Thinkin’ Man’s Meme

How about that. I’ve been having a weird, cagey relationship with the wider ‘Net these last few months, and especially in the last few weeks… but lo and behold I got nodded to for a “thinking meme” tag by Sven Johnson. I liked his other nominations too — in good company, indeed. Thanks Sven. Here’s my 5 nominations:

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Tim at Geistweg, for using the Long Now Foundation to throw down a challenge about genocide — and implicitly appealing to us all to help stop it. Between the frequent, serious reminders about the need for social action to stop future holocausts, this is actually a fun blog to read.

Deb Liptak at info2go, for pumping useful, timely info out to the masses of us doddering info-illiterates in the north Texas metroplex. Deb’s newsletters are great, and she’s lately taken a serious interest in ‘government information should be free for citizens’. Good work, there. I always learn something new from her.

Vinay Gupta on What Is and What Is Not, for good music criticism. When you’re willing to take a fresh look at an artist that could too-easily be dismissed as a self-inflated goth.biz hack, and when you find something new by taking the time to look… yeah, I’ll tip my hat to that.

danah boyd at Apophenia, because she’s serious and generous when it comes to trying to understand and explain youth culture on the new web to the rest of us.

Ulla-Maaria Mutanen at Hobby Princess, for thinking and writing about info/objects like nobody else has. Ms. Mutanen and her crowd are doing more to alter the soft borders between art / craft & information / object than anyone since the Bauhaus gang. Librarians, designers, artists, all should be reading.

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If you got “tagged” above, you may write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. [Optional: there’s also a ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ emblem (silver version or gold version) which you may display.] As Sven points out, tracing the meme back to originating blogs will lead you to many other great thinkin’ blogs!