I haven’t done anything for the last few months – part because of general dijness, part because of moving to Bangalore and being without an Internet connection at home for a couple of months and partly because of the truly terrible net access at work.
Anyway, going back to the blogs that I have missed out on in during my limited net access months - there are a couple of things that I found interesting. The first was an article in the Smithsonian Magazine about Finland's successes in education. Picked it off Pharyngula - where Myers sums up with "They put good teachers in charge of deciding how students should be taught? How radical."
The other thing is the explosion at one of my favourite blogs, Balloon Juice. I've loved Cole's blog since I came across it - via Greenwald - when Cole got pissed off about the whole Schiavo shitfest. I loved the fact that among the heaping amounts of politics and media snark there would be intense discussions on the Dead or the latest Bioware game. But things blew up this morning with this post from Anne Laurie. I don't really think she should have done it the way she did, but I kind of get the frustration. While ABL may have her good points, I found her tedious and frankly depressingly fanatical in her defence of Obama. And she has her own crowd of Obots that do nothing but crap on anyone who dares criticize the dear leader. Plus you get the feeling that she confuses offensiveness with directness and any criticism made becomes racist. I've kept away from her posts and their threads - sticking to Cole, DougJ, Freddie DeBoer, Levenson and Laurie's posts instead. I always thought that Anne was one of the sweeter posters - with her pet rescue blogs and food stuff, which makes her meltdown all the more spectacular.
Its a huge pity, but I think Anne will lose this one. Plus, I wonder what Cole will do. He can't ignore this war any longer. The best thing to do would be to get the two As - ABL and AL into a room and shout at them until one agrees to tone down and the other agrees to back down, but I don't see that happening. Or will he chuck them both out? Or go Narasimha Rao and do nothing? The fight may be good for page views, but not for the blog. Whatever else, its more drama.