Ken Parish has instituted a regular blogosphere roundup on Troppo, highlighting the best of the Australian blogosphere. The original impetus for this was his dispute with Crikey, as Helen notes over at Catallaxy. For mine, that’s pretty irrelevant. There’s enough words wasted on the perennial and tedious MSM vs. bloggers issue, without independent media sniping at each other. Regardless of the motivation, the idea of an annotated roundup of blog posts is an excellent one, and the execution so far has been of a high standard. I have just one major quibble, which goes to something that I think has long distinguished LP from other “big” Oz political blogs. Here at LP, we see issues of gender relations, sexuality, the economy of the household and the family, and for that matter, religion, science, music and pop culture as all domains that can properly be discussed as political. The curse of the American blogosphere is a bifurcation into a big P political blogosphere dominated by blokes and a marginalised (but actually much more interesting and lively) feminist blogosphere. We’ve always tried to do both by blurring the dichotomy between personal and political. It was an unfortunate feature of Ken’s Wednesday edition that every post in the first and second listed politics and science sections was by a man. Women were filed under “whimsical stuff”, which Ken rectified in yesterday’s post, perhaps because of a comment from Laura. Most of the women linked to were either blogging on group blogs or were long standing bloggers who’ve been around since the days when the blogosphere was pretty small. I’m not dissing any of the posts linked to, or Ken himself, because the selection probably reflects his tastes, but I really do think a chance has been missed so far to highlight the true diversity of debate and discussion that goes on in the Oz ’sphere. If Ken were to check out many of the blogs listed on the blogroll here, or on the blogrolls of LP contributors’ blogs, I think he’d find that there’s a lot out there more than deserving of notice. I’m saying all this in a spirit of constructive criticism, because I do think that the mission of highlighting excellent reads around the shop is a very worthwhile one.
[NB: Our blogroll desparately needs some housecleaning, so any suggestions of new additions, or notifications of no longer active links, would be most welcome on this thread.]
I should also note a nifty subscription feature to Ken’s Missing Link category:
Enter email to subscribe to Club Troppo's Missing LinkPowered by FeedBlitz
I got pole position in the Monday politics round-up, and I think I’m a chick…
2/14 in Monday’s post before you get to “Whimsical stuff”, SL, and note also my points about the selection of women blogging on big group blogs and who’ve been around the blogosphere since when it was much smaller (ie Darlene) and the focus on big P Politics.
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2006/12/04/mondays-missing-link/
I though skepticlawyer being quick to quibble about the ‘whimsical’ title was a joke which is why I have to say Kim, you must be kidding.
It’s Ken’s blog he can write what he likes just as you are always free to put together you own genderpoliticalacceptable roundup here at LP.
I think Ken’s got hold of a great idea there.
If you don’t like his selection, Kim, you could always start one of your own.
saint, I’m not trying to pick a fight or start a blue. But I’m not kidding either. If what Ken is doing (and I did say that I think he’s been doing a good job with the caveats I entered) is meant to represent the “best” of the Australian blogosphere, it should be representative and not just of Ken’s tastes. I’m not trying to argue for some sort of links post to what I like or what I’m sympathetic with politically either. I’m trying to make a point that women’s writing often gets edited out of the category “political” and that’s a bad thing. I’m sorry you don’t get the point.
Our comments crossed, Rob, but my answer is the same as what I said to saint.
Putting together a “best of” implies something more and different to “what I like”.
And I said I thought it was a great idea! And one that has been done well.
What is it with constructive criticism being taken as an attack? Dare I say that it’s a very blokey response?
Could I suggest you ditch Dogfight at Bankstown from the blogroll? The site’s full of Muslim hate-mongering pretty much on par with crackpots like Bolt and Western Heart.
Oh, and you should definitely bung Cremated on there http://cremated.blogspot.com/ . Mr Nora’s very funny.
I check something like 200 blogs every two days in preparing Missing Link. They include most of the blogs on LP’s blogroll and many more as well. The division between political and “whimsical” is not sexist as far as I can detect (in myself). Even a crude arithmetic count does not suggest that I’m relegating women to the “whimsical”. Of the posts highlighted in that section in the 5 editions I’ve so far published, 23 have been by blokes and 12 by women.
