Month: October 2004

Categories
Diversity Weblogging

No, that’s not true

Recovered from the Wayback Machine

From David Weinberger I found out about a “Blogging for Women and Girls” workshop in Boston. According to the event description:

Blogging is emerging a powerful opinion-making force, but though the technology is fairly cheap and widely available, most blogs are still written by men. This workshop will teach women and girls the basics of blogging, from the technical aspects of blog publishing and maintenance, to developing a personal voice, style, and area of focus, to how to drive traffic to your blog

…most blogs are still written by men No, this is emphatically, and unequivocally NOT true. This is based on rumor and hearsay and people’s ill-formed opinion, and that unfortunate and biased Technorati 100 (and other Bloated Ego lists) and I for one am getting sick and tired of this myth being perpetuated.

At LiveJournal, the ratio of women to men is 2 to 1 or some such thing. According to statistics of weblogs outside of LiveJournal, the ratio is about 1:1.

We’re not being heard, or being linked. Why? A lot of factors are involved, but one of them is NOT that there are fewer of us! What does it take to get this communicated? A bloody act of God? Do we need to part the male sea?

We don’t need hand holding and a sensitive, nurturing environment. We don’t need little group blogrings made up of Progressive Women webloggers. Progressive Women – what is that? Liberal People with Breasts?

We don’t need to be ghettoed because of our gender, and categorized as some form of tech deficient po’baby, and helped along like pathetic half-lives just because we don’t have a penis. “Ewww, computers. Hold hands, ladies. Don’t let the bad technology scare you.”

Do you know how much this demeans us women?

What we need is to be visible. To be heard, and to be visible. And this starts with both men and women opening their eyes and their ears and treating women with equal respect; adding a thousand more women, ten thousand more women, isn’t going to make a difference. We have to make a difference, by being seen, and being heard, and listening and seeing each other. Not just those liberal politicos who write critical and thoughtful essays. Not just the people who write about social matters and other Things of Great Importance. And not the city dwellers who talk about this play or that great and profound book. All of us, babe. That means you’ll have to slum it with us non-political webloggers. You know, those people who write about something other than the American election.

The fringes.

If the women like Ms. Davis didn’t ignore the other women–those not on the Progressive Women’s Weblog Ring– and what we’ve been saying for months, years, perhaps we wouldn’t be having these conversations again and again and again.

Am I angry? You damn right I’m angry. Let’s solve the one problem we don’t have – get more women involved in weblogging. Yeah, more women to be ignored. More women to be be invisble.

update

What is frustrating is that I tried to get more women involved in the Kitchen effort; tried to bring both sexes in equally–make this as open and equal environment as I could. But what response did I get? As grateful as I am to all those who are helping, and I am tremendously grateful, the ratio of men to women is still about 4:1 or higher.

Does it take involvement from people like David Weinberger or Dave Winer or Joi Ito or some socially acceptable and sophisticated and ladylike venue to get women interested? We bitch about wanting to be seen and to be heard, but from what I’m experiencing, only if it’s being seen and heard by the right people.

So maybe what I’m feeling now is great disappointment rather than anger.

Categories
Political Voting

Scared into voting

I recovered this from the Wayback Machine in 2023. Boy, I don’t agree with it now. After the loss of women’s rights, rights for members of the LGBTQ+ community, rights for people of color…people had better be scared into voting.

—

Michelle Malkin points out a flyer making the rounds here in Missouri that …includes a 1960s photograph of a firefighter hosing a black man that reads: “This is what they used to do to keep us from voting.”

I agree with Malkin that this not only is deliberately misleading and inflammatory, but it’s also going to backfire. As Malkin has unfortunately pointed out, most of the racist activity in the South was committed by the so-called Southern Democrats–before they jumped the party after Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights activities in the 1960’s.

According to the ACT spokesperson:

Sara Howard, ACT’s Missouri spokeswoman, on Sunday defended the handouts as part of a voter-education effort. She said Republican concerns may stem from reports of increased voter registration among minorities.

“The Republican Party knows that generally when African-Americans vote in large numbers, Republicans lose,” she said. “They will do everything in their power to try and prevent that from happening.”

I would say anyone with half a brain should be concerned with this type of tactic. Which I guess says a lot about the mental capacity of the ACT people.

However, I also disagree with a Malkin quote that says:

It’s worth noting that, by my count, all Missouri governors from 1945 to 1973 were Democrats. (Via The Political Graveyard: http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/MO/ofc/gov.html). Segregation – and violent resistance to desegregation– was driven and perpetrated in large part by Southern Democrats.

As I just said, this was true – up until the 1960’s. Then most of the Southern Democrats jumped ship, and became the core of what is now known as the Republican Fundamentalists.

Blacks should vote for the same reason all races should vote – because voting is as much a responsibility as a right, and we all have a stake in the outcome. However, no one should be scared into voting, or voting a certain way: whether it’s stupid Democrats using old white/black fears to scare blacks into voting for Kerry; or stupid Republicans using new terrorist fears to scare all of us into voting for Bush.

