In the world of 24/7 stress, writers blog until they drop. And also soldiers.
One front-page story in Sunday's New York Times once again chronicled the sad stories of soldiers, sailors, and Marines who are being cycled over and over through tours in Iraq—if they're not killed, they're coming back with permanent mental and emotional damage. In another A1 piece, members of the creative underclass, driven by their own egos and the assumption that the world will suffer irreparably if they don't blog 'round the clock, has seen its first casualties. And even those (well, most of them) who occasionally spend the weekend taking more than 15 minutes to read, digest, and form opinions and angles on other people's news felt compelled to logon and acknowledge being acknowledged. Radar took a day and came up with this comparison of where blogging falls among the deadliest occupations:
Coalition forces in Iraq: 4,015 (since 3/19/03)
Law enforcement: 186 (2007)
Construction: 1,192 (2005)
Transportation and warehousing: 885 (2005)
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting: 715 (2005)
Commercial Fishing in Alaska: 641 (1990-2006)
Blogging: 2 (to date)