Ten Favorite Web Sites, Podcasts, and Blogs

A few years ago I said I was going to post some things to replace the missing 95% of my blog roll (on your right). I've not made the time, and meanwhile Long & Short Reviews is asking reviewers to post short tributes to favorite web sites we follow.  

I follow over 200 blogs, podcasts, Substacks, etc. Some of the best ones have died, or at least become very irregular. (To name five: Drudge Report, Ozarque, Making Light, Pamela Dean, Vince Staten...I still like and usually link to Vince Staten's posts, but he's retired and his posts are irregular.) Some are right-wing, some are left-wing, some have no political identity. Some are writers' blogs that consist mainly of book and sale announcements, and musicians' blogs that consist mainly of music, and booksellers' and book reviewers' blogs that consist mainly or entirely of book promotions.

Here are ten that post something I actually read at least weekly. L&SR blogs are excluded from consideration on this list, because the idea is to introduce our other favorites to one another, and the weekly blog challenge has already introduced us to one another.

1. Barb Taub: Our generation's answer to Erma Bombeck blogs from Arran Island, often about travel to other places. She doesn't go to Florida in winter; she goes to India. This blog is always funny, though sometimes it's that odd, perhaps heartwarming, perhaps irritating, laughter through tears in what's actually a sad story that eupeptic people do.

2. David B. Clear: Cartoons that are fresh and funny, insights into the writing process, and some bloggy wails about the lives of a young couple trying to generate a steady income from rental property. They're not American, though DBC's English sounds as if it might be, and don't do politics. People who don't enjoy this Substack are seriously humor-challenged. I usually laugh out loud at least once a week, and there's a nice mix of rude jokes, as favored by the young, with "dad jokes," as told by my generation to the young. (Among ourselves many of us used to like dirty jokes too.)

3. How to Meow in Yiddish: When the blogger known as MOTUS (Mirror of the United States, main writer of the Michelle's Mirror blog) was in treatment for cancer, some forum participants split off and formed smaller blog/forum sites. I thought that might happen here. (Did I think reviews of old books were going to attract a mob? Hey, if catty comments about someone else's clothes...Every good blog has a niche, often a small niche from which a really good blog expands into anything-and-everything.) It happened, instead, at what readers of the Mirror now know as the Meow, which is a very nice, friendly blog often featuring whimsical speculative short fiction. Some of that fiction has been compiled by now into In the Tenth Year of the Pandemonium (post-apocalyptic alien invasion) and The Book of Ralph (a story about a very nice Sasquatch family). All kinds of things get posted in the comments, including lots of classic rock music...this blog is especially recommended to anyone who wants a nice mix of beats to exercise to.

4. Messy Mimi's Meanderings: Lots of fun stuff, but the core of this blog is a daily list of the many different "holidays" observed on any given day of the year and some historical events that could be celebrated on that day. It's like a day-by-day online almanac. Also photos, tales of volunteer work, verse, jokes, mini-stories, and shelter cats. 

5. Michelle's Mirror: Started out as political snark with a silly premise: the blog was written by a mirror that had the unenviable job of making it possible for the First Lady to believe she looked decent, which in the case of Michelle Obama, etc. etc. har har. Since I think Mrs. Obama did look decent, most of the time, even if the styles she favored were (I wonder why) styles for large, dark-complexioned women that wouldn't suit most of us, I thought this was a lightweight conservative or even "neocon" blog for the first few years. It was visited and dissed by Michelle Malkin--well it's not her mirror. But it never was only about fashion and it never was only ragging on Mrs. O. It became a news blog and grew its own forum, which some followers used as their own blog host site. They post everything--pet photos, music, one blogger's regular posts about the history of pop music, prayer requests, news videos from around the world, sermons, vintage movies....This blog has survived a lot, including the main writer's brain tumor and surgery.

6. Notes from the UK: Ellen Hawley's blog about what she's learned since moving to the UK. Out-loud laughter is guaranteed.

7. Poets & Storytellers United: There is a small, loosely knit online community of poets who've linked up at a few different sites over the years: Dverse, Whirligig, and P&SU, currently. P&SU is hosted by Blogspot so it has the most congenial format and is the one where  I post poems, if I do. There's a delicious mix of abilities in this community generally. Some people are obviously learning English as a second language, and some are writing the poems that are going to be in future generations' schoolbooks.

8. Real Coffee with Scott Adams: Used to be a proper blog called the Dilbert Blog. Then Adams went to "vlogging" or "podcasting." I ignored the videos, mostly, until they were censored. It is a duty to read and listen to material that's being censored. In SA's case, the videos are nothing much to look at, but his whimsical comments on news items are worth listening to. They're posted on You Tube (linked) and on Rumble. I get them in the e-mail from Rumble.

(But please don't anyone who is currently under age 70 take this endorsement of a "vlog" as a suggestion that I'd be willing to listen to you just talking to your computer every day. I think I'd better post a rule. If you want me to listen to your "vlog" you must be (1) over 70, (2) the author of a blog I followed for years, (3) having lost nothing but the ability to type, or a critical mass of your core audience's ability to read/see. If you and your audience have the ability to read and type, please use it.)

(And, do I believe Scott Adams really had the option of identifying as Black? Well why not...it'd be like Ishmael Reed being active in the Irish-American League. I think SA would have about as much credibility as a Black American as IR had as an Irish-American, but your ancestors don't go away merely because you don't look like them. Anyway, he was censored for saying something about some Black American writing that in no way expressed ill will toward Black Americans generally, but those who hate moderate politics screamed hysterically that it did. I believe in flouting the kind of people who hate Scott Adams.)

9. String Geekery: Naomi Parkhurst's irregular blog about knitting and designing knitwear. Home of the stitch patterns based on encoded words.

10. Wendy Welch: I'm not sure why people think you can't make a small investment in a small town, sell a mad mix of used and new books, combine it with handcrafts, music, rescue animals, community service, and your own writing, and make it pay for itself. Wendy Welch did it. In retirement she's doing more of her own writing--as in books, more academic ones these days than popular charmers like The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, which was her memoir of the bookstore.