Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Travel Writing

Everybody does this: a tour of the blogs, with insightful comments thrown in between short takes on the main stories of various blogs. If everybody does it, how come I, a genuine trade-marked goddess, find it so hard?

It started very promisingly. On Alas, A Blog I liked almost everything, but especially the Masculine and Feminine in 1844. Interesting ideas about what's 'natural' to our genders. Sappho's Breathing has an excellent article on the reasons why it may not be a good idea for women to relinquish their own last name at marriage. Respectfulofotters has a good essay on needle exchange programs for drug addicts, and Trish Wilson discusses a new study which shows that the dearth of women in science is not due to a shortage of female doctorates. Barkbarkwoofwoof is lucid on the question what blogs are, while edwardpig is equally discerning on why it's not such a great thing to go to Mars, right now, and Rubber Hose has a great rip-apart analysis of William Saphire's political ineptitude. Elayne has an always relevant reminder that it's cheap and wrong to attribute the success of politicians we don't like to the voters' supposed stupidity.

Pretty professional, so far, isn't it? But note that I've already used up all sorts of civilizedly cheering adjectives: interesting, good, insightful, discerning, lucid, relevant. Besides, my travels had barely started at this point. Two blogs wouldn't let me in without blowing up my Explorer (The Fulcrum and And Then), so they'd have to be left for a later blog. This made me feel discouraged and all the funny writing I had read made me feel even more discouraged. (We goddesses are ambitious sorts and don't like competition, especially if it seems to beat us.)

And then I decided to include a picture that shows two dogs fighting from Clonecone's blog Craptastic, instead of all the relevant, insightful and discerning stuff that was also there, for no other reason except that I found it funny. Well, then it was just a short step to go through the rest of the blogs on my travel plan looking for equally funny stuff. Here is some of it:

Deep, Insightful, Political Comments by LC bloggers:

Farmer on Corrente in When Losers are Winners - and Vice Versa:

Except for all those Howard McGovern hippie type throwbacks from some decade or another. Boy are they losers. I'll bet they'll make the mistake in 2004 of voting for a loser again and the entire nation will once again be a winner when they select a silver spoon fed born winner and liar and crook and national disgrace to four more years. But who cares. That'll just make Dick Cheney a three-time winner and all real-Murican patriotic "pre-feminist" Christian sorts love a winner.


Gotham City 13 on election debates (Hypothetical Situations):

The way I see it, if anyone comes at Bush hard in the debates, he's just going to make a smug face and say some programmed response like: "Gee willikers, (Dem candidate).. I'm just a simple Southern boy, I don't like get angry.. I like to sit down and discussitude the issues."


Andante on Collective Sigh in More Ownership Society - Bush Style:

When I hit the meat counter at the local grocery, I've been known to drool and dream over T-bones or filet mignons before heading over to the ground beef. It's a matter of practical necessity.

The prospect of anyone drooling over job retraining, health care, and a secure retirement brings one phrase to mind - "third world country".

"Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple" comes to mind, also. Those who haven't even had a chance to get into the batter's box stand very little chance of socking away the savings, with or without tax credits.


Chris on Chrisbrown, while commenting on the administration's plans about the moon and Mars (Fly Me to the Moon):

We have a President saying "visionary" things like giving illegal aliens work visas, establishing moonbases, and flying to Mars. Any day now I expect him to say that he's a jelly donut, or Berliner. BushCo is now the evil doppleganger to JFK. He's the anti-JFK. What next? Bay of Pigs II: Electric Boogaloo?


The next two comments might not be quite purely political, but they are too funny to be omitted. Here's Invisiblelibrary (Supply Side Jesus and the Sermon on the Hill):

The reckless liberalism of Jesus Christ cannot be allowed to take hold of the Christian values this great country has fought so hard to preserve.


and BlogAmy (hope you're feeling better, Amy) in Guest Commentary Proves My Theory:

By the way, this person is not a normal journalist of the paper that printed his musings. Abusings. Accusings. Bruisings. Oozings. Mind losings...I could go on, but I won't. Boy, they'll put anybody into print these days. Maybe I'll be next?


And the last two comments are even less clearly about politics. The first one is by Stradiotto who is not in good health right now. While I really want him to feel better fast, there's nothing wrong with his blogging talents. This is how he gracefully says that he must blog a little bit less for a time:

My heart would be heavier about the latter were there not a sufficiency of drug addled commentary readily available for those whose surfing habits include rubbernecking intellectual meltdowns.


Dohiymir provides the perfect final quote:

Offline...
...for a few hours. Talk amongst yourselves.