From time to time I’ll revise the list of links that appears on the right side of the Northern Letter homepage. No list of Upper Midwest-related links on this page can be comprehensive, and mine will continue to reflect my own idiosyncratic outlook. That said, I’ll try to keep the list relevant to topics that appear frequently in this column, including regional geography, literature, weather, media, and politics. What follows are some comments on links I’ve added today.

MNspeak.com was voted best blog of the year by Mpls St. Paul Magazine, although it seems like much more than a blog to me. It’s an innovative website that covers Twin Cities culture and media. (Should it be called TCspeak.com?) One highlight of the site is its aggregator, which “collects posts from 200 locally-authored blogs and media sources” (including this column-slash-blog). It’s a handy way to organize the regional blogosphere, and there’s even a geographical view. Also interesting are the site’s “phlogs,” or phone logs–audio comments that participants add via phone. Mnspeak.com claims to be the first place on the Internet to host a phlog. See the upper right of the MNspeak.com homepage to find the current phlog. Finally, check out Rex Sorgatz’s April 2005 post on the founding of MNspeak.com for more about this cool website.

The academic in me is encouraged by the existence of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And the weather nut in me loves Minnesota meterologist Paul Douglas—both his writing and his broadcasting. See his Star Tribune column and his WCCO-TV Weather Notes blog for his take on the latest regional weather and more. His more occasional personal blog, Weather Trends and Technology, is excellent and frequently describes the scientific evidence for global warming. It’s got nice pictures too.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2006 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Media.