Runner Up
Best Political Blog
[Browse 2008 archives]

Wow, this is amazing to me. First of all, not to sound like a cliche, but being nominated is so validating, especially since most of the time a I alternate between feeling that no one even reads my blog and feeling that my efforts are just too pathetic to matter, or it’s just a lot of time wasted in vain in a conservative state where I’m quite the fish out of water.  I read many of the best (lefty) political bloggers in the country daily, and know I can never aspire to their level, but I make whatever effort I can. This recognition will certainly motivate me to continue despite all those countering aarguments.

I also feel that being a far left blog in a far right state makes it all the more amazing that Peace Arena got the readers and the votes to reach this level. So, Oklahoma is getting more of my rantings and offerings for another year, at least!

The winner in the category is Batesline.  An excellent and popular conservative blog, which totally deserves the honor. If you haven’t blogged, you can’t fully appreciate the time and effort involved. Batesline has been around quite a while, and never seems to flag (something I do all the time). Don’t know how Michael Bates does it. His writing is great, and he does his homework. So kudos to him — not to mention all the other winners, and nominees (they are listed here. All are worth your time to read regularly, for information, for opinion, for laughs, for culture, for the odd take. The Oklahoma section of the blogosphere is vital and growing, please be sure to support OK bloggers all year long by reading, commenting, donating, sharing their links with your networks, etc. etc.

Thanks to all those who participated in the awards by blogging and/or voting this year, and especially to Mike at Okiedoke for doing the awards. He’s created a very open and fair way to recognize and honor Oklahoma Bloggers, and takes on this extra work of managing the nominations and voting every year now for four years.

Finally, I’ll repeat my ongoing offer to anyone who wants to start blogging: I will help with the tech side of things. You can use free services like Blogger or Wordpress.com, or you can jump in and get your own domain and software install. But it never hurts for more voices/perspectives to be part of the discussion. Contact me and I’ll provide whatever tips or tutorials you may need. Who knows, maybe YOU will be up for an Okie Blog award for 2009.

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, 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.

Woo hoo! My little blog is now on the blogroll of The Lost Ogle, the funniest blog in Oklahoma — of those actually trying to be funny.

I expect to see lots more incoming traffic now, because (it can be revealed, now that my evil plot has been realized) those boys are really radical pinko activists I smuggled in to turn Oklahoma blue.

This will be a temporary measure, as I hope to put something more customized together that can be collectively managed. But for now, I have used Google Reader to collect all the Oklahoma Netroots blogs I have found, and, made the list public, so anyone who wants to can enjoy.

If you’re just a reader or don’t want to display the list on your site, just a bookmark should do: Oklahoma Netroots

For bloggers and webkeepers, please feel free to use the collection to …

add a blogroll

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/reader/ui/publisher-en.js”>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/reader/public/javascript-sub/user/02091792386555904184/label/ok netroots?callback=GRC_p(%7Bc%3A%22blue%22%2Ct%3A%22OK%20Netroots%20blogs%22%2Cb%3A%22true%22%7D)%3Bnew%20GRC"></script>

or add what Google called a "clip" that shows the latest 10 posts (like a widget):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/publisher-en.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/reader/public/javascript/user/02091792386555904184/label/ok netroots?n=10&callback=GRC_p(%7Bc%3A%22blue%22%2Ct%3A%22Latest%20from%20OK's%20Netroots%22%2Cs%3A%22true%22%2Cb%3A%22false%22%7D)%3Bnew%20GRC"></script>

This gives you the latest 10 posts from all blogs in the blogroll, in date order and looks like:

If you want the output with different colors, or no style at all the options are: black, blue, gray, green, khaki, Pink, slate, none. Just replace the color in the code where you see "blue" above. 10 is the max but if you want fewer list items, use any number 1-9 instead of "10" in the code where you see "n=10"

I will have the clip on my local page until I (or someone else) comes up with something better.

And, of course, if you have or know of a blog I haven't listed but should, let me know.

Update: just noticed that some of the posts in the feed are not in proper date order -- I think that's because they are not dated in a conventional manner, so were just dated with today's date. Anyway, it should work out as the feed moves along. Sorry for any confusion!

I started blogging on Thanksgiving weekend in 2003. I was inspired by an Oklahoma blog I started reading shortly after moving to the state in January. That blog: JMBzine and its owner is now a friend and colleague of mine in several social service and political projects.

Of course, I have blogged very sporatically, and using at least five different URLs and using the following blog tools

• Movable Type
• Blogger
• Wordpress
• Xoops
• Wordress again
• Drupal
• Wordpress again

What have I learned? Unless something revolutionary happens in open-source software for running blogs, I’m sticking with Wordpress.

