If you are an Oklahoma Blogger, you can vote, and should. And now, because it’s the last day you can.
I happen to be nominated, for Best Political Blog, but even if you don’t vote for me, vote for your favorites in each category. It’s a great way to get better acquainted with the incredibly large and diverse world of Okie blogs, and it helps support those who work hard at their little corner of the blogosphere.
Wow, it’s that time again already, that time when all the little people of the Netroots rise up against their oppressors, the big people of the Netroots who won’t link to them (the bastards!).
So we link to each other — freely, wildly, irresponsibly, like the DFHs we really are. The motto is “look up, link down” that is, to show some love to blogs smaller than yours.
Skippy the bush kangaroo, who started, with Jon Swift and Blue Gal, this ancient rite in Blogtopia (and, yes, he coined that phrase) lo those many three years ago, has the rundown on how it all works, the inviolate rules (which always get violated, because size comparisons are always funny, aren’t they?), and what it all means in his most honorable 2009 B.A.D. post.
Note the first three of my five are progressive (loosely defined) Oklahoma blogs, because it is my mission daily to promote those every chance I get. They may or may not be smaller than Peace Arena, but I’ve only just come across them recently, so they may be unknown to you as well.
So, I have a year-round open blogroll policy. You can see that “roll” — collapsed flat for spacesaving — at the bottom of the front page of this site. I call it “Open Seating,” this being an arena and all, and it includes anyone I add by choice, and anyone who asks (within a very wide range of opinion, but still within the realm of civil discourse). Elsewhere I further refine with sub-categories like “Virtual Oklahoma,” hopefully self explanatory, and “La Resistance,” being online compatriots in the struggle for peace, equality and justice, a.k.a. the netroots.
If you have a blog that you would like to be added to my blogroll, comment below with the pertinent info, and tell me if you think you fit in one of the sub-categories, because if I agree, you will get extra linky goodness. You do not have to add me back, though that would be a lovely gesture. And, it would also be good and just if you too participated in Blogroll Amnesty Day when it rolls around again on the calendar. Let us lift up and nurture one another, making the virtual reality ever more virtuous, and helping to actually realize Skippy’s vision of Blogtopia.
There is a great op-ed, Counting Out Women, by Melissa McEwan published today in the Guardian (UK) about Chris Matthews and the general idiocy in the US media (not to mention a huge hunk of the blogosphere) about some parts of the original economic stimulus package, in which she specifically addresses the segment from Hardball that I posted about yesterday.
According to Matthews, the only thing “real people” can “see” are infrastructure projects and the jobs they create – which, as has been pointed out by Linda Hirshman and discussed by Echidne here, are jobs that will disproportionately benefit men. Funding for family planning (arguably) primarily benefits women, rendering it, in Matthews’ estimation, a pointless waste of money.
Subsequently, after Wexler explains that family planning “saves, if done correctly, an enormous sum of money down the road in the healthcare system” – Matthews ignores wholly that planned and wanted children born to non-addicted women who seek out prenatal care are generally healthier children, dismisses out of hand the importance of choice, and instead accuses Wexler (and, by extension, the Democrats) of advocating “a policy of reducing the number of births”.
[...]
“It sounds a little like China,” he notes, conflating the Democrats’ plan to provide women a breadth of reproductive choices with a state-mandated reproductive limitation which has resulted in the mass murder and abandonment of female infants.
Wexler was one of the few voices, male or female, that was allowed to even push back on this nonsense on corporate media. So I suppose good for Matthews for making that possible — but it was obviously just a way for the host to make his point, if you want to call his babbling about China and infanticide a point relative to the legislation under discussion.
It is clear that conservatives would like to set up contraception now as something controversial, even shameful. They need a new pet issue to whip up their braindead base over, to keep the coffers full and the ballots filled out as instructed from the pulpit. You wait and see.
So to all the so-called liberal boys who got right on board with the GOP’s misogynist agenda, because family planning money fills clinics instead of building them, don’t wonder later how you got played once again by the culture warriors. Just read your own archives.
Recently while being interviewed by Leslie Stahl (of 60 Minutes, she wants you to know), Rachel Maddow tried to explain to her that Chris Matthews is not a liberal. Stahl was adament that he was, pushing it to Maddow like she was an idiot not to realize something so obvious.
Finally Rachel broke it down for Leslie — who has spent too many years in Washington to know up from down — and I can imagine she spoke especially slowly and clearly so that the long-time Villager (© Atrios) could understand:
LESLEY: But everybody thinks MSNBC is moving in that direction. That that’s exactly what the shift is — where you are — that people there are trying to make you into the un-Fox network, the liberal place to go.
