We are taking a look at another political blog, and this one is called Phronesisaical. This blog is about politics, philosophy, international affairs, and fruit. There are two main contributors to this blog, Helmut and Barba de Chiva. Helmut is a Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs and is located out of Washington D.C. Barba de Chiva is an English Professor writing out of Texas. Both of these bloggers offer a unique appeal and excellent writing as can be seen in any of their recent bloggeries: The Void, Flashes of Brilliance, Normalizing Hiroshima, A particular Universal Proposition, Anti-Jaguar Wall, Royal Democracy in Bhutan etc…
The blog is fairly simple to navigate and offers a clean well-organized design. Bloggeries are left-marginalized and are black text on a light green background and links are highlighted in dark green. In the right navigation system you will find the contributors profile pages, ‘Phronesisaicality’ Menu, Bloggery Menu (perhaps a blog roll?), News and Commentary Menu, Magazines, Philosophy, Ethics, Policy, Policy Information and News, Development and Environment, Photography, Fruit Photography, mp3 Blogs, Miscellaneous, Previous Posts Menu, Archives going back to June 2005 and Blog Widgets. What I don’t see in blog navigation is a categories menu or labels attached to the posts, so I don’t think the blog is organized by category. I think this may help the blog given its healthy nature of topics and issues that it covers.
I will give this blog a 3.4/5. The blog is very well written and is updated almost daily, so it scores well for content and activity. First off I believe this blog could use some more personality in the theme department. Something from a header with an image to a redesign where it tells you abit about the author and blog before you start reading. It’s currently generic not giving the blog the credit it derserves. I think the current location of the recent posts menu is not doing this menu any service. It is currently located at the very bottom of the right navigation system and would be very difficult to find if you didn’t spend a lot of time with the blog. I also think a deeper connection with the readership could be established if the contributors expanded on the purpose of the blog in the About Pages, or even define the term ‘Phronesisaical’ a little deeper. I don’t see any comments or hit counters, so I am not certain what the readership of the blog is. But I think this blog could reach a larger audience with these simple changes and I wish it the best of luck.
-Chrissie
Â