just a thought

last night i watched frontline's piece on chinese artist and political ass-kicker ai weiwie, who's afraid of ai weiwei?, [you can watch it by clicking here] and i was awed by that quality of weiwei's, what joseph brodsky described in himself when asked what kept him going when he was a young man running afoul of the state apparatus, obstinacy, and also fear as weiwei freely admits that he feels fear and that is why he keeps doing what he's doing. the man's a badass, hands down. what i also admire is how the artist uses technology, blogs and twitter feeds, to document his life and work, which is the work of life. i wonder why most if not all artists and writers don't also use blogs and twitter feeds. yes, yes, i know, quite a lot, including me, utilize technology for our writings. surely weiwei is a testament to the efficacy of technology. but there is it seems a stern resistance among some writers that electronic publishing, self-publishing, is not authentic writing. should it be so? i wonder if roland barthes, were he alive today, would publish a blog.