Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special Blogroll Amnesty Commemorative Weekend Edition

Because it's Super Bowl Sunday and the first 10 seconds of this Doritos ad running today...

...may be enough to turn me into one of those feminist bloggers who usually hate me because I'm usually not as offended by this sort of thing as perhaps I should be, and because it's Blogroll Amnesty Weekend, today we're going to see what some of the undeservedly underviewed corners of Blogtopia (and yes, Skippy coined that phrase, as well as the lovely banner above) are up to.

This morning I was watching Blog Wars, the documentary about bloggers and Ned Lamont's primary campaign against Holy Joe Lieberman in 2006. I've seen this before, and I never cease to be irritated by the notion that anyone can start blogging and have 50,000 page views a day within six months by sheer dint of hard work. Those who have been able to do so who are not some of the early adopters who have pulled up the ladder behind them are often those with either recognizable names or very good connections -- and an independent income that doesn't involve being an employee of a corporation. But all over the place there are people like me -- cube rats who get up at 4 or 5 AM to dash off something before sitting in traffic for up to an hour, working all day, sitting in traffic again, and then doing the whole dinner/cleanup thing before collapsing in front of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow before going to bed to do it all again the next day.

I'm not knocking gainful employment. God knows I wake up every morning and after cursing the darkness I bless the fates that got me a job with perhaps the only major corporation in the world that actually seems to value its employees and can manage to conduct "team-building" events that don't make me gag, and where I have a supervisor who's not only brilliant but confident enough in her own intelligence that she doesn't have to make herself feel better by belitting her staff. It's a refreshing change, and one that I actually get paid for. If I were blogging all day, it would mean I have no income, and that would be a less-than desirable state of affairs, especially these days. But don't tell me that the reason you have more traffic than I do is simply because you work harder.

Anyway, the point is that while the Big Boys 'n' Girls tend to suck up all the oxygen in the world, there are some damn fine writers and passionate people out there who are worth just as much credit as the big names, and they usually don't get it. So the whole point of this blogger holiday was to recognize that no matter how little you may have, even if it's just blog traffic, it always feels better to share. And so we shall.

I'm not sure you can really appreciate the zen of Ripcoco unless you know Melina personally, as I do. Melina cross-posts much of her sociopolitical writings here, but this frenetically busy woman also manages to find time to care for a houseful of birds, any number of small yappy dogs, and a flock of chickens, as well as a sullen but ferociously intelligent 15-year-old. If all you read of her stuff is what's here, you're missing a unique perspective on a unique American life. Today she focuses on what this blogger holiday means from the perspective of someone who grew up surrounded by people whose renown makes the Alpha Dogs of Blogging look like Milton in the Initech basement with the red stapler.

Dcap is one of my favorite long-form bloggers, and not just because he's a stupendously nice person. It's because the man can write about anything, and often pays attention to things that fly under the radar of many of us. It is to my eternal shame that I didn't recognize the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but I'm not sure I could have done better than he did.

You don't have to live in New Jersey's Pascack Valley to enjoy Pascack People (though it helps). But every region ought to have a gadfly like Mike Hogan, who is making a second career out of exposing every corrupt, lunatic, or just plain incompetent who's involved in local government. When the local shopper papers are in the pockets of the local apparatchiks, and the population at large doesn't seem to give a rat's ass, this suburban Diogenes is out there fighting for good government in the arena that affects most of our daily lives the most.

Go wish Ornery Bastard a belated happy birthday.


Mithras will be watching the game with the Drinking Liberally crowd in Philadelphia. So if you're there, go say hello. And if you see He Who Must Not Be Named, well, gee, there was this piece of chicken wing on the floor and you couldn't help spilling your beer on his head.

As a mom in Michigan, Ground Zero of the recession, Citizen Carrie has more than her share of tsuris to deal with, which is why we haven't heard much from her here lately. But it wouldn't kill you to take a few steps out of your way and visit her at her own digs.