Journals Editor's Mix of Six Picks

Okay, I realize that it's completely self-serving, but since everything blew up this week and I didn't get a chance to go through the regular Guest Editor routine, and since everyone is already cheesed at me (including Jim, the most recent blog picker), I figured that it would just be easier
if I selected the featured blogs this week and not call them "Editor's
Picks" (even though some of them are quite good). So, here they are,
the Journals Editor's Mix of Six Picks:

(First off, if any of the AOL Journalers shown here don't want to be featured, just let me know and I will take your listing off. I have also sent out mails to that affect.)

In no particular order, here is my Mix of Six Picks:

* Marty's Stream of Warped Consciousness
Marty Gallagher is an interesting fellow. For a while, he was the fitness live-chat guy for Washingtonpost.com.
He's got a no-nonsense way of looking at fitness that boils down to
three elements (the classic "tripod"): weights, cardio and nutrition.
Sure, it's not original -- it's not supposed to be. But it works, and
he adds a certain elan that only a "Purposeful Primitive" who reads Chekov, hikes firetrails and rails against the show "The Biggest Loser" can bring. Oh, and this is his blog.

* Rebuke the World
I've been watching Raven's
blog for a while (and not just because she kept sending me mail every
time she updated her blog at the outset -- I don't recommend that).
She's been blogging since March, and she originally started out
focusing on giving advice. Her style was a little rough (I hope
she doesn't mind me saying), but in her later posts, you can see her
branching out to topics of philosophy, religion, politics, race and
more. All pretty heady stuff, well presented. Not to say I agree with
everything she says, but isn't that the way it usually is?

* Digg.com
This one is kind of a cheat,
since I was planning on doing an entry just on this site, anyway. It's
not like they need the publicity -- Digg is a collective links blog
that's on a pace to out-Slashdot Slashdot. The Digg difference is that articles get to the front page, not by the decisions of some editorial board, but because they're voted
on by the participants. So far, so good -- I see a diverse mix of
links, from techy stuff, current events, tabloid stuff. It's an
interesting exercise in collective wisdom and I will be writing
more about it and sites like it in the future, but just know now that
it's a good list of stuff that you can find before it hits the rest of
the blog echo chamber.

* Morality and the Law
Just on his job title alone sounds pretty impressive -- he's a Probate Referee for the Superior Court of California -- but Stephen
looks at issues of morality and legality (and where the two realms
cross and part). Naturally, since he's looking at such complex topics,
his posts can be rather lengthy, but they're fascinating reading --
very absorbing and well written, in logically organized and
easy-to-digest chunks.

* The History of Theodore Barnes by Nelson Pierce
Honestly, I'm a little leery about looking at teen blogs. Yes, I know: No one understands you
and what you're going through. Plus, stylewise, a lot of teens prefer
eye-bending colors, teeny low-contrast fonts, and lots of flashy
sparkly animated images -- probably because they know adults can't read
them easily (damn their young eyes!) Anyway, none of that applies to Hannah, who seems to be a relatively well-adjusted senior, despite the odd blog name. Oh, and one of her recent entries suggests she's a fan of  Pearls Before Swine, so she's got that going for her.

* Untitled States
Last,
but not least...well, it's not even a blog, but I'm pretty sure the
editor will let this one slide. At first, it may not seem like much --
it's just an interactive Web site that lets you add your own text to
template images, which you can then drop into your blog. For example:

That in itself is cool, but there are other sites that do that kind of stuff. However, the proprietor of the site is Lore Sjoberg (there should be an umlaut over that o in "Sjoberg"), and he deserves a lifetime achievement award just for what he did as a founder of the now-defunct (but archived) Brunching Shuttlecocks.

So
that's my five. I mean six. I could bore you with more of my bloggy Web
picks, but that's it for now. If you're still reading this, thanks for
indulging me. I especially enjoyed the chance to do some writing today
that didn't include the words "I'm sorry."

Have a good weekend everybody. -- Joe