The category is simply intended to group posts whose topic is neither politics, science nor arts. For example, I put sports posts there simply because there isn’t enough sports blogging to justify creating a separate sports category. Similarly, I only have an arts category every Friday because there doesn’t seem to be enough volume of posts in that area to do it 3 times a week (although that might simply be because I’m not sufficiently familiar with arts blogging to find all the good stuff - as to which see below). Thus I mostly stick pop culture trivia posts (e.g. David Tiley’s one on the ABC 100 best all time albums) into “whimsical” whereas they could potentially be classified under arts if I had that category every time.
“If what Ken is doing (and I did say that I think he’s been doing a good job with the caveats I entered) is meant to represent the “bestâ€? of the Australian blogosphere, it should be representative and not just of Ken’s tastes.”
I agree (although in one sense the selection is unavoidably personal, as are my brief comments or selected quote from each highlighted post). That’s why I’ve canvassed other blogs by email (including Mark here at LP) asking for expressions of interest in participating in the editing/selection/compilation task for Missing Link. I see Missing Link(hopefully/potentially) as developing a strong communal aspect (although it also needs one or more people to co-ordinate it on an ongoing basis, I think). We could either do it by rotating the editing task on some basis, or having separate editors for separate sections (e.g. I’m sure there are bloggers - especially here at LP - who have a deeper familiarity with some aspects of arts blogging than I have, and hopefully more time to check a wider range of arts blogs regularly).
Penultimately, I welcome tips for additional blogs that should be regularly checked. Essentially what I currently do is check all the blogs on the Club Troppo blogroll on a 2 day rotation, and progressively check as many of the arts blogs on the Sarsaparilla and The Art Life blogrolls as I can manage over a weekly rotation. I allowed the Troppo blogroll to stagnate for quite some time during my recent blogging hiatus, and I’m now in the process of reviving and expanding it. That said, I don’t want to make the monitoring task impossibly time-consuming, so I don’t intend adding blogs whose emphasis is almost entirely personal/diary stuff (however interesting many of them are). In my view, to be worth adding to the scanning list for a feature like Missing Link, they need to have either reasonably frequent politics posts (albeit defining that term broadly) or focus on aspects of the arts.
Finally, scepticlawyer’s Crikey slag in her promotional post is simply her perspective. It’s true that an initial motivation of mine for re-engaging with the blogosphere was passing irritation with Crikey. But I’d been thinking about something like a Missing Link feature for a very long time, and indeed corresponding with other bloggers about it earlier this year. The motivation is entirely positive and creative, as canvassed in yesterday’s ML feature. I don’t share scepticlawyer’s apparently extreme animus towards Crikey (although I also don’t resile from my comments about their practices with commissioned contributors). I think Crikey fulfills a useful role as an independent media outlet in an era of ever-increasing concentration of ownership in the MSM. But it doesn’t focus on the blogosphere at all; in fact it’s Blogwatch feature concentrates almost entirely on the quirky/whimsical, and mostly ignores the wealth of serious political and other posts published every day on blogs. If we hope to attract a larger general audience to Australian “political” blogs (as I certainly do), then it’s up to us to develop workable methods of achieving that goal. Neither the MSM nor Crikey are going to do so (because it isn’t in their commercial interest).
Since you asked for Blogroll recommendations, I’ve started a blog though I can’t objectively recommend it.
I think what you’ve done so far is very good, Ken, as I said over at Catallaxy. And you’re right - I dislike Crikey on my own account because all the evidence I have so far is that they dislike me, and that the animus is quite personal. Four bucketings in my four months at Catallaxy constitutes reasonable evidence of that, I think.
If it’s any consolation, I didn’t start with the disliking, and was quite happy to give Crikey an even break and see if they lived up to the tag ‘independent media’, but my experience suggests not. They’re simply an echo chamber for the MSM.
I’ve added Human Behaviour to the Troppo blogroll (it’s well worth a vist). However Cremated/Mr Nora appears seldom to post on political topics and has been an infrequent poster in general over the last few months. My assessment is that the likely frequency of highlightable posts there isn’t great enough to justify putting it on the continuous scan list. I accept that this sort of judgment call in one sense reflects my “taste”, but it does so in accordance with a principled approach that is essentially dictated by the time-consuming nature of the task and therefore the necessity to draw lines around how many blogs can feasibly be perused in the available time. A guest, rotational or section editor might well choose to check a different selection of blogs from me and come up with different choices within that selection (which will be a good thing).
