Journals Editor Joe's Blog Picks for 6/2

Hi everyone -- I'm invoking Editor's Privilege, so I'll be making this week's blog picks. (Then again, it's been a while since I did picks of my own, so I guess I am kind of a "Guest Editor.")

Since I have to do this entry first, I will post my picks to the Journals Main Page and in the Journals Message Board as soon as I finish here.

Now, in case you're not familiar with me or my blog, I'm Joe, the AOL Journals Editor. I work for AOL, and I'm responsible for the content on the AOL Journals Main Page (among other pages). I'm also an Emmy-Award winning editor, as this picture clearly shows*:

*Actually, this photo just clearly shows that pictures can lie; I'm posing with the Emmy Award that AOL won for our Live 8 concert coverage -- it was the first Emmy awarded for Non-Traditional Media, including internet, podcast and mobiles. They gave us a chance to pose with it a few weeks back (I hadn't had an excuse to post it until now).

As part of my job, I figure out ways to encourage people to blog (including people who work at AOL), feature people's Journals, talk about stuff going on in the rest of the big ole sphere o' blogs, help people out with the AOL Journals product, etc.

I set up the Guest Editor's Picks last year (it'll be one year exactly on June 17), where I asked you all to tell us about blogs that deserved to be featured. I figured that having a few thousand eyes out there would be better than just my two (well, four). I think it's worked pretty well so far.

One thing I have noticed, however, looking down my list of previous Guest Editors, is that the list is disproportionately female -- of the 48 Guest Editors to date, there have been 38 women and just 10 men.

Now, I don't have a quota or anything, and I definitely don't want to start some kind of gender war, but a 4 to 1 ratio is a little bit unusual, and I don't think it fully reflects the makeup of the AOL Journals universe.

I'm figuring that the Guest Editor population draws pretty heavily from the Journalers who participate the most in the AOL Journaler community -- the people who post to the Journals Message Board, participate in Blogger John's activities and read my blog. They're a very important, but relatively small group (compared to the entire population of people who use AOL Journals).

Anyway, I thought I would open things up a bit, and dip into my bag of blogs to reach out to a somewhat-underrepresented group: Bloggers who happen to be guys.

Also, since Father's Day is a few weeks away, I figured it would be a good lead-in.

Based on that arbitrary and gender-specific choice, here are my featured blogs for this week (since you already see enough of my face, here's our first-among-equals):

* Polished Words From an Unpolished Man - Journaler Jeff is a Southerner born and bred; he's into shooting, storytelling, and poetry (especially patriotic poetry).

Jeff also has another Journal, Ol' Shoot's ~N~ Lil' Shoot's Wyld Outdoors, that's a little, um, unusual. It's written as if it were run through the Dialectizer set on "Redneck" (their term, not mine), though he takes no such shortcuts -- it's written natively.

* Larry's Journal - Larry is an actual, live politician: He's a city councilman in the town of Brewer, Maine, and he blogs about stuff going on in the city, as well as his own political opinions.

I've talked in the past about how blogs are changing politics, but Larry here is a real-life example of this. (Would that all of our elected officials were so accessible.)

* Syrophenikon - Petar comes to us all the way from Sydney, Australia. (I didn't realize that they got the Jerry Springer show all the way down there, but apparently they do).

Lately, Petar's been blogging about online relationships and conflict resolution, as well as the World Cup, so stop by and see what's up Down Under.

* Eric's Indie Concert Review Page - As the name of his Journal suggests, Eric has a concert photo blog that covers the indie music scene (including J-Rock, the Japanese rock genre) in New York City.

He's got some great photos of bands that I mostly haven't heard of (since I am out of the scene), playing at venues in NYC that I do know (or have at least heard of).

* Sotto Voce - Duane hails from Tennessee and counts among his interests Sudoku, racing, playing around with photos and politics (of the blue-voter in a red-stater variety).

(And hey, look: He's also taken the plunge into making an AIM Pages profile.)

* Visions of Roses, the Ocean and More - Lastly, rounding out this week's featured picks is the multitalented Richard. He's a prolific blogger, with several Journals focusing on specific facets, including golf tips, editorials, and oh yeah, composing his own symphonies.

So, you see, I haven't forgotten how to do this, after all. I think I will pop in from time to time and inflict my own picks upon you, but don't worry: The Guest Editors Picks aren't going anywhere. I will just supplement them with my own finds (especially those blogs of Journalers who may not be the best candidates for Guest Editor, but whose blogs you might want to see in a different context.)

As always, please leave a comment in the Journals or blogs that you read. Also, don't forget, if you want your own chance at being a Guest Editor, send me an e-mail at JournalsEditor@aol.com. (Please include a link to your blog.)

Have a great weekend, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Thanks -- Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks