Blog roll bloat.

You may notice the new look around here. I’m tinkering with what WordPress gives me to work with, trying to make it more streamline and shoving some stuff to pages.

The blog roll probably needs some major work but for now I’ll just change two.

Darryl Enriquez, formerly of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is now at Waukesha News Online. You can visit Darryl there.

James Wigderson, op/ed columnist extraorinaire, has moved from Blogger and taken up new digs at in his own domain, so go check out the new Wigderson Library and Pub.

“The Abortionist” a review

I figured the least I could do for my friend Michael would be to buy and read his book, “The Abortionist.”

It was well worth it.

The story is about Elliot Stearns, a former policeman who took up writing after a bullet left him paralyzed from the waist down. As a free lance writer and crime columnist Elliot writes on his blog From Where I Sit and for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Michael explains all this on his blog.

In the book, a psychopath is killing women using techniques an abortion provider would use. Elliot along with his friends on the police force are attempting to find the very clever killer.

Things are complicated by the fact that Elliot has again come in contact with his ex-fiance, Caroline. Things come to a head when their relationship brings danger to Caroline.

I liked the book. It was a mystery, albeit with few possible suspects. The story moved along and there were enough surprises to keep you guessing.

Knowing I am a Christian, Michael asked me if the fact that the killer seemed to have religious reasons for doing his killing bothered me. It does, but that was mitigated by several things. One, so many killers in books, movies and TV are portrayed as “religious nuts” that one becomes used to the whole thing. Two, sadly, we hear too often on the news that someone very much like “The Abortionist” has done some gruesome killing using religion as justification. Three, Michael dealt very well with the subject in the Epilogue by saying that the guy wanted to kill and wrapped in religiosity to justify his evil, much like suicide bombers wrapping themselves in a few words from the Koran and missing the message of the rest of the book.

For my like-minded readers (evangelical Christians), the murders were recounted with perhaps too much gruesome detail. There are a couple of sex scenes and one or two of the victims were described as being unclothed. There is swearing throughout the book.

Technically, a couple of minor spelling and grammatical lapses were noticed.

None of these, however, took away from the story line and the underlying debate about abortion. Caughill has done a good job of being fair to both sides of the abortion debate and looking at the human drama underneath. This he has wrapped up in a gripping story that is worth the read.

Don’t get bogged down in trying to analyze the beliefs of the various characters. Enjoy the story. The Abortionist is worth your time.

THE Right Side of Wisconsin Blog Network

An announcement from THE Right Side of Wisconsin

THE Right Side of Wisconsin, recently ranked by BlogNetNews “the most influential blog in the State of Wisconsin” for two weeks running, announces that it is relaunching itself as THE Right Side of Wisconsin Blog Network. The flagship blog THE Right Side of Wisconsin already boasts such contributors as Ambassador Mark Green, Jean Hundertmark, Senator Glenn Grothman, Representative Kevin Petersen, National Columnist Camille Solberg, Conservative Critic Andy Haaf and others, and will now open its doors to any conservative in Wisconsin that wants to become a political blogger. In addition, THE Right Side of Wisconsin Blog Network will host a weekly internet radio program called “from THE Right Side of Wisconsin” which will discuss the best blog content from the previous week along with interviews from Wisconsin’s political news makers…

“Any conservative who want to become a political blogger.” Here’s your chance if you’ve been wanting to blog.

More roll bloat

Two more Wisconsin blogs added to the roll: “The Other Side” and (Insert Witty Blog Title Here).

Then two outside, although just barely for one, the Cheddarsphere: P.U.M.A: Party Unity My A… and Socialist Squirrel.

Roll bloat

A few more I’m adding to the extensive list on the side:

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC by Deekaman who’s got a great tag line, “Open your mind, but not so far that your brain falls out. Think critically and beware of red Kool-Aid.” He gets added to the Wisconsin blogs.

Randy Melchert, whom some may remember as a candidate for the 24 Assembly district here in Wisconsin, is now blogging. Randy joins the Wisconsin and Waukesha blog lists. He’s already made an appearance on the carnival.

Waukesha Sewer Racoon is another one I’ve added. The tag line reads

“A journal of sightings of raccoons coming out of and going into the storm grate at our corner in Waukesha WI. (& etc.) The bent is nature with occasional forays elsewhere…all of which relates to the well-being of raccoons and their kin, which is all of us.”

He’ll appear under Wisconsin and Waukesha blog rolls.

Then there’s Conservative Oasis. Lots of different kinds of stuff here. Currently there’s a video on “You might be a liberal if…”

Now a question, OK, maybe a few:

Do you use the blog roll? If not, will improving it make you more likely to use it? How can I improve it? Would you like to see more categories? A list of blogs I read regularly? I look at all the blogs occaisionally in my reader, but there are those I go to at least weekly. Any other suggestions of what you would like to see removed or added to the sidebars would be appreciated.

If you blog and are not on the list, leave me a link in the comments.

New to the blog roll

I only needed to read a couple of posts before I knew I should add John Brodigan.

And with a comment like “Standing athwart history, yelling, ‘I’m not wearing any pants!’ ” under his title, you can see why.