Prominent bloggers Gary Abramson (Reality Bites Back) and Dante Atkins (Hekebolos) have chosen the John Courage campaign as one of the subjects of their blog and film documentary project, Crashing the States.
The latest target of the billion-dollar GOP research division? Daily Kos author Markos Moulitsas. To see the piles of information (laughably put together) on the GOP's official website, go here.
My opinion? Puh-leaze. It's incredibly sad that the GOP spent any amount of time compiling this information, let alone the fact that they feel attacking Daily Kos and netroots actually achieves anything. As I've said many times before, blogs are a tool -- a TOOL -- that can help spread information and raise awareness. That's all we're really trying to do, is increase communication about politics, candidates, and causes, and let everyone know the facts of important stories.
We aren't going to change the world -- but we might change someone's mind, and hopefully, the minds we help change are in (or one day will be) in a place to help make better choices for the world we live in.
As I slowly get back towards being able to post on a more regular basis (I'm focusing on specific projects right, specific news stories, and meta- only) I'm also tinkering with the site layout a bit.
(NOTE: Non-registered users can ignore this post, as you have to be logged in to see any of this stuff.)
Question: Do you use the Hot List feature on BOR at all?
That would have been the (+)/(-) link that shows up in the title line of every post and allows you to save entries into your personal list (so you can check on them later if they scroll off the front page). To check your hotlist, you can check the link in the Tools section in the top right hand column.
But seeing as I can look into the database to see which users actually have used the hotlist, I guess a better question might be, do you care if I got rid of it or not? It just seems to clutter up the site and things look nicer without it...
Looking at who uses it, I found that the heaviest users are our front page bloggers, other bloggers, and older tech oriented people- certainly not the average user as much. Also, this post had the most existing hotlinks to it. Other highly linked posts involved the best TX-Gov primary posts, primary election returns, and TDP chair polls. Nerds.
Phillip actually has used it the most so there might be hell to pay if I nix it. Maybe prettier graphical icons instead? Let's chew on this one- take the poll and leave comments please.
BOR has created its very own YouTube group. Our aim is to provide a central location for all of the TV ads for Texas' campaigns and candidates, as well as a single place where people can find videos concerning Texas politics.
Currently, you can find the Nick Lampson campaignads, the JohnCouragevideos, and the speeches from the TDP convention centrally located in that single group. In the coming weeks, we hope to add more videos from our campaigns, and once we get more TV ads, they will all be linked there as well. As we get closer to November, we at BOR and the Texas netroots community will do our best to pair the TV ads with some online fundraising efforts.
As we get new videos, we'll be sure to make posts about them, similar to the one KT did last Friday about Lampson's new TV ads. If any campaigns need help loading their videos onto YouTube, or if they want to alert us that a new video has been posted on YouTube, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail.
Last Friday, KT, Eileen from In the Pink, and I were asked to speak to the Mark Strama Campaign Academy. The group -- of which KT is a former member, and our friend Rick Cofer helped start in 2004 -- consists of high school, college, and recently graduated students interested in learning the nitty-gritty details of working on a campaign. They asked us to speak because they were interested in starting a blog -- and wouldn't you know, they've done just that.
The Mark Strama Campaign Academy Blog is a fresh perspective that reports on the experience of the Campaign Academy and the stories that come with it. Of the entries online, we get a look at the perils of block-walking and dogs that attack, as well as an ITPT-worthy post about the dreamy looks/campaign skills of Rep. Patrick Rose.
I commend Rep. Strama for continuing to push the boundaries for political youth involvement, as well as the "Stramallamas" of the Campaign Academy that are doing their best to protect one of our best -- and my own -- State Representative.
Vince Leibowitz, our long-time BOR writer and founder of Capitol Annex, has written an excellent, comprehensive guide to the Texas Blogsphere for DallasBlog.com. The piece, titled "A Guide to Texas Blogs Left and Right" is anything and everything you wanted to know about Texas Blogs. Any campaign or group that wants to learn about what all the Texas blogs are, what they do, etc., should keep the article as a reference.
We here at BOR would like to offer a warm welcome to the latest SoapBlox run blog, Texas Kos. Check out their welcome entry as today is their official launch.
In addition, the Panhandle Truth Squad has been up and running again and has a post about their first ever Drinking Liberally event in Amarillo! I fully intend to start meeting up with the Austin chapter one of these days, sooner rather than later.
I quite realize that this blog was founded by university students and that may lead to many of the posters on here being younger than usual. Also I know that your preconceptions may lead you to think that bloggers are usually young and therefore you can safely “dis” anyone who is older (but on this latter issue you may be underestimating the ages of people who frequent blogs).
I would like for everyone who has made derogatory allusions to age, veiled or not, to think about what you are doing. I realize that you are making them in the heat of a primary battle, but to my ears it sounds a sour note just as much as if you made racist, sexist or homophobic comments.
In the interests of full disclosure, I’m 62 years old and yes, I support Bob Gammage. However, I’ve also supported relative ‘youngsters’ like Mark Strama, organizing block walking etc for him. I have also worked routinely and amicably with the many young grass roots volunteers on various Democratic campaigns in Travis County and am thankful for their myriad contributions.
Trevor Butterworth wrote a piece for the Financial Times titled
"Time for the last post." The article discusses the futility of blogs to succeed financially, their place in the sphere of American journalism, and how they fit into a broader, philosophical discussion about human interaction.
Butterworth believes blogs are over-rated -- which is ironic, considering I found this article through Pinkdome, and Butterworth created a blog to discuss this article.
While his article is informative and very well written, I feel that Butterworth misses the larger significance of blogs. Ultimately, blogs are simply another way for a performer to deliver a message to an audience. Every now and then, a blog's purpose will cross lines with that of journalism, but I don't believe most blogs are meant to inform the public so much as they are a place to tell a story.
I, like Butterworth, don't believe blogs will ever take over the "mainstream" media. But they're not supposed to; instead, they're supposed to provide a means of escapist reading and writing for an audience that enjoys the opportunity to freely exchange ideas over the democratic wavelengths of the internet.
