Thinking.....

So, Ken tagged me as a blog that makes him think. (Which kind of makes me laugh, given that the past few days have been mainly devoted to me whining about the bad customer service that exists in this town).

But the goal is to list five other blogs that make you think. I suppose one of the rules is to list blogs others have not listed, but I'm not about to troll all over the web seeing who-all has been linked before and who has not. So here are my five off-the-cuff choices:

1. Junk Food Science is one that I think's not been named before. I like this blog because the author - who is herself in the health field - takes all of the "OMG WTF BBQ!!!11!!" medical headlines and calmly explains what's going on. It's a good counter-measure to the hyperbolic medical headlines and generally poor science reporting you see in the media. (It also, I have to admit, makes me feel a bit better about myself - after hearing in the media "Any woman who weighs more than 135 pounds is too fat, and is going to die really really soon of heartdiseasediabetescancerstroke, oh, and she's not really a woman any more because she's TOO FAT" drumbeat, Sandy will have some story up about how it's really not that bad to be bigger than the stick-insect ideal, especially if you eat healthfully and exercise)

2. Mental Multivitamin. I do not always agree with everything she says (but then, that's perhaps a prerequisite of someone being a blogger who makes you think; otherwise, it's just heads bobbing like so many Taco Bell dog giveaways). But she's linked to some wonderful essays that I love. And she makes me feel like I really should be reading Shakespeare, or at the very least, renting the dvds.

3. I know it's totally been done before by EVERYONE, but I'm also going to list Sheila. Because she does make me think. And she makes me go back and replay my Dean Martin CDs. Or reminds me of a movie I saw some time back, or a book I read. And I love the "salon" that her comments often becomes. I'd point to her as counter-evidence to people who claim that the Internet is isolating and stultifying - the comments section of any given post can be anything from an ongoing discussion debating the merits of the subject at hand, to a series of reminiscences, to an increasingly over-the-top jokefest. (One of my favorite posts of hers ever involved that Christo installation called "Gates"...and she asked for people to write unhinged, po-mo deconstructionist style criticism of the installation...and the thing was, it WORKED. I mean, the final product was so GOOD that it read almost like one of those pretentious art reviews...but it was a joke.

And then when a friend of hers linked to it, someone who wasn't in on the joke read it, and thought it was genuine. And they got angry!)

4. Haven't "tuned in" in a while (I've been busy) but About Last Night is definitely a blog that makes me think, when I can take the time to read it. (I find it often goes a bit over my head; I'm not nearly as well-read, well-versed in music, or well-traveled as the authors)

5. Also haven't tuned in in a while to this one, but The Anchoress also makes me think. It's another blog where I'd observe I don't always agree with the author (and at times the author is operating on a higher plane than where my brain normally operates), but she does make me think. And the woman seems to be a right polymath, able to write intelligently on the saints, politics, opera, even global climate change. (I feel sometimes compelled, when I read a blog that is a "thinking blog" for me, to drop to the floor in a Wayne Campbell/Garth Algar pose and wail, "I'm not worthy!")


So, that's my five. I'm not tagging them, not requiring them to extend this further, as I said that I think everyone out there's already been tagged multiple times. I guess I kind of have to plead parochialism...I don't read that many esoteric blogs, I don't usually go searching for things specifically aimed at making me think. (Usually when I "surf," I'm looking to be entertained - and yeah, you can be entertained while you think, but there are some blogs that make you think but not laugh, and there are others that make you laugh but not really think.)

Perhaps that should be a NEW meme: "laughing blogs" - blogs or sites that make you laugh but really aren't very intellectual. I nominate the I Can Has Cheezburger site as the first one.

Oh, and incidentally....on the news this morning they gave the menu (WTF?) of what Bush and Brown are eating at Camp David. Today's lunch, they said, is cheeseburgers. Someone SO needs to doctor a photo of Bush and Brown to add the caption, "We can has cheezburgers?"

I mean - I'm far from a Bush hater, and I'd actually consider the comment more of a slap at the news-media's tendency to report inane details, but it's too good of a joke, IMHO, to go undone.