Kim:
As one who grew up in the days when the opinions of women and men alike around the dinner table or out on the verandah were respected or disagreed with for what they were rather than for the sex of whoever expressed them, I would hate to see Ozblogistan divided into blokes here, sheilas there.
SkepticLawyer:
Go on, send Crikey a big bright gooey soppy Christmas card - by snail-mail. I dare you.
Yeah, they have been a bit unfair to you. Who knows, you just might win their hearts-and-minds with a nice card and cheery wishes ….
http://www.ungrateful-troublemaker.blogspot.com
biased opinions guaranteed; sure to offend someone; unpolished, etc.
I was on as well.
Thanks for that, Ken. It’s much appreciated.
I think it should be a great success. Crikey’s effort is often a source of annoyance because of the blogs it chooses and doesn’t choose. It really should be about supporting local talent, not linking to some obscure blog from overseas. How populist of me.
I can think of some top blogs that never get on it for whatever reason (Harpo Marx hair styles must infect people’s brains).
My Gravatar is still not working.
Sigh!!!!
Oh and if anyone wants to read a critique of a member of the MSM (that MSM who I’d love to work for…blah blah blah), click here:
It didn’t work, why didn’t it work.
Now, I have to do four posts in a row:
Here, Here, Here and blasted here.
He he - That’s funny Darlene!
Christine, I think that Saint is just towing the fundy catholic line there with his muzzie hate mongering - see CL for more evidence.
They’re both crass peanuts and should be ignored.
Kim Says -
Then goes on to dedicate a post to sniping at Troppo - Well that’s certainly how it read to me anyway.
Constructive criticism, I repeat, Alex.
Which appears to be the way Ken took it - thanks, Ken.
Let me quote myself:
Kim - constructive criticism comes via an email, whereas sniping is usually public. Just sayin - and I suspect Ken’s just being polite.
Graham, you’ve got me thinking now. A good practical joke card may well be in order… let’s see what I can come up with.
Also, party for Marc on at mine tonight if you’re interested in getting along. Details here.
I await your email then, Alex, since you wouldn’t want to be sniping at me on this public forum.
Touche!!
Someone ought to start a Review of Blogs as well — a kind of blog Wiki.
I did a joke review of LP, way back.
Darlene:
Thanks fir that linklinklinklink; thought I was the only who had trouble with links
A bit mystified - don’t follow test cricket or football - so does this bloke Ackerman play for Collingwood or Geelong?
Thanks for the hint too. Henceforth I shall keep my own pen firmly in my pocket except when actually writing lest others think I am indulging in a teenage personal amusement.
Hmm seems like my last comment is caught in the spam filter.
“Christine, I think that Saint is just towing the fundy catholic line there with his muzzie hate mongering - see CL for more evidence.”
Heh. When my last comment gets out of the spaminator Alex you can read that too.
Perhaps you Alex may care to know that I’m neither a Catholic nor a fundamentalist but I respect CL and have never known him to advocating hate for Muslims. In fact quite the opposite: respect, respect.
But something tells Alex that you have never read every post on my blog but you read it anyway and get a bit techy when oh, I post about shariah law being enforced on non-Muslims (particularly women) in Malaysia but can’t quite bring yourself to be happy that Hudood Ordnances were amended in Pakistan?
By your twisted reasoning that would probably make you a misogynist or something.
Given that my most popular posts are those criticising fundamentalist Christianity (Hillsong posts remain the most popular) and I regularly criticise other Christians then by your definition of “hate mongering” Alex, you should be accusing me of a a regular little god-botherer hate-mongering as well. Can’t I be a Christianophobe or something too.
Oh wait, is that your double standard showing?
And yes typos. Too bad. Heading for the beach.
saint, I can’t find your comment - and I’ve just looked through 137 spam comments. Can people please email us when they become aware that a comment has been trapped as spam? Somebody has probably deleted it by mistake with all the rest - recently, there’ve been 600 or 800 plus spam comments in the filter and it really is very time consuming to sort through them if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
See this post:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/12/06/dont-fill-our-purple-blog-with-spam/
Saint, in the immortal words of Ritchie Cunningham, SIT ON IT!
