I’ve just learned that we’re but two days away from Blogroll Amnesty Day, the history of which I was, shamefully, unaware, although the truth of it I knew quite well.

And so, before I go back in the corporate world of new employees, trainees and annual reviews and my real job of making sure the news My Colleagues deliver to your living rooms is relatively accurate and not too terribly biased, I’ll take this moment to celebrate the day, because I think it’s important to recognize that strong, courageous voices come not just from the bloggers who get interviewed by my colleagues.

It seems that the sponsors of this day are Jon Swift, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Blue Gal, although I learned about it from distributorcap ny and Bark Bark Woof Woof, the idea being that bloggers would link to smaller blogs and thumb their noses at the big guys, most of whom I pretty much ignore anyway. So here goes.

Just another moment of miscellany

Bill gives out delightful commentary along with much needed respite from the realities of this old world by writing about woodworking and gorgeous scenery, which are sometimes the same thing.

Blue Wren

Wren’s got the integrated living thing down, and her writing draws us into her life, whether it be snippets of detail about California country life or a heart-felt analysis of The Way Things Are.

International Political Will

Wil’s got the look from outside this country looking in, and the look at outside this place from there. It’s about cutting through the spin Western governments, aided and abetted by my colleagues, throw at us on a daily basis.

Why Now?

Good question, and Bryan cuts through the bull in far fewer words than I’m capable of, pointing out, for example, that the RNC picked Michael Steele as chairman because they think “winning elections is all about marketing, rather than policy.” And I spent two posts trying to say that. I envy him. Plus I get good blog ideas from him.

Liberal Common Sense

LisaRenee’s in Ohio and has four other blogs, and frankly I don’t know how she keeps up. But she does, touching on a wide range of topics and issues and all the while being fair. Much fairer than I am, actually, and probably more patient too.

distributorcap ny

The rules said 5 blogs. So sue me. I’m only just learning to love distributorcap, but I am loving him. He’s good, man. Very good. And sometimes even uproariously funny.

Now, I’m supposed to be linking to blogs that are smaller than me, but honestly, I have no idea which ones are and which ones aren’t. I looked at Bryan’s stats at Why Now, and I know he’s actually bigger. I’m pretty sure Liberal Common Sense is too. Probably all five are. But these folks aren’t on the level of those big guys whose names I’m conveniently forgetting right about now. And they’re more real. Read them, and seek out more of the common people, cause that’s where the good shit is.

I’ve also taken the opportunity to add a few blogs to “Found out for themselves” over on the blogroll — blogs on my personal “these blogs I read” list that I’ve been meaning to put on the page here but haven’t until today gotten around to doing. And I promise I’ll be a little more diligent about that.

And I’m trying to figure a way to get more links on here, because there are still more blogs I fairly regularly read but haven’t been moved over here. Maybe a separate page for them? Or should I just bite the bullet and let the whole list run on the sidebar? Whatcha think?