there have been so many great e-mails coming in lately.
i want to give shout outs to sherry, maria, martha, carl and edmund especially but they've all been so great. and i want to note that wally writes his class has been focusing this week on defining what they stand for. this is the list that wally's group came up with for his class:
1) a fair and decent living wage
2) equality & dignity for all
3) going beyond the obvious media sources
4) media regulation
5) energy regulation
6) addressing the issue of the homeless
7) universal health care
8) finding non-violent ways to resolve conflict
9) social security
10) progressive income tax where corporations pay their share
are wally and his friends not the smartest? these are high school students, our future, and we're damn lucky to have people like wally and his friends.
as i noted last night, blog betty is live now. if you haven't yet checked out thomas friedman is
a great man, please do so. it's hilarious. and it's hard to talk about because i've seen betty's outline so i know some of the details and events coming. no spoiler alerts because i'm not going to spoil anything. hop on the ride and prepare to be amused.
i hope you're proud of betty because i am.
and isn't she organized? an outline for future posts? i just wing these posts!
as c.i. noted last night, betty becomes the fourth common ills community member to start their own blog. bill keller and the new york times may be trembling! lol.
seriously, the common ills is a pretty important site to me. i've blogged before about how i wasn't much of an internet person. i'd checked out sites when people passed them on and most of them couldn't hold my interest. there's often a good posted reply in a thread after you read through about 40 or so entries. but who has the kind of patience?
so mainly, i went to news papers or to buzzflash and that was pretty much all i did online.
then my very best friend in the world elaine kept after me to check out the common ills and i was hooked. i've learned about the brilliant ron and his blog why are we back in iraq? i've learned about the incredible jude and her blog iddybud. (both sites can be found in my links on the side.) i've been exposed to writers like katrina vanden heuvel (the nation) and matthew rothschild (the progressive).
and most of all i got to be part of a community and see people weigh in. i wouldn't be blogging now if it weren't for the common ills (or for c.i. who helped so much from the start and still will drop everything when i'm having a problem - thank you, c.i.).
and certainly i owe a debt to folding star of a winding road who was the 1st community member to start blogging. there were days when i couldn't get a post together and felt like i was a complete failure but folding star might miss a day and just go back to it. so i've followed fs's lead.
and i certainly owe a debt to jess, jim, ty, dona and ava of the 3rd estate sunday review who have helped me, promoted my blog and allowed me to assist them which is both fun and a learning experience. i was the 2nd common ills community member to start blogging, 3rd estate sunday review was right behind me.
and now betty becomes the fourth. and the newbie. i get to feel like an old pro now!
i think it's great that the common ills has inspired so many of us to start blogging. if you go by web sites, we've got 4, if you go people inspired we've got 8. bill keller's concerns of a circle jerk may yet come true! though, let me restate, as a woman i've never been involved in a circle jerk. no doubt it's a happy memory for the executive editor of the new york times, but keller, how dare you presume that all bloggers are male.
and that brings me to something i stand firmly for: more voices. more voices, not less. when i write something here and i get an e-mail saying 'i feel just the same, why aren't people like us heard in the mainstream media?' i respond that we are making our own media.
and we are. and we need to think about what we stand for as we remake the media. we need to remember common ills community member keshawn's comments and make sure that as we remake the media we are not just becoming new voices doing the exact same thing, new players in the same system. we need to be remaking the system so that it is inclusive and reflective.
i was reading a book of essays by gore vidal that c.i. and elaine had both been recommending and was surprised to learn that gore vidal used to be on network tv. i know of gore vidal only through his writing and his appearences on democracy now! and the majority report. but a voice like gore vidal could once be heard in the mainstream media. and we need to think about and be sure that we are encouraging voices and not silencing them.
like the common ills, this site is a site for the left. and because of that, i will highlight the left. the right can start their own sites. but those of us on the left need to be sure that we allow other voices on the left to be heard. when some 1 writes me about how going after the new republic or cjr daily might mean i'm not linked or noted by them, i just bash on through. and reading gore vidal's essays, i get the feeling he just told it like he saw it too.
and at some point, that meant gore vidal lost many platforms he had. so we need to be sure as we go about remaking the media that we don't back off from important voices because it's 'prudent' or because it might cost us 'respectability.'
the point of remaking the media is not to create a new cokie roberts or a new sam donaldson.
we've had them. we've suffered from them. for instance, i want jude to get the recognition she more than deserves, for instance, but i never want to turn on my tv and see her practicing clutch-the-pearls 'journalims' (which i don't see her ever doing, she's too smart). but i do think that there is a danger that as certain voices get recognition from the mainstream, they may be tempted to back off from certain positions. i think we already saw that happen after the election when 2 bloggers attempted to dismiss the ohio voting issue right after the election. grassroots had to drive that (with the help of people like laura flanders and randi rhodes).
listening to 2 bloggers on the radio tell the nation that there was nothing to see and to move on really offended me. remaking the media should not be about installing new gatekeepers.
so let's work together on tearing down the gates to create a more inclusive media, not to annoint new gatekeepers.
