Rating:
A minus (Still a winner).June 14, 2002
It was Ayn Rand who said:
"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life."
How true. On the downside of the equation: look at Bill Clinton, a thoroughly rotten and dishonest cretin, and his duo of Hillary the b*tch-goddess and Monica the Human Suction Cup. On the upside: well, I'll let you know when I locate an example. In the meantime, however, isn't it odd how the same principle applies to well, lots of things. Like bookmarks.
Bookmarks are those pit-stops that web-surfers make with some regularity, familiar places on the web where he finds information, entertainment and god knows what else. Show me a man's bookmarks the measure of what he finds cybernetically attractive and I will tell you well, a good deal about his general outlook on life. When someone shows you their bookmarks, they are really giving you a look into their very soul or, at least, that part of it that can be accessed via modem. So, you see, I'm not just writing another column here I'm baring my inner self to my readers.
I'm just going to go right down the line, starting with the oldest:
FreeRepublic.com is the original conservative news and discussion site, and it is still the biggest. But much of the elan is gone, and I fear that dear old FR shows definite signs of senility. Gone are the free-wheeling ways of the 90s, when Jim Robinson's virtual community of conservatives was, paradoxically, an oasis of freethinking revolutionary thought on the internet and downright fun. Also addictive. But the post-9/11 FR is quite a different place. The free discussion of ideas that operated as a general rule the exception being personal attacks leveled at founder, usually posted by a group of nutballs whose goal in life seemed to be harassing Robinson has been replaced by a regime of "administrative monitors" who censor individual comments and often pull entire threads.
However, the endearing chaos of the place is intact: FR is still very freewheeling within certain parameters (the new rules are enforced unevenly, if at all). A lot of the more independent souls among the longtime Freepers (as they call themselves) refuse to be driven away by an influx of nutballs and an awful lot of PWAs – posters with an agenda, usually involving a foreign country. We aren't just talking about Israel here, whose partisans actively campaign to ban anyone and anything deemed "anti-Semitic" (i.e. anti-Ariel Sharon) India, believe it or not, also has its little amen corner on FR, which actively campaigns to push the line put out by New Delhi: Pakistan is supporting terrorism, all Ay-rabs are evil, and what is needed is an Indo-American alliance against the whole of Islam.
The site has also undergone a redesign, one which I'm not sure I understand, but which somehow seems like a watered-down, albeit zooped-up, version of Classic FR. I may be an old traditionalist stick-in-the-mud, but, then again, I've never denied being a reactionary of the blackest sort: in any case, I usually hate redesigns, and so, I suspect, does everybody else but the designers themselves: that's one reason for Drudge's enduring success. He's never changed the stark Courier typeface that looks pecked out on an old Royal. It goes with the hat.
Yes, change is usually evil: or, at least, it is nowadays. I know another change I'm not looking forward to, and that is the demise of FR, where they've been posting material from Antiwar.com since before the Kosovo war. For news junkies like me, FR is still one of the best sources on the internet. Not only that, but Jim Robinson is still being pursued relentlessly by the evil Los Angeles Times and the quintessence of evil, otherwise known as the Washington Post, for alleged "copyright infringement" because FR members post articles from these publications and then discuss them online. But a simple search for articles from both newspapers posted, in their entirety, on other sites such as the left-liberal Commondreams.org turns up thousands of similar violations of their precious copyright. So why pick on FreeRepublic.com and its wheelchair-bound founder, suing them for millions and trying to put them out of business? Check out the Free Republic Defense Fund because your favorite site could be next.
Rating:
A minus (Still a winner).
WorldNetDaily.com is another casualty of 9/11. In those halcyon days before The Big Change, the pre-9/11 WND was filled with variety conservatives, libertarians, liberals, and outright wackos like Lenora Fulani, who was always good for a laugh. And then there's Joe Farah, politically unclassifiable, and perhaps best described as just plain ornery (in a lovable way, of course). The post-9/11 WND, however, is a very different site: whereas the pre-9/11 version was characterized by its diversity, and by the crucial element of surprise that greeted its readers each day, the new, and not-at-all-improved post-9/11 WND is marked by its ideological uniformity. Endless articles on the "true" history of Israel, documenting its "rightful" claim to the Holy Land, punctuated by Hal Lindsey's hallucinations and the latest Arabophobic swill from Daniel Pipes. Not to mention that every other article seems to be an advertisement for some book or video conclusively "proving" that Israel can do no wrong and the Palestinians are the root of all evil.
