We're all a little depressed about the state of our politics. A Republican Party more conservative than any time during the 20th century is in control of the House of Representatives, we're fighting to barely hold on to our majority in the State Senate, and it seems like cuts to social spending and tax cuts for the wealthy are a political fait accompli . But when the going gets tough, progressives have to buckle down, regroup, and find new and inventive ways to reinvent the Democratic Party. That's why I'm proud to remind TAP readers that New York will host a RootsCamp event this Saturday, November 13.
What is RootsCamp?
RootsCamp is an "unconference" with one rule: no tourists allowed-- everyone helps present ideas in organizing, technology and media. You don't have to be campaign leader to present. RootsCamp is about bringing all levels of progressive change together to learn from each other and make new partnerships.
Together when we learn from each other, we're all stronger for 2012. So, are you ready to join?
Sponsors:
The Hive sponsored by Democrats.com
Lunch sponsored by Advomatic
Hosts:
Glenn Oldhoff
Carol Olszewski
Robert Daraio
NY RootsCamp Partners:
The Manhattan Young Democrats
NYSYD Caucus of Color
Organizing 2.0
NYSYD
New Kings Democrats
The Albany Project
This Week in Blackness
I can't think of a better way to engage with our friends across the progressive movement here in New York than RootsCamps. Now more than ever we need to work with our organizational partners and share our expertise and ideas as we regroup and plan for 2012.
If you're interested in attending, you can buy your super cheap 10 dollar ticket right here .
I'm usually very proud of my diaries and comments. Often my subject matter contains opinions which I'm quite passionate about. But pride, being a vice instead of virtue, can sometimes catch up with me.
This past week, with relation to both last weeks' edition and the week in reporting a local State Senate race, they did. Now I'm presented with a rare opportunity. Instead of blogging about how right I think I am, I now find it prudent to write about just how wrong I might be and how self-righteously foolish it made me sound.
In other words, I'm going to take this guy's advice:
In this week's edition of Soundpolitic Sundays, join me in one more cup coffee as I take a step back from last weeks' boiling points...
Imagine your feet in these shoes: Shiny black, size ten-wide, worn-out soles, walking across the carpet of the lobby of an Albany law firm. Your job title for the past two months has been Legal Secretary. Christmas is coming...
And you've just met the boss. He's exiting a boardroom, wearing athletic sweats. You look at him, he looks at you, and you introduce yourself. You express your thanks to be working in a fast-growing firm, your respect for the man who built up the business, and appreciation of the rewarding challenges thrown your way. You extend your hand to shake his...
Now imagine your boss's response is to turn his back on you after asking you:
"You're not afraid of guns are you? A lot of us carry guns around here."
In this weeks' edition of Soundpolitic Sundays, I'm telling this story for the last time as my excuse for missing last two weeks. The rest of the story and its moral lies below the fold...
Good morning and a very Happy Easter to all of you. I think it's time to take a break, spend some time with family, eat some ham and look for some eggs, and perhaps reflect on our behavior here on the blogs that we might resurrect some long-lost happy feelings.
To illustrate this, complete with a reference to the Easter Bunny, please prepare your ears to be tormented with swear words in this clip from Kevin Smith's 1997 masterpiece Chasing Amy:
So, kiddies, if you'll excuse the language and the revelation that there really is no Easter Bunny, in this week's edition of Soundpolitc Sundays, we'll talk a little about the subliminal lessons we bloggers can take away from this "askew" piece of cinema...
Watching Pedro Espada tell the state that his actions were in the name of "reform" could make anyone queasy. Reading through TAP today shows just how hard we progressives are taking this move. Our Democratic caucus empowered a corrupt, power-hungry criminal to become our Majority Leader after the same individual threw the state into crisis and almost bankrupted New York City and multiple counties. Yes, this is a disconcerting situation. Even worse is that 2010 is an election of uptomost importance. The Senate that is elected in 2010 will set the playing field for re-districting. We all know how important that will be in the continuing effort to reform the Senate. Does anyone think an Espada led caucus will really make the reforms we need?
That's why it's time for better Democrats. And it's time that this blog do something about it.
Last summer, on June 30th, I told you about how, after about 17 months from the launch of this site, we had served up our 1 millionth pageview. Today I'm here to tell you that we crossed the 2,000,000 mark sometime late last night, less than 11 months later.
I'm writing this on a train barreling northward into the belly of the beast - Albany. All melodrama aside, I'm writing this to tell you about what I'm now doing and, perhaps most importantly, why I'm doing it. I've accepted the job of Director of New Media Communications with the New York State Senate. Before the words "selling out" cross your lips, let me tell you why I believe I am "buying in."
When we started this site in 2006, we did so because we believed that the state government in Albany was, amongst other things, dysfunctional and opaque. Over the years I and others have relentlessly critiqued the lack of transparency in the way our government goes about the business of serving those whom they were elected to represent.
