Inquiring Minds Want to Know!

Occasionally I get a raging case of the Geeks and go poking around on various techie pages....and I find interesting things relating to the wonderful world of the Blogosphere. Check out what Technorati's Dave Sifry has to say about the State of the Blogosphere.

And, while you're at it, you might want to check out this little bit titled All the colors of the rainblog and the links to recent discussions on women and blogging which have come up since the recent heated debates about the derth of women on op-ed pages of high-profile newspapers.

I've been reading alot about these debates, and frankly I don't think Susan Estrich did us any good by attacking Michael Kinsley's health. That was a low blow that would make even a man look bad. When you're trying to make a point, and you've alread got a couple of strikes against you on what the good old boys might call 'general principle' you have to be very careful where you step, and Estrich stepped right in it (from what I can see).

But, overall, I think that using the blogosphere as a barometer for the women/op-ed pages argument is a little goofy. People blog for different reasons--some political, others not, and not all the others are on Livejournal either. There are many in the blogosphere who consider themselves ersatz journalists, while others just consider themselves political activists, and others neither of the above (myself in the third category). Women who should be on op-ed pages are, like the men, individuals who have established themselves not only as journalists but also overall as thinkers. Susan Sontag, for example, was much more than a journalist (although I don't think of Maureen Dowd as either a deep thinker or a journalist, but that's just one woman's opinion--and she's always blabbering in The NY Times).

So, maybe the question is where are the women thinkers? I wouldn't necessarily consider Estrich much of a thinker any more than I would Bill O'Reilly (and if he thinks with anything other than The Little Head, I'd be very surprised)--so I wonder, where are all the women thinkers?

or are we still just too damned busy picking up after the men and the kids and simply don't have the requisite time to fuss over our political navels like the guys do?

Tish G. (linked on
her blog)