Blog Regionalism?

Christian Crumlish

A recent Metafilter discussion about that LA Times article brought up the vitality of the Los Angeles blog community, to the extent that any regional collection of bloggers can be called a community. Others countered that NY and SF are very heavily represented among the most popular blogs. Oliver Willis suggested Boston. (To me SF is kind of a blend of NY and Boston and LA, but what do I know? I live in Oakland.)

Lest we get into Notorious Tupac territory here, let's keep the rivalries friendly. I'd be most interested these days in blogs from off the beaten track (Prague '90s nostalgia is still too close), more work from nonurban, nonuniversity, non-US sources.

I have a friend in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. With the way things are, I don't think he'd feel safe publishing a weblog, but I wish some of the things he and I discuss in e-mail had a wider audience. He's given me permission to quote him here, but I think it really deserves it's own place, and we have to see how the current crisis plays out first.

This reminds me of when we published Milorad Pavic's first hypertext for computer. Not long after that the U.S. was bombing Serbia (belatedly, as far as intervention goes, and remotely). I contacted Dr. Pavic by e-mail to ask if there was anything he needed, anything I could do to help. He said, "Yes. Stop the bombing!" He wanted me to protest, campaign, etc. My first thought was This is an intellectual, liberal, anti-Milosevich Serb—doesn't he understand why we have to stop the rape of Kosovo?. But the bombs were dropping on him. Who was I to say?

Weird digression, but I guess the point is LA vs. NY vs. SF is fun but I'd like to be reading more blogs from Macedonia, Pakistan, and Lagos.