By the way, I despise all religion, including Islam.
OK, OK. I’m going to ask to be included in someones blog roll.
I’m avoiding politics and religion all together and plan to write about solution focused and narrative therapy.
My first post is up and is the start of a series about therapeutic interventions for violent and abusive people.
Never mind Mark. It happens. And I won’t be losing sleep over it. Thanks anyway.
I was just pointing out that Christine too reads my blog and has a bit of trouble with fact checking, critically evaluating evidence, and separating fact from fiction. Not to mention a bit of moral reasoning.
Something tells me Christine and Alex lack a bit in years given how much they like stuffing their fingers in their ears. And it’s Victorians who are really under fire at the moment.
Saint - I committed the sin of mentioning you, which may have given you the impression that I’m interested in your opinion. I’m sorry for the confusion.
Once again spam I am, I must be spam.
But thank you Alex for visiting by blog again very early this morning.
I took Kim’s post as containing high praise of Ken’s Missing Link project, with a little bit of constructive criticism thrown in for discussion and I think that this was perfectly justified.
In all the rush to defend Ken from Kim’s supposed attack, people seem to have completely overlooked her point that “Women’s Issues” should be categorised under “Politics”, because they are political issues.
To me, Kim was NOT asking that more female bloggers be listed under a political heading, but rather suggesting that posts discussing feminism (and feminist issues) be recognised as the political posts that they are (and not be placed into a category that is separate from politics).
This is an issue that goes well beyond Ken’s Missing Link project - which I think is a great idea BTW.
Cristy
I didn’t take Kim’s comments as an “attack” but as constructive feedback. She recognised that even if others may not have.
On the “women’s issues” point, IMO it depends on the specific topic. Childcare, glass ceiling issues, rape, domestic violence etc are all mainfestly political issues, and I would certainly categorise any posts about such issues under “politics and news”. But I’d take rather a lot of convincing that Pavlov’s Cat’s superb personal post about the circumstances surrounding her childlessness, or Ampersand Duck’s posts about her miscarriage, or Stephanie Trigg’s posts about her battle with breast cancer, should be classified under “politics” (unless, for example, a particular post deals with funding or other decisions or controversies about breast cancer). These are intensely personal posts on any reasonable view, with little direct relevance to “Politics” with a capital P.
Nevertheless I would be among the first to stress that one of blogging’s greatest strengths is the interface between personal and political so often evident. Each informs the other, and there’s certainly a danger in categorising personal and political separately. Speaking for myself, I tend to find deeply personal posts like AD’s and PC’s far more compelling reading than most of the ho hum predictable stuff I link under news and politics. But there’s a media convention that news/politics stories “lead” in any newspaper or magazine, for whatever reason, and I don’t think there’s any convincing reason to depart from that convention/expectation.
I would argue that convenience and accessibility demand that we categorise, despite the possible dangers of exclusion/marginalisation. One might argue just as forcefully, for example, that science and technology also frequently have strongly political dimensions (as they clearly do), and yet I list science and technology posts in a separate category from politics. Similarly with the arts. If the only way to avoid offending some readers is simply to post all links in a long undifferentiated list lest someone believe they have been marginalised, I might as well give the whole thing away.
After posting my previous comment, a mesage appeared stating that my comment was “under omderation”. Hopefully this is a mistake or a technical glitch, otherwise I regard it as extremely offensive and won’t bother commenting here in future.
That’s odd!
Aha! My comment complaining about being under moderation appeared isntantly, so I deduce that I have not been placed under moderation generally. Presumably there must have been some word or phrase in the original comment (responding at some length to Cristy) that triggered a filtering/moderation function. God knows what it was, because I’m fairly sure I didn’t use a swear word or some phrase that might have been interpreted as spam.
I hope your system hasn’t gobbled the original comment completely. It was quite a detailed one and took me a while to formulate.
It’s there now, Ken. The “r” word catches things in the filter - we’ve had some quite unpleasant comments about r*pe.
Interesting.
