Women Bloggers: Wonkette vs the Worthwhile

The recent NYT blogger profile concentrated on leftist bloggers and, despite the immediate protests of my fellow conservatives at being ignored, was less than complimentary of them. Reporter Klam was pretty clearly fascinated by Wonkette, whose writing shows an inordinate propensity toward the nether regions of the human anatomy, with frequent scatological and sexual references. Now, I will admit I used to have a similar fascination with potty humor, but then I turned fourteen.

Wonkette did have a very funny picture up: Secrets Plans of Kerry HQ. Loved that one. But, on balance, perhaps the prevailing pervasively pernicious perfidy of her partners on the left would be preferable to the vain and vacuous vapidity of the niche she has created for herself.

For instance, when she speculates on the size of Kerry's penis, she loses me. I am far more concerned about his undetectable testicles.

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Lest I be labelled misogynist, I should point out that there are many worthwhile female bloggers out there who write well and make their points without tittering on about poop or pee-pees.

For instance, there is Ann Althouse, a centrist law professor at Wisconsin. Her essay on How Kerry lost me is a great read which sheds insight on the problem Kerry is having with the moderate voters, especially women, this year.

Then there is Lorie Byrd, a working mother who is one of the mainstays at Polipundit {a blog I visit regularly and recommend highly}. She also occasionally posts on her own site, Byrd Droppings. Her post today on health care exposes the fallacy of nationalized medicine:

I have read many stories of people in Canada waiting for weeks or even months for hospital treatment, sometimes even for serious health concerns such as cancer. (It seems that Americans who can, cross the border for prescription drugs, and Canadians that can, cross the border for timely and quality medical services.) Even more frightening than that, however, are first hand accounts I have read recently. I have been part of a cholesteatoma internet support group for several months now and have seen stories from those having problems both here and in other countries. Here the main problems, in addition to those related to the condition itself, are with insurance companies and are related to how much of the surgery and other expenses of treatment they will pay. The problems for those with government-run health care, in my opinion, are much more troubling. One woman in the cholesteatoma group wrote that she was on a waiting list for months for her surgery. When my daughter was first diagnosed, her ENT doctor told us he was having surgery himself and that if we wanted him to do the surgery we would have to put it off for four weeks. Although she had already had tubes put in her ears twice by this doctor, and we liked and trusted him, we chose to have a partner in his practice do the surgery, rather than wait. I cannot imagine being in the position of knowing that there was something growing in my daughter's ear that was destroying her hearing, and potentially causing damage to her brain, and we had to just wait and let it continue to grow for months. If I was in that position, I would imagine that I would sell or mortgage whatever I needed to in order to travel to wherever it was possible to have the surgery done sooner.

Read the rest at the link above.

Then there is Betsy Newmark, a history teacher from Raleigh, NC. Betsy's Page reminds me of a more comprehensive Best of the Web sometimes. {She also includes the Best of Best of the Web . . . }

Another woman blogger I've been reading lately is La Shawn Barber. I like what I've seen so far, but I doubt Joe Lockhart shares my opinion! Even though the original MSM report was retracted, I will never be able to look at Joey the Pooh again without laughing - which is a great improvement on the scowl he has brought to my face for years.

So, there are indeed worthwhile women bloggers who can be informative and insightful without adopting the Wonkette style: rude, crude, nude, and tatooed.

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UPDATE: Lorie Bird isn't exactly a "working mom." She informs me she was a "stay-at-home mom" until all her kids were in school, and now only works during school hours. So, it would have been more accurate to describe her as a "stay-at-home working mom." Not that there isn't honor, if not glory, in all the possible permutations . . .