Electrolite: As regular readers

February 19, 2003

As regular readers of Electrolite’s comment section will have noticed, Timothy Burke is a sharp fellow and a strong writer. Now Burke, a young history professor at Swarthmore, has acquiesced to the inevitable by starting Easily Distracted, a weblog of his own, and it’s good stuff. Currently on top: a thoughtful piece about chasing the “fully realized Habermasian public sphere” through multiple successive online forums, which I certainly found interesting since so much of Burke’s experience parallels my own, right down to the specific “places” in question. Underneath that, an excellent reflection on the need to “jump clusters” now and then in order to stay smart and fresh. Needed: permalinks. I’m sure Burke will get on it.

Elsewhere in the world of really good weblogs that not enough people seem to read, Emma of Late Night Thoughts has three remarkable posts addressed to anyone concerned with actually rolling back the radical right in our lifetimes. [02:58 PM]

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Comments on As regular readers:

Stefan Jones ::: (view all by) ::: February 19, 2003, 04:31 PM:

Patrick, the link to the third of Emma's posts appears busted (http://skyedreams.blogspot.com/2003_02_16_skyedreams_archive.html#89288343)

The other two rock:

"They do not care about truth and justice. They care about winning, about instituting their Christian version of Sharia on the country, and keep the "rest of us" in our place."

Word! I hope this gal gets a writing job on that new lefty talk show network.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: February 19, 2003, 05:23 PM:

The breakage appears to be one of those Blogger permalink problems. The advent of mighty Google can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, it's the post of February 17 that begins "I can't think of a title for this post, so I'll just let it stand on its own."

vachon ::: (view all by) ::: February 19, 2003, 08:45 PM:

Thanks for the link to Easily Distracted. Seems to be an intelligent blogger with a nice writing style and easy humor. I shall tune in.

Simon Shoedecker ::: (view all by) ::: February 21, 2003, 06:11 PM:

One of my rules is to stop reading as soon as the writer quotes, as if it were wisdom, the line about the middle of the road and dead armadillos. So I didn't get very far with Emma of Late Night Thoughts.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: February 22, 2003, 02:56 PM:

If I used rules as stringent as that, I'd miss a lot of worthwhile writing. Many people with useful things to say also fall into cliche at times.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: February 23, 2003, 02:50 PM:

(Not that anyone's reading this thread any more, but Emma of Late Night Thoughts also has the kind of political background you don't see in blogdom every day.)