Bartlett's Blog

When I first started blogging around three years ago, I noticed a lot of blogs often featured entries that were a response to being ‘tagged’ for a meme. It still remains a bit of a thing with certain types of blogs, but I’ve only once followed up on a meme after being tagged. I normally don’t because they either ask stuff that is too personal for me or are too naff for a blog like this which has to at least give a pretence of being a little bit serious (although hopefully not too much).

However, I’ve decided to follow through on a tag on this occasion, as it gives me a chance to refer to some other blog sites I think are worth looking at – something I try to do anyway from time to time. I was tagged/acknowledged by Mike Bogle. The simple requirement is to write a post which links to “5 blogs that make you think.”, and link to the post where the meme originated, which as far as I can tell seems to be this one.

I read lot of different sites from time to time, so I’d probably pick different sites at different times. In recognition of this, I’ve mentioned eight instead of five (which will probably bring a curse down upon me from the blogging gods, leading my site to crash and all backups to be lost forever.)

The first site is one I would recommend any day of the week – the wonderful Barista. Regular, eclectic, attractive, well written and not only regularly makes me think, but makes me aware of many things I wouldn’t otherwise know.

Another regular fave is Planet Irf, by Australian Muslim blogger Irfan Yusef. He demystifies a lot of the ignorant, exaggerated and distorted nonsense that passes for comment on Islam, whilst being quite willing to criticise individual actions or statements by various Muslim people or groups. It is almost always written in an accessible, non-defensive way, and often given me an insight into things I wasn’t aware of.

Andrew Norton calls himself a classical liberal and writes regular posts exploring issues from that perspective. As the years go by, I’ve found myself more and more comfortable with what I would call liberalism, but I’m usually a fair way short of supporting the practical application of what he calls classical liberalism. So whilst I often don’t agree with his views, his intellectually honest approach appeals to me a lot, as does the opportunity to consider things from the perspective he puts.

Jellyfish doesn’t post very often, is very rarely political (not a bad thing) and usually writes stories about herself. But they are usually good stories, drawing out insights which day to day life can be so good at evincing. It also reminds me what real life can be like, which is a nice thing to be reminded of now and then.

Club Troppo and Larvatus Prodeo are both group blogs, which means a range of contributors, and this a range of different topics and perspectives. They also usually sticks to rational discussion and argument, rather than ranting (although LP can be somewhat polemical), and they both can have good comment threads at times, which is an aspect of blogs that appeals to me, as comments can be as thought-provoking as the main posts. Troppo was the first blog I started visiting regularly, which then led me to LP when it was set up by Mark Bahnisch. Troppo is also worth following just for its bi-weekly round-up of the best recent posts in the Australian blogosphere.

The last pairing are two sites from mainstream media outlets which I have found most closely attuned to the ‘vibe’ of the good aspects of blogs. Firstly, a not completely honourable mention to Andrew Bolt’s blog. I almost didn’t list him as he seems of late to have once again been overindulging in gratuitous Muslim bashing and baiting – an unfortunate obsession of his which I find very hard to stomach and somewhat irresponsible. However, whilst I rarely agree with him, I do visit his site reasonably often. I find it useful to test my opinions against someone I disagree with if they write clearly and well enough. He obviously makes a conscious decision to be regularly inflammatory, but unlike some media bombchuckers who seem incapable of anything other than gratuitous cheap shots usually based on exaggeration, distortion or downright falsehood, he includes enough substance in his arguments on enough occasions to be worth dropping in on.

The other is Blogocracy, the main effort so far by Australian mainstream media to import a regularly practicing blogger – as opposed to sticking the word ‘blog’ on to pieces done by their regular columnists and allowing people to leave comments. Blogocracy has been going for about six months now and to me seems to be working out very well. There are some comment threads worth reading in their own right from time to time, and the writer, Tim Dunlop, follows the threads and contributes further – a good trait of blogging in my view.

As noted at the start, these are blogs that make me think, rather than necessarily blogs I really like (although there can obvioulsy be an overlap, and I don’t really like a blog which is just a mindless, agreessive cheer squad for a particular worldview).  There’s many more out there, which is one of the attractions and frustratations of blogs. But the diversity and unpredictability is much greater than the mainstream media, which is why I often find it more thought-provoking.