I’ve been invited to write a few paragraphs about some cool electronic resource for the next edition of the NYAM Newsletter. And unhappily, I have a bit of a problem with that. Granted, I have the time and the talent and the motivation, but the problem persists and it’s been there for as far back as I can remember.
My trouble is simple: I can’t decide on just one thing to write about. The world is too big, and I’ve always been interested in, well, all of it. You can blame at least part of the attitude on Cerebus the Aardvark, by the way. When asked how much money he’d want if he could name any price for his services, Cerebus replied "All of it!" It’s a physical and economic impossibility, but it sums up how I feel.
So I deal with the limited time and space (mostly time) here by sorting through who knows how many blogs, web bites, e-mail announcements, and seeing how any given item makes me feel. I get really into some weird stuff that’s extremely useful in passing (Library Thing is a good example of that) but doesn’t warrant a lot of my attention. Something like George Ure’s website Urbansurvival.com is another matter–I’d live there if I could. Ure sees himself as a financial reporter with a website rather than just another blogger, and the attitude shows in his writing. He catches everything the mainstream media misses, and it misses, in my estimation, almost everything worth reading. Andy’s website is another one in that category although he’s more direct in his politics than Ure. Andy’s got my constant attention for a slightly different reason, however. First, he’s Treasurer of the DNC. Second (and more important to me personally) he has answered nearly every single e-mail I’ve ever written to him and he’s posted my comments a few times. To my mind, he’s a god. Mike "Mish" Shedlock’s not a god, but his economics blog is worth the time to read just the same (pay particular attention to the external link list on the right margin–good, good reading to be found there.)
And now, for something completely different: Doug Ritter’s Equipped to Survive website and blog and The Liberty Dollar website. The liberty dollar is just plain neat from an underground market perspective. I wouldn’t use it to invest in silver (not when silver coins are half the price of a single liberty dollar, according to Kitco.com, another good source of info on the gold and silver markets). I also don’t think it’s ever replace the greenbacks that you and I use for daily over-the-counter purchases, but, well, take a look if you are at all inclined.
Back to Libraryland: if you don’t subscribe to ResourceShelf’s weekly e-mail newsletter, you’re missing out on a ton of new items that are available from Gary Price and his editors. I’m also partial to Wikipedia as a place to go for general information on pretty much anything–it’s been rare that I typed in a reference to it couldn’t match with some kind of entry. Just be aware that some of the information contained therein is, uh, disputed.
So you see my conflict. I think it’s all interesting. It’s all worth knowing, or at least worth knowing about. It is, as I (and Cerebus) said, "All of it."
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