What We're Reading
on the Internet These Days
by Doc
Cuddy
Not what we OUGHT to be reading. Not what we want you to THINK we're reading so
you'll be impressed.
No, this is what we're ACTUALLY reading, sites we look at around here just
about every day, trying to figure out which way the cross-cultural, multi-national winds
have blown, are blowing, and will be blowing.
Arts & Letters
http://www.aldaily.com/
Not as creatively wide-ranging as it once was, but if you're interested in ideas,
there's no site like it.
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/index.html
How the other half thinks. That is, how the thinking half that doesn't get much air (or
paper) time in the mainstream thinks. If Arts & Letters represents Old Culture and
Old-Culture ways of looking at the present, AlterNet tries hard (and often successfully)
to cast new light on old, old problems.
The Drudge Report
http://www.drudgereport.com/
Yes, we do. Look at the Drudge Report. Often. Why? Trying to keep tabs on what the Talk
Radio Culture (both the people who do it and the people who listen) think is important.
Earth Files
http://www.earthfiles.com/
Linda Moulton Howe gives the Art Bell/Whitley Strieber crowd a patina of respectability.
Fark
http://www.fark.com/
The best daily potpourri of bizarre Internet links. The blurbs are sometimes better than
the stuff they're linked to.
Guardian Unlimited Weblog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weblog/
The best paper in the UK chooses the best of the Internet.
Killing the Buddha
http://www.killingthebuddha.com/
Like Magellan's Log without the satire. Serious, thoughtful stuff for those who are
religious-minded but can't stomach religion.
LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/
Molly Ivins
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/columnists/molly_ivins/
Not only has Molly retained her sanity after decades of dealing with the pols and their
money-buddies, she's also sharpened the acuity of her vision, and her wit.
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
What can you say? It is still what it is: often-questionable politics, unmatched global
reporting, day in and day out a remarkably high and consistent standard of writing and
editing. Read it for Paul Krugman if for nothing else.
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Best source for daily breaking science news.
Slashdot
http://www.slashdot.org/
Best source for daily breaking geek news.
Wired News
http://www.wired.com
Best source for daily breaking technology news
LA Weekly
http://www.laweekly.com/
Las Vegas City Life
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/
Las Vegas in spite of itself seems to be turning into a city. Evidence abounds in this
unlikely source.
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/
New York Observer
http://www.observer.com/main2.htm
Read it for Joe Conason.
San Francisco Bay Guardian
http://www.sfbg.com/
Read it for Andrea Nemerson's sex-advice column.
Dan Savage
http://www.thestranger.com/current/savage.html
Sex sex sex.
The Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk
The politics may be disreputable but the Queen's English sure ain't.
The Economist
http://www.economist.com/
Village Voice
http://www.villagevoice.com/
Hip? No. Cool? No (the technology columnn reads like something you'd expect to find in
Good Housekeeping). But they still do movies and theater and art better than anybody. And
when they put their mind (and budget) to it, the investigative pieces are priceless.
Atlantic Monthly
http://www.theatlantic.com
Just when you despair of the American intelligentsia, you go to the Atlantic, and there
they are, still plodding dutifully and polysyllabically on. What would we do without 'em?
Columbia Journalism Review
http://www.cjr.org/
Consumer Reports
http://www.consumerreports.org/
$20 for an on-line subscription, and well worth it.
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/
Mainly for Christopher Hitchens.
The New Republic
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/
New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/
See comments on the Atlantic above, except moreso, a whole lot moreso.
END
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