The Danger of Brevity

Now that I'm a few weeks into this blogging thing, I can see that the challenge is to keep it short, and to post more frequently. That, at least, seems to be the advice coming from the "bloggerati" I browse (Rubel, Hobson, O'Keefe, Scoble, etc.). Not that I've even scratched the surface of the blog universe just yet, but I'm getting the general idea.

Cicero, the great Roman orator, knew this. "Brevity is a great charm of eloquence," he said (in Latin, of course). Then again, he was decapitated in 43 BC. His head and hands were displayed in the Roman Forum -- a physical sort of brevity, and much less hassle than displaying the entire body.

In a story attributed to Plutarch, Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head and pulled out his tongue, jabbing the tongue repeatedly with her hatpin in order to take a final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.

I guess brevity doesn't always do the trick.