The decline of WND didn't happen overnight: but as Farah's ideological and theological obsessions have gotten the better of him, what started out as a pioneering effort went off on an unfortunate and essentially counterproductive tangent. After a while, the religious-oriented material and the pro-Israel stuff began to crowd out the good pieces, until, today, Pat Buchanan's column is about the only good reason to pay WND a visit, aside from an occasional piece by Gordon Prather. Yes, they still link to some of my articles, which is why this review isn't very politic, but I call 'em like I see 'em.
Rating:
C (Going downhill fast)
Another news-discussion source is Lucianne.com, which was a direct outgrowth of FR. Lucianne Goldberg, who won her 15-minutes of fame as a major source of the Monica Lewinsky story, parlayed her fame into a second career as a formidable presence on the internet. Her news site features the same set-up as FR, basically, except they only post brief excerpts from a piece and then make you follow the link thus wisely avoiding lawsuits from vengeful liberals.
Another wise move on Lucy's part: no grand re-designs. The site looks essentially the same as it did when it was first launched, except for the campy picture of La Goldberg Herself, looking like a very tasteful but slightly tattered drag queen, which has been replaced by an American eagle (or is that a hawk?) wearing an American flag mask. Not that there haven't been any other innovations. Ldot (as its habitues call it) now features selected news items at the top of the front page, with snappy little subtitles giving the Ldot "spin." A recent edition was a pretty characteristic potpourri, mixing the Ldotter's Clinton-obsession with post-9/11 self-righteousness, a touch of whimsy, a bit of sleaze, and a dash of the utterly incomprehensible.
As a research tool, Lucianne is certainly timelier and more complete than FR: if you're looking for an important current news article, and you need to find it fast or if you're just looking for material you may have missed Lucianne.com is likely your best bet. The only problem is, they don't keep archives, and yesterday's news (and the threads accompanying it) gets dumped on a daily basis.
By the way, if you're looking to get involved in any kind of coherent or even vaguely interesting discussion, then forget it: Ldot posters are not even allowed to directly address one another, a rule intended to make any and all discussions utterly impossible. Antiwar.com articles are banned, and anyone posting them is immediately and permanently purged. A whole series of purges bannings of individual posters was carried out by Goldberg and her nutty webmaster, in a cybernetic version of the Moscow Trials, until discussion was as tightly controlled as at a Soviet party congress. If you want a preview of what a world controlled by New York neocons would look like, then go ahead and join up. You'll either be purged within 10 minutes, or else "scared straight."
Rating:
B-plus (Ideologically evil and they're doing a good job of it).
LewRockwell.com just keeps getting better. Rockwell, the original master of the snappy subtitle, has infused his site with his own unique brand of acerbic, understated humor: sometimes lighthearted, often dark, and always clarifying. Rockwell has created a regular stable of young writers, whose output is timely, literate, and occasionally scintillating this, in addition to featuring the flawless Joe Sobran and Rockwell himself. Here is libertarianism not the mushy, phony, yuppified version, but the real thing.
An extra added attraction for Old School libertarians such as myself: original material by Murray N. Rothbard, some of it previously unpublished. I have only a single small complaint: the obvious lack of basic proofreading, a flaw easily corrected and therefore all the more irritating.
Rating:
A (Murray would love it I just wish they ran my stuff more often!)
Another site that has undergone a redesign and is none the better for it is National Review Online. It's still very blah-looking (all those cool blues and greens) and the content is predictable. Victor Davis Hanson, the clueless classicist; NRO editor Jonah Goldberg (one of those writers whose works can only be classified as juvenilia, no matter how old he gets); Rich Lowry, the pontificating pipsqueak, who (in)famously opined that we ought to "nuke Mecca" (just because) they're all at the same old stand, regularly emitting the same old party line: Arabs are evil, war is good, and Bush must kowtow to Israel or they'll know the reason why. But the site isn't a total loss: John Derbyshire, as much as I often disagree with him, is an interesting writer (hey, if Andrew Sullivan hates him, can he be all bad .?)
Rating:
C (A boring must-read and what could be worse?)
Speaking of Sullivan: he has, as of this moment, "gone fishing," and the site is temporarily inactive. Which reminds me of something my mother once said to me: "You're such a good kid when you're asleep." In my last "Bookmarks" column, I praised Andrewsullivan.com although, in the interim, I've since revised my opinion, as my regular readers are no doubt aware.
This is another site that has gone downhill since 9/11: the thoughtful ruminations of a voice worth listening to have been transformed into the shrewish interrogations of a professional harpy, and a pretentious one at that. Rarely has a writer achieved the degree of self-consciousness that Sullivan manages to infuse into his online work. Self-congratulatory to the point of embarrassment, this guy makes me look modest!