I don’t quite agree with the idea, often met with in some form or other, that writing on trivia or domestic matters or pop culture or whatever is *not* being accorded its full value if it’s treated as light and ephemeral. I am planning to write a book on domestic animals in English literature and philosophy since 1800 but I don’t think this lends my blog ramblings about my cat any special glamour or profundity. (Hi Steve.) I sure don’t think that identifying oneself as a scholar of something is enough to make one’s views on celebrities more dignified or respectable than Who Weekly’s. (And I also think the converse, as many of us do: far too much of what’s presented as so-serious political & economic debate & commentary is fluffy & shallow; this goes for print and online writing equally.)
But I think Ken is demonstrably wrong in his claim that Ampersand Duck’s and Pavlov Cat’s recent postings are personal and not political in the broadest sense (granted you allow that “womens issues” can be political at all, I suppose.)
Duck explicitly discussed the present and past impact on her life that Tony Abbott’s opposition to RU-486 has had. I don’t propose to use my friend’s experiences as a debating point but I am a bit astonished to think anyone could read that post and not draw a bald and black and white conclusion about the outcome for womens health Abbott’s actions have produced.
Cat also wrote in the first person and with reference to episodes in her own life, but her explicit topic is the double bind STILL constricting women in Australia who are trying to negotiate work and gender, including reproduction, and once again the connection to governmental politics is made for those who require it, in the form of a reference to a memorably facile bit of media commentary on Julia Gillard’s childless unmarried condition. Again the point is explicitly political, and indeed I would argue it’s more fundamentally and essentially political than any number of commentaries on relatively minor and changeable matters of party politicking.
And the corollary of the points you make, Laura (with which I agree), is that the backlash culture warriors explicitly politicise women’s choices with regard to work and reproduction. While allegedly bemoaning the wreck of everything caused by politicising the personal.
The acres of newsprint and many many intertubes filled with rants of the Virgina Hausegger type should signal the intense political contestation over gender and life choices (chances).
So, to cut a long story short, I definitely agree that Ken is narrowing his definition of politics to big P Politics, but I’d also argue that small p politics is now big P at the increasingly important cultural level.
Duck’s and Cat’s posts ARE capital-P Political.
Sorry, I didn’t express myself well. I agree.
What I was trying to get at was the expansion of the Political over the last several decades.
Laura, thanks — much better coming from someone else.
Could I also make the point — and Susoz does it explicitly in the actual name of her blog, ‘personal political’ — that for many women the old slogan about the personal being the political is a simple statement of fact. Certainly my own aim as a blogger is to demonstrate (’show, don’t tell’) how one extrapolates from the personal to the political in order to write integrated commentary on daily life and the way it’s informed by how we are governed, and to demonstrate that the ‘personal’ and the ‘political’ are not antithetical but occur along a spectrum. I often write about the personal as a way of trying to make the political specific and engaging.
Here’s another example, not to do with feminism, to try to make the point another way: in another thread connected with this one (either here or at Troppo, can’t remember) someone commends Jeff Sparrow’s review of last year’s Best Australian Essays. My own essay in that volume gets a fairly value-neutral mention but is listed as one of the apolitical essays.
Which was a bit annoying, because it’s an essay about choral singing which built up towards an explicit if briefly made point about the nature of collective endeavour, something I would certainly call ‘political’. The post of mine being discussed here also built up towards an explicitly political paragraph about the uses of feminism. As Laura points out, I even put in a little ‘This way to the Gillard fruit bowl fiasco’ reference at the end. But does this stuff really need to be spelled out?
But does this stuff really need to be spelled out?
It appears so, doesn’t it.
And as for the faux seriousness of commentary about “Proper Politics” that Laura points to - I agree heartily that much of it is in fact largely shallow gossip mongering in the celebrity fashion.
I am interested to see whether the comments by Laura, Mark and Dr Cat have accomplished any of the “rather a lot of convincing” that Ken said would be necessary to shift his view.
Laura
I’m beginning to think that you will continue to sentence me to stereotyping as an archetypical obtuse male chauvinist irrespective of my actual words and actions.
I conceded some time ago that “whimsical” was an ill-chosen title for the section, because some posts linked there are anything but.
