New Blogroll Entries, and Why

Today, in my Friday I-don't-want-to-do-anything blog trolling, I came across a couple of blogs, one of which I've known but haven't paid attention to, and another one that's entirely new to me. Both are fun, both are consequently listed under MoonOverFunStuff, and here are samples:

First, Michael Berube, in a recent post, waxes poetic and in loving detail about St. Louis's former historic import, and descent into something else, and emphasizes in particular its heritage of alternative politics and importance to the African-American community. I was particularly moved by the passage excerpted below, which seems to me reminiscent of problems past and present that afflict Pittsburgh:

And as we talked, I remembered all the reasons I’m so fond of St. Louis, and why I’m glad Nick is going to college there, and even more glad that he’s not staying on the carefully manicured lawns of Wash. U., but actually getting out and canvassing the city– not just for John Kerry (or Chuck Berry), but as part of his architecture program, one course of which required him to propose and design an urban-renewal project for a section of the urb that needs serious renewing. These days, though, my fondness for St. Louis is tinged by pity, and pity is among the cheapest and most insulting of emotions. May’s Department Stores, the third largest public company in town, is folding its tent; American Airlines, having ingested the sorry remains of TWA, has cut its St. Louis flights by fifty percent, leaving behind a giant sucking sound at Lambert International Airport; and the historic downtown area– which has, alas, fallen prey to the kind of fools who think you can revive a downtown area by building more stadiums and parking lots, and who don’t realize that after the Blues and Rams games let out, everyone heads straight to their cars because there isn’t a single index of ordinary life (like grocery stores) within ten miles– is a study in depression, economic and affective.

Sound familiar?

Then, from the sublime to the sublimely ridiculous, I bring you Opinions You Should have, which is just plain hilarious in its periodic satiric skewerings of American foreign policy, with a style one part The Onion, one part SNL's Weekend Update, and two parts Oscar Wilde. An example:

Feburary 15 To Be Designated National Judge William H. Pryor Day

Judge To Be Renominated Every Year In New Federal Holiday Ritual

George W. Bush today announced the creation of a new government holiday called Judge William H. Pryor Day. Every year, the President explained, whoever is President will nominate Judge William Pryor, Judge Priscilla Owen, and other judges that no Congress could possibly confirm for federal appeals court seats. "Senators will spend the day marching around the Capitol, wearing colorful ties, shaking fingers at one another, giving entertaining speeches, and breaking for lunch," said the President. "It'll be a great American hoot."

And indeed it is a hoot. Read the rest.