Worse than his bloated conceit, however, is that he imagines, somehow, that his self-appointment to the post of Grand Inquisitor in charge of policing the culture is universally recognized. Sullivan used to make actual arguments in favor of his positions: now, he merely assumes his own moral omniscience. The result is a hectoring, dogmatic style that tends to weary the reader. And his weblog has become so boringly personal: I mean, who cares about his boyfriend, his dog, his little P-town shack? One can mention these in passing, in order to make a larger point: but Sullivan apparently considers his weblog to be a kind of confessional, and the content suffers because of it.
Predictably, Sullivan, too, fell victim to redesign mania. The chief appeal of the original its simplicity has been lost in a welter of boxes and buttons and the links at the bottom of each posting (so you can link to a particular entry) still don't work.
Rating:
D (9/11 turned him into a complete idiot, and it's too late to shut him up
he's already famous).
Reason magazine has been around since I was a young teenager. Indeed, I remember getting the first few issues in the mail: 12 or 16 offset-printed single sheets hand-stapled together. That was sometime in the early 1960s, I believe: at any rate, Reason has grown into a slick monthly journal of ideas, universally respected by libertarians and conservatives alike. Unfortunately, most of that esteem is based on its past reputation, not its current performance, which was dismal under Virginia Postrel, and remains erratic under the (still young) editorship of Nick Gillespie.
After all, how many different ways can one call for the repeal of drug prohibition? Foreign policy is rarely touched upon, and, when a piece does appear, it nearly always has a distinctly neoconnish tone. Writers Brian Doherty, Jesse Walker, Jeremy Lott, and a few others are exceptions to the Reason rule that all prose must be pedestrian. Their website reflects this characteristic dearth of imagination, except for the one bright spot of the "Editor's links" a daily short commentary, done by different authors, filled with links and generally of interest.
Rating:
C-plus (Postrel wrecked the place let's hope they can rebuild their rep).
Lots of little weekly throwaways claim the title of the "alternative" press, but The New York Press is the real thing. I discovered it when I was in New York City a couple of years ago, and became instantly addicted: their website feeds my habit from afar. To begin with, any periodical with a regular column by Taki Theodoracopulos has something to recommend it. Secondly, nearly all of the other columnists are enjoyable yes, even Michelangelo Signorile, whose last column I actually agree with (a first!). Alexander Cockburn, a columnist for The Nation and mainstay of Counterpunch, is another idiosyncratic sort, who, like Taki on the Right, is more complex and interesting than the cookie cutter ideologues who dominate the punditocracy. Maybe it's the New Yorker in me coming out of the closet, so to speak, after all these years: but I love the smart, knowing, slightly world-weary, but always bemused tone that the writers share, to one degree or another. Even their resident neocon, Christopher Caldwell, comes across as relatively sparkling, compared to the relentless drone of, say, the Weekly Standard.
Rating:
A-plus (A fun read the literary equivalent of a glass of champagne).
As I was saying, any periodical that features a column by Taki is worth at least a look, and the British Spectator is worth a lot more than that. Unlike conservative publications on this side of the Atlantic, the Spectator enforces no party line on foreign policy (at least, not yet), and its pages are open to writers that longtime readers of Antiwar.com will recognize, such as John Laughland and Paul Gottfried. A recent piece on India's War Party, "The Sandals of Destruction," by Julian Manyon, Asian correspondent for ITN News, is particularly good.
Rating:
A (Why can't American conservatives do it like the Brits?)
The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" shows that the smug complacency and dogmatism of Saint Sullivan can be equaled, and even, at times, surpassed: James "No Talent" Taranto is more than up to the job. Here, take a look for yourself: why, just today, he deals with the outcry over Jose Padilla's imprisonment at the hands of the military deriding civil libertarians as clueless softies who amount to little more than Osama bin Laden's American fan club. What goes unmentioned in this morning's [June 12] headline: "Threat of 'dirty bomb' softened." As deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz put it to CBS on Tuesday:
"'I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk and (Al Muhajir's) coming in here obviously to plan further deeds,' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told CBS on Tuesday."
So much for "The Best of the Web Today."
His second item is a link to a story in the New York Times about how Abu Zubaydah, supposedly a top aide to bin Laden, is an unreliable source of information about Al Qaeda's plans, and may be deliberately trying to mislead us. Don't anybody tell Taranto why the second item undermines the first: he seems not to know that Zubaydah is the chief source of the accusations against Padilla. Hey, don't they have editors over at the War Street Journal anymore and, if so, what for?
In Taranto's little world, all opponents of a perpetual "war on terorrism" are labeled "anti-American" and "pro-terrorist," and he has these running "themes" "Our friends, the Saudis," "Our friends, the Syrians," "Our friends, [fill in the Arab nationality of your choice]" which supposedly document the inherent barbarism of all Middle Eastern peoples except, naturally, for the Israelis. Indeed, Taranto is to Israel as Walter Duranty was to the Soviet Union that is, a relentlessly blind apologist capable of overlooking the worst atrocities, no matter how glaring, without even batting an eyelid.
