The other day, I decided to finally update my blog. Maybe put in some favorites, you know, that kind of thing. So I decided to first take a look at my favorite other blogs. Well, considering with what I ended up with, perhaps that should be favorite. Only one came to mind at the time, and I'm lazy, so that's probably not going to get updated for a while. But sorry to everyone I forgot about. One day I'll update it...
Then I changed the subtitle of my blog to "not fair and balanced and proud of it!" I don't pretend to be fair and balanced. My blog is part fact, part opinion, and part ramblings. I'm not going to pretend to be more "moderate" in order to look "fair and balanced." But I am not going to immediately take sides on any issue becuase this is "what liberals should think." I can name plenty of disagreements I have with "typical" liberal thought like affirmative action and...well...okay only one right now, but I'll think about it later (probably not, remember what I said about me being lazy).
Then I decided to add a new section: My best articles (at least, the ones I like best). Ah, looking back on all my old articles, seeing me evolve as a JUser, seeing the connections I have made, the people who were kind enough (or that I pissed off enough) to comment, all that warm and fuzzy crap. I did this for two reasons. First, the top articles isn't working, and second, sometimes the articles that get the most points aren't your best ones, and conversely sometimes you write a really good article that no one responds to and sinks like a stone. I mean, how often have you written something that you felt wasn't up to par, but started a massive shitstorm complete with anonymous trolls, personal attacks, sweeping generalizations and ad hominem vitriolic hyperbole (okay, I haven't used any of these words yet on JU, and just had to try them out. Can you blame me?), and is kept alive for a week thanks to a few people debating an issue six degrees of seperation from what you started with. Then, a month later, wen you least expect it, it is somehow resurrected. In the meantime, you write your best work, which gets three responses before sinking into the dark pits of old articles that will never see the light of day again.
So going back through my articles, I look through what I want to show off and what I hope never sees the light of day again. First is the 3600 word monster I wrote a few months ago on Salvador Allende. Maybe I'm a bit obsessive, but that's a good one, and I just have to keep it.
Next, one of my more controversial articles, "A few thoughts on the London bombings" which I wrote about a weeks after the July 7 attacks. I got a bit of flak on this one. Some people said I am helping the terrorists, or that I'm "anti-American." But, not wanting to open an old can of worms, that's all I'll say on the matter.
Then "Shoot first, ask questions later: Revisited". I wrote this one as a followup to one I wrote about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. It turns out we were lied to! The cops shot an unarmed man wearing a denim jacket walking onto a subway. But again, the purpose of this article isn't to reopen a can of worms, but I figured this is one of my articles that isn't crap, so I included it. Hey, it's my blog, I can put on what I want (within reasonable limits, technically JU doesn't belong to me, can anyone really own the internet, yada yada yada...).
Then "Social Darwinism: Why it is crap". And here are my feelings about socail Darwinism. If you don't want to read the article (or the title), basically I think it is crap. What can I say? I thought it was a decent article.
And that is the end of todays rambling. Now, if you'll excuse me, I better get back to...whatever it was I was doing... latour999 out.
