This evening, my housemate Ildi asked me whether I had read Jon Carroll's column from yesterday. "He mentions weblogs." Of course, I had to look up the piece, which starts:

I suppose blogs have had their day as a populist phenomenon. Democratic candidates for president have blogs now, and that's pretty much the death knell for cutting-edge status. If John Kerry has one, it's not a trend, it's an appliance.

But I think that's true only of blogs produced in the United States. In other countries, the Internet is still a revolutionary tool, a place for information censored in every other medium in the nation. Vox populi, and no pop-up ads. It's 1991 all over again.

Carroll goes on to commend Baghadad Burning, a blog that comes ostensibly from Iraq. "Oh, isn't that the blog that Lloyd mentioned on his blog recently?" -- yes, indeed.

Now that both Ildi and Lloyd have referred me to the same Carroll column, I am paying attention....

So often these days, having something mentioned by one friend is not enough for it to register. Once two friends independently mention a website or new item, then my attention becomes engaged. I'm a bit sad about this reality; shouldn't the recommendation of one friend enough for me to do something? Well, maybe -- but I'm just in dire need of my filters.