Right away, I wondered how I was going to enjoy or even relate to the weblog of Jeff, who just happens to be the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. I didn’t struggle with that worry for very long, though, and thus began my reading of Random Act of Kindness (RAOK).
Jeff links to his “about the author” section in a fresh manner – he includes it in his list of archives, giving it the month and year of which he was born. Obviously, weblogs weren’t quite the happening thing in September 1970, so when I saw a link for that timeframe under the archives, my curiosity was piqued and I had to check it out. There, I found a very extensive autobiography that really let me learn a lot about the author, and really find out where he’s coming from with the things he writes about from day to day.
The layout is the typical three column layout – weblog in the middle and two columns of informative links on either side. The links that Jeff does feature on both sides of the main text, aside from the Blogroll that’s a mile long, are all helpful links in understanding where Jeff’s getting the information he uses, as well as sources that would appear to come in handy in any type of research.
Being so heavily involved in a political party, naturally the majority of Jeff’s entries relate to politics in one way or another. He’s often focusing on the happenings in Illinois, simply because that’s where he’s based out of and that’s what’s familiar to him. From time to time, he’ll share a personal anecdote with readers, which often tie in very closely with the political arena, but yet his storytelling capability ranks pretty high in the keeping attention department.
The archives are only available through May of 2003. According to Jeff, this site has been around much longer than that. Reading from the beginning is always fun to see how far a site has come, but even from just the few months that are available, the writing standards and output of Jeff’s thoughts have been done consistently well.
RAOK isn’t a weblog that will be something average readers will grasp or really want to grasp. I’ll quickly admit that politics are not something I follow closely, nor are they something I find myself wanting to read more and more about. Amazingly, Jeff keeps his writing basic enough for even those that have no political background can follow and still find interest in.
RAOK is probably best suited for those web surfers looking to get more personal, in depth information about the political happenings in Illinois. If that’s the case, Jeff’s Random Act of Kindness to those people would be this weblog.