Archive for June 6th, 2009
Gray Matters launches
We’re delighted to announce the beginning of what we hope will be a twice-weekly or so feature here on HillBuzz: Gray Matters, a column by essayist Sebastian Gray. We’re setting up a special page for him here on HillBuzz, where Sebastian will write on politics, current events, social issues, and life in general here in Boystown, Chicago. We hope eventually Sebastian’s column will be syndicated beyond HillBuzz itself, so a moderate, Hillary Democrat, pro-woman, pro-American, bipartisan take on the LGBTQ community can bring a centrist’s viewpoint to various debates, while continuing to show conservatives and Republicans of all stripes that not all Democrats are bad, and that the negative stereotypes of the LGBTQ community held so firmly by many on the far right are outdated and ridiculous. Sebastian will give you the scoop on what people are saying and doing here in Boystown, with adventures and insights like only he can share.
If you have anything you’d like him to tackle in upcoming columns, feel free to note those ideas in comments on this thread or the Gray Matters page, or email Sebastian directly at: SebastianGrayMatters@gmail.com
As he starts this new column in earnest, we’re sure he’d love to hear from you!
NOTE: Many, many thanks to our good friend Teresa for the Gray Matters logo — and for other design-related surprises coming to HillBuzz in the days ahead!
Run, Sarah, Run
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is in upstate New York today, celebrating the founding of Alaska at ceremonies around Auborn, New York, including nods of respect to Harriet Tubman, former Secretary of State Seward, the women’s rights and abolitionist movements, and the rest of what the fingerlakes region is known for.
This is one of those trips east Palin takes where we wish she’d change planes in Chicago so those of us here could put on a fundraiser or other event for her — which would be an absolute joy to have her so close to Buzzquarters.
At her appearances in New York, in addition to the shouts of “Sa-rah! Sa-rah! Sa-rah!” there’s also “Run Sa-rah Run!”, which we couldn’t agree with more.
Kooks and loons in Alaska are fairly successful in keeping Palin boxed into the state, making these appearances by her in the lower 48 too rare. We hope that changes in 2010, after she’s re-elected Governor and can take more of a stake on the national scene — coming to Chicago at last.
But, more importantly, to Iowa…and New Hampshire…and South Carolina…and all sorts of other places too.
Run, Sarah, run indeed.
Israel News Roundup – by Laura Rosen Cohen
Dear HillBuzz,
I thought I would try and put together a few items before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (“weeks”) begins this evening. This holiday is a celebration of the Jewish people being given the Torah, and it is customary to read the Book of Ruth and eat dairy foods. It’s a fantastic story – it’s got everything, love, joy, intrigue, royalty – if you have a chance, do read the links.
I really enjoy reading articles in The Jerusalem Post by Khaled Abu Toameh, He’s a Palestinian journalist who has found, over the years, that he has the most press freedome working for The Jerusalem Post, rather than the Palestinian news outlets. He frequently lectures in North American and is very well connected in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. This article takes a look at the situation facing Mahmoud Abbas on the eve of his visit to Washington. One of the most interesting recent articles was a piece in which he observed that anti-Israel, or anti-Zionist, activism in North America is pretty much worse than anything Yasser Arafat ever spewed out.
Here’s a piece in which Amnesty International’s obsessive focus on Israel is discussed. Do you feel AI is obsessed? Are there other countries and causes that receive similar levels of attention? I think the NGO-world’s focus on Israel is suspicious – do you? I think there is selective outrage in the world when it comes to Israel. Phyllis Chesler has written a lot about the left’s disappointing abandonment of women in need in the Muslim world. I generally find that Pajamas Media has the content. If you don’t read it, you really should. Lastly, I’ll leave you with an item that makes me question if France will ever, ever learn. I’m leaning towards never, but perhaps you have different thoughts.
As always, if there are any questions or subjects you are interested in, please jot down a note in comments. I’ll put together some more book recommendations in my next round up if you think they are useful.
