It's wonderful to see Jeneane Seessum and Blog Sisters hit the bigtime. However, this article is flawed in so many ways. It's unfortunate, for instance, that the goal of one of the women bloggers chosen -- as representative of the blog scene in general we are given to presume -- is to cook every dish in a Julia Child cookbook. Cool, I suppose, but hardly a great leap forward for women online. Out of the frying pan and into... the kitchen? And why all the references to knitting blogs? This is an article about women finding their voices on the web? Excuse me? And why the same old warblogger hit magnets, all men, with NY Times trackers assigned to them -- and to no women? There's some cogent criticism showing up on the Blog Sisters site, and I'm sure we'll see more before the day is out. I know Jeneane spent a lot of time with the writer, pointing her to various worthwhile sites by both women and men, so the article's muddied thinking and conflicting signals cannot be laid at the door of her informants. Except for maybe Virginia Postrell, of whom I can say no good; I basically hate her dumbbell dynamist/stasist hogwash. But more about Ginny another time perhaps.

This NY Times piece could have been a watershed document; instead, it comes across as sloppy and confused. Too bad. But kudos to the sisters, who much deserve high praise for their flash and sass, balls and brash, and a ton of damn good writing. Personally, I could give a shit about geopolitical harangues and yet another, deeper round of techno-fetishism. If it weren't for what (many) women and (some) men are blogging here about their hearts, their lives, their work in the world at large, their dreams, there wouldn't be a whole lotta reason to log on. Wonderfully, there's plenty of reason, though it may be a little -- oh no! oh dear! -- irrational. But here's an idea: why don't we sing this song all together. Open our heads and let pictures come...