The Fun of Being a BAD, BAD Girl

Yay! Blogroll Amnesty Day is upon us, and its instigators - Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Jon Swift, and Blue Gal - have declared the festivities open now, even things don't get officially BAD until February 3. Well, at least Skippy is bounding over the start line (as befits a kangaroo, I suppose).

The premise, if you haven't already heard, is to link to five blogs with smaller readerships than one's own. Originally, the event was a protest against the big liberal blogs purging the smaller fish from the blogrolls (see Jon Swift's original post for the gory history). By now, it's mostly about fun and exuberance and sharing bloggy love.

Last year, people were lovely about nurturing me. I was less than a month into my blogging adventure. Kittywampus was as wet behind its ears as a newborn kitten. I was really grateful, and still am, for the encouragement I got from The Political Cat, Blue Gal, figleaf, and others.

I'll be happy to entertain blogrolling (almost) all comers, so just ask if you'd like to join the fun. I'll gladly add a followup post and put you on my blogroll. The only catch is that you need to join the BAD festivities, too - no matter how miniscule your blog may be. Oh, and I say "almost" all comers because last year a nice evangelical preacher asked to be added, and I callously said no. He would've been a mighty odd fit with the liberal, irreverent, smart feminist folks who populate my blogroll.

So here are the wonderful people I'm adding to my blogroll today. I don't know if any of their blogs are smaller than mine, but I'm pretty sure most of us move in the same universe. I may be cheating a bit, since I'd planned to add all of them weeks ago!

Sally at Jump off the Bridge tops that list: she's smart and lively and often on top of stories others don't pick up on. She's writing at The Feminist Underground these days, too, but I've been remiss in adding her own place.

Mom's Tinfoil Hat offers sharp insight into medicine and reproductive politics from an insider's view. She's often more jaded about obstetrics than I am, but since she's a med student, I'd say she's in a position to know.

Octogalore is one of the deeply intelligent commenters in the feminist blogosphere, and her blog, Astarte's Circus, is equally thoughtful, especially on issues of class, motherhood, and sexuality.

The tagline at Blue Milk pretty much sums it up: "thinking + motherhood = feminist." Yep. Not that this is the only route to feminism (I signed on a quarter century before I had my first baby) but it's definitely an express lane. Or perhaps the carpool lane.

I like Daisy's Dead Air for more than just our shared history of lovin' the Dead. She's an original thinker, sometimes downright contrarian, and she tells it like she sees it.

Professor, What If ...? will make you think, and not just about gender issues. Even her posts on TV are thought-provoking. Also, I love that her posts often run as long as my ramblings. I guess that's an occupational hazard. I also love that she doesn't apologize for it any more than I do.

Viva La Feminista focuses on feminism and parenting (and she too was nominated for Hottest Mommy Blogger - woo hoo!). She's younger than me, living in Chicago, and a proud Latina, and precisely those differences from my own life provide valuable perspectives on our shared concerns of motherhood and more.

The Apostate writes from the perspective of a young woman who grew up Muslim but is now alienated from her faith. She's been a bit less prolific lately, but I hope she'll carry on; her analysis is incisive and her perspective is - if not unique in the blogosphere - vastly underrepresented.

I know full well that Lisa Wade's Sociological Images is in a different league than me, but I've been meaning to add her too. And not just because she's got all this brilliant/dreadful material that's invaluable to my teaching.

Same goes for Plain(s)feminist. She's another fellow academic with consistently thoughtful views on feminism. Her recent posts on cancer have spoken to me (as the partner of a two-time survivor), but that's only one facet of her work. Of course, I appreciate her Great Plains viewpoint, too.

Hmmm. Somehow that's 5 + 5. I guess that's the hazard of counting on one's fingers; you can lose track of what hand you're on.

Here's wishing you a happy BAD weekend, one and all!