While I Was Out...

A couple of old friends stopped by and I discovered some new places on the internet.

Hillary and Dave, it was great to hear from you. Hillary, I've been reading your blog in short bits - that white text on black background hurts my eyes. Dave, you've got the right me. I would be very happy for both of you to send me an email. I don't post my address here, but if you think about how people often use their first initial along with their last name and often have their email service through the university where they work (mine being in Azusa near the Pacific ocean), I think you'll be able to figure out what mine is.

And here's an even dozen sites I've added to my list:

Balloon Juice - a group blog (well, two guys) one a liberal and one a conservative, but the conservative, John Cole, has been driven into what they call on the internets "stark raving shrillness" by the mendacity of the current Administration. A similar blog is Belgravia Dispatch, but I only read the one regularly because I'm trying to cut down on sweets.

CharlieFrancis.com - Why do you remember that name? He was Ben Johnson's sprint coach, and Johnson was the guy who was caught using steroids at the 1988 Olympics. His site is the home of a great discussion forum on sprint and speed training - something I've become re-engaged with to help my son with his training.

Church of the Masses is written by screen writer and fellow APU adjunct Barbara Nicolosi. She writes about cinema and culture and has been a little wound up about The Da Vinci Code - she was the one who proposed an "other-cott" of the film.

David Byrne Journal - Yes, that David Byrne. It's as you would expect.

Fitted Sweats is the place for random thoughts from writer Jeff Johnson. Warning to those given to the vapors or the easily offended - not everything here is nice, and he sometimes uses bad words. But his rifs on 70's music and his open letter to Richie Sambora are clearly worth the price of admission.

The Happiness Project is a journal of Gretchen Rubin's attempt this year to be, well, happier.

gladwell.com is the personal blog of New Yorker writer and author Malcolm Gladwell. Most of the posts are followups to his magazine pieces in which he takes on reader comments and in at least two instances, changes his mind about what he's written. Good stuff.

Kung Fu Monkey is a another screen writer blog. I think I came here for a link to one of his blasts at the "gubmint" but I stayed, well for the blasts, but also for the main purpose of the blog, which is essentially a series of short clinics on story telling. There is also a bunch of comic book geek stuff but you can click right past that.

Michael Berube's "Web" "Log" - Berube (sorry can't do accent marks) is a teacher at Penn State and one of the wittiest writers on the 'nets. You get snark, hockey, cultural criticism, and beautiful/heartrending reflections on raising a disabled son. David Horowitz has labeled Berube one of the most dangerous professors in America, and that's like five gold stars for me.

Out of Ur is a group blog hosted by Leadership Magazine. The blog combines a number of voices reflecting on new leadership and church models in our rapidly evolving era. There's some good stuff, and little bit of clueless stuff, and a little too much whining for my taste ("Why are those Moderns so mean to us when we tell them their worldviews and the very focus of their lives are worthless and wrong") but good stuff nonetheless.

This Blog Sits at... (the intersection of Anthropology and Economics) is the work of ethnographer Grant McCracken who mostly puts his amazing observation and analytical skills to work for The Man to help him sell things. But read this. McCracken knows why we do things and why we don't do things and what one can do to encourage others to do or don't do things.

Unclaimed Territory by Glenn Greenwald is the fastest rising voice of the blog world. He has done incredible work in breaking down and making plain the erosion of civil liberties and the shredding of the constitution currently underway in our country. Or if you are the kind of person who has yet to find that the President has done anything wrong other than not be conservative enough and who even if the President murdered a child on the front lawn of the White House in the plain view of TV cameras and an audience of hundreds would respond by reminding us that thousands died on September 11th and that the terrorists have done worse and that you're tired of people trying to take partisan political advantage over serious issues like child murder, than Greenwald is just another Bush hater.