Of blogs, bloggers, blogrolls, and blogging

Last week I received an invitation from SteveAudio to join his fine team of bloggers. I accepted his invitation, although not without a bit of thought, because I rarely make full use of the connections I already have. (Jenn sez I hardly even post to my own blog.) I decided to accept, finally, because Steve, The Sailor, and the rest of the good people over there do much of the same thing that I do - liberal politics, knowledgeable music writing, a bit of humor. I see Steve's blog as a place to put my good stuff where a few more people might read it. Steve's blog is worth the trip - if you like what I do here, you'll love SteveAudio.

I also still have my diary at They Gave Us A Republic, which I haven't posted to in ages; that's something I feel a bit guilty about. Blue Girl is one of the first people I met in the blogosphere, and I am pleased to have watched as she grew from her humble beginnings at Blue Girl, Red State to the well-read and respected blogger she is today. I think the main reason she puts up with me is that we're both Wichita State alums (she was going in the door as I was going out), and there aren't many of us out there blogging. There's also my connection to Correntewire, my first real home in blogland, but things have changed so much there that I rarely post or even comment any more. A lot of my old friends there have gone (some to the Stayedbehinder Lounge), and I haven't connected to most of the people who took their place. There's bound to always be a certain amount of change going on at a high-profile blog like that, and I don't blame Lambert and the crew for the direction they've decided to take, but I wish they'd spend less time writing about what needs to be done, and more time writing about how to do it. (Though this has been a general complaint of mine about liberal writers for more than 25 years. We have enough position papers to stretch from here to the Moon, but haven't figured out a way to turn those papers into a strategy that wins elections.)

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I finally have my blogroll back. Somebody hacked BlogRolling back in November, and the folks over there have spent the last few months rebuilding their code from scratch. The blogroll is long overdue for some maintenance - I've been frustrated at not being able to add some of the bloggers I've found recently that interest me, and need to weed out some of the folks who have disappeared. (Strannix?) One drawback at this time is that when you click a link on my blogroll, you'll now see pop-up ads at the top of the page when you reach your destination. That will stop if I pay them $20 a year for their services, which seems reasonable. The ongoing problem in the nets is generating revenues sufficient to keep services going - I would have liked to have seen the internets developed as a sort of public utility, but our country chose a market approach instead, and now we have services and content providers constantly at the brink of viability because of the need to turn a profit, and people's resistance at having to pay for something they've been used to getting for free. I don't know how the problem will be resolved in the long term; one possibility may be to have ISP's subsidize content in much the same way cable companies help pay for programming, in which case your ISP bill will be going way up.

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Further proof that I am not prolific: in two and one-half years of blogging, this is post #301.

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Finally, a shoutout to Jenn's friend Philly, who has just started her own blog, Blue Eyed Views. Go over and say hi to Philly, check out her stuff; you may not believe that she has never had an argument with her husband in over five years either, but then she'll just threaten to sic him on you.