Deaf Firefighter’s Blog

My good friend, Sandman, tagged me the other day as being a “Thinking Blogger”. I’m sure my wife would disagree with that notion that I am capable of “thinking” but I certainly do appreciate the honor.

Apparently, part of the rules require me to tag 5 other people as “thinking bloggers”. I’m a strong believer in not repeating what other people have already said and Sandman kind of stole my thunder.

But one of the things that struck me was what qualifies as a “thinking blogger”? It seems to me that lately, plenty of people are doing a lot of signing/typing but no one is really doing any critical thinking. If I named names, I’d be strung up faster than a piece of yarn at a “Stitch and Bitch” session, so I’ll let my omissions speak for themselves.

I define critical thinking as trying to look at all sides of an issue and coming to a conclusion while remaining open to the possibility that that conclusion is wrong.

Sounds wishy-washy, huh? Think of it this way: How many times do you know what a person will write about and their position on the issue before you even click the link? If you look at many of the deaf blogosphere entries today, you probably know what I’m talking about. For example, I can type in a certain Hawaiian dude’s URL and have a pretty good idea that it’ll either be:
a) deficit thinking related
b) Some mythical creature that uses ASL
c) some other hot-issue-of-the-day
d) all of the above.

Likewise, while I have a lot of respect for a fellow firefighter who also blogs, I also know that he’s going to be very focused on his own narrow subset of issues. That’s not to say he’s narrow-minded but it just means I have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to read before I go there.

So let’s get started, shall we?

1) A shoutout to Sandman. While some of his entries can, ahem, put Dostoevsky to shame, he does a much better job explaining and arriving at his conclusions than your average blogger.

2) Meryl over at Bionic Ear Blog sometimes seems to do a better job separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of finding interesting stuff that is actually relevant to many of us. I know a lot of people got worked up over deafbunny.com but her post re: the challenges of HDTV and how advocates are working on the issue are a heck of a lot more important to deaf people (may not be as visually interesting than deafbunny.com, granted).

3) Like Sandman, I’ve never been a fan of “personal” blogs but I do appreciate it when they try to connect bigger issues to their own personal lives. Karen over at Deaf Mom’s World brings a really interesting perspective on how she tries to balance what-should-be-there vs. what is realistic.

4) Like many people, I get a lot of solicited spam from VRS companies. By that, I mean when I registered for their site, I said I wanted to receive emails from them. Usually, I delete them without much thought. However, when I see “Trudy Suggs” name on the i711.com emails, I immediately go in and read them. I don’t know if she could be considered a “blogger” but her stuff always gets my neurons firing.

And that’s basically it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, many blogs have become “bandwagon jumpers-on” where they’re jumping on the topic-du-jour without either contributing critical insights or even coming up with innovative posts on their own to spark discussions.

I would’ve added Drolz Uncensored but Sandman already grabbed that one. Grr..

Now, to be fair, I’m sure Amy Cohen Efron’s vlogs have always inspired discussions and debates but I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never really caught on with the vlogs. I certainly hope a fellow-taggee (?) will highlight Thinking Vloggers that I can watch and enjoy.

Among my other blogging favorites, you can find:

* Dave Statter of WUSA*9 (Washington DC). As a former first responder, he’s maintained an interest in firefighters and other first responders.

* Firegeezer has done some really great reporting on firefighter safety and one of the more bizarre stories that come out of the fire/rescue world

Agree? Disagree? Post it in the comments and let me know.