I'm not a fan of political pundits. I like to hear the news and make my own opinions. Finding a blog I could appreciate was a tough undertaking, but I was pleased with TPMCafé (Yes, they really like to be called that). I'm not a fan of Bill O'Reilly's tirades or Keith Olbermann's "World's Worst." The number of voices was refreshing, even if most came from a slightly-left-of-center viewpoint.
Then again, it could be the fact that I couldn't actually hear these author's voices that helped.
Either way, the writing is of high quality and the issues they comment on matter. I get the feeling that they want you to know they are proud of their opinions without being pretentious; this is a tactic I try to employ every day.
An issue I found was the length of some of the posts. Blogs are supposed to be concise and keep my interest. I saw a post by M.J. Rosenberg titled, "Has Israel Jumped The Shark?" and the thoughts of the Fonz in his leather jacket in the water made me click. I was disappointed, however, to discover that the article was very long.
It was very, very, very long.
The post was 1,713 words, not including the postscript.
I couldn't get through it, because the topic wasn't enough to interest me to read six double-spaced pages worth and I got the feeling that it wouldn't end with an "'Eyyyyyyyy."
Rosenberg did link to an article in The Atlantic that his son was quoted in. It deals with the end of "whiteness" in America (which is clearly still alive) and does nothing to aid his cause for reading the blog post. In fact, it makes me want to click the link and read the other article instead.
In fact, I think I'll do that.
....
I didn't really read it. I did see some references to The Office and The Colbert Report, so my whiteness will make me finish it later (or, according to the title, it won't).
But don't let this dissuade you from visiting the site. As I said before, it is pretty good, despite the few misses among its hits. One such case was a post by Robert Reich, the former United States Secretary of Labor who apparently has been hit so hard by the recession that he can't afford a higher quality digital camera. I'm joking, of course, but
his post "Why We Need Stronger Unions, and How to Get Them" kept me through to the end, despite it's length (939 words) and lack of a promise of Happy Days.He makes a case for the importance of unions, provides statistics showing the drop in unionized workers, and connects this to the current financial situation. Though it comes across as patronizingly championing the middle class without any real plan, I could just be cynical. Regardless, it works and I feel better for reading it.
I've gone off-topic a lot in this post, but that's what I like to do. That's what I would like any blogs I read to do. TPMCafé apparently does a good amount of research on its own, but also throws its hat into the mix of the news of the day. I plan on reading past these three days.
