THE 100 BEST BLOGS, PART ONE
World Affairs
www.normblog.typepad.com
Based in Britain, Norman Geras offers an indispensable window on the world, culling items from newspapers and blogs from around the globe so you get a regular focus on what’s caught his eye, as well as his intellectual, humane comments on what he's found.
willwilkinson.net/flybottle
The blog of a high-grade Washington policy wonk, this works well as a hub — providing links to good articles elsewhere — but also as the thoughts and brief essays of a very smart man. A superb way into the mind of America.
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
Andrew Sullivan’s blog, like Wilkinson’s, is both a hub and a personal testament. The assumption is that you are on the journey with Sullivan, that you read him every day, as indeed millions do.
kausfiles.com
Part of Slate magazine, Mickey Kaus’s blog is a good stop for witty and non-PC politics.
thewashingtonnote.com
Informed comment from Steve Clemons, of the New America Foundation, on DC politics and US foreign policy.
truthdig.com
A feisty, left-leaning American news and comment blog that promises it will be “drilling behind the headlines”. Anything is game, but it naturally has its bead on the new American administration’s performance to date.
blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/harare
An extraordinary blog maintained by the staff of the British Embassy in Harare. It must be unique in the annals of British diplomacy — embassy officials saying what they really think (and describing the perils of going to a Zimbabwean toilet while they’re at it).
Celebrities
Original thinkers
markvernon.com/friendshiponline/dotclear
maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher
Two good philosophy blogs make the point that this is a subject made for bloggery.
Philosophy is arguing, and arguing is what bloggers and their readers do best — or at least a lot, in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. Both are highly recommended if you fancy stepping out into an intellectual blizzard with, occasionally, real snow.
stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com
A tough-minded take on economics and politics from Chris Dillow, this is very much a blogger’s blog. It gets quoted everywhere, and rightly so. Why did bankers pay each other so much? “Traders must be bribed not to plunder the firm. If you don’t pay them millions, they’ll sell the banks’ assets cheaply to rival firms, for which they then go and work.”
nigeness.blogspot.com
Bryan Appleyard recommends this offering from, admittedly, his “oldest and best friend”. But he is unabashed: “This is a great blog, a spin-off from my own — Nige for a while was my co-blogger. Relaxed, warm and fabulously well read, he never ceases to amaze.”
A true omnivore, Nige can contemplate Ruskin one minute, stoats the next. An endlessly stimulating daily companion.
www.thinkbuddha.org
A blog that brilliantly suggested a Buddhist bus in response to the atheist and Christian advertising signs now stuck on traffic jams around the country. The Madhyamaka bus would bear the slogan: “Neither an entity nor a nonentity moves in any of the three ways. So motion, bus and route are nonexistent.” That settles that.
cstadvertising.com/blog
Dave Trott was not only a brilliant advertising copywriter, but a great team leader. He now shares his thoughts about how you do advertising and run departments. His ideas are equally applicable to writing a novel, making a film, launching a product, managing a football team, instituting life changes and any activity you can imagine. Genius.
Comic relief
richardmadeley.blogspot.com
Richard Madeley’s prose is touched with comic genius, expertly weaving a path between mildly fruity vulgarity and brilliantly controlled farce: see his entry of February 1, which manages to meld Judy playing the trombone and the effects of a faulty spa bath on one’s privates. Who knew the man had such talent?
