Good Things Week: Web sites!

First off, please note the offical Chicago Manual of Style styling of the word "websites" in the title up there. I hate it--it looks like a bunch of middle-aged academic copyeditors had no idea what to do with this new-fangled terminology and decided to treat it like a brand name modifying a generic product. Which...is pretty much exactly what happened. "Gee, Wally! I really enjoy your Web site!" See how dumb that looks?

Second off, it's a good thing I made a list yesterday of Good Things to think about, because today was a Not Good Thing. I fought everybody today. I pissed off everybody today. Because I'm a practically middle-aged academic copyeditor just doing her job, and sweet jesus in a jam jar, people, let's just lay off the attitude and do it my way, okay?

Cleansing breath! GOOOD THINGS!

Okay. Some good websites (HRMPH!) that if you haven't read, you must, like, right now:

For somthing to think about: Feministing www.feministing.com
Feministing is the best damn thing I've seen in ages. It's got so much news, and so much of it is irritating as all hell, and they get it up there and commented on pronto, and I don't know how they do it but bless them for it. I've probably already pointed to this one, but it's the only site--besides the BBC--that I check every single day.

For weather reportage: The National Weather Service
I loves me some NWS. If you sneak around long enough, you can find the place where meteorologists hang out and discuss which projection models are likely and which ones are totally loserly.

For the saddest, most heartbreaking commentary on New Orleans: Chris Rose

First off, he's a writer for the Times-Picayune, whose NOLA.com site was the lifeline of the storm. Then when I was down there for the conference, so many people--mostly locals--told me to buy his book before I left town. So I did. It's a colleciton of columns from Rose post-Katrina. They are so sorrowful and so confused and so poignant, it takes you right there. He continues to right on post-K issues for the NOLA site. He may be crazy and he's got almost textbook symptoms of clinical depression, but his writing is so raw and honest and he's so sorrowfully, moodily, hopefully funny that you'll wish you could buy him a beer and pat him gently on the arm. Leastways, I do.


For the What Should I Read Next days: The Literature Map
This is really cool, albeit wildly inaccurate. You enter the name of an author you like and it gives you this floating map of similar authors, with people most similar to your entry closest to the center. It's openly defined--anybody can enter people they think are like somebody else--so you get some pretty oddball connections. No matter whose name I enter--fiction, nonfiction, an author I love, an author I hate--the same napes pop up on the map. Maybe I'm just that predictable.


There are a lot more Web sites out there that rock. I'll think of some more for later.