The majority of the remedies needed to facilitate a more open and transparent government are policy and process based, but a great number of them are grounded in using technology. I'm happy to report that I think great strides are being made in that arena. I've written some about the work that Andrew Hoppin, the Senate's new CIO, and his team are working to open up that body using new media tools. After seeing them working up close, I feel confident in saying that they are doing a hell of a job, building some amazing tools and working their tails off to bring tons of data that belongs to the people of New York to the light of day. (The first big rollout will be the new Senate website.It will blow the doors off the current Senate site. Trust me, it'll be a quantum leap.)
So, I've decided to put my money where my mouth is. Instead of critiquing the Senate's new media efforts from the sidelines, I am signing on to make these efforts as effective and as useful to the public as they possibly be. Instead of complaining from the sidelines about an institution that has historically hidden data bought and paid for by the people of New York, I am joining the effort to free that data.
And that's why I call it "buying in." It's easy to heckle from the cheap seats. It's quite another to take some responsibility for this stuff and work like a dog to make things better. Besides working with Andrew Hoppin and his CIO team, I'll also be working with another TAP alum, our very own Brian Keeler. One can only accomplish so much from the sidelines and this opportunity to work to diminish the space between people and the government that serves them was one that I simply could not pass up.
What does this all mean for this site? A few things. From the very start, we have very consciously and deliberately strived to build a community. I think we've done quite well in that regard. Just as before, people other than myself will continue to post to the FP. I'm not going away. I'll still be here, but, given the not insignificant demands of the job I've taken, I simply won't have as much time to post as often as I typically have. I'll still be posting, just not as much. I also, for reasons I hope are obvious, won't be posting about the State Senate often either. I see this as a great opportunity to develop and promote more talent from within our community.
Furthermore, and this is rather important, when you see me posting in this space, be assured that I am speaking for no one other than myself. This is the way it has always been and the way it will continue. The thoughts and opinions I post here under my own name are my own and I alone am responsible for them. Period.
I am very much looking forward to this new adventure and for the work I am being tasked to do. Using these new tools to open up our state government, to foster real two way communication between our elected officials and those they were elected to represent, making the data that New Yorkers have bought and paid for available to them in an easy to digest and useful manner -- these are the things that I have been advocating for for years. To be able to move inside and get my hands dirty at actually achieving these things is quite an honor and a privilege.
The folks at the Washington Post's"the Fix" blog have been compiling a list of what their readers believe to be the best state based blogs in all 50 states. Apparently, many blogs launched campaigns to get themselves noticed. We didn't because I was unaware of this whole thing until someone emailed me minutes ago. Regardless, they released their list this afternoon.
Before we get to the list, a few caveats and a few of our favorites:
...
• In a state where one blog was far and away the most recommended by Fix readers, we have noted it by bolding the name of the blog. In states with multiple blogs in which no one was the most mentioned, the order in which the blogs are listed is entirely random. Let us repeat: entirely random.
I've got several balls in the air today. There's plenty going on, but I just haven't had time to cover it all. Those with keys to the front page should feel free to post away.
That said, I've got some housecleaning stuff to mention. Several of you have written asking to have your sites, mostly local dem orgs who are now venturing online. (GLOW Democrats is a good example) I've been meaning to make a new subheading listing as many of these sites as possible. If you have such a site that you'd like included. please link it in this thread. I'd love to include your org in a new blogroll.
Also, it seems that March of 2009 is the month that twitter finally broke through. Are you using twitter? If so and you want to connect, leave us your twitter handle in the thread. You can find me on twitter at @phillipanderson.
Anything else on your mind? Let us know as this is an open thread.
This site runs on a platform called Soapblox. In fact, most of the other sites in the 50 State Network run on Soapblox. Soapblox is a huge part of the entire state blog phenomenon of the past few years. As you may have heard, Soapblox came under a rather vicious hacker attack earlier this week. Chris Bowers and the folks at BlogPac are launching this effort to save and strengthen Soapblox.
You know how some politicians are fond of saying "you can't solve a problem by just throwing money at it." Well, here is a problem you can solve by throwing money at it. Send in a contribution to save Soapblox now!.
In the almost exactly two years that this site has been up and running, I have banned exactly two people. The first person I banned was promptly unbanned about a half hour later as I kinda felt bad about it and thought that maybe we were just misunderstanding each other. I just banned the second. The user known as "chiste" is no longer.
I'm rather proud that we don't engage in frequent and systematic purges here, the kind that happen fairly regularly in other parts of the interwebs. In fact, it's a great weapon to use against the trolls that occasionally infest the site. When someone tries to go into full meltdown trolldom, they often start screaming "censorship!", much like chiste did. I am usually able to reply, "Um, you're still here aren't you?"
Plus, I don't enjoy banning folks. I really don't. I would much rather err on the side of more speech, not less, and I am firm believer in letting idiots out themselves for all to see. It's a community moderated site. If someone goes overboard, the community is quite good at making it right. But, today has been an awfully damn difficult day for me. Yesterday wasn't so hot either. My patience for belligerent, mouth breathing morons is painfully thin these days.
Besides, if you want to defend people like Joe Robach or Roger Stone as beacons of virtue, there are plenty of places to do that. This really isn't one of them, especially today.
