History, politics, people of Oly WA
I’m not sure I’ve ever suggested this to you, and I don’t know if you even listen to podcasts, but I think the Sound of Young America would be a good listen for you.
Especially this episode. Not sure why exactly, I just thought of you when I listed to it this morning/last night.
Felix Day was empty, and so was this blogger. I was up after the game, and I was online, I just forgot to post anything.
The Mariners still have seven to win to avoid embarrassment.
I read a lot about newspapers and the business of newspapers, but I hardly blog about it. Son of Ronald Roland reminded me that I had a thought to ask of people that read this particular blog.
Ok, recently we’ve seen an exodus of the “adult in the room” of the Washington press corp:
Dave Ammons and John Hughes to the Secretary of State’s office.
Robert Mak for City of Seattle.
David Seago for retirement.
David Postman to Vulcan.
Ralph Thomas to Katz Communications Group.
Given that Ives Galarcep, a ten year veteran reporter from a mid-sized east coast newspaper, can make the successful transition from his print job to a self-sustaining niche blog.
Also, given that Crosscut has a place in Seattle media world.
Ok, so here’s the question to answer:
Do you think after Postman, Ammons, Hughes, Thomas and Seago left their print jobs, and instead of going into the government and PR worlds, they started a group blog, that it would work out for them?
My answer in the comments.
I thought Carlos Silva was supposed to start today, and I’m sure to learn why that didn’t happen if it was supposed to happen. But, I didn’t actually watch the game (my son’s baptism was today), but I checked the score.
Sweet, we won the series against the Yankees. Awesome.
Well, today’s story shouldn’t be about Silva, but about the Yankees, but yesterday I promised a Silva thought, so here goes.
Last year I had a thing for Jorge Campillo. The thought of a Mexican junkballer just appealed to me. But, we let him go and he ended up with the Braves and now sports a 7-7 record and sub-4 ERA.
Instead of keeping him for the cheap, we signed Carlos Silva (4-14, plus 6 ERA). This was my symbol of the team in trouble, we signed a guy seemingly just so we can spend more money on him. Eh.
Tried to watch as much as the Mariners game as I could, but had the US v. Cuba World Cup qualifier on DVR, so I switched back and forth.
United States of America wins, Seattle Mariners lose.
Tomorrow, win or lose, a thought on Carlos Silva.
You’re doing it wrong (from their email tonight):
Oly2012 is a net-roots organization dedicated to helping decision-makers significantly improve downtown Olympia before 2012 by mobilizing an active network of well-informed citizens.
Things I know about Oly2012 so far:
1. They don’t have a blog, a online bulletin board, or any sort of online exchange (private or public).
2. One of their founding members Pete Stroble does post at Everyday Olympia and Olyforums, but I think that’s a far cry from actually being a netroots organization.
I don’t have a quick definition right now, but being netroots is more than having an email newsletter and posting stuff to your site every once in awhile. They could add a blog, but its more about an online democratic decision making process than simply discussion.
Being at Everyday Olympia and Olyforums is a good start, but its not enough to call the organization netroots.
I need to think about this some more and email Pete. Or something.
And, if I’m doing this correctly (trying to find out the minimum number of wins the Mariners need to avoid 100 losses) the Mariners magic number is at 8.
Since we had a win from a youngster tonight, I’m reminded of another young Mariner pitcher: Bob Wolcott, who was famously thrown to the wolves against the Indians in 1995, but came out a winner. He ended up a big fizzle.
My story goes that when I was at Delaware State studying journalism, in one of the classes we had to write a fake half hour news script to tape. My sports section referred to Wolcott winning the Cy Young while pitching the Mariners into the World Series.
Hopefully Morrow ends up like my fantasy Wolcott, not the real Wolcott.
more animals
Yeah, really he’s not.
Olympia Online RSS is a sweet idea.
