I am ambivalent about joining what some of my summer interns from Swarthmore are calling the “blogosphere.” I don’t think it’s healthy to spend too much time in virtual reality. But just in case I run in 2008, I thought it wise to establish an “internet strategy.”

I choose News Groper because most other sites on the World Wide Web seem too risky. John McCain learned the hard way what could happen when he put a campaign profile online, and Obama lost 160,000 online buddies in one day after kicking off someone who had been squatting on his MySpace name. And I hear John Edwards raced to be the first to campaign inside a video game, in part to because his avatar wouldn’t have to pay to get a haircut there.

But, please, progressive readers, don’t let blog reading take too much time away from your usual petition drives, weekend canvassing and chicken fighting. (By Nader rules, titty-twisters qualify as an unfair advantage.)

Do what I do: limit yourself to a few minutes of blog time a day. For instance, I only read this one while eating Grape-Nuts in the morning, and then get back to fighting for social justice and perfecting my and Winona LaDuke’s recipe for soy-based baklava.