Also, if you want to conduct your arguments through threats of physical violence, I suggest you start your own goddamn blog, because that just isn't going to fly here.
I don't really know why I am writing all of this, but the second banning in the history of the site seemed to warrant at least some mention.
A couple of announcements as we go into the final weekend before E-Day.
First, weekends on this site can be slow. That won't be the case this weekend. I'm not sleeping all that much these days and I imagine that will continue through Tuesday. If you are following a race, especially one I and others haven't paid enough attention to, please post about it here. Take the responsibility to let us know what is happening in the races you care about (or are working on). Robert and I are probably getting 40 press releases a day from campaigns across the state. (Also, I'm getting probably 300 emails a day right now) If there is something going on that the community needs to know about, please let us know on the site. You'll be doing all of us a favor and I'll most likely put it on the front page.
If you've got info on volunteer opportunities, etc, post it. There is more than likely other folks who are looking for something to do, some way to get involved somewhere close to home. I'll do whatever I can to promote it. Seriously. Robert and I and the rest of the front pagers can't do it all. Give us a hand.
I'm also looking to organize some distributed election night coverage. More on that tomorrow. Also, October, 2008 was by far the highest traffic month in this site's history. Last month, our previous best ever, we did just under 95,000 pageviews. This month we did just over 162,000. Wow.
Essentially, I'm saying that this site is now open 24 hours a day between now and early Wednesday morning. Check in often. Contribute. Let's get to work.
Finally, I wanted to mention a couple of birthdays. My mom is actually an avid reader of this site. Her birthday was yesterday. Just wanted to say Happy Birthday, mom! Here's a shot of my mom's front porch in lovely coastal Maine:
As you can tell, my Mom is all about some Barack Obama.
Also, as I posted last year on this very day, today, Halloween, is my shelter sweetheart's birthday. Molly is two years old on this All Hallows Eve and is again howling at the moooooon....
Anyhoo, this site is open all day and all night from here on out. I hope we can use it as a place to organize and share info so as to be as effective as possible in the next few days. Check back often. There's much in the pipeline and even more coming from contributors around the state.
I was hesistant to join the recent pie fight on a recent diary insinuated by a new member of our community, who's name I have changed to protect the "innocent." I realized that my response to him and thoughts I'd like to share were just too much for a single comment, so here is my first meta diary on The Albany Project.
The main focus: what it means to be a member of an online community versus what it means to be a single blogger saying "we" all the time, and how the tone of conversation on these blogs can often be summed up with a funny little cartoon.
A warm welcome to an un-welcome troll-rated newbie below the fold...
Okay, this doesn't really have anything directly to do with politics here in the Empire State, but it's a sobering reminder of the huge issue that's most been shoved off the front pages the past few months.
The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Mar. 10 in Balad Ruz, Iraq, of wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.
Killed were:
Sgt. Phillip R. Anderson, 28, of Everett, Wash.
Spc. Donald A. Burkett, 24, of Comanche, Texas.
Capt. Torre R. Mallard, 27, of Oklahoma.
Even though this was not our Phillip, the death of this young man and his colleagues is still a tragedy of almost incomprehensible magnitude. Let us all hope that within a year, we will have begun the process of extricating our nation from this continuing nightmare.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the fallen soldiers.
(Ooh! Fun with meta... - promoted by phillip anderson)
As a frequent reader of TAP, I'm often curious about the identities of my fellow posters. While I know that many of you wish to remain anonymous, and that certainly is one of the perks of any blog, I'm still curious. So I'd like to offer up a place for any or all of you to disclose however much or little information you would like to about yourselves. You can keep it basic, give your whole life story, or refuse to participate at all. I suppose the stats I'm most curious about are location in the state and age, because I don't always know who all is out there. I'll start below the fold.
There has been much discussion about the poll attached to this diary and how its results are rather surprising to anyone who has ever spent much time here. I myself was surprised.
Two things. First, it's a web poll. All web polls are essentially useless. Second, it was indeed freeped. Happens all the time. Hell, we do it all the time.
Roatti posted just past midnight on Tuesday morning. Beginning at 9:25 am Tuesday morning we had had a flurry of new user accounts registered. We actually had more new users join Tuesday than we'd had in the previous two weeks. I feel no reason to name names, but a number of the new accounts use names that are very Lower East Side centric. Like I said, fine. Anyone can join and I'm all for getting as many people involved as we can.
But do keep in mind that web polls get freeped. Even ours.
Oh, and as for this guy, I've never tried to make a big deal out of this site or overstate our importance. That said, I do believe it's worth some mention that someone thought us significant enough to have some sort of coordinated response shortly after the start of business on Tuesday.
For all you very early birds, I'll be on WBAI in the morning discussing our participation in the effort to get the New York City Council to investigate "Rudy and the Radios". I'll be on at 6:30 am sharp. Hope you can listen in.
Also, it looks like I might be discussing the same subject very early in the morning on WBAI right here in NYC. That would be at 6:30am sharp. Guess I'll be firing up the kettle awfully early tomorrow...