Sincerely,
Laura Rosen Cohen
Toronto, Canada
NOTE: Because of technical issues, we couldn’t get this post up on May 28th when Laura sent it to us, so the holiday reference was for last week, not this week. The information was so good we wanted to make sure you all got it, even if it was a little late. Sorry to Laura for not being able to get it up sooner — we really appreciate these Roundups and learn so much about Israel from them. For some reason, this upsets some people out there and always causes arguments to start in comments — but we think it’s important for everyone to learn more about Israel and to see through the MSM’s decades-long propaganda efforts on behalf of Islam and antisemitism, which we clearly see as going hand-in-hand more often than not in the Middle East.
Will this be the last straw for Gordon Brown with the British?
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an embarrassment to himself and others.
It’s a wonder he’s not a member of the United States Congress.
Not only did he bungle the D-Day commemoration this year by not inviting Queen Elizabeth II (the only world head of state to actually serve in the military during WWII), but now he’s re-named Omaha Beach “Obama Beach”.
A vote of no confidence in the British government is coming — and will be here by the end of summer, no doubt. Cabinet members are resigning from Brown’s government by email, not even showing him the respect of following standard operating procedures for rats jumping off such a ship.
Soon Brown will have plenty of time to not watch all those DVDs our Illustrious President gave him when he visited the White House (DVDs he can’t see, because he’s legally blind, and can’t play, because they won’t work in his Region-2 DVD player).
Who’s likely to replace him as British PM?
With any luck, we’ll have a replacement of our own in 2012 and “Obama Beach” can go back to being called “Omaha Beach”, the way everything being renamed for the current president should ultimately revert back to whatever it was called before The Golden Age of Hope and Change befell us.
Technical Difficulties and the Wrong French Toast
So, this week has been a frustrating blend of Mac and WordPress-related technical problems that we’ve finally had time to sit down with a computer tech and resolve. Wordpress occasionally does this thing that locks us out, so that we can’t make it passed the green glass door and into the posting functions. It’s happened probably 4 times since we switched over to WordPress from blogspot last year — making the switch because the same thing happened to other sites, but not ours, on Blogspot. It’s completely some sort of technical thing we don’t understand, involving servers and hundreds of thousands of blogs out there and things like this happening. In the heat of the campaign, it seemed that when things like this happened, there was some conspiracy behind it, but in this case we think it was just a flaw in WordPress…probably exacerbated by the fact that WordPress seems to work better when we use PCs to post, but we’ve been running things on a Mac laptop and a desktop, so things get a little wonky sometimes.
If you are thinking of buying a new computer in the future, please do not buy a Mac. It’s the worst purchasing decision two of us here ever made, and we made those choices after listening to “computer experts” go on and on about how wonderful Macs are. Well, they’re not. They are inferior machines gifted with sleek exteriors and packaged with fabulous marketing — after you bring them home from the store, all shiny and new, filled with hope and change, you quickly realized how badly you were conned. It is funny how quickly all the non-Mac users can relate to this, as The Golden Age rolls on.
So, it was frustrating to not be able to post as usual the last few days, between whatever was going on with WordPress and the computer trouble we deal with on a daily basis with two junky machines.
But, sometime the universe brings you the wrong French toast, and something unexpected that really makes us think comes along when we least expect it.
It’s rare for us to realize just how much of our lives this little site takes up, and how many things we turn down and skip to be able to spend hours on the Internet researching and writing pieces for HillBuzz. Not having this platform for a few days, we were able to enjoy the momentary nice weather in Chicago, spend more time in the park playing with friends and their dogs, going out to a movie or dinner, and just taking a few hikes around parts of Chicago we’d never been to before, finding all sorts of great new places to go and things to try. Sometimes we realize how much we resent this site and the power it has over us — it demands so much attention and sacrifice from us, with nothing really coming back to us in return. We work harder on this amateur volunteer effort than most people work at their actual paid jobs (and, as sad as it is to note, we put more investigative journalism into the snarky business we get up to than actual reporters put into their fluff propaganda pieces these days). Friends of ours go to parties, but we head home to give another 4 hours to HillBuzz. People take impromptu road trips to go camping or swimming somewhere, and we cloister ourselves off somewhere to talk about ACORN or wasteful spending or call the MSM out for its latest lies. Other people have day jobs, then leave work at 5pm and have a blast enjoying themselves. Some of us here work two jobs in this economy trying to stay afloat here in Chicago, and then put in a third shift producing free content to put out into the world.
