11
Jul
2008
Trimming the blogroll in straitened circumstances
I do my writing and online reading at the Santa Monica library now. It’s comfortable and quiet, but there’s no place like home; without one, I find myself easily distracted, a much less prolific writer and a less omnivorous reader. Accordingly, I’ve trimmed my blogroll by about a hundred to include only the ones I read daily when they write daily. I’ve included the New York Review of Books and its UK equivalent because they offer some of the best reporting and commentary available on issues of interest to me.
Of the bloggers, my favorite is Malignant Bouffant, proprietor of Just Another Blog (From LA), not only for the Frank Zappa tribute of the title but because he’s homeless, I like him, we spend a fair amount of time together and I admire his lack of authorial inhibitions. Jonathon Shwarz of A Tiny Revolution is sort of like M.B. only without the tendency toward literary violence. The crew at American Leftist are actual leftists, as contrasted with pallid liberals who pass as leftists because Curtis LeMay Republicans have been in charge of describing ideological bents for about 5 decades, and are accordingly an almost invariably refreshing read. Jim Romenesko, who writes Romenesko’s Media News for the Poynter Institute, has a genius for finding and commenting upon the bizarre stories he features at his Obscure Store.
Sideshow proprietor Avedon Carol is a splendidly concise writer who reads as much as I’d like to and provides astute commentary on what she reads. Bernhard at Moon of Alabama is another leftist who, despite writing in English, his third or fourth language, makes excellent points more clearly than most people born to the language. IOZ of Who Is IOZ? is almost as acerbic as he is literate, which is impossibly so.
If you’re unfamiliar with any of these folks or the others still on the blogroll—it’s located in the righthand column beneath the Amazon crap, which you should buy in quantity so I can expand my extremely limited material horizons— please take a few moments to get acquainted. You’ll get way more than you pay for when you read them. One word of warning: Swedish Meatballs Confidential, which delves into propaganda, psychological operations and other media-related shenanigans, always includes a nude photo, artful but possibly not safe for work.
Enjoy, and tell ‘em where you found ‘em.
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Why, thank you. Our smelly imaginary friend thanks you as well. Inhibitions, phooey!!
It’s sadly true that physical violence (& a large reduction in the “human” population) are the only answers to our current quandries. We’re doing my best to get the numbers down w/o actually dirtying our hands, is all.
Yours in nihilism, I remain,
July 16th, 2008 at 8:54 amM. Bouffant