Links I Like

The following is a list of links to websites I like to visit. I'm just a bit too lazy to construct
links using HTML in the sidebar. This list will be updated periodically.

Update: August 10, 2003

Please note that I have updated this blog's template. Since I wanted to try out my HTML
skills, I also added a list of links to the sidebar. It did not take as long to do as I thought it would, so from now on new links will be posted in the sidebar. I may write a new article about interesting links as I find more of them.
Soaps

I keep up with all the soaps without watching all of them by reading the soap mags and going online. My favorite soap sites are The Port Charles Explosion (as noted below) and
Soap Central's PC section. Soap
Central is a great all-around soap site. Soap Central's Port Charles Page is listed as
GH2 Online on the "Links" sidebar.

News

For news I go all over the place. I tend to search out sites beyond the mainstream. The sites I visit most often are: Google News,
USA Today, Slate, Underreported.com, American Journalism Review, and Arts & Letters Daily

Google's news site is one of those places that one can easily get lost in. It has oodles of links to stories on numerous topics. One of the nicer features is that Google will often go to local or regional newspapers, which sometimes have a different take or more in-depth coverage on stories than national news outlets. Slate has lots of links and covers a variety of topics. It also has a slew of regular contributors--many of them top writers and experts in their fields-- and a lot of commentary and reviews. Its smart-alecky tone can be annoying at times, but its analysis of both national and international papers and their top stories makes the site worth dropping in on. USA Today may seem to be an odd choice, but it can have surprisingly good articles on a wide-range of topics.

Underreported.com is just what the title says, a compendium of underreported news stories on topics of interest to the site's creator. Many of the underreported stories are on politics, civil liberties, constitutional rights, and the like. I gather that the creator is a concerned citizen with strong pro-life views. However he (or she) cannot be pigeon-holed as being liberal or conservative--at least not conservative as it has come to mean nowdays. His (or her) dedication to following up on stories that fly below the radar is astounding.

American Journalism Review (AJR)covers journalism. It is a sort of the stories about the stories site. AJR also has a print magazine that is hard to find, but worth reading if you do happen upon it.

Arts and Letters Daily used to be affiliated with the defunct Lingua Franca , but is now a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Like most of the other sites I like, it has lots of links to other news outlets. You can also get lost in it for hours. The main page features intriguing little tidbits that trail off into ellipses. You have to link to another site to get the rest of the story. And then of course you get lost in that story, and then another and another, etc.

Search Engine

Google, of course. Is there any other search engine? I'm not just saying that because Google owns the company that hosts this blog--really. My sister told my mother and me about Google a few years ago. Other than site specific search engines, it is the only one I use. (Well, that's not entirely true, but Google is best for most routine searches. I like to use EBSCO and other academic data bases, too.) Of course, I'm no web expert, so take that with a grain of salt.

Blog Related Sites

Other than Blogger (duh!) I am still not really familiar with the blogosphere. (Picked up that word, though!) Popdex, looks pretty good.

In the interest of full disclosure, I know someone who works for Slate and Popdex indexes this blog in exchange for a link. ( Alas, I am not above a little shameless self-promotion).