Although I had an account on the site for commenting, I was never a regular reader and maybe posted once or twice; still, I feel a little dirty.

I have unsubscribed from their action e-list, and though there’s no way to delete the account on the site, I did create a filter that will send any messages to the email address listed there right into the trash.

I am also removing FDL from my blogroll. It’s “open seating” but I do have minimal standards. Unfortunately, Marcy Wheeler (aka emptywheel) will have to go too, since her otherwise excellent blog has its home there.

I’m not going to go into it; if you care, there’s Google.

Considering my self-defined mission here (online and off), this is pretty inexcusable, but I’d rather be honest that just anoint some “award winners” out of you know where and call it some kind of validation of the best (IMO).

So, in lieu of that, I’m just going to note some of the positive impressions I have gleaned this past year about relatively unheralded Oklahoma bloggers who can in some sense be considered (or just call themselves) “progressive” or liberal or Left.

And yes, I DO have some negative impressions as well, but this is not the place to air those — as a product of my culture, I do tend to get a little sentimental as the end of a purely-symbolic time cycle draws to a close.

So let’s just say up front that, in the words of our former president, blogging is hard work. Really, if you haven’t tried to do it with any kind of regularity, you just don’t know. Or maybe it takes a very specific type of person who finds it doable without feeling, in no discernible pattern, insecurity, boredom, frustration, angst, despair and embarrassment.

Therefore I just want to tip my hat to some Oklahoma bloggers who have managed to penetrate my haze this year, for their persistence, their regularity, their seeming tirelessness and their apparent ability to be completely self-motivating.

So here’s my list of 2009 bloggers who have earned my respect, just because they blogged. (And this in no way is to dismiss their other qualities as astute observers and creative writers.)

• Oklahoma Lefty — I just can’t figure out what’s “Left” about him (maybe it’s all relative to Oklahoma’s unique slice of the spectrum), but damn, he blogs like a fiend! And if you are the least bit interested in alternative music, you seriously need to follow Dave’s reflections and insights on that subject — because he’s got a lot of knowledge and passion about it.
• Carless in OKC – This blog only started in September, but has been a faithful journal of living without a motorized vehicle in a city that does not acknowledge your existence. The blogger began by saying that he did not intend to be carless, but felt that it was a journey (no pun intended) that might be interesting and offer some insights. It has, for writer and readers both.
• Deb’s House Concerts – Another blogger with passion for music, as well as other creative expression. Thoughts about politics, culture, language, horticulture, nature and anything else that comes along.

Please join me in appreciating these Oklahoma bloggers, and wish them another year of prolific output. Feel free to add any others to the list by making a comment — be sure to include a link to their site.

Runner Up
Best Political Blog

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.

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.

1. I really don’t like the word Blog
2. Green Tulsa
3. Progress on the Prairie
4. Tana-rama – Tana Hanson is a very talented designer
5. Ranting Woman Ranting Daily – Interesting writer with personal take on politics, religion and technology

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!