Light Blog-Keeping

So, I've done a little housekeeping here at Grubb Street. No, not on the appearance - it is just as clunky and old-school as the day I made it, and I am still hoping that it will soon slide into the real of kitschy and retro-cool before I have to actually do any real graphic design work on it.

No, I've finally gotten around to updating the blogroll on your right. Dating back to those primeval times when Livejournal was actually a thing, it has been in serious need of an update for some time. Many of the blogs listed have not been updated for months if not years, as their owners switched over to other media such as Facebook or Google+ or simply became confused and wandered off into the sunset. Heck, even the Alliterates site now sends you their Facebook page. So that's gone, and the guys I actually read are folded into the "Friends and Colleagues" heading. So look there for them.

"Stuff I'm Reading" is pretty unchanged, with a couple blogs that have laid fallow for a while removed and one called "What If" by the guy behind the xkcd comic added.

A new, large, category is "Local Media" which summarizes some of the major and minor blogs in the region. As we move towards November, I'm going to be checking out a lot more of these, so these are for my reference more than yours:
    The Seattle Times, also called "Fairview Fannie" (the NYTimes gets "The Grey Lady", which is much cooler), is the surviving daily paper. More conservative than most of its surroundings, it would be considered moderate and mainstream in most other cities. Loves Boeing, Microsoft, the 'Hawks, Soccer, the environment, conservative thought local ownership of the media. Hates unions, Mayor McGinn*. Its political blog is pretty good for baseline information and the conventional wisdom.
    The Stranger, on the other hand, is a foul-mouthed weekly that has through some dire alchemy turned into the better paper for reporting local politics. A good mixture of art and politics, and its multi-contributor blog maintains the writers' unique voices (you can tell Paul Constant from Charles Mudede from Goldy without checking the byline).
   The Seattle P-I used to be the other daily paper in town, more liberal and sensational in its reporting. It is no more, and its website is a shell of its former self. Its political cartoonist, Dave Horsey, known for frequent nudity in his cartoons and winning numerous awards, now works in LA.
   The Seattle Weekly, which pretty much crashed and burned creatively when it was bought by the conservative Village Voice Media (don't let the name fool you), has been making a slow and painstaking recovery under its new management, a Canadian company called Black Press (the owner's name is David Black). Still doesn't endorse candidates, but it is at least paying attention to the decision-making policies.
    Publicola was once independent, but now operates under the purview of the Seattle Met, the local entertainment/food/art magazine for the upscale. It is politely liberal, is stocked with people who used to work for the Stranger, but are not as shouty.
   Crosscut is a bit more growly, and was a place where old Seattlites can kvetch about how good it used to be, and runs articles by former GOP chair Chuck Vance telling the Dems how they should be doing things. Also home for a lot of vets from the media listed above.
   Seattlish is by "three mouthy broads" and is pretty amusing, though I think they are trying to compete with the Stranger at being the most NSFW.
   And lastly, the Kent Reporter, which, like the Renton Reporter and a number of other similar papers in the region, including the Weekly, have been gathered by the Black Press (it sounds like the newsletter for a Space Marine chapter, doesn't it?) under the heading of Sound Publishing. A friend of my mine noted a few weeks ago that it has been caught committing "real journalism" recently as opposed to the local-business friendly announcements of ccout troop meetings and charity car washes normally found in suburban papers. They have been the ones with the most detailed coverage of the recent mess involving the Kent City Council candidate stealing large sums from his own mother, and as a result I am paying more attention.

"Funny Pixels" sees the sunsetting of Superhero Girl (wonderful, done, and now in a collection) and Gutters (OK, on a break, also in collections), but the return of Stan!'s 10' by 10' Toon, plus the addition of Finding Chaos, Questionable Content, and Scandanvia and the World, all of which can be NSFW. Just so you know when you're browsing this at work Monday morning.

And that is about it. I probably should update this more often.

More later,

*Just about every other blog on this list has noted that the Times has engaged in a "organized attack on the mayor", to which the paper responded "We aren't that organized".