Purple Scarves, et cetera.

CONCEPT

Since I've stepped up posting in 2005, I've resolved to add links more frequently. Today I bring you links to four quality blogs.

It is fitting to highlight one that pretty much fell in my lap.

Tom is my godfather and friend for the last five years. He has had an extraordinary, disaporic life with travels through Orthodox Judaism, the Green Berets, Catholicism, Wisconsin farm life and work in law in Chicago and computers in Detroit, a conversion to Catholicism, and most recently, the advocation of gay rights.

Tom's blog is geared toward the discussion of social issues, with an emphasis on sexuality. He is as charismatic and sharp in writing as he is in speech. You can find him here:

Purple Scarf
http://purplescarf.blogspot.com/

* * * * *

Unfortunately, I don't personally know the writers of the other three blogs I'm linking today.

A Common Prejudice - http://stagefour.typepad.com/commonprejudice/ is a Mexico City-based blog discussing all manner of subjects from culture to news of Latin American interest to politics. It seems to be weighted toward the latter. Brian writes about important issues that are often overlooked, and in doing so, expresses a compelling perspective that is somehow both unexpected and immediately recognizable.

The Lebanese Code - http://www.weblb.com is a Beirut-based blog that, while it touches on Lebanese politics, is mainly an attempt to reveal a culture through the depiction of anecdotes and day-to-day observations. Like most of my readers, I am an American and tend to neglect an invested scrutiny when we explore the outside work. The Lebanese Code is both disarming and revealing.

Finally, Otherings - http://othering.blogspot.com is a Massachusetts-based blog that ruminates at length and at ease upon the intersection of American and Irish culture. Given his immersion in both cultures, Sean is uniquely qualified to make this comparison, and his posts have me some food for thought regarding my own (much more distanced) Irish heritage.

I hope that posting all four of these together does not detract from any. I reviewed over a hundred blogs to find these four, and all are worthwhile excursions.

In the end, did any of you really miss that last game of Solitaire while you were supposed to be working?

~ Connor