I spend a lot of time surfing a wide variety of blogs. Blog Explosion provides an endless stream of blogs to view, For every two blogs you visit, they send someone back to visit your blog.

My Blog Log provides a list of bloggers who have visited your site. You can see it in my right hand column, the five most recent visitors. I like to visit the sites of people who have come to my site. Usually, they have a MyBlogLog widget on their site, and I follow the links to those sites.

I’ve also been playing a bit with Twitter and have found new blogs through there. All of these sources provide a very interesting contrast to the political blogosphere ghetto that I spend so much time in.

You see, a lot of political bloggers go to the A-list political blogs. Maybe they branch out and visit some of the regional political blogs. Yet, for me, some of the most important political blogs are blogs about daily life. They have entries by a wife talking about her husband cooking a great hot dog. They talk about a family going boating together and talking about knitting and photography. They talk about gardening, and the first bursts of spring.

A couple blogs have jumped out at me in particular. Living with Alzhiemers. The posts there are infrequent. They are written by a guy named Joe.

I have not posted is ome time now. I keep forgetting two. One of my dearest friends recently losst her farther and I forgot to send her my sympathies. I stop one of my meds and that was a big mistake, thoought I was dying, but apparently God nor the Devil want me at this time. Life is geetting a little more confusing and frustrating for me, I don't even answer my emails the way I used to.

In another entry he talks about working around the house:

It took me over 3 hours to put a new facet in the kitchen yesterday, had to rest betwwen steps and went off and did other things and forgot what I was doing, but alll ened well, no leaks, what a suprise.

You want to talk about healthcare? You want to talk about stem cell research? Start with this wonderful blog. I remember going with Kim to visit her grandfather as the Alzheimer’s slowly took him away. I remember the concern about him going on walks and getting lost, about him going down into the basement to work on the furnace or the electrical system, and how these things led the family to find a home where he could be cared for twenty four hours a day. Kim’s grandfather was also named Joe, so these blog entries jump out at me.

Then there is Girl Punch. She talks a little bit about who she is here. She has this to say about Imus, and this to say about Virginia Tech. If you want to talk about media reform, Iraq, or Virginia Tech, Girl Punch is a great place to start.

To tie things altogether, Jaya writes about my recent blog post talking about “our capacity for evil”.

“When people say they can't understand how someone could go on a killing spree, I find myself pausing and thinking, not without revulsion, that I DO understand. Then I wonder for a moment if I'm somehow monstrous to have that understanding. I think not. I think I am simply one who has looked at some of the darker, uglier, and less acceptable aspects of my self, and they have looked back at me, and we've nodded at each other in silent recognition.”

She sums it all up with

“Or, put another way, as a friend once said to me, it's hard to be angry when there is a cat on your head.”

If you want to talk about leadership, let’s spend our time exploring what Jaya has to say and focus on cats on peoples heads, and not how much they pay for haircuts.