The Blog of Blogs

Peace Garden - Sowing the Seeds

2004-09-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

I've had a difficult time finding blogs I cared to review the last couple of days. I ran into -- and spent a lot of time looking at -- the blog of a Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Gerogia, Sid Cottingham. "Cracker Squire" ( http://crackersquire.blogspot.com/ ) is definitely a blog worth looking at, especially for Georgians. Cottingham comes across as a very knowledgeable old-school Southern Gentleman, and it was particularly refreshing to see someone comment on things that are really germaine to the actual government, like Medicaid funding and oversight of insurance practices, as opposed to ethereal discussions about what government ought to be doing or heated arguments about things that are incredibly marginal to how government affects our lives.

But ultimately I decided that reviewing someone running for an office was too treacherous territory for me. I intend to review blogs, not candidates, and it would be wrong (I think) to give the impression of approving of a candidate without looking carefully at the whole campaign, including what the candidate's opponents say of him. I didn't care to take on that task.

Which brings me to "Peace Garden ( http://peacegarden.blogspot.com/ )."

"Peace Garden" is the political blog of Bush critic and peacenik "Pax." It is, unfortunately, in many ways the mirror image of "The Teddy Bear Blog."

Pax's latest post when I looked began by criticizing GOP convention-goers for supporting Bush while disagreeing with a lot of what has gone into the Republican Party platform. Pax closes his first paragraph by asking, "Shouldn't we be voting for a president who we can trust and support in all his endeavors(?)"

In a very limited sense, the answer to this is, 'Yes -- we should be able to vote for someone we agree with on every issue.' Of course, this is a practical impossibillity, and the question rings a little hollow coming from Pax after he has voiced reserved dismay at Kerry's record of war votes.

Pax also seems very convinced that a Bush re-election will mean more wars, more unemployment, and intrusive domestic spying. I tend, actually, to agree with Pax on these matters, at least to a degree.

But, as with "Teddy Bear," the manner of presenting these is completely antagonistic: these things are THE TRUTH, regardless that the Bush platform has not directly promoted more wars, higher unemployment, and intrusive domestic spying. To those not already singing in the choir, this is a club being swung at them: if you don't agree, you must be blind or stupid or something.

Well, I expect that most people who don't agree will just walk away, and people who might have wondered if there could be some truth to these accusations will know that "Peace Garden" is not a likely place to find the proof of it.

A useful aspect of "Peace Garden" is that it provides links to developments in Iraq, albeit the main thing that Pax seems to be concerned with in these is in how the Bush Administration will be manipulating events there (as well as in the "War on Terror") in order to affect the election.

Pax comes across as very sincere -- one doesn't help push a 2 1/2 ton memorial stone for civilian victims of war for 12 miles without being sincere -- but also impractical. He has taken his position on one side of the political schism that has stricken our country, and the other side is the enemy, who are at best misguided and at worst evil: in any case, there is no point in discussing anything with them.

Writing: 6

Personal/Public: 7

Content Quality: 4

Thoughtfulness: 4

Overall: 4

I can repeat almost verbatim the recommendations I made for "Teddy Bear," the ones that were received so well:

"Peace Garden" needs an overhaul. At the moment, it provides a look into what the opinion of an extreme liberal is, as though that was something hard to figure out. An unquestioning, unchallenged political opinion is about as useful as a solar powered flashlight.

If Pax wants to promote his vision, he needs to communicate with people who might be drawn to it in a language that they can understand. I don't think he does this.

Cao's Blog

2004-08-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

"Cao's Blog" ( http://caoilfhionn.blogspot.com/ ) is the political blog of a conservative/libertarian woman from Illinois. The last post when I looked at it was well-written article about the "Ruckus Society" -- a radical group that espouses property destruction and dangerous forms of sabotage in support of animal rights. It was very informative, and it highlighted the activities of a group whose nonsense deserves scrutiny.

There is also a fact-filled post about Democratic Section 527 organizations, highlighting that their size dwarfs that of the Swift Boat Veterans' operation, and another post about Kerry's opportunism in Viet Nam, where he towed around an 8mm camera to record his exploits and where he manipulated the rules on Purple Hearts to get out of 'Nam as fast as possible. These are, I think, fair comments, unlike some of the miss-leading comments that have been made about Kerry's valor and leadership. They are not the full story -- the 527 organization MoveOn.org pulled an offensive "Bush morphs into Hitler" ad that someone had submitted to them, which is an action those involved with the Swift Boat Veterans have not yet emulated in any way; and Kerry's opportunism pales in comparison with that of Bush and Cheney, who manipulated the rules to stay as far out of 'Nam as possible in spite of supporting the war. But they are fair comments.

More questionable are a series of images comparing Kerry's use of an up-raised fist to that of Communists and anarchists, as well as the underlying theme that George Soros' money props up much of the anti-gun, pro-animal, and anti-Bush movements.

In sum, though, Cao gives the distinct impression that she is someone who would be happy to discuss real issues rather than just to say whatever at the moment seems the most favorable to Bush/Republicans and the most embarassing to Kerry/Democrats, regardless of how superficial the comment might really be.

Writing: 8

Personal/Public: 9

Content Quality: 8

Thoughtfulness: 8

Overall: 8

"Cao's Blog" is certainly worth a look. I peered at previous posts and found criticism of our military confiscating weapons in Iraq (which included the information that Saddam Hussein permitted widespread ownership of automatic weapons and even grenades, raising the question of how exactly gun ownership protects us from tyranny, as the NRA promises us so often that it does), and of domestic prison abuse. I also found that "Cao's Blog" is very new -- starting (if I can believe datemarks) August 18 -- and that Cao's real political favorites are libertarians Alan Keyes and Ron Paul, and not anyone in the Bush Administration. This makes me wonder if Cao has not been easing off a little on Bush as the election approaches, much as "Nader Democrats," if they are smart, will hold their noses and pull the Kerry lever on November 2.

The Teddy Bear Blog

2004-08-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

"The Teddy Bear Blog" ( http://teddyblog.blogspot.com/ ) is the mostly political blog of a died-in-the-wool Republican conservative named 'Jay' from Massachusetts. It may be being discontinued, and the format changed while I was looking at it.

"Teddy Bear" is much more nearly what I think of by 'political blog' than is "Farenheit 911:" almost all of "Teddy Bear" is the blogger's comments, even if those are taken wholesale from the RNC brain-control office.

Like F911, though, TB highlights what I think is an unfortunate trajectory in American politics: complete bifurcation and thorough antagonism across the schism. Who is informed by anything written on TB? No one: the preached-to choir is exorted to sing louder; and any unbelievers listening at the window are calculated to be angered and offended.

I expect that Jay is a lot more thoughtful than he comes across as in TB, but it has become acceptable in American politics to bray like a howler monkey, with sheer volume substituting for reason and coherence. And, helpfully, the monkeys on the other side are howling too, and justifying every decibel anyone can manage against them.

It's all good fun, until you consider that people around the world are possibly going to live or die based on the results of this nonsense.

What is missing in TB is debate. Jay gives half or even just a tiny fraction of a story -- whatever part supports his opinion -- and runs with it. There's no one there to say, "Hold on, Jay -- no one is saying that 'Unfit for Command' should be pulled off the shelves; they're just saying that some of the accounts given by people involved with it -- accounts broadcast prominently on television in several closely contested election states -- are missleading and dishonest. And some of the accounts pretty clearly ARE missleading and dishonest!" No one is there to say, "Hold on, Jay -- clearly Kerry didn't mean that we should fight wars with wet noodles instead of with bombs and guns. Why don't we look at the context in which Kerry made his odd comment about fighting a 'sensitive' war, and discuss what he really meant, instead insisting on discussing the screwiest misinterpretation we can come up with about what he might have meant, were half of his brain removed?" Et cetera.

But it's not just Jay -- the link he provides to the National Review article is (a) full of crap that a more professional journalist would have cleaned up (but which Mark Goldblatt drops as fully accepted background information), and (b) insists on addressing the very silliest arguments against Bush as though they are the only arguments against him.

Writing: 7

Personal/Public: 8

Content Quality: 4

(New category for political blogs:)

Thoughtfulness: 2

Overall: 3

"Teddy Bear" needs an overhaul. At the moment, it provides a look into what the opinion of a deeply partisan Republican is, as though that was something hard to find. An unquestioning, unchallenged political opinion is about as useful as a solar powered flashlight.

Musings of an Island Girl

2004-08-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

"Musings of an Island Girl" ( http://musingsofanislandgirl.blogspot.com/ ) is the blog of a Japanese woman who has recently fallen in love, apparently with a person she met through the internet or some other long-distance medium.

In one post, Island Girl tells of how too much openness with her mother about her new relationship (apparently) caused a row, and she recounts how her family had been very reserved in expressing affection for each other. There may be some of this in Island Girl's own writing about her new love -- some of her comments have an obliqueness approaching that of haiku. Much of this may be due to the newness and perhaps uncertainty of the relationship, no doubt.

In any case, it makes for an interesting read. Island Girl is very thoughtful -- she writes of a couple of other acquaintances with a complexity that I am not used to seeing stated so directly.

