Around The “Sphere

Our occasional linkfest of interesting posts from all over the you-know-what-sphere. Links are NOT restricted to one viewpoint — and views do not neccessarily reflect the viewpoints of The Moderate Voice or his independent-minded Guest Bloggers.



GOOD NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD: Arthur Chrenkoff looks at demonstrations throughout the world in detail, focusing in particular on the Islamic world. A small taste of what he says:

I’m having a deja-vu to the 1980s, when as a young lad stuck on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain I watched with some bemusement the safe and comfortable citizens of Western democracies rallying for “peace” and protesting aggressive American policies, while around me people were risking if not life than certainly limb and their future marching for freedom, democracy and human rights.



While throughout major cities of Western world crowds….have turned up over the weekend for anti-democracy rallies to protest the second anniversary of the start of the liberation of Iraq, one region of the world remained strangely unaffected by the “anti-war” and “anti-occupation” fervor: the notorious “Arab street” has failed to join the “European street” and the “American street” in condemning yet again Chimpy Bushhitler and his imperialist policies….

SPEAKING OF WHICH this is Citizen Smash’s post on anti-war demonstrations. He organized a support-the-troops counterdemonstration in San Diego. TMV was guest blogging on Dean’s World so our post is there (see link on Smash’s site). The anti-war demonstration here in San Diego definitely was not huge.



THIS ONE’S ESPECIALLY FOR DEMOCRATS: Become Republican, offered by Skippy The Bush Kangaroo. Truly a scream with a lot of content to read. (Skippy by the way always has lots of interesting stuff. he writes in lower case but in quality he IS IN HIGHER CASE..)



THIS ONE’S ESPECIALLY FOR REPUBLICANS: Scrappleface’s satire “Right-to-Starve Added to Feminism’s Victories.” Scrappleface consistently writes satires that are on target, even if you don’t agree with all of them (TMV never agrees with everything anyone says and no one agrees all the time with TMV).





A VERY INTERESTING NEW SITE tries to bring Americans and Israeli’s together. It’s called A.I.S.H. Americans and Israelis – Strength and Honor. Chock full of info…worth visiting and bookmarking given the importance of the Middle East.



ON A RELATED NOTE check out Menorah News & Views which gets into some of the same issues.



DO YOU WANT TO KEEP UP ON IRAQ NEWS AND READ IRAQI BLOGGERS? If you do, Friends of Democracy is back. This was a must read in the run up to the elections and remains a must read if you want to truly stay informed about what’s going on over there.



AND IF YOU’RE MORE INTERESTED IN ISSUES CLOSE TO HOME SUCH AS URBAN SPRAWL you MUST visit Alex Marshall’s weblog which is chock full of info. Our whole existance is NOT national politics, the left, the right. And it’s true that all politics is local. We’ll be adding this one to our blogroll real soon and checking back often. Highly recommended!



SEZ WHO????? The New Editor takes LA. Times’ Michael Kinsley to task here for calling Maureen Dowd the most influential columnist of our time…and forgetting the late Chicago Columnist. Mike Royko. Indeed, I STRONGLY urge anyone interested in journalism, writing, blogging or just read absolutely perfect column writing to go to Amazon and buy the collections of Royko’s column (his book Boss on the late Chicago Mayor Daley would not be of as much interest since it is quite dated).



As a student I was an aspiring columnist and before I read Royko I used to write pieces that had a bit of his style. Then when I went to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for my masters I discovered him in the Chicago papers. I have worshipped him for years and upon his death collected books with his writings, which I read over and over, hoping to learn a bit more each time about how he produced such perfectly written pieces — the serious and hilarious. ORDER HIS COLLECTIONS NOW. Dowd has a bit of the Royko style…but Royko was perhaps the greatest columnist who ever lived. Period. Listen to Uncle Joe.



WHAT ABOUT THE ISSUE OF WOMEN COLUMNISTS ON NEWSPAPERS AND ON BLOGS? Should newspapers and blogs recuit women to ensure there is a woman’s voice? (That would also raise the question if it’s applied to a blog whether women bloggers should make sure there’s a man’s voice as well)? Rick Heller looks at this issue with his usual thoughtfulness.





THE ‘REAL’ STORY IN IRAQ is examined by Dead Armadillos. Tons of food for thought here..



A POTENT COMMERCIAL: The AARP’s commercial on what you do if you have a problem with the kitchen sink. See it on the always-lively video blogging site Crooks and Liars. This is a site you can get addicted to…