Tricycle | Awake in the World

RJ ESKOW was drawn into the fractious world of blogging after the 2004 presidential election. He recounts some of his escapades on the political front in “Above the Fray.” “The burnout rate for politically involved people in this country is overwhelming,” he tells us. “It took out an entire generation in the sixties. Now the powerful are engaging in a verbal war of attrition against anyone who disagrees with them. Keeping up your spirits—in both the literal and deeper senses—can be difficult. People are often drawn into a conflict between being ‘nice’ and being effective. That’s tough for some of us—but then, they’re counting on that to take us out of the struggle. And a lot of the time, it does.”