There are days, and today is one of them, when we all miss our old lives from pre-2008. None of us ever wanted to run a website, and we certainly didn’t want to spend so much time each day writing about politics and current events. But, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign prompted us to start this online adventure, and we saw a need to continue things beyond the primaries, into the general election, and now months and months after that. We also see that need going forwards, and are touched by the many good people who comment on what we write and help us always improve ourselves. So, part of why we keep going is that we love that community that spontaneously evolved around us. We love that there’s a TXMom and a FLMom out there somewhere reading us, and a girlpower here in Chicagoland who we love hearing from, and a GarlicNosedHo out west who is always a delight. All of you, and many, many more (like NeeNee and SkatingOnGlue and EricP etc.) are so interesting and thought-provoking and supportive — so much so that collectively all of the commenters have a real and decided impact on us that we are so appreciative of. We put our essays and opinions out there knowing we’ll have instant fact-checking, critical analysis, and neverending suggestions for improvement that truly benefits us, and not just for this site, but for everything we do going forward.
And that’s an interesting dynamic we’ve missed over the last few days. Though it’s been very, very nice to enjoy Chicago and many of the things we stopped doing because we were so focused on this site, it felt strange to not hear from the regular chorus of voices out there giving their opinions on what we say, think, and do. No one else in our lives has something like this — nobody else has people all across the country chiming in every day, like disembodied electronic fairy godmothers, to root them on and make them better, smarter, and more successful. And for that, we are truly blessed, because it really is such a gift to be very grateful for.
And then there are the trolls, who keep coming back here to post their nasty, hateful remarks — even on days when we aren’t able to post anything, the trolls are still there. And, really, it’s worth an entire essay unto itself because troll behavior is fascinating. Spam filters keep most of you from being able to read this filth, but they are there every day, ripping us for saying this or not saying that and generally being obsessed with a site they supposedly hate — yet seem to spend more time on than we do ourselves. A few of these people post their comments from their work computers, so their IP addresses come from law firms in Florida or US Navy stations in San Diego or hospitals in rural Ohio, where we assume the trolls are professionals of some kind who have become obsessed with the antics of a handful of gay guys in Boystown, Chicago. They hate HillBuzz, hate us, hate Hillary Clinton, hate Sarah Palin, hate Boystown, hate everything we are about, but when we are not around, it’s like they lose their sense of purpose and have no idea what to do with themselves. It’s so twisted and sick it’s hilarious.
But, like we just wondered above, is it better to totally ignore these people (lest we encourage them), even if it means never getting to share the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into this site that just makes us laugh for hours. Because, honestly, it is a laugh riot sometimes.
We just need to find a better balance between HillBuzz and actual lives. Columnists like Michelle Malkin put out a piece a day, with several little updates on other things, but Malkin’s paid full time to do this. We all have day jobs (with some having second gigs too, to make ends meet), so we actually work much, much harder than the “professionals” out there. Maybe we need to evolve into a format that’s more condusive to having a better life-work balance for us. Regular readers can sure help with that — by keeping us updated on all the latest news and points of interest to keep our research time down, so we don’t have to hunt for info as much on our own and can instead lean on you to do most of that for us, freeing us up to put out more essays and other pieces instead. We’re sure there are a lot of great ideas out there and would love to hear them…because the French toast the universe served up this week definitely told us we need to shift things into a new gear. It’s summer, and we certainly don’t want to miss it cloistered indoors at the computer…but we also don’t want to leave our post when there’s so much that needs to be done to get this country back on track, with many in Washington seemingly Hell-bent on destroying us all.
We also need to get rid of these Macs and switch back to PCs by the end of the summer, so we’re pooling our resources to do that, which should eliminate some of the posting problems (and moving to a new site totally under our control with great security features should improve on WordPress’s spotty reliability).
It’s all a lot of work, but it seems to be worth it. We’re touched people miss us when we aren’t able to post, and hope you know how much that means to us — but remember we’re doing the best we can every day, juggling a lot, and sometimes life and technical difficulties and the wrong French toast gets in the way.
Saturday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Saturday? What are people talking about in your part of the country?
