Prémio Dardos

J. Otto Pohl of Otto's Random Thoughts has awarded Marginalia the Prémio Dardos or "Best Blog Darts Thinker Award." Snowed under with work (and actual snow, today) -- I'm late with a condensed history of Latvia because I keep revising it -- I wasn't even able to finish a post on the 90th anniversary of Latvia's proclamation of independence (soon, soon). But the Dardos rules ask for acceptance (I accept -- thanks, Otto) and for passing Darts along to 15 others. Otto is parceling his out slowly, so I will do the same.

I now have 42 blogs in my "Blogs of Note" list at right (the list both shrinks and expands, but subtly and almost imperceptibly so) and all are worth checking out for one reason or another, whether they're primarily personal like at the end of the world (formerly Allergic to Whiskey) or collective efforts at unseemly provocation like Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for War. Speaking of the unseemly, I removed both La Russophobe and Da Russophile from my list a while back -- I try to link to diverse views, but the level of bile in the blogosphere is such that I will no longer list sites venomously employing supposedly cutesy disinformative devices like the term "eSStonia" or veering into barely concealed nacionālā naida kurināšana.

Here are five blogs deserving of Darts:

A Step At A Time -- David McDuff's site has long been an indispensable compendium of information on "the world’s present troubles as a continuation of the old common struggle with tyranny and oppression." David's take is unique, and the blog not rarely includes original translations of news you would only find elsewhere with great difficulty.

Ukrainiana -- "Political Ukraine laid bare. For those who care." Taras' Moscowcentrism-free explorations of the vortices of Ukrainian politics are... dizzying.

Blue, Black and White Alert -- An extremely well written blog by an Estonian-American living in Estonia. Comes complete with acerbic wit laced with the Yuleland pragmatism of Fenno-Ogres and crypto-Baltic black humor.

Veiko Spolītis' Baltic -- If Taras' political Ukraine is dizzying, Veiko's political Latvia is... depressing, but not devoid of hope: "The choice is simple - to reform the post-Soviet education, political and economic structures or to become a murky dependency relying on the Russian oil and mineral resources transit commissions."

Neeka's Backlog -- The blogosphere's gold standard for blending the personal and political. With exceptional photographs, too.