If I had it all to do over, I would just use Blogger. The main reason is that it doesn’t require any software upgrading, and — a factor getting more and more important to me as I start to recognize my own mortality — it will exist after my domain registration expires, my hosting account is closed, and I am no longer able to drag myself to the keyboard. If Blogger decided to finally add an import feature for non-Blogger formats, I’d probably use it.

There are several downsides to Blogger, and for some projects it’s not the way to go. I’m just talking about a personal blog.

If I were advising a new blogger with limited tech skills who doesn’t care much about the design of their site, I would point them at Wordpress.com for a free blog with a very accessible and easy to use interface, that is probably also relatively timeless.

When I started with Movable Type, I didn’t know markup or code of any kind. I downloaded the manual and taught myself how to completely redesign the templates. Although I soon thereafter abandoned MT when its owners revealed hostility towards open-source, I did get a good idea of the general principles that are used by all the php based blog platforms.

In 2004, I got a book on X/HTML and basic CSS, and taught myself the basics. Deconstructing an HTML site design that was contributed to the Oklahoma Green Party(where it’s still in use) in order incorporate it with blogging software, I learned a couple of very useful php commands that make life easier for web-keepers.

That’s about the extent of my code knowledge, but by experimenting with a ridiculous number of open-source software offerings, including (in addition to above) Xoops, B2, Mambo and its derivatives like Joomla, I’ve learned that I don’t need to know how to create what people smarter than I are creating and giving away. I also am constantly scouting out free scripts and services that are available for bloggers and web-keepers.

I believe in the democratic principles behind blogging, the netroots, copyleft and open-source technology. I encourage — and provide hands on help where I can — progressive activists to become bloggers. I read and/or participate in (probably way too) many blogs in the loose leftist confederation that has become known as the Netroots, which I consider the revival of grassroots democracy in this country, and the hope of democracy around the world, lighting even its darkest corners.
That the Internet turned out the way it did (thanks to the corporate entities who didn’t see its potential and passed on buying into it during the early stages), is a miracle. Without the Internet, I think it’s possible that the past eight years would have been the decimation of our beloved form of government in the U.S. Through the instant global communications provided by the Internet, advocacy campaigns were created and activists mobilized in new and powerful ways. And we are only at the beginning of that process.

What’s more, now we will have a president who understands and appreciates this resource, and will use it to improve government and policy. I believe the Internet and the open-source movement and the transparency principles that guide the blogosphere were instrumental in guiding Obama’s political ideology and agenda.

For these amazing tools, and all who have embraced and expanded them, I am eternally grateful. However strange it may be to those who think of Thanksgiving as a time to forgo technology and focus on “real” communication, for me, Thanksgiving has become the tech holiday, a time I think most pointedly about the digital threads that have connected all the world in a global family that 20 years ago was only science fiction, and a time to renew my commitment to use its power for the common good.

I’ve decided to bestow some blog awards to celebrate my upcoming 5-year blogging anniversary, which corresponds with Thanksgiving weekend. Since there isn’t a lot of time to prepare for this year’s awards, it will be a simple, rushed affair. So fitting!

But I’m serious about honoring the recipients, who toil in near obscurity day after day in a non-progressive state (for now). Any light I can shine in their direction, I’ll hope can help their ongoing efforts (which are far more consistent than mine).

I don’t want to infringe on any territory covered by the Okie Blogger Awards that Mike of Okiedoke has been doing such a great job with (this year’s have been postponed). With my concentration on progressive activism, I don’t think there will be. There certainly will not be a dinner, or any monetary component (sorry, maybe next year). Just the glory of one obscure blog being touted by another!

I will mostly, maybe totally, focus on Oklahoma blogs that are left-leaning, i.e. Netroots (unlike Rachel Maddow, I love that word).

I suppose I should have some categories. I was thinking maybe doing something like “Most interactive community”, “Best single-issue focus”, “Most Promising Newbie”, “Most progressive blog posing as non-political”, that kind of thing. Any other ideas?

What about a “Most Prolific Anti-Progressive Troll” award? I already know who’d win this. But perhaps this will just reward bad behavior, so maybe this isn’t advisable — but it would be funny; I’m sure he would post it as a badge of honor, poor thing.

Then there’s the question of whether to include for consideration sites that are not proper blogs. I’d say no, except I would like to honor activist photographers and videographers who post online, and those aren’t blogs. Ah, my first ethical conundrum!

I’d like to have a little web banner that the winner can display on their site (hopefully they will want to!). But my artistic abilities are for crap, which is why I don’t have a logo for my own site. If anyone has suggestions in this department, or wants to volunteer a graphic design, that would be great.

Anyway, I’ll post the winners on Friday or Saturday. Any nominations, category ideas, please post in comments.

Update: Perhaps a renaming would solve the blog/not-blog problem: Peace Arena Awards for Online Activism