In praise of women bloggers…..moving blogging past the gifted geeks.

I think of it as a bunch of cavemen sitting around inventing the wheel. They loved to talk radius. They loved to talk diameter. They loved their wheel. They painted cave paintings of their wheel on the wall. Looked about as interesting as those pictures that are in the middle of a patent filing.

Then cavewomen came along and were pretty unimpressed with one wheel sitting there being fondled by one caveman. She made him roll it over to her and then told him to leave her alone with it for a while. He let her have the wheel but wanted to interest her in all the diagrams and maps and charts he had scribbled to explain this cool thing called a wheel. She wasn’t interested in the documentation; she just wanted to USE the wheel. She had a plan. She knew where the wheel could take her and she wanted to go there FAST. She wanted the wheel man to go with her, so she told him, “Go take a bath.”

She then coaxed three other cavemen to hand over their wheels and also go take baths. She had plans. She and her girlfriends turned their 4 wheels into a Thunderbird. Now the guys were cleaned up and she invited them along for a joy ride in her new car.

They said, “What the hell did she do with our wheels?” But they didn’t stand around too long because they knew they’d do better to just get in the car and let her take them for a ride.

While there is a disproportionate number of males in the god blogging sector, women bring something to this genre we are all richer for.

Around about 1999, a new bunch of blogs started showing up – ones you could really READ – ones that told you stories and entertained you and took you for a joyride. Many of these blogs dutifully thanked the toolmakers for their cool blogging software. Many more didn’t know anything about the toolmakers and didn’t care. They just wanted to publish stuff someone wanted to read. They took the README idea in the Alice in Wonderland direction and published incredible magical strange things … stories people wanted to read. Stories about people. Stories about pets. Stories about their jobs. You could hear them telling stories. You could hear their voices loud and clear in their weblogs. They sounded like people sitting around a fire telling great stories. They are taking us all on a joy ride, showing us how much we liked stories, how much we needed stories.

Thank a female blogger today.

Orin Hatch
A US senator put his foot in his mouth Tuesday with an asinine comment suggesting that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed. According to Wired News, the senators website uses unlicenced software. Opps. Open mouth, take out left foot, insert right foot.

Improving your writing
…or how not to sound like a befuddled corporate type. The Grammar Police strips english back to the basics and points out common mistakes.

Fraticide
A decision has been made in the case of two US pilots responsible for killing four Canadian soldiers and wounding others in April in Afghanistan.
Major Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umbach will not be court-marshalled.
The Canadian families have been through a joint inquiry, and the hearing, and are not happy with this final decision. It has been a contentious issue between the two countries.
1800 Canadian troops are preparing to leave for Afghanistan this summer.

Harry Potter
LivingRoom has a proposal for all the non Harry Potter fans out there….Gary Kotter and the Theologian’s Drone.

FutureMargin has an interesting review of Andrew Carrega’s E-vangelism 2.0.

The Upward Way Press is celebrating his Blog Day this weekend. I remember his blog from a year ago…a lot has changed, and he sums up his journey well. Happy Blog Day!