Functional Ambivalent
Here's a confession for you: I don't like reading blogs.
I don't even like thinking of my posts on Minor Thoughts as part of a blog, even though they quite clearly are. Why I don't isn't the point of today's entry, but I touched on it once when I explained why despite my living in South Korea, Minor Thoughts never analyzed the Korean hostage situation in Afghanistan.
"During such crises, there’s very little one lone lil’ blogger can say that isn’t being said everywhere else. The very point of the blog-o-sphere (that’s still what the kids are calling it these days, right? I told you I’m out of touch) is, after all, the opportunity it presents to receive alternative perspectives generally unavailable from the mass media - that is, we no longer need to be told by news corporations what your typical man on the street thinks, because the man on the street is basically running his own newspaper, and what he thinks is sometimes far more interesting than previously reported, even if his presentation is inferior. Republican radio shows in the U.S. became popular for the same reason.
It should go without saying, of course, that if a blog is not providing content substantially different from what we can all get from the pros, then there's no compelling reason for anyone else to check the site - but no: it turns out a high number of people have apparently missed this point, leading to the creation of a seemingly infinitely-expanding cyber-world of political commentary sites even more vitriolic, less in-depth, and as devoid of logic and principle as the pundits for whom people pay.
Now I'm not an elitist in any meaningful sense; I'm perfectly happy that anybody who lives in a Western country can, by this point, throw up a blog about how much they hate someone in office. It's not their freedom which I disdain. It's not even their use of it. It's just most their product. Which is par for the course, I know, concerning any liberalized field - it's in the nature of the free market to produce the greatest number of misfires as well as the greatest number of successes.
Now with all that said, there is one blog I do check daily, and I'm going to recommend it to you. It's called Functional Ambivalent.
The tag line of Functional Ambivalent is "Politics. Culture. Pointless rudeness.", but the ideas on the site concerning the first two are predictably ignorable, interesting only for the webmaster's apparent political schizophrenia. One day Tom (that's his name) will post a perfectly reasonable assessment of why Hillary Clinton's idea of a national baby bond program is insane. The next, he'll turn his energies toward universal health care and deliver a typical you-just-don't-care-if-all-the-babies-in-the-world-DIE-you-monsters type screed. 'Tis strange.
It's the "Pointless rudeness" which makes Functional Ambivalent a site worth subscribing to. Whatever the quality of his logic, Tom is an undeniably gifted writer, and when he's writing to amuse us (as is generally the case), he's consistently far funnier than Dave Barry has been in over a decade. Trust Tom to not only uncover the most bizarre stuff online and bring it to your attention, but to do so with a headline and bite of commentary that doubles your laughs.
He's also both willing to play and donate to worthy causes. A wine connoisseur, Tom has started a pool amongst _Functional Ambivalent's _ visitors, in which one of them can win a bottle from his collection if that person most correctly predicts when Fidel Castro will die.
Where Tom's website shines, though, is in its longer, more personal posts, the product of those times when Tom sits down, shrugs the Great Democrat Chip from his shoulder, and just writes for a while. His most recent such post is typical of him: "Because Baseball Is A Game Fathers and Sons Can Enjoy Together" chronicles his pitched battle with his oldest son to come out the winner in a fantasy baseball league. It's good material, not just grammatically correct but actually well-presented.
And it still pales in comparison to almost any one of his "Sex Day" columns, which unfortunately he doesn't do nearly so many of anymore (they used to be weekly). Yes, it's probably telling that such features on the site are always the longest and most carefully written of F/A's content, but when reading them, you won't care. You'll just be laughing at his apology for writing only a short article about premature ejaculation ("I'm sorry, really. That's never happened before. I usually last a good 3,000 words."). Those who know me understand that I'm not easy to please when it comes to sexual humor, anymore than I am when it comes to toilet humor or Bush humor; I consider them all typically low-brow and unamusing. But Tom manages it (WARNING: That does not necessarily mean he can do it to you. Your preference may skew to the more conservative, in which case I suggest this blog here).
In a society slowly rendering one-man business all but obsolete, Humor is still very much a product capable of being generated only by individuals' personalities. I'd argue that makes it an all but tailor-made export for blogs. Functional Ambivalent is the best one I've seen at it. Please, give it a look.