RACHEL: Well, if you think about the way that Fox was founded, though – Fox was founded by Roger Ailes. It was created from his perspective as a political operative. His background was as a Republican activist of the highest order. There’s no equivalent on MSNBC. I think MSNBC is trying to find hit shows.
LESLEY: Everybody they hire to anchor their shows is distinctly liberal and encouraged to express themselves that way, wouldn’t you say?
RACHEL: At MSNBC?
LESLEY: Yes.
RACHEL: Well, I wouldn’t call David Shuster a liberal. I would barely call Chris Matthews a liberal. He voted for Bush. And I certainly wouldn’t call Joe Scarborough a liberal.
LESLEY: Chris Matthews is a liberal.
RACHEL: Well, Chris Matthews is a Democrat.
LESLEY: He’s a liberal.
RACHEL: Chris Matthews – well, you could interview him about it and find out. If Chris Matthews had an Air America radio show, he’d get torn apart by our listeners.
LESLEY: So he doesn’t go that far. I see. OK.
RACHEL: No. I wouldn’t put Chris and my politics in the same canoe.
While Matthews once in a blue moon talks sense about some policy and is at times on the right side of an issue (while still unable to discuss it sanely), he’s erratic, emotionally immature, in love with power of any kind, and thinks politics is just a game rather than about real people who can suffer as the result of bad policy, not to mention bad punditry.
Here is a prime example of how his very obvious sexual hangups destroy whatever shred of reason he wanders across in his cavernous brain, and why he most definitely is NOT a “liberal” and why real liberals and progressives loathe and distrust him more than almost any other TV news personality. (He has a special page on Media Matters dedicated to his wankery and has been named by the watchdog group as Misinformer of the Year in 2005. He also has prompted the creation of several blogs by netroots activists for the sole purpose of exposing and decrying his special brand of nonsense.)
Frankly, I was hoping that Chris Matthews was going to run for the Senate to replace Arlen Spector, something he was seriously exploring last year. That possibility got dashed when his MSNBC contract was renewed recently. Pity — I really think he would do less damage to the country there.
Wow, very cool. It really is an honor, just to be considered… of course I’d like to win it too!
Voting open to Okie bloggers. Please take time to visit and read all the nominees. It’s great that we have so many compelling voices, that the Internet allows us to share them with each other so readily, and that we live in a country where free speech is one of our highest ideals.
And if you would like to start a blog so you could be considered for the 2009 awards, let me know, I will help you with the tech part. The ideas you gotta bring yourself.
Update: I think that, technically, the voting should be based on the posts of 2008, rather than current ones (the awards are happening a little late this year for reasons Mike explained a while back). Anyway, you can peruse Peace Arena’s 2008 archive, or go month by month during the year.
Okie Bloggers, you have till midnight to make your selections, so hurry!
I’m ashamed to say I had to leave some categories blank, because I just didn’t read enough (or maybe any) blogs on that topic. I guess I have a good excuse on the “family blog” one since I don’t have young kids around. But otherwise my only excuse is the political nature of 2008 and my own obsession. Maybe with 2009 being a non-campaign year, I can broaden my horizons.
Hopefully you got around on the Tubes more.
I’m pretty bummed about the Oklahoma Netroots losing two bloggers in one week.
John Sutter of Concrete Buffalo (formerly of the Oklahoman and its Go Green blog — which apparently has been deleted) got a gig in Atlanta is already on his way. He also did some great work for The Gazette while he looked for steady work that ultimately took him away.
I don’t think John was from Oklahoma or whether he labels himself “progressive” but his reporting and blogging certainly were helpful to those of us interested in bringing Oklahoma kicking and screaming into a “greener” era. John’s offering to turn over Concrete Buffalo to an Oklahoman who wants to continue his investigations into the state’s environmental sins (many) and wins (a few) — if you are interested, leave a comment here.
Hopefully we can keep up with John through his personal Twitter account.
In a few days, Ethan of Sinister will leave Tulsa for Portland. This is a huge loss for Oklahoma’s profile in the national Netroots. Sinister is one of the few Oklahoma blogs with pretty significant national/international readership and influence. He’s out and proud as a Jew, as a gay man, as a progressive, and was not one to suffer fools. But he was also fair, and willing to listen to rational arguments on all sides.
Sinister the blog will continue (Ethan has turned his attention to Oregan politics already), and I’ll keep reading, but not having it originate in Oklahoma is such a loss for us. I hope other voices like his can fill the void soon.
I wish John and Ethan much success and happiness. I hope they can show their new communities that Oklahoma has a broader range of perspectives than is typically presented.
… the sad truth is that this decision further elevates someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of Americans.
