New Blogs
Time out to promote some other new, great blogs. Well, at least new to me.
First and foremost (drum roll and standing ovation), a very warm welcome please for my own breathtaking and dazzling daughter who has formally entered the fray.
Please bookmark her ValleyGirlIntelligentsia site and start reading it (though it ain't for the squeamish). Check in daily and learn about everything in the world -- from the LAPD to the Suicide Girls-- from someone I consider to be among the smartest ( I am biased however). I call your particular attention to her recent post on a certain Mr. Caesar. Once you check out her blog, make sure you register for the Vox site so you can leave comments.
Now that I'm done promoting direct family, let's move on to flattering my bosses. One of them is my L.A. Weekly editor Joe Donnelly for whom I have authentic (!) and boundless affection -- a sentiment I generally don't squander on editors. Joe's new blog -- I Got Feelings Too, Man -- is worth reading for the title alone, no? Nah, it's not just the usual Irish bathos you'll find, but rather old moody Joe bravely exposing, well, his feelings on just about everything from dogs to Alec Baldwin to the NRA. Cheers, Joe!
Moving on to the friends category: Here's a three-generational pitch. My good bud and blogfather, Micah Sifry, is running a spiffy new site called TechPresident. Here's the concept: everything digital about the presidential race in one place. It's too much to describe, but it's like opening up a new gadget every day and wondering how you can cram so much into so little a space. Bring extra batteries.
Finally... for those who didn't catch my first shout out a few weeks ago, here's another one for a new site for which yours truly is blogfather. Journalist Celeste Fremon's WitnessLA is a daily serving of some of the most insightful reporting and commentary on justice and injustice. Make this a daily must-read or you're outta here. For starters, check out her running reporting on the recent LAPD swing-a-thon.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Your daughter’s blog is terrific, and she could teach you a few things. I particularly like the awards she gave Hillary Clinton and Chief Justice John Roberts. I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun by spilling the details here. But why can’t you come up with similar awards? She also has a better eye for artwork and writes stronger captions.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
She teaches me a lot… everyday!
May 7th, 2007 at 5:00 am
I LOVE your daughter’s blog. She’s wonderfully smart, informed and funny. (But we knew that.)
The blog’s hot!
May 7th, 2007 at 6:11 am
Lately, I’ve been reading the history of labor unions in the U.S. Your daughter would love my comments on her blog, but why share the wealth?
May 7th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Uhh, Marc. I don’t know how to say this, but I checked out your daughter’s site and she’s using bad words. Where did she get that?
May 7th, 2007 at 6:24 am
I hate to stick the knife in any deeper, but Natasha’s also got a more incisive take on Paris Hilton than anything you’ve managed to come up with here.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Are you talking to me? If so, then that says little about you. Don’t you recognize attacks against the rich due simply to envy?
Also, if you were responding to me, you broke your own rule. If you weren’t, then your comment didn’t make sense.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Woody – the blogosphere is supposed to be a co-operative commonwealth. Share and share alike.
What history have you been reading? Check Jeremy Brecher’s Strike, a great single volume.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Woody – you’re obsessesed with yourself. Don’t go all Taxi Driver on me. That comment was obviously for Marc, as are most comments that don’t specify some other commenter. As for whether the comment makes sense, you’re being your usual ignorant-ass self. I suggest that you start offering your wisdom up at ValleyGirlIntelligentsia. I’m sure you’ll be greeted appropriately.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:12 am
reg, my apologies. I couldn’t see where that comment applied to Marc and it didn’t specifically address him, but you may have seen remarks by him on Paris Hilton that I haven’t.
I’m not going to mess up his daughter’s site with my take on things, as they would be as welcome as a Yankee fan at Fenway–unlike here, where I don’t care.
We need to find out Marc’s thoughts on Natalee Holloway and Anna Nicole Smith.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:22 am
jcummings, thanks for the book recommendation of “Strike” by Jeremy Brecher, which received an excellent review by the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists: [Book Review]
My book is a little more impartial. I am also researching child labor issues before the child labor laws. Makes me glad that I was born sixty years later than I was. Pretty sad.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Woody and NEFAC together!!! These guys, unlike many left organizations, are on their game…
May 7th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Marc, I can say with 93% certainty that your daughter’s blog is a complete waste of time. I was able to determine this in only 45 minutes of carefully scrutinizing its content. However, in the interests of objectivity, I would like to nail it down to a 99% certainty, which will require reading the rest of what she has posted, and perhaps checking it once a day for the next six months. So … can I be excused, while I go do that? I seek only to establish the truth of the matter. There is no higher calling.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Well, her blog is certainly different than yours. I’m not really sure who was the teacher here, though you give her some of the credit. The post on suicide girls was pretty good, and the attached photos were of some awfully
uglydifferent young ladies. I’m not sure their parents would have approved, or maybe their parents had their own issues and that’s why the girls turned out sodifferentavant garde(?).At any rate, I also appreciated the shout out for Witness LA… a good blog, nay, a VERY good blog.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Lurker: I just pay for the teachers!
May 7th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Ahhh, thou pinest for the days of yore whenst the fiefdom of Cal-I-fornia didst allow the youngsters free tuition?
May 7th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Yeah, proud poppa…raunch is really hip and informative. At least we have a white hip-hop vocabulary blogger to add to our diversity program!