I agree also that there are often (perhaps even always) political dimensions to the best “personal” essays: the personal enlivens and illustrates the political and vice versa. That’s certainly true of both A. Duck’s and P. Cat’s posts linked yesterday. However, Duck’s reference to Abbott and RU486 was a single short asterisked postscript to a very long post, and was the only overtly/expressly “Political” element to that post.
P. Cat’s post had a more extensive political connection/purpose, but not one that relates specifically to any day-to-day political issue (as to which, see further below). P. Cat’s central argument is twofold:
(1) to defend feminism against the accusations of post-feminists like Virginia Hausseger; and
(2) to make the more general claim that “We live in a culture still deeply, deeply steeped in the notion that a woman with no children is some kind of pitiable freak”.
Those are certainly political issues in a broad sense, and I agree that they’re far more important ones than much of the trivial, ephemeral nonsense usually treated as news in the MSM. I suppose I could use Missing Link as a vehicle to challenge the prevailing MSM stereotypical view of what is “news” and “politics” and what isn’t. But that isn’t my purpose. My purpose is to highlight the fact that the blogosphere generates large amounts of writing that is as good as and better than anything found in the MSM, and to make that writing accessible to a wider audience. And, despite your arguments and my conceding much of their force, I still think that the best way of achieving that purpose is to categorise stories in a way a mainstream audience can easily recognise and with which it is familiar.
I quite deliberately set out to highlight the range of meaty day-to-day news and politics posts generated in the blogosphere, in part as an antidote to the prevailing practice of MSM outlets (and Crikey) when they bother mentioning blogs at all. They invariably choose to highlight only the quirky and idiosyncratic posts (look at Crikey’s Blogwatch almost any day), because it doesn’t suit their purpose to let their readers know that there is a huge range of free-of-charge material out there on blogs that deals with the same issues as Crikey but for which it charges a subscription. Both the MSM and Crikey have a vested interest in portraying the blogosphere as a place for erratic ratbaggery and not serious, well written journalism. It seems to me that the most effective way of negating that false perception is to classify posts in a similar manner to the MSM, which unavoidably means equating “news” and “politics” with the stories and issues treated as such by the MSM.
An unintended effect of pursuing my primary purpose may well be that I miss to some extent an opportunity to challenge a dominant paradigm about what is news and what should be regarded as important and worthy of the greatest attention. Maybe I’ll go there once I’ve succeeded in building up a significant general audience for Missing Link. For the moment, there’s nothing to prevent others from attempting their own Missing Link-type feature, and classifying and selecting posts however they like. Moreover, I’ve also invited expressions of interest from bloggers (LP ones in particular) who might be interested in participating in editing Missing Link, either in rotation or in relation to a particular section. Again you would then (at least to an extent) be able to shape it however you want during your editorship. So far I’ve only had one taker.
There’s my question answered, then.
I’m beginning to think that you will continue to sentence me to stereotyping as an archetypical obtuse male chauvinist irrespective of my actual words and actions.
Leave it out Ken: if I commence (not ‘continue’) to think of you as anything at all, it will not be as …that, more likely as a person with inordinate fondness for slightly inept, unnecessary, but seemingly well-meant categorising. A bit like Oscar and his buttons.
Do you always demean and belittle anyone who dares to disagree, however slightly and courteously, with your viewpoint? Don’t bother answering, it’s rhetorical and (as Zoe just suggested) you already have.
I suggested no such thing of Laura, who I thought responded quite moderately to you accusing her of groundlessly stereotyping you as obtuse and sexist.
I made that second comment because I asked a question at 2:26, and by coincidence your response was posted a minute later.
Ken Tankerous?
Think I shall bother answering if that’s ok.
Answer: No.
OK. Truce?
Thank goodness that’s sorted! I agree, Ducky’s and Cat’s posts are political.
Skeptic Lawyer, I also agree Crickey have been a bit hard on you. They’re just jumping on a reliable old bandwagon I guess - and they are pretty good at that.
Does anyone else here think Crickey has too much of the shit sheet about it? I mean, they do pay some interesting commentators (like Mark Bahnisch, of course, who is better informed than most of them), but Christian Kerr should be shot - if you want to leak a pernicious story without fact-checking, he provides a good story.
And the whining from Mayne about the whole Milne affair, aargh, get over it!