Soccer Dad

Blog envy

A few weeks ago Jack's Shack asked other bloggers if they have blog envy. I admit to it.

For one thing there are bloggers who do things that I wish I was doing.

Elder of Ziyon presents episodes of decades old history that simply proves Santayana correct.

Jack's Shack and SerAndEz have seemingly endless energy seemingly to post more times per day than I think I do in a week!

Boker Tov Boulder keeps thorough track of all news from Israel.

I'll omit the negative jealouslies that I have.

But blogging has its rewards. One of them is watching new blogs take off and establish themselves.

This year two friends started blogging. One Elie's Expositions did so in response to his tragedy and write poignantly about life and death. The other Daled Amos contributes pithy observations about the Arab Israeli conflict and the attendant hypocrisies.

I've also made some blog friends including Pillage Idiot.

The above mentioned SerAndEz started up this past year. Israel Perspectives writes well thought-out essays on the meaning of Zionism today. A Whispering Soul combines fascinating writing with some neat music trivia. And A Simple Jew recalls his family's Eastern European heritage which is similar to mine (as he put it to me in an e-mail, we're landesmen) as well as his own Chassidic roots.

And where is this leading?

Many of those mentioned are competing in this year's JIB awards. Israelly Cool! deserves credit for originating these awards last year and expanding them this year. He's even seen to it that J-blogging has reached the big time as the contest will be hosted at the Jerusalem Post's website. Take a look at the current roster of nominees. There were a couple of categories missing; I'm wondering if space or technical constraints prevented the Best New Blog, Best Group Blog and Best Mega Blog categories. So why don't you check it out and see what's out there?

UPDATE: I left out part of what I wanted to write.
There's another thrill about watching blogs, it's seeing one take an issue and make it its own. We saw that when Jewish Current Issues caught the New York Times fabricating a quote from Secretary of State Rice.

And if you follow It's Almost Supernatural, he owns the issue of the maps of Israel's security barrier. Anytime a paper or Palestinian talks about contiguity, It's Almost Supernatural is the place to go.

Finally one last thrill of blogging. It's seeing that IRIS has a blog. IRIS was one of the first organizations (or websites) to provide an alternative to the standard media treatment of the Middle East. Once upon a time there was Shomron News Service, IRIS and IMRA. Now the online resources have greatly expanded. And IRIS is back providing the same old service using a new medium. Call it nostalgia.

And a final note. Israelly Cool! announced that the roster of nominees at the Jerusalem Post is a test page and not necessarily representative of what will appear January 9, 2006, the day the voting starts. Still check it out and explore.

Technorati Tags: 2005 JIB Awards, blogging.