Thinking Blogger Award

We've been tagged by Big Bad Ivy of Home Ec 101 ("What you wish your mama taught you") as part of the Thinking Bloggers Award meme. Works this way: First Ivy and Heather got tagged for Home Ec 101, and then they turned around and picked five more bloggers who make them think. Here's what she wrote:

Xark!- Xark is a wide ranging blog covering art, philosophy, religion, and politics. They do so in a thought provoking, controversial manner. Instead of just posting talking points, they start discussions.

They left out sports, jokes, geekery, movies, books, media, doodles, pictures and the various YouTube  diversions posted here, but make no mistake: I'm always ecstatic to find out that somebody outside of the immediate family actually reads us. Thank you, Ivy.

Now it's up to us now to pick five blogs that make us think, thereby extending the circle of recommendations. Since this is a group effort, I thought I'd open this one up to discussion. Any nominations from the floor?

Some possibilities:

Agricola is a conservative blog by our friend Addison Ingle, who is currently reinventing himself as a practitioner of Discovery Informatics.

Baxter Sez is an absolute favorite by Charlestonians Alison Piepmeier (a professor/feminist/rabble-rouser) and Walter Biffle (an artist/furniture-maker/provacateur). They keep it real and don't take themselves too seriously, but they'll get your hamster-wheel turning, too.

BTC (Betty The Crow) News is a blog and a news site, which is to say that the blog is a delivery vehicle for primary-source new information, as well as analysis and commentary. It's lefty and smart.

A Blog Around The Clock is the work of the great Bora Zivkovic, a Xark-friend.  Bora is a force of nature when it comes to blogging about science, politics and... well, blogging. Poking your head into Bora's world occasionally is a highly recommended practice.

Cobb, written by Michael Cobb Bowen, is a stereotype-busting, smart blog by a black conservative geek from California. Kinda the Superman to my Bizarro Superman. I dig him even when I don't agree with him.

Cosmic Variance, a group blog written by scientists, may be the best thing in its genre.

Ivory Towerz is an awful lot like Xark, but with different writers and more specialized topics. They're excellent on inside-the-beltway stuff, media law, politics... and football.

Jig's Old Saws is the blog of frequent Xark commenter Tim Schmoyer, a military officer, an engineer, an academic and a probing intellect.

The McGill Report doesn't post frequently, which is OK because I so infrequently have time to read. But it's always thought-provoking on media topics.

Martian Anthropologist is another group blog full of people who think big thoughts in public.

PressThink by Jay Rosen was my post-graduate education in media and truly made me reconsider every single principle of my profession. But it's not what it used to be these days because Jay is so busy with NewAssignment.net and Assignment Zero.

The Rhetorica Network is a journalism/media blog (and podcast!) by Professor Andrew Cline, an intellectual leader who helped me reorganize my thoughts in 2005-06.

Tales From The Microbial Laboratory is the work of our buddy Pam, a woman who really puts the "micro" in "microbiology" (note to Pam: Never Trust a Reporter). TFTML would be an excellent blog solely for either its photography and/or its garden coverage, yet it also offers up great discussions on science and society. We would love this blog even if we weren't unabashed Pam Fans.

Wicked Winter by Jason Zwicker is a blog that tends toward the essay form -- a good place to go when you're in need of a mental recharge by a working writer.

Zuky is an Asian-American progressive who has opened (and changed) my mind on at least two subjects. Anybody who can change my mind at least once gets a lifetime invitation into my head, sorta like the standing invite you get to Augusta National when you win The Masters.

My question to the panel: What other blogs should we consider for our five? I suppose my preference we be toward blogs that aren't already all that well-known, like PressThink or Cosmic Variance. I already left off the always thought-provoking Scripting News because it's so well-established. Should I put it back on?

I don't have a process in mind for this: Let's just mess around with it.

Comments

[coturnix]

Hey, I've done it already a few weeks back. Thank you.

[Ivy]

I'm always ecstatic to find out that somebody outside of the immediate family actually reads us. Thank you, Ivy.

Me too, I get all kinds of giddy when I find out someone I don't already know is reading!

[Tim]

Peter Levine

24 Steps to Liberty

I wouldn't recommend JOS as a thinking blog, especially with a 5 blog constraint and the number of excellent bloggers that are writing to be thought-provoking.

[Alison]

Y'all, that's so cool that we're a favorite and that we make you think! Same to you, of course!

[Pam]

Wow. Thanks for the very kind words (now confess - who paid you? My Mom? The lab?).

To add to the list (an eclectic mix):

An always fascinating ScienceBlog about women in the Sciences (it generates alot of interesting discussion):

And there's Creek Running North and Olduvai George - but I'm not sure if O.G. is still out there posting - but even if he's not, go back and look at his amazing illustrations (you literally feel like you're inside a very different world). They're both well-known sites and get lots of comments (I'm just a lurker at both sites) - but if you haven't seen them, and have an interest in the natural world, they're really interesting.

There's many others...

[Rockwell]

Thanks for the tip of the hat our way to our just stumbling out of the blocks blog.... We learned a lot of what we know from coming here to read and vent.

I'm taking the entire list as a group for further reading.

Like others... it makes us smile when someone notices.

[jmsloop]

I want to second the motion for Baxter Sez. Bright, thoughtful, and oft-times funny posts. One of my favorites.