The J-S's farcical featury tour

Of the Quesosphere (thanks to whomever I stole that from).

While it somehow managed a score with its citation to Mike Mathias's excellent, well-focused piece here, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's weekend Crossroads feature "Best of the Wisconsin Blogs" continues in its ill-considered proclivity.

Semi-coherent local radio shouting meathead Charlie Sykes "wins" Best of the Blogs with a five-sentence contribution (that's Sykes's entire blog entry — and the first of the five sentences is a cliché so grotesque even pro wrestling's abandoned it: "It's on.") containing the most uninformative, unenlightening, and downright pedestrian observation of the Barack Obama-Jeremiah Wright "controversy" that couldn't be imagined.

Meanwhile, to grab just one example, Mike Plaisted throws down this feisty and typically well-written number, inspiring a lengthy comment thread featuring some of the higher quality back-and-forth to be found 'round these parts yet Charlie Sykes, whose own blog consists of 99% other people's work (except reproduced in all-italics — it's even typographically annoying), gets the accolade: "Best of."

And not Jim Bouman's digital slide show/reportage tour of Pabst Farms (the photo captions alone are "Best of" material).

At least if the J-S selection committee had an intentional sense of humor, it would have honored Charlie Sykes for this April 28 howler:

Went to see Ben Stein's new movie "Expelled," yesterday. Powerful, provocative, and definitely worth a view.

Oh definitely, if you're into bullshit and lies and the embarrassing spectacle of Ben Stein blaming Charles Darwin for the Nazi Holocaust.

Presumably the J-S picks two blogs from the "left" and two from the "right" for its "Best of" edition and on reflection it isn't so surprising that its potential field of nominees in the latter category is slim.

But why on Earth Charlie Sykes would even qualify as a Wisconsin blogger at all is a mystery and, more importantly, with so many thoughtful and talented writers out here, that the J-S would favor a blatantly self-referential corporate plug rather than acknowledge the existence of dedicated, independent local writers is very telling.

Next thing you know, a member of the Journal-Sentinel's editorial board will be making regular appearances on Sunday INCITE!

The best blogs are far too piquant for JRN HQ anyway. It's in the business of journalism, where journalism never lists the ship.

Worst of the local rags

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel runs a feature every weekend called the Best of the Wisconsin Blogs. It's in the hard copy paper too. This week the Best of the Blogs is represented by an incoherent two-paragraph diatribe inspired by the "genius" of Rush Limbaugh, some nonsense about "the Hildabeast" and "Shrillary" and Republicans disingenuously masquerading as registered Democrats.

High calibre stuff, clearly. And so original.

J-S editorial board member Patrick McIlheran, a chooser of the "Best" blogs, once actually compared the substanceless rant's author to H.L. Mencken, one of the finest writers in the American language ever.

Its inclusion is practically an insult. But fortunately most of us don't have to depend on the J-S to tell us who's doing the best writing out here and are likely even pleased not to be included with the allegedly representative samples. Mencken himself would be as pleased.

zOMG Correction!!!1

Damn, I keep meaning to add this dude to the blogroll, but every time I think to do it, I can never come up with a shorter version of "What did [Wisconsin Whackjob State Senator] Glenn Grothman get wrong this week" that doesn't run across into two lines of text, because I'm so anal about having a clean website layout.

Finally — and I can't believe I didn't think of this before — I give you:

Grothman, WTF?

You can't have too many philosophy professors on your side.

Found a blog

The Real Charlie Sykes.

Talking Heads — Found A Job

New Milwaukee blog

Brazen Maverick, under the proprietorship of a Marquette law student with degrees in political science and philosophy (my kinda guy). I don't know the fellow, but he was kind enough to add your humble correspondent to his blogroll, which means he's aight.

Check him out (but prepare for a shock to your rods and cones).

I would have had the same double major myself, but I tried to squeeze that last philosophy course into my final semester, giving me an 18-credit load leading to a superfluous 126-credit total.

And I would have stuck it out, except the course was "The Medieval Problem of Universals," and so I ended up withdrawing just under the withdrawal wire (which left about three decidedly masochistic students in the class, if I recall correctly).

Masochistic on account of the material and not the instructor, I hasten to add. I'd had Prof. Mondadori for a previous course, and he was remarkably brilliant and hugely entertaining, not least for his frequent references to René Descartes as "that poor sod."

Anybody up for some severe brain-hurt,* get Five Texts on the Medieval Problem of Universals, Paul Vincent Spade, ed. (Hackett). Ouch. Comparatively, reading Spinoza is like reading Danielle Steele.

* Less so if you're already schooled in Aristotle, which I'm not.

Other Side of His Dugout

One of my intarnets buddies, T.R., proprietor of a blog called The Other Side Of My Mouth, has completely (and surprisingly, to me at least) revamped his virtual presence. Now it's going to be all about baseball, which is cool, but I must say I'm going to miss his politically minded shenanigans and hilarious photoshopping.

His last on topic missive, this one, was just about the funniest thing I'd seen all weekend (I watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm last night). But, I can certainly understand all that jazz getting tiring. Best of luck with the new format, T.R., and I'll continue to keep checking in. Might even get interested in baseball again.

In Effect effectively checks out

But not permanently, hopefully.

One of the more thoughtful and well written contributions to the Wisconsin blogosphere (which perhaps isn't saying much, given that the BNN local feed features roughly 90% regurgitant wingnuttery) is going into semi-retirement.

The proprietor of In Effect, Seth Zlotocha, who has been entertaining and informing on local issues for nearly two years, is heading back to the real world in pursuit of a doctorate in history.

While we'll all be the poorer without In Effect's regular observations, we shouldn't be so selfish as to wish to deny Seth's pursuit of more meaningful goals.

So, best wishes to Seth Zlotocha in getting that advanced degree.

The one saving grace is that Rick Esenberg will be afforded fewer opportunities to misspell Mr. Zlotocha's name.