Rating:
D-minus (His politics suck and he's not even clever about it!)
Ah, but there is one site worse than "Best of the Web," and that is Instapundit, run by Glenn Reynolds, a Kentucky professor of law even more full of himself and of it than Sullivan and Taranto combined. It is the same pretentious, all-knowing dogmatism that infects Sullivan and the so-called warbloggers, emitted in abbreviated, staccato bursts of smugness, and self-referential "in-group" jargon: "blogosphere," made-up words that are supposed to "catch on" with those "in the know" and, in the process, demonstrate the Awful Power of the Blogosphere. Reynolds has lately shifted his focus from the War, and hating Arabs, to blogs themselves, and hating Arabs. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Rating:
F-minus (The Pravda of the Warbloggers)
The neocon Right has pretty much dominated the blogs or, at least, discussion about blogs but the Left is making its grand entry with MSNBC's Eric Alterman (also a columnist for The Nation) entering the arena, guns blazing. If he'll stop ranting about Ralph Nader, already, he can be interesting, if occasionally infuriating (to this reactionary). For the author of a fairly good, if somewhat flawed, book on foreign policy Who Speaks for America?: Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy – he seems a little soft on the War Party, in the sense that he's entirely too solicitous of their good opinion. He also makes an asinine comment about Pat Buchanan and we're supposed to think he's brave because he's criticizing his corporate employer, MSNBC, for givng Pat a show with Bill Press (old Crossfire foes, together again!).But, hey, whaddaya expect, he's a fairly typical leftie, with all the familiar blind spots, but he's on Our Side, I think, and we oughtta give the guy a chance. So check him out .
Rating:
B (Hey, Eric, lookit all the friggin' hits I'm giving you now how about
a little reciprocation? Oh, I forgot, both you and Pat Buchanan don't believe
in free trade
)
Another left-liberal entrant in the blog wars is "Tapped" [sorry about the link, but they don't seem to have a stable one] the blog of The American Prospect, which is the "high theory" magazine of the Respectable Left. I know, it doesn't sound good, but "Tapped" is written in a breezy, if somewhat wonkish, style, and, if you can stand the left-Clintonian domestic politics (I just skip those parts) there is a lot of healthy skepticism about Bush's perpetual war for perpetual peace though I have the feeling that, if we were suffering under President Gore, the Tappers would be singing a far different tune. I would love to be proved wrong, however .
Rating:
B-minus (Hey, some of my best friends are liberals
.)
Brendan O'Neil is a London-based journalist and assistant editor of spiked, who teaches the online journalism course at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design and has become one of the most eloquent, and reasoned advocates of non-interventionism on the internet. His skepticism when it comes to the pronouncements of governments reveals a libertarian soul. O'Neil was one of the few commentators who expressed skepticism of the "dirty bomber" hoax, for example, stating bluntly:
"Forget
the 'dirty bomb' - this looks more like dirty tactics on the part of the Bush
administration. There was no dirty bomb; there was no realistic prospect of
a dirty bomb; and there was next-to-no possibility of a dirty bomb being detonated
anywhere in the USA. Rather, the whole affair looks like a desperate attempt
by Bush and co to deflect accusations that they have failed to foil terrorist
attacks - and many people seem to be falling for it."
What else can one say, but "Bravo!"
Rating:
A-plus (It doesn't get any better than this why, this guy's almost as good
as me!)
This column is already running over 3,000 words, and so there's room for just a few short mentions that should've been greatly expanded:
Cursor is indispensable if you want to keep up with all the really important news in a condensed, very readable format; also check out Chris Matthews' new blog, which isn't updated nearly often enough (as yet), but, hey, he's on the Side of the Angels. Give this guy some hits: he's earned them. For all you conservatives out there – hey, you 're still out there, aren't you? – check out Etherzone, one of the last places on the right side of political spectrum where noninterventionism is not equated with treason.
And, last but not least, for all you really hardcore news junkies out there the kind who, in idle moments, just surf from bookmark to bookmark, looking (often in vain) for something interesting – check out Fark.com a potpourri of various news items labeled with descriptive icons (spiffy, cool, stupid, asinine, etc.) and helpful notations such as "office safe." Fark is often whimsical, sometimes serious, always interesting, and a great time-waster.
Rating:
A (Relax, and get farked
.)
I know I left out a lot, but it's late, and I'm running out of steam. Until the next "Bookmarks" column, then, happy surfing, and may the net-gods be with you ..
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