May 7th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Marc: I just checked out your daughter’s blog and you have every right to be proud. Her color and layout scheme is very hip and up-to-date.
Yours is soooo 2002.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Maybe you can start your own little cluster of blogs, ala the article in DISCOVERY.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Rosedog,
Just added WitnessLA to the Blogroll at BH. Well done!
May 7th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Just to get (semi) serious for a moment. I thought the Paris Hilton story was a sign of everything that’s wrong with our justice system. While everyone seems pleased that the airhead got slammed by the judge (Kevin Roderick reports he got a standing ovation yesterday at his church) can we perhaps ask if a 45 day sentence (which means far lss time due to overcrowding) iis the best use of our jails. I mean is she really that much of a menace?
Here’s a better idea from Joe McDonald. Sentence her to three months House Arrest and give a thousand Hours of Community Service. I think that might have more correctional value. What do you think?
May 7th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Most interesting stat on Sifry’s blog is the fact that number three Edwards has more “Friends” on MySpace than number one GOPer. Rupert will have to do something!
May 7th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
And TechPresident stays up-to-the-minute on the Obama MySpace Debacle! Nobody will be talking about this three months from now, so enjoy it while it lasts.
What I found most interesting was the “tag cloud” stuff on candidate speeches so far. It led me to this page
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/tag_clouds_for_the_democratic.php
Interestingly, Obama has the highest total wordcount for statistical purposes, AND one of the least issue-specific clouds. Hardly a “frame” in sight. Is “around” a politically charged term? Am I missing the dog-whistle note in “going”? Can we be sure that when he says “sure” (as he apparently does, quite often) he’s really sure? He uses the word “families” quite frequently, as Bill Clinton did, and as Dubya did until 9/11. (Guess what the big word is *after* 9/11. Hint: it starts with a “t”.)
What’s going on here with Obama is that he’s wonking a lot, a *whole* lot, but on a lot of *different* topics, cancelling out any particular topic. Of course, if you go his site, you can see videos of him winning the popularity contest handily, and these clips won’t strain your powers of attention. But you can also find long speeches on topics like putting the world’s nuclear enrichment programs under an umbrella organization. That’s about terrorism-prevention, not going mano-a-mano with terrorists. Uranium won’t pop out in his tag clouds because he’s going at the problem from an “ounce of prevention” angle. And he’s talking about a lot of other ounces, all over the map.
In blatant defiance of his ostensible strategy of direct popular conversation, Obama’s real audience right now for all this verbiage is specialized political classes — evangelical leaders on the Dem side of the spectrum, high-level federal bureaucrats, business leaders, opinion-makers on specific policy issues. In these speeches, he greets initial applause with a slightly dour machine-gun spray of “thank you, thank you, thank you”, and almost winces when scattered applause erupts in mid-sentence. The message in that is clearly, “Shut the fuck up, because what I’m going to say here is about stuff that matters to YOU, regardless of how you feel about ME. I’ve got a lot of material to cover. So don’t waste my time.” He’s giving them a heads-up on what an Obama presidency is going to mean to them in career terms. That’s truly brilliant strategy: for now, let the other candidates hammer away on getting the votes that he can get almost effortlessly with a smile and a wave, with his faintly Lincolnesque persona in formal speeches to open crowds, his faintly (Bill) Clintonesque persona in the more informal settings. He’s concentrating on building up expectations among the people he’ll be working with, day-to-day, if he reaches the Oval Office. These two terms of Dubya will leave quite a few GOP political appointees in office after 2008, and even they will greatly appreciate knowing where he’s coming from in various policy arenas.
Cf. Hillary. Hillary is really big on saying “president”. President, president, president — she just loves to say “president”. She doesn’t need to provide detailed career-navigation clues to the political classes, because they already know that her administration will be Billary: The Sequel.
Edwards is #2 in the upstart-popularity sweepstakes with Obama, and he’s trying harder. For him, it’s about votes from the gut, and he knows it. He even has helpful Lakoffian Framing happening by accident in his tag cloud, in alphabetical order, stuff you’d have to pay cubic dollars to political consultants to figure out, after they got that nattering George Lakoff guy out of the room:
America – believe
health – important
president – question
states – united
Of course, those happy accidents are almost certainly helped along by cubic money paid to political consultants.
For you history buffs out there, this page is great fun
http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags/
The biggest word in the presidential terms leading up to the Civil War? “Consitution”.
May 7th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,361 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
GUYTON, Larry I., 22, Pfc., Army; Brenham, Tex.; First Cavalry Division.
HAMLIN, Christopher N., 24, Staff Sgt., Army; London, Ky.; First Cavalry Division.
KIERNAN, Christopher S., 37, Staff Sgt., Army; Virginia Beach; First Cavalry Division.
MACK, Kenneth N., 42, Master Sgt., Marines; Fort Worth; Second Marine Expeditionary Force.
PALMER, Charles O. II, 36, Cpl., Marines; Manteca, Calif.; Second Marine Expeditionary Force.
POTTER, Jerome J., 24, Pfc., Army; Tacoma, Wash.; First Cavalry Division.
June 20th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
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February 1st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Uncensored Paris Hilton sex tape point…
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February 17th, 2008 at 8:28 am
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December 25th, 2008 at 4:36 am
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