Categories
Weather

Screwy weather

I was reading today in Prairie Point about the Missouri Earthquake of 1811. I had not heard of this before, so checked online and found that there was a series of earthquakes that hit the Mississippi Valley region in 1811 and 1812, and which geologists believe were the most damaging and widespread earthquakes to hit the country. They estimate from the descriptions and effects on the landscape, that the three significant ones were an 8.0 on the Richter scale or higher.

Other quakes caused more loss of life and damage to buildings, primarily because there were more people and more buildings. And other regions have more frequent quakes–earthquakes that are felt here are relatively rare. Still, interesting to know about our geological past

Another tidbit of information to store away about this state. If nothing else, this state does not have what I would call a very boring history.

What is more dangerous here are the tornadoes, and I can’t believe that we’ve been put under another tornado watch today. And the state is getting hit with storms having 2+ inch hail. This is the Spring weather all over again; frustrating, especially considering that tornadoes in October are extremely rare in the midwest. I’m watching all the lovely trees that are just now starting to get color, have their leaves ripped from them and I have a feeling by week end, our fall will have come and gone. I am disappointed, as I was really looking forward to some nice fall weather and photography. Maybe even take some of the planned, fun roadtrips, rather than ones I’ve had in the recent past.

Categories
Writing

What is good journalism

Recovered from the Wayback Machine

Taking a break from ‘what is good radio’, I wanted to point out what I consider to be good journalism.

Dave Winer is on a tear against the professional news organizations because of an appearance of Jon Stewart on Crossfire. I listened to a recording of this (managing not to hotlink directly to the MP3 file), and I enjoyed many of the quips between the participants, and found Stewart to be both funny and clever at times; but I also found him to be disingenuous and rather cheap.

(Transcript here.)

Stewart kept iterating that they, the Crossfire folk, are “…hurting America’–they in this case meaning, we presume, journalists. No, they aren’t. Americans are hurting America. We’re hurting America because no matter what we hear, no matter how factual the reporting, we’ll believe what we want to believe or what suits us to believe. Americans would rather listen to hyperbole and rhetoric than to fact. Not just Americans – the same can be said of the average citizen of most countries.

“You are hurting us.” “You are hurting us.”

Sounds like Arnold before he learned to act. Oh, wait a sec….

When Dave Winer uses the Stewart appearance as a segue into an exposition that reporters should be paying more heed to their customers, as iterated in this Bloggercon question (in which he insults most of the people who do him the courtesy of responding), I damn near choked on my coffee. If anything, reporters should be listening to their ‘customers’ less.

On any given day I can find at least one example of excellent journalism. It’s sophisticated and chi-chi clever to sneer at the professional news organizations, but if you keep your eyes, and your mind, open, you’ll find that many of these organizations do as good a job as their ‘customers’ allow. And in some cases, a better job than their ‘customers’ deserve.

Take this piece I found in the Houston Press (via a post made today in Fodor’s Travel Blog). No, its not about Iraq, or the Presidential race, or the contaminated flu shots. It’s about osso bucco.

A food critic questioned the osso bucco he was served at a local restaurant and was told, “If you don’t like it, there’s the door. Pay your bill and go. And don’t come back”, by the restaurant’s owner. He was also challenged about his knowledge of osso bucco.

This should be enough to earn a completely negative review; yet the food critic actually followed on the chef’s challenge and researched osso bucco, educating both his reading audience and himself on what to look for (what the restaurant served was not it). And even after being thrown out of the restaurant, he made a qualified recommendation of it because of the freshness of the fish served. Most importantly, he never took himself completely seriously, as you can see in the humor of his writing, particularly with the description of the busboy and his fake accent:

If you get the spiky-haired young waiter who reads the specials off the blackboard with a phony Italian accent, resist the temptation to ask where he’s from. (He was born in Galveston and reared in nearby Santa Fe.) If you play along, he’ll do this goofy Italian accent all night long for your entertainment.

Not to point fingers, but if Robb Walsh was a weblogger, he would have blasted the restaurant, daily, for three weeks; accused them of a conspiracy; nicknamed the whole thing ‘osso buccogate’; suggested that this action in Houston just demonstrates Bush’s Texan disregard for the voters; posted the restaurant’s phone number for people to call and harrass the spiky haired busboy; and then got all of his readers to Google Bomb the place with the words, “This Restaurant Sucks!”

Of course, this was only about food, but if I continued my morning reading of all the publications I check out from throughout the world, I’ll probably find decent reporting in many, and about more significant stories. As for the bias, it’s up to me to spot it where it exists–that’s cuz I is smart, and I rede good.

But if there is bias in a publication, it’s because the customers put it there. Fox got where it was by listening to its customers. What we need is less customer intervention, not more.

Hmmm. I wonder if all of this would sound better as a podcast? Should I start it with the NY Loose song, “Hide?” Is that copyright free?

From the notes I read at the other weblogs, such as Norm’s most people don’t necessarily share my viewpoint. I respect Norm, but don’t agree with him that Stewart is a hero.