One thing that has pleased me quite a bit in my "Blog of Blogs" project is seeing how other people think. Island Girl's thinking is somehow beyond what I am accustomed to. I'd like to understand it better.

Writing: 7

Personal/Public: 4

Content Quality: 8

Overall: 7

Toilet Paper

2004-08-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

"Toilet Paper" ( http://toiletpaperblog.blogspot.com/ ) is the blog of 16 year old David, from near Chicago. The home site at present includes links to two different "evaluate yourself" type quizes, but David does not seem to be consumed by the sort of self-doubt that has steered me away from other teenager-ishes' blogs.

David is not at war with the world, which is something that maybe needs to be said about teenagers for whom it is the case. He thinks his co-swim instructor who never showed up and presumably was fired was foolish; he is dismayed by the kids in the non-honors history class (which he ought to transfer out of immediately) who complain about getting homework on the third day of class; he likes all but one of his teachers. He's a good guy.

The blog is well-written and it seems to give a good account of what is on David's mind. It probably would be a good blog for other teenagers to follow: it gives an example of unashamed normalness. For old codgers like me, it is a nice blog to see, and maybe one to look in on once in a while -- how, for example, will David react to all the cynicism that he is very likely to encounter in the next few years of his life?

Writing: 7

Personal/Public: 3

Content Quality: 8

Overall: 7

disneymike

2004-08-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

"disneymike" ( http://www.disneymike.com/blog/ ) is the personal blog of a seemingly irrepressible gentleman who is a fan of, among other things, Disneyland (that's "-land," not "World;" sorry, Floridians).

Some of his latest few posts recount a family trip to Seattle, and they pretty clearly illustrate how Mike must throw himself into everything he does: "After Erin and I got up at 4:00 am ..." I got the impression that his blog came about because he always still wanted to do something after his family was worn out.

I sometimes think that there are two distinct but equally valid ways of looking at the world: seeing everything as exotic and interesting, or seeing everything as unremarkable and everyday. I think Mike defines the former: the most interesting thing in the world to him is whatever he happens to be doing at the moment. He posts news on happenings related to Disneyland probably to justify the name of his blog, but really, the whole world is his Disneyland.

The blog is well-written, naturally upbeat, and very informative -- if I were going to somewhere on the west coast, I'd want to see if Disneymike had been there first, and see what he recommends.

Writing: 8

Personal/Public: 7

Content Quality: 8

Overall: 8

"disneymike" is kind of a different sort of blog -- we do not see, I don't think, Mike's innermost thoughts, or anything approaching that. Unlike other personal journal-type blogs, "disneymike" does not read like a continuing plotline of someone's life; it is not something that I think people would follow religiously to see how Mike is doing. But it's a nice, informative, and upbeat blog.

Inside My Heart is My Head

2004-08-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it took me so long to find any reviewable blogs today that I thought I'd look again, even though I was beyond my quota already.

"Inside My Heart is My Head" ( http://insidemyheartismyhead.blogspot.com/ ) is the intensely personal blog of a 29 year old woman. It is the sort of thing that is odd for me, as a man, to read, because clearly my wiring is thoroughly different from the author's. And yet, unlike the teenager-ish and homosexual man blogs, I feel like this is something I would do well to try to understand.

"Inside My Heart is My Head" is very, very well-written. It has the sort of introspection that I think only women are capable of, and yet I am left thinking that the author does not understand herself very well: when she comments directly on herself, she seems to be writing about a different person from the woman we see in her narratives. It may be (amateur-and-worthless psychotherapist hat on, now) that she draws her opinion of herself from parts of her life that really are superficial, and these opinions are almost worthless when she gets into things that she really cares about.

Anyway ...

Two memorable posts are one describing how she fell unexpectedly for an internet acquaintance, and another description of the author's experience in having an abortion. These are both moving reads, in different yet similar ways.

Writing: 10

Personal/Public: 1

Content Quality: 9

Overall: 9

This is a fairly heavy blog, at least the parts that I read. I couldn't see following it regularly because it would probably be too heavy. But it is very good, and very much worth a look.

Fahrenheit 911

2004-08-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

I was bound to run into a purely political blog eventually.

"Fahrenheit 911" ( http://f911.blogspot.com/ ) is basically a repository of anti-Bush articles and commentaries from other sources. It is pretty rich with international sources, which is interesting and useful. I'm not sure what the usefulness of the site beyond that is, at this point: everyone who cares pretty much knows already the allegations about Bush, and what's coming out now is largely rehash.