Rick Warren gets plenty of attention through his books and media appearances. He doesn’t need or deserve this position of honor. There is no shortage of religious leaders who reflect the values on which President-elect Obama campaigned and who are working to advance the common good.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
President-elect Obama campaigned on a theme of inclusiveness, yet the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation is a direct affront to that very principle.
by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table
… (Warren’s) media-driven reputation as some sort of “moderate” evangelical preacher continues to win out …
John Aravosis (guest posting at Huffington Post)
(in Obama’s voice) … devastating my own supporters on what was supposed to be a day of celebration and national rebirth …
… a sharp stick in the eye to progressive women and GBTQ men, and all their allies …
… More evidence that a civil rights movement needs to realize that no politician can deliver for us what we have to deliver on our own.
John Amato (Crooks and Liars)
… Obama’s decision on this one is highly insulting.
… Obama will be roundly and loudly criticized for this decision, and rightly so. He should listen to what so many of his supporters will be saying about this. Obama says he values those with the ability to listen. If he hears, he will reverse this decision and apologize for hurting good people for no good reason.
I can’t even handle the irony that Warren’s appearance will be immediately followed by Aretha singing “Respect” and “Someday We’ll All Be Free.”
And, as previously noted, Atrios dubbed Obama Wanker of the Day.
I promised to announce on Friday or Saturday, but this weekend has been nuts. Whatever possessed me to do this piece of business on a holiday weekend? Oh, yeah, my blogiversary. Okay, what kind of nut starts blogging on frakkin’ Thanksgiving!!!
Anyway, due to this being a last minute brainstorm, please forgive the lack of detail the awards deserve. I’m sure I’ll think of a dozen more good blogs and categories five minutes after I publish this!
I decided to do a freeform category, based on blogs/sites that have impressed me this year, basing the name on whatever niche or contribution the owner has made. Keep in mind these are just my opinion, based on my own biases/interests and factored by what has crossed my path. Now that I’m giving my own funky awards out, I’ll try to be more conscious about it — I dunno, maybe even make a few notes as I go along.
With all that said, here are the Peace Arena Netroots Awards for 2008.
Woody Guthrie Award – for best ambassador for Oklahoma to the wider Netroots:
droogie6655321 blogging at Daily Kos
Through sheer talent and consistency, droogie managed to rise through the thousands of Daily Kos bloggers and commenters to become one of the site’s most inspiring and beloved contributors. Through his humanity and intelligence, which were abundant in every post, the Tulsan countered the prevailing stereotype of Oklahomans that is rampant in the Netroots. With Oklahoma’s election results giving Oklahoma progressives that much more to fight against, even among those who are supposedly allies, droogie’s outreach is more necessary than ever.
Mason Jar of Red Dirt Award – for best Netroots ally outside the state
Down With Tyranny! for his knowledgeable and repeated advocacy for Andrew Rice and exposure of the many political crimes of Jim Inhofe. (The title of this award is meant to signify a gift given, or a memento taken, from Oklahoma by which to remember the state.)
Buffalo Stampede Award – for best blog with a cause
At Oklahoma Women’s Network Blog, Jean Warner has brought attention to every aspect of women’s lives in Oklahoma. While non-partisan, Jean has helped to give voice to the news, history and concerns of women and girls in the areas of business, politics, education, religion and more, and that in itself, is progressive in my book. It’s been a wonder to behold the volume of her blogging and her attention to stories and people that would otherwise be overlooked. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg of her work, as she has recently helped found the Oklahoma Women’s Coalition whose mission is to “advance the potential and equity of women and girls in Oklahoma”.
Wind Power Award – for most sustained rant
Okie Funk’s resident doctor, DocHoc, is never better than when he is decrying the shameless waste of tree pulp that is The Oklahoman. Fortunately for his readers, the paper has given him plenty to work with, and doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon — more’s the pity.
Land Run Award – for most promising newcomer
When John Sutter was working at the Oklahoman, he wrote for Go Green, one of the NewsOK.com blogs, which focused on the environment. “Let go” during a “budget crisis” purge at the paper, he decided to keep right on blogging, and Concrete Buffalo is the result. Oklahoma is way behind in this area, and John’s blog can help make a difference.
Black Blizzard Award – for best images
Phototune – because sometimes words fail
Well, that’s what I got for this year, folks. I hope the winners get some joy and sense of accomplishment from being recognized by my little corner of the blogosphere — and maybe they will get a few more readers. As soon as possible I whip up some corny graphic they can plop in their sidebar, if they are so inclined.
Please share other award-worthy blogs in the comments.
P.S. I should add that Bartcop was excluded from consideration in this competition. He exists in a stateless realm — but we appreciate the progressive glow he emits from his Tulsa studio.
