My Links

I said a couple of days ago that I would have some explanations as to the why of and the order of my links that appear in the sidebar. Well, here they are.

1. Email me! I am still not sure that my email links work, so I placed them in a couple of different locations. I have recieved several emails, but I don't know, and keep forgetting to ask, if the senders are using my links, or someone elses.

2. Google News. This link was here when I initiated the blog. Blogspot provides this service free of charge, therefore the least I can do is respect them enough to leave it in place. Besides, Google News is my home page.

3. News Forum Home Page. This is a good source for news. They show 25 articles per page and one can buzz through a lot of news stories in a very short period of time. I usually ignore Lucianne's little snide comments, but they can sometimes be amusing. And one does not have to wade through the fluff of Survivor, You're Fired, etc., etc.

4. Andrew Sullivan. For the uninitiated, the rookies, and those who just awoke from a 20 year nap, Mr. Sullivan is gay. Not my cup-o-tea, but then it's not my blog. He is also British. Well, that's not so bad. He could be from Massachusetts. What I like about this blog is that Mr. Sullivan is not a drum-beater. He actually asks questions. He has doubts. He occasionally becomes confused. While we all suffer from the same afflictions, Mr. Sullivan puts them in writing, unlike, say, Den Beste. He allows the visitor to witness him wavering from side to side on an issue as he researches it, learns about it, and begins formulating a strong opinion. Many if not most bloggers seemingly can formulate, almost instantly, an opinion carved-in-stone and set-in-cocrete and nonnegotiable and all-to-the-contrary are trolls. Perhaps Mr. Sullivan is just a little on the slow side, like, er, yours truly. For me, he spends an inordinate amount of time and space on gay-rights issues, but, again, it's his blog, not mine. If I visited NRA member blogs, I would probably see guns mentioned with some frequency, whether I liked it or not. In light of the aforementioned, Mr. Sullivan occupies blog position #1.

5. Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter. This is, of course, Roger L. Simon. Mr. Simon is a fellow who truly has his head screwed on straight. I don't think that that was always the case. I think he spent some time in his youth affiliated with some , er, strange people with whom he now strongly disagrees. And he is not hesitant to say so. He is deeply involved with the literatii, and frequently points the visitor towards one profound publication or another, which we might not know about with such alacrity, if at all. He also commands respect for being able to live and work in the Southern California/Hollywood/left coast environment while keeping the aforementioned head in the aforementioned correct position. And finally, he is an old fart with a young child, like yours truly (with 2 of the little creatures). To be truly humbled, sit down in front of a Nintendo Star Wars some-kind-of vehicle race across from an experieced, hardbitten, steely-eyed, merciless 6 year-old. The pain! The embarrassment! The agony of da feet! He therefore occupies blog link position #2.

I'll do the rest later.