Blogroll: Some Other Blogs You Might Enjoy (Part 1)

If you're new to the whole blog experience (as many I've directed here are), you might not be aware of just how vast the Blogosphere is. I keep a Blogroll in the left column of this site, listing some of my favorite haunts. I thought I'd take the opportunity in this and future posts, to elaborate on those, and list a few more you might find interesting

We'll start with the ones I visit multiple times a day. In fact, several of my posts come directly from these sites, as they are constantly updated, and rich sources of information.

AmericaBlog.com is probably the first blog I began reading on a regular basis. I found it during the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story, and have been hooked ever since. John Aravosis and his crew do a great job compiling stories of interest regarding politics, with a secondary focus on gay rights. The site is also not averse to the occasional dose of frivolity, which of course, is right up my alley. This is the first site I check each day. Highly recommended.

HuffingtonPost.com is the site that inspired the creation of Greenlee Gazette. I happened to be reading when I felt the urge to get involved in this site. The content is fresh, and reads like a newspaper (a very liberal newspaper). Arianna Huffington is the editor, but many contributors help her keep the place lively: Harry Shearer, Steven Weber, Bill Maher, even (wow) Frank Luntz are just a few notable examples.

RawStory.com is another site that is set up something like a newspaper, with tons of fresh and interesting stories to choose from. Like HuffingtonPost, it automatically updates when left open, so that the newest stories are always up front. RawStory tends to be a "breaking news" type blog, sometimes with posts featuring only a headline, followed by "developing. . ." This is akin to the right-wing Drudge Report, but with FAR more actual content.

These are all left-leaning blogs, sites the Bill O'Reilly's of the world would call "far left." I don't believe that they are. Arianna Huffington and John Aravosis in particular used to be outspoken Republicans. They differ in thier tactics from their right-leaning counterparts (such as Drudge or FreeRepublic) in several important ways:

• They allow comments from anyone, right-wing or left-wing. While comments are subject to removal (for abusive language), it is very common to see all points of view in the comments section of each of these blogs. In fact, sometimes the main show is in the comments rather than the originating post. The big right-wing blogs usually either don't allow comments, or heavily censor them.

• Writers of these sites take great pains to be accurate and truthful. I've seen "mea culpas" on each, when posts have been wrong about something, usually with strikeouts through the incorrect posts. In my experience, if Drudge makes a mistake (or lies, or makes stuff up, take your pick), it goes unacknowledged, and the offending post just disappears.

• Whereas the right-leaning sites parrot a party-line attitude (again, in my experience), left-leaning blogs are much less allegient to anyone. I've seen the candidates (Hillary, Edwards), party organizations (DNC, DLC), other left-leaning blogs, and just Democrats in general pilloried over things they've said or done.

But that's all subjective. Check them out and compare, see if you come to a different conclusion. And if you happen upon an interesting blog yourself, please do pass it on to me. Maybe I'll like it so much I'll blogroll it.

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