Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I'M BACK (SORT OF)

It's difficult to get back into blogging after a 6 week absence. Several times after returning to Kingston after Christmas I thought of something that I could post and then thought to myself: do I really want THAT to be the first thing I post in weeks? Also, this whole grad school thing is taking up more time than I thought it would, not that that's a bad thing. But I doubt anyone cares about WHY I haven't been posting, only that I haven't been, if you even care about that.

So, I figure the best way to get back into blogging is to not bother writing my own stuff but to link to other people's. The following is some of what I have been reading in the last couple of days and I suggest that you do so as well, if you haven't already:

Nestruck follows in the dissenting tradition of his defence of cat killing films and his defence of president killing video games with an intelligent defence of Prince Harry's Nazi costume. All three are good reads, and while my initial reaction was to be offended by Harry's little stunt, Nestruck is turning me around. Nevertheless, Harry's actions only matter at all because he's third in line to be the head of state of Britain, Canada and several other countries around the globe. Alan, writing for the majority, is offended by the monarchy in general and the prince's stunt in particular (he extrapolates in the comments to the post).

Meanwhile, Mader picked up one of his common themes yesterday, highlighting what he believes to be 'that ubiquitous Canadian anti-Americanism.' I engaged him in a discussion on the issue in the comments. Hopefully, I'll be able to have a more expanded comment on the theme of 'anti-Americanism' in Canada in this space soon.

Finally, another member of the McGill Arts '04 graduating class has started up a blog. My friend Nick has recently arrived in Korea for one of those English teaching gigs, and is blogging the experience. Nick has actually made several aborted attmepts at blogging, so hopefully he'll be able to keep this one going. Click over to his blog if for no other reason than some added traffic might peer pressure Nick into posting more regularly. I know Nick can't resist peer pressure. In fact he's morally obligated to give in.

Read that stuff, and hopefully I'll have something of my own soon.

Posted by Matthew @ 1:23 a.m.