Sentential Links #43

A bit different approach this time -- I found something called the "Thursday Thirteen" last week over at Adventures in Juggling, and I enjoyed noodling through the blogs Laura cited therein. One is already known to me (hi, Judith!), and one is mine (he said blushingly!), which leaves eleven. I've drawn the first eleven of this week's Sentential links from this group (plus a couple from my regular haunts). Enjoy!

:: No one ever says in journalism school that when you agree to enter the field, you are prohibited from voting, from being a private citizen or from having your own opinion. (Agreed. The stuff we find to support our perceived "media biases" is sometimes laughable.)

:: I am concerned sometimes about the assertion from some members of the far right, that if one is a Liberal and a Democrat then therefore there is no way one could also be a Christian. (You and me both. What tires me more than anything is that what is portrayed as "Christian" is almost always the hardcore evangelical variety.)

:: i was diagnosed with lung cancer on 6/23/05 and now find myself on an amazing (never dull) journey to becoming cancer-free (the good Lord willin' of course!) its been a rollercoaster of emotions, laughter mixed with tears of uncertainty... (that's not from a post, but rather from the blurb at the top of the blog. She's blogging her battle against cancer. Wish her well.)

:: I live in the center of what is called 'The Strawberry Capital of the World'. (Yeah, and I spend money every week keeping The Daughter in her strawberry habit. I should put her in a strawberry detox program or something!)

:: It has been very hard for me to accept that I can't "get" others to do what I want them to do, even if it would be good for them and for the relationship.

:: I'm facing the idea of the roller coaster with a some trepidation. It's kinda like having sex for the first time after you have a baby...you know you're gonna have a good time, but those first few moments make you hold your breath. (Maybe that's what it's like for the mother, but for the f...nahhh, I'm not gonna finish that thought. Nothing good can come of it!)

:: I'm going to blog about Purel and I'm sorry (The title of a post, actually. Damn! The NICU and PICUs with Little Quinn didn't even demand Purel.)

:: Eric shrugs his shoulders and says, "No, Grandma just acts old," he says pausing long enough to take a sip of his juice before adding,"It's her job." (Talk about your insights from the mouths of babes!)

:: Anyway freakin' Manilow was on. Freakin' singing. Freakin' arranging music. Freakin' being Manilow. It made me cackle the cackle I have. If you've ever talked to me on the phone and made me cackle. I cackled. I was a cackling cackleheimer. (As I wrote in a comments thread at Idol Tongues, do es anyone ever see Barry Manilow anymore without also envisioning Principal Vernon rifling through his wardrobe?)

:: Yes, I'm terrible at the business end of writing. I don't write a variety of stuff for paying markets, I hardly ever submit anything anywhere, and I tend not to write anything that isn't fun or interesting to me.

Am I doing it wrong? (Geez, I hope not -- because I'm doing the exact same thing. I'm increasingly looking at it this way: I've got a job that pays the bills, so why should I expect writing to do it?)

Now a few links from more regular haunts of mine in Blogistan:

:: I'm not the least bit insulted that Eliot Spitzer has realized the economic straits that upstate is in; but unless he proposes some serious tax relief for us, then he's not really serious about our situation. (Then why doesn't someone in the media ask him the damn question! Seriously, whether we compare ourselves to Appalachia or not -- and believe me, there are places about thirty miles and farther outside Buffalo that are as poor as anyplace you'll find in the knobs and vales of West Virginia -- it can't be denied that the Upstate NY economy is a wreck, and that the state is losing population for a reason. So are we going to make our state more friendly to business and trade and commerce, or not?)

:: You hadn't heard of the Chinese city of Chongqing? Neither had I. Fun to learn that someplace so little known is so huge, as well as the fastest-growing city in the world. It's the unknown megalopolis. (Michael Blowhard also links this article about this city. Stories like this are what make me want to scream about the "Buffalo will never be a big city again" people. No, we may not become one of the economic powerhouse cities of the entire world, but why should we stop striving for growth? Why should we settle for some critical mass that's less than what we are now, and well less than what we were when this was a "big city"? I don't want a "smaller but still nice" Buffalo. I want a Bigger and Better Buffalo. BTW, pound for pound you'll find more interesting linkage at 2Blowhards than anywhere else on the Net.)

:: I'm also increasingly convinced that the blogosphere is made up of people who self-select, and many are ideological and spiritual cronies of Glenn Reynolds himself -- i.e., libertarians, sci-fi cultists, transhumanist fellow-travelers, and the like. (This individual has been blogging about Glenn Reynolds like mad lately. Some of it's interesting, some of it's really over-the-top. I'd take issue with his apparent belief that SF lovers tend to be libertarian, for instance. I also think he tends to assume that Reynolds is more of a factor in Blogistan than he really is. Yes, an Instalanche is good for mucho traffic, but what of it? For great swaths of Blogistan, Glenn Reynolds isn't even on the radar. I myself almost never read him unless a liberal blogger that I do read mentions something of his. Whenever I have read Reynolds, I've found his insights dull and witless, and few people I read in Liberal Blogistan care if they're on Reynolds's good side or not. For my money, one of the funniest things I've ever seen online was Reynolds enthusiastically linking Adam Yoshida, and then starting to back away when he took a closer look and realized how batshit crazy Yoshida really is.)

:: If it has seemed lately that Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, arguably the crowning artistic achievement of the American musical theatre, was likely to spend its old age in the opera house, then consider the current revival Broadway's resounding objection. (Heads up, John!)

:: Victory! Party gains 300 experience points. Party die as virgins. (This is the winning entry of a caption contest, which is a regular event over at Dave's Livejournal. The entry, by the way, is by Jostein.)

Wow. I could actually go on and on; it was a particularly compelling week for my comings-and-goings in Blogistan this week. But this is pretty long by now, so I'll have done. More next week!