Writing: No rating -- material is copied from other sources

Personal/Public: 9

Content Quality: 5

Overall: 5

yet another day in the life

2004-08-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

I'm finding out things about the blog-verse. First, there are a lot of foreign language blogs -- good on you, rest of the world! Second, there are a lot of English language blogs that I don't feel I should review. Mostly teenager-ishes' very personal journals, which, to the extent I can even understand them, are often just heart-breaking. I feel like I should pre-package a standard email for these kids telling them that eventually they'll realize that what has them all in knots right now just doesn't matter, and it's the more sublime things that they should pay attention to. Anyway, I can hardly review such blogs, and I'm not sure what type of people should be directed to them. Maybe someone should start a suicide watch blog of blogs ...

And then there was the very promiscuous homosexual man's blog, which I kind of thought I should review just to prove I could, but ultimately I decided that he, like the aforementioned teenagers, lived in a world different from mine by too many degrees for me to comment usefully on his blog. At least not in my third review ever.

Which brings me to "yet another day in the life" ( http://anni2pink.blogspot.com/ ). This is the blog of a British woman who is in a state of flux in her life in, it seems, many ways. She is leaving her job; she apparently divorced recently enough that the phone company hadn't fully figured it out and that that fact still annoys her; and even this blog seems to be a replacement for an earlier blog that may have netted her a stalker of some sort (someone mad to do a geneology chart for her?).

"yet another day in the life" is written for public consumption, but the subject material is very personal -- this is very much a personal journal modified so that other people can read it. It is well-written, with my only criticism being that it was difficult for me to read the latest few posts (as is my want) and understand what was going on particularly well: I don't think it's a blog to look in on every month or so as opposed to reading regularly.

So I'm back to my old numerical scale:

Writing: 8

Personal/Public: 2

Content Quality: 6

Overall: 7

SHAHRI AZ JENSE SHISHE

2004-08-26T05:13:00.000-07:00

Naturally, my numerical scale had a useful lifetime of only one review.

SHAHRI AZ JENSE SHISHE ( http://shahriazjenseshishe.blogspot.com/ ) is an intensely religious/spiritual blog. These sorts of things always make me cringe -- I expect a "holier than thou" attitude that makes me think what a small and petty person the author is.

SHAHRI AZ JENSE SHISHE does not seem to be that way. It consists entirely (at least what I looked at of it ...) of inspirational stories that are not particularly preachy. The site is more "uplifting" than what would appeal to me, but it is not condemning of anything.

I tend to think that SHAHRI AZ JENSE SHISHE is mainly useful for its author to express his or her faith; some of the stories there are neat, but I can't see following it closely. I'm not sure what people who are more into uplifting messages than I am would think.

Aesthetically, the site seemed a little over-busy, and I'm not sure how anyone can find inner peace with that pink-and-green color scheme!

This might be a site to bookmark for viewing when you're feeling downcast.

Introspectre

2004-08-26T04:53:00.000-07:00

Okay – I finally have a winner in the contest to be the first blog I review. To all the other entrants in the contest: better luck next time.

Today’s blog is Introspectre ( http://introspectre.blogspot.com/ )

Introspectre is the personal blog of a 30 year old woman recounting, variously, what’s going on in her life and odd things she has encountered. It’s well-written, approachable, and often very entertaining. Ms. Intro (she sensibly does not give her name) seems to have a very funny outlook on life amidst her anxieties.

Given my background, it is natural that I should want to do some sort of numerical scale for my reviews, but I’m not sure exactly what it should be. I’ll take a stab anyway.

On 1 to 10 scales:

Writing: 9 (10 being the best)

Personal/Public: 3 (where 1 is intensely personal and 10 is an instruction manual)

Content Quality: 7 (10 being the best)

Overall: 8 (10 being the best)

Introspectre is a blog that I think one could follow like a television series or a magazine column and not feel like the time spent on it was wasted. Ms. Intro comes across as a very real and likable person without being sappy.

False Start

2004-08-26T04:07:00.000-07:00

Okay -- the first blog I tried to look at is in Spanish. I should clarify that I'll only try to review blogs in languages I can understand, which is to say, in English.

Introduction

2004-08-26T04:01:00.000-07:00

I've started this blog in order to begin cataloguing other blogs. It will by no means be an exhaustive effort -- there are just too many blogs out there. However, I hope to create what can be a guide to direct people to a few blogs that they might be interested in, blogs that otherwise might be relegated to total anonymity. My planned method -- and everything about this project is subject to revision -- will be to just look at random blogs and give my brief thoughts on them, letting the blog authors know that I've taken a look so that they can see my comments (and curse me out, if they see fit ...).

I'll see how it goes.