It’s easy to forget how foundational and transformative blogging has been for me. I’ve grown a little embattled (some folks at my school still say”blogging is silly”), a little weary, and truth to tell a little wary as well. As times get complicated, and events and emotions get tangled, it gets harder to push through the snarled yarns and just write, letting the devil take the hindmost.

Then I read a story like this one about Cambodian bloggers, a very tiny minority in an impoverished land who nevertheless feel themselves newly empowered as citizens–at home and globally. I read of the 17-year-old student who got together with three of her peers and organized Cambodia’s first-ever blogger conference, and of the way blogging has tranformed their lives. I grew up hearing the name “Phnom Penh” and associating it with the Vietnam War, with American invasions and official denials, and later with the atrocities of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. In this story, though, Phnom Penh is the site of the conference, and the bloggers there are opening windows to their country and the rest of the world.

The picture’s not entirely rosy, by any means, as the AP story makes clear. Yet I feel the energy, the passion, and the gratitude of these Cambodian bloggers. And I resolve to honor my own membership in this community, too.

And do please visit Beth Kanter’s blog for an inspiring account of her trip to the Cambodian Bloggers Summit in August.