A bit… uh… janky, but it does the job ok. Its basically a feed aggregator for a handful of blogs in Olympia, a lot like feedtacoma.com, but that website is less on the janky side.
The arrival of Olympia Online RSS is hilarious because of Jason (enpen)’s reaction to a similar effort by Rick over at Olyblog. Read here.
S6 over at Olyforum does a really good job at not really getting it here as well.
The whole thing drives off the RSS course very quickly into Rick and Jason’s personal issues with each other, but Jason’s initial point of “using my rss feed on your site is wrong” is very wrong on its own.
It is not stealing content. There are spam blogs out there that blatantly copy content from rss feeds, but neither what Rick is doing at Olyblog nor Olympia Online RSS are doing that. They’re linking. Automatically linking, but linking in any form is good.
From cluetrain:
Thesis 7: Hyperlinks Subvert Hierarchy
The ability of the internet to link to additional information – information which might exist beyond the formal hierarchy of organizational structure or published material from such an organization – acts as a means of subverting, or bypassing, formal hierarchies.
So as of right now, the Mariners have 23 games left and 15 possible losses before they reach 100 for the season. Which, would be embarrassing.
What is more embarrassing is that from the middle of July until right now I’ve hardly paid attention to the Mariners, which if you’ve met me before this year, is weird.
I used to be the type of person that would come home and turn on the t.v. or radio just to have the Mariners in the background. Before this year, my family and I used to attend at least half a dozen (at the very very least) games a year. This year I went to one, and only because the ticket was free and I was invited.
When I lived in Delaware in the 90s, I would stay up late watching Headline News, waiting for the Mariner’s score. When I moved back to Olympia, I felt immediately blessed that the Mariners were not only on t.v. a lot, but on the radio.
It was a variety of reasons that put me over the edge. Two kids are much harder than one. The Mariners are historically and embarrassingly bad. I want to quit blogging bad. Soccer is also suddenly fun to watch. etc…
I’m here to make amends. So, this I promise: From now until the end of the year, I’m not only going to watch the Mariners as much as I used to, I’m going to blog every game.
For every loss, you’ll get the death march countdown to 100 losses. For every win, you’ll get a memory from Emmett’s Mariners memory bank. For example today, it was the one about staying up late watching cable when I was 17 on the east coast, waiting for the yellow lettering telling me the Mariners were done.
It might be a pretty good comment on the type of political blogs I am subscribed to, but the most numerous negative reactions to Palin’s speech so far on my feed reader was to this quote:
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.
Teacherrefpoet said it the best:
Obama’s decision to go to the trenches and work with the poor is my favorite thing about him. Palin’s decision to say this solidifies the idea the Republicans could care less about the poor. (Were the poor or struggling families mentioned at all tonight?)
5.7% of families in Wasilla live below the poverty line, according to Wikipedia.
Yeah, that sounds about like Chicago’s South Side. (I wonder what that number is in the neighborhoods Barack Obama worked in. 90%? More?)
Palin, McCain, and their party don’t get it. This speech solidified it. Obama’s choice to be a community organizer shows his values are immensely Christian. Have you noticed, Gov. Palin, how often Jesus discusses the poor? Those who value those teachings go to where the poor are and work with them. You know, in the community. Organizing it.
I think it also shows a certain amount of tone-deafness towards the sort of politics of the outside that the Obama campaign is trying to push forward. The meta-message of civic engagement is the most important thing for me right now, in terms of the Presidential race. Obama is showing that “serving your county” can go beyond military service.
So, Palin’s contrast of a position of political power with a position of service is striking. Granted, people who take up the rigors of running for office and being in office are “serving,” but there is a fundamental difference between what Palin did as mayor and what Obama did as an organizer.
If Palin wasn’t elected, would her service to Wassila been less valuable? She seems to imply that. The Obama example shows that anyone can and should serve, not just those that win an election. Standing up and putting your shoulder to the community grindstone isn’t just for those who win elections, but for everyone.
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