Occasional Subversion is a very young blog (the very first entry was posted on 28/4/2003), but don’t let that put you off. The author, Matthew Cheney, uses the blog mainly as an archive for his articles (which are published in a New Hampton paper), and these pieces are well composed and have a winning combination of both smooth writing and wit. His commentaries often challenged me, as a reader, to stop midway and reflect upon what he had just written.
Matthew’s writings are often satirical and question the moralities of modern-day society (particularly that of America’s). His entries provide great insight to issues that the average Joe would not think about. For example, in ‘Auctioning Civilization’, he discusses how humanity places a price tag on everything that is owned and how this ‘price tag’ syndrome can actually help make the world a better place. (A note of caution: The author CAN get rather liberal in expressing his opinions, so take it with a pinch of salt.)
The Achilles’ heel of this blog would be its design (though he IS trying to edit the template), but well, it isn’t a very big issue coz when you have such high-quality content, who cares about the layout!
This isn’t a let-me-tell-you-about-my-life personal blog, but it sure lets you into Matthew’s mind as he reveals his thoughts through his articles. As a matter of fact, this blog is probably better classified under “News/Links” because of the nature of its content. Most of the entries are commentaries by the author himself, while the newer posts consist of excerpts and links from various news sources and websites, which pertain to the content of his entry.
As mentioned above, it IS a really young blog, but there is still plenty of reading material available due to the fact that Matthew chucks in a few articles per entry. So put on your thinking cap, coz you’re in for a ride!
Occasional Subversion