{"id":144,"date":"2003-05-30T07:30:31","date_gmt":"2003-05-30T15:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/05\/30\/new-to-the-blogroll\/"},"modified":"2003-05-30T07:30:31","modified_gmt":"2003-05-30T15:30:31","slug":"new-to-the-blogroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=144","title":{"rendered":"New to the Blogroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just added Beatniksalad! <\/a>(“A weblog by Ryan in Manchester”) to my blogroll. I discovered Beatniksalad! because he just blogrolled me, but despite appearances I don’t do reciprocal links. Alas’ blogroll is just a list of blogs I like enough to want to check back on semi-regularly, whether they link to me or not (at least one blogger on the list has actively gone to other people’s websites to ask them not to link to me!). Beatniksalad! – due to Ryan’s sense of humor, his links to stories I haven’t seen elsewhere, his lefty politics (slightly left of me, which is pretty rare in blogtopia), and his charming habit of filling up the sidebar with crap that amuses him – is a blog I’ll want to return to regularly.<\/p>\n

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I’ve also added the Daily Kos <\/a>(which I think of as the king of the “smoke-filled back room blogs”) to the blogroll. A link from me will make approximately the same difference to Kos’ overall traffic as bringing a paper bag full of lying shit to a Bush family reunion. But Kos is essential reading, and that’ll be more and more true as the 2004 election nears.<\/p>\n

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Oh, and I’ve added Allison Kaplan Sommer’s pro-occupation blog An Unsealed Room<\/a>, as well. Since Allison (who is Israeli) pretty much defends Israel’s occupation, she and I disagree a lot. This has given me the opportunity to be impressed with Allison’s ability to disagree in civil terms. I try to make a habit of “reading the opposition,” and Allison’s innate decency and good writing skills keep that from being a chore.<\/p>\n

The link to An Unsealed Room brings up some issues of terminology. First, Allison considers herself a leftist (or at least a liberal), but on the only issue we’ve discussed she’s far to the right of me. Since I can’t quite see her as a blog of a feather, but she probably wouldn’t like being classified as a right-winger, I’ve stuck her in “unpigeonholable.”<\/p>\n

Second, what do I mean by calling her “pro-occupation”? Well, I’ve decided to start framing the Israel\/Palestine issue that way – those who think the occupation is justified are “pro-occupation,” even if (like Allison) they don’t like the occupation and regret the human costs; those who don’t think the occupation is justified are “anti-occupation.” I’m using this terminology because I refuse to define the issue in terms of being “pro-Israel” or “anti-Israel,” since I’m “pro-Israel” in the larger sense of supporting Israel’s right to exist and hoping it prospers. Being a peacenik is not being anti-Israel, dammit!.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just added Beatniksalad! (“A weblog by Ryan in Manchester”) to my blogroll. I discovered Beatniksalad! because he just blogrolled me, but despite appearances I don’t do reciprocal links. Alas’ blogroll is just a list of blogs I like enough … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-and-admin-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}