The Talent in the Room -- Pt 2

Continuing with the weblogs that eventually sent me to my own:


I think of NTodd Pritzky's "Dohiyi Mir" as the central figure in a family of weblogs, because I have the impression that most of those other sites were inspired by his. Or at any rate I discovered all those other weblogs by reading "Dohiyi." For some odd reason I check out that site every day and usually first, and I post comments on it more than I do on any other. I think it's become just a habit. I don't feel particularly close to things there, because I am quite sure that early on I got on Mr. Pritzky's nerves.

I wasn't a big Kerry man but I was strongly in favor of the absolutely essential ABB. So after noting how NTodd and his colleagues went so strong for Howard Dean and were so bitter about his not getting the nod, I stirred myself to loudly question whether they would be able to shift their full support over to John Kerry. That didn't go over big with any of them.

But NTodd got on my wrong side, too, because of chess.

As a longtime serious chessplayer, I was attracted to his site in the first place because it was the first one I saw that featured a chess diagram. But then he and the proprietor of "Rooks Rant" started what they grandly billed as the first ever Bloggers Chess Match. In reality you've never seen anything so ridiculous.

If you say you're going to play some chess, then you should do just that -- play chess and be timely about it, and never mind taking long holidays out for allegedly more important stuff, like making a living! Very quickly NTodd gave away an important piece for nothing, and this while taking weeks to make moves that really needed only a few minutes. And now, after barely a dozen moves, the pair seems to have just abandoned the game, without, as far as I know, extending onlookers like me the courtesy of saying they've exited through checkmate, resignation, or any of the other regular routes.

Except for the volleyball reports, however, "Dohiyi Mir" is always interesting and highly informative, with lots of the proprietor's own expert photographs on neat things -- even deer droppings -- mostly in Vermont.

"Rook's Rant" is graced by Guy Andrew Hall's very large and distinctive sense of humor, but as in chess, or at least as in his comments about such, sometimes he doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. Also I wonder if he's colorblind. You need a flashlight for looking around in his space, unless, like him, you think medium gray on black makes for easy reading.

Here are the other members of Dohiyi's "family" that I check out now and then:

"Blogamy" is run in tandem by a wife-husband team, avid Dean supporters Amy and David. Amy is on the fiery side, while David is somewhat more sedate. "Words on a Page" is the work of Wanda, a very pleasant woman, who, however, also sometimes gets fired up almost to the point of losing it. She speaks from the interesting perspective of an ex-Republican. "The Yellow Doggerel Democrat" is run by Steve Bates. He is a longtime activist, especially against the death penalty, very eloquent (but then all these weblogists are) and a hardcore Texan, and I wonder why he's in that most questionable of regions, just as I wonder why Bartcop stays in just as bad a fix, dwelling next door in Oklahoma. "Collective Sigh" is the weblog of Andante, who bills herself as "a white, middle-aged Southern Belle Don't-Wannabe." She, like Dohiyi Mir, tends to reveal more of herself and her doings than do most of the others. I have been unable to determine the gender of Mustang Bobby, who has "Bark Bark Woof Woof." For a long time I assumed a man, but lately I've seen things that suggest a woman. She or he is a playwright and so has a lot to say about the theater. We seem to collaborate whenever someone adopts a color scheme that threatens our reading comprehension, but I'm less polite about it, which is funny, because everywhere else, online and off, I'm regarded as being even excessively polite. "Musing's Musings" is written by Michael, an angry but controlled young guy, who is studying what went on in Nazi Germany back when I was a child but he wasn't on the planet as yet. That subject greatly interests me, too, especially because it's so relevant to what's been happening in the U.S. since the elections of 2000 and the airline suicide attacks of the following year.

All those weblogs are well worth reading, though they're small compared to the likes of "Eschaton," "Pandagon," "Daily Kos," and "Political Animal, who cover the same ground. I read those, too, occasionally, but their sheer number of posts and comments makes it a trial. In the more modest weblogs above I can get my head around things much easier.

That's it for this instalment. As an old time Southern preacher said, I'll be back one day -- most likely tomorrow. I'll just ask to say a word.