my grandparents in mind," she said. "It keeps me from being too personal or too technical or too complainy."

How do you deal with what you read and learn in your local newspaper? My household has subscribed to the San Francisco Chronicle for years. For a while, one of my housemates also subscribed to The New York Times -- which I much prefered but found to be too expensive. I typically read The Chronicle over breakfast. If I'm out of the house for breakfast, I don't tend to read the paper that day -- the Chronicle is almost always a morning-only companion for me. I sometimes wonder whether this means that reading the Chronicle is mostly a waste of time -- like channel surfing or mindless web browsing.

Still, I learn stuff when I read the paper. And they certainly provoke various reactions in me.

Articles that make me think that I should watch my bank very closely: Banks defeat privacy bill yet again / Speier vows to put stricter measure on state ballot and Wells dishing out bank data

Article that makes me think that the current administration is really as bad as I have suspected:
E. J. Dionne's Framing the issue and the lastest column by Robert Scheer: "What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?" (no permalink yet)

An article that makes me want to organize a group of friends to go to the Oakland museums: Powerful glimpses of black history in Oakland exhibition

Something that helps me think about what I can do for the many homeless in Berkeley: John Carroll's Well, sure, a house can be a home, about the Berkeley Food and Housing Project

A techno-lust inducing piece: Handspring unveils Treo 600 handheld / Wireless device to be available in the fall

Forcing myself to respond to what I read, I hope, redeems some of my morning time. (But isn't it just enough that I have fun reading the Datebook?)