I read this entire site from start to finish yesterday. There are only four months of archives, so it wasn’t that long of a process. However, since yesterday, I’ve not been able to come up with anything to write about this site. And that’s definitely not like me.
The design is a little more cut and dry to write about, so let’s start with that. Thankfully, the design is unique. The color scheme of grays and blacks obviously go along well with the site’s name – The Gray Tie. At first glance, I didn’t notice the background, but as I scrolled down to read each entry, it became more and more distracting from the actual content of the weblog. The layout is set up in two columns. Weblog entries fill the main column, which is bordered next to an extremely long side column full of a colossal list of links. There are so many links in the sidebar – ranging from categorized archives to links the author supports to random weblogs – that it ends up being longer than the actual weblog portion of the site.
Readers never really learn a lot about the author. I only learned her name was Carol by reading some of the comments other readers have left. From the posts, it’s safe to assume that she leans heavily toward the right-hand side of the political arena, with plenty of links to different Republican party affiliated sites. Sparsely scattered throughout the site are brief mentions of her two kids – Glorious Girlchild and Magnificent Manchild. The posts where she does mention her kids and her every day life are a good break from the serious nature of the rest of her posts.
The subject matter of The Gray Tie isn’t one that will interest everyone. Carol does a lot of linking to other news sites. Sometimes these posts are unique news items, like the kids in Pennsylvania who had to re-use plastic utensils at their school cafeteria. The majority of the time, though, she focuses on more serious issues – Cindy Sheehan chaining herself to the White House, students being suspended for making anti-gay comments, or quite often the severity of sex crimes against children.
This isn’t a site I would visit again. A good number of the posts are just excerpts taken off of a news article, followed by the actual link and maybe a few word about Carol’s personal opinion on the matter. Sometimes, there’s just a link. I don’t want to discredit Carol’s writing ability, because when she posts, it’s very well written. I just think if she would showcase more of her own feelings and thoughts, rather than copy so much from news articles, readers would be able to connect a little more easily to The Gray Tie.
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