When did taking a sanctimonious cheap shot become the

Categories
Photography

Before there were cans

Yesterday afternoon I walked around Forest Park in St. Louis, and today, I went to Horseshoe Lake Park in Illinois. However, on the way today, I spotted a Pumpkin Patch festival and had to stop to check it out. Which is my way of saying I have a few photos to share. (More will be posted to Tinfoil Project).

It has been a disappointing fall, for the leaf color just isn’t going to be there this year. Too dry too late, and the weather continues slightly sultry. I may be able to get some color in the Ozarks at the end of the month, but it’s not going to be as vivid as the colors were last year.

I looked all around Forest Park yesterday for some Fall color, knowing that you and I would both be disappointed by my not finding something bright and cheerful and just saturated by rich hues. However, about the only spot of bright color I ran into was in the bridesmaids dresses of a wedding party having their photos taken at the Park. It was a pretty color, too –like the deep red/orange of a new fall leaf. Everywhere I went, I seemed to meet up with the same wedding party of bride in fancy white dress, groom and groom’s men in black, and the bride’s maids in their lovely scarlet frocks. I remember thinking to myself the photographer must be a terror to have them whip around from place to place so quickly.

It was when I was wandering around the Great Basin area, with the fountains and the lake, and the very picturesque bridges that I discovered the truth. Towards the west was what I thought was the wedding party I had been seeing, including the ladies in their lovely frocks. However, towards the east, I could see another wedding party and the ladies in this party were also wearing red. They were having pictures taken on one of the bridges and I could see waiting behind them another wedding party, and the maids in it were also wearing red. It was a variation, true. The first party’s ladies wore a rusty red; the second wore more of a ruby red; and the last a bright apple red. But red, nonetheless. What are the odds?

I was standing there, marveling at how similar all of these wedding parties were when I noticed another limo bus pulling up, with another wedding party. The door opened, and I held my breath. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. Then I spotted a bright flash of color as satin spilled out of the door.

Red! Arrggghhh!

Later as I thought about all of these weddings and the brides and their choices of what must be the popular color this Fall, and how even this pretty color lost its appeal when repeated over and over. A nice reminder that every autumn photo doesn’t have to be brilliant orange, scarlet, and yellow to be special; and I need not stop and take a photo of every orange butterfly sitting on a purple flower.

Did I happen to mention that I have long legs? And no, I’m not that oddly shaped — I was wearing a jacket and carrying a camera bag. The head is mine, though.

However, that’s not to say that I’m going to walk away from color, and that’s why I enjoyed my visit to the Pumpkin Patch. It was held on a farm along Highway 111 on the way to Horsehoe Lake, and it seemed to be quite a party. There was live country music, and a haunted petting zoo–a haunted petting zoo, can you dig it?– as well as a corn castle, and hay slide. This in addition to the more traditional tractor pull, horse drawn carriage, and hayride.

Larger photo

There was also a few other rides, but simple small fair stuff.

People could buy already harvested pumpkins and squash, or could pick their own. The ones in the field seemed pretty picked over, but I noticed that there were some nice pumpkins that were just set around, detached from the vines. I figured the farm must seed the field each day of the festival so there’s always good pumpkins in the field. A clever trick, and no harm to the act.

Today I saw my first silver colored pumpkin. I’ve seen white ones before, but silver?

From there it was only ten minutes to the lake. It’s more popular than I like, but enough space to allow one time to oneself. I was particularly taken with was the beautiful blue water in some areas and the green algae close to shore in others. I also rather liked the dead trees that had fallen into the lake. There’s something esthetically pleasing about these trees–a bittersweet beauty in their graceful, bare, limbs. They remind me of Audrey Hepburn.

Fishing is popular in this lake and there were several fishermen out when I was there. I watched one pull a fish from the lake, pull it off the line, toss it on to the grass with others, before re-baiting his hook and throwing the line back in–in one smooth motion. Takes years of fishing to get that proficient, but a lot of people depend on the local fish, and game, for their meat.

There’s an island that can be reached by a built-up ridge intersecting the water. The hike I followed was on this island and was supposed to be 2 miles, but after the Pumpkin Patch, I was already tired and the distance seemed longer. It was also quite warm, though a lovely breeze was blowing. Not many birds this time of day, but lots of grasshoppers and other insects. I watched heron in the lake, but didn’t get close enough for any decent photo.

About half way around I met two older ladies out walking their dogs, and we ended up chatting as I petted their pups. They lived in Illinois but had just spent several weeks traveling across the northern part of the states to Maine and back. They were so delighted by their trip that I kept asking them questions about it, just to hear them talk.

In Maine or Michigan, I’m not sure which, they had picked blueberries from bushes and had them for their breakfast, and I gather this was their first time exposed to blueberries in the wild. Both kept talking about grabbing handfuls of blueberries, and how they tasted so much better than anything they’d had before.

larger photo

Isn’t it wonderful to meet people who take such a delight from such an simple activity? I grew up in an area where huckleberries grew wild and we would pick them every year; even then, I could identify with these ladies–picking berries and then putting them directly on your pancakes for a late morning breakfast is an immensely satisfying experience.

About like going out to a pumpkin patch for your own Halloween pumpkin. Or catching your fish directly from a lake. Sure beats going to K-Mart or the Mall.