Category: Action

When I began this project we had 3,622 tags, of which more than two-thirds are singletons (2,666).  In sorting through our existing list to see what’s what, I have already pared it down to about 3,560.  

I make a living working with databases and am somewhat fanatic about having a clean dataset.  The banes of my existence are duplicates and ambiguous or incomplete information. Keeping database size down is also a concern. Size can affect speed and performance.     The first phase of the Tag project will be to clean up duplicates and ambiguous info.  The second phase we’ll look at the singletons and see where we can consolidate tags to keep the numbers and size down.    

Before we go any further, meet our Official Tag Team mascots:  

Over three weeks ago in a posting on DailyKos and other political blogs I launched the Obamathon. A drive to help Barack Obama win on February 5th. Twenty-two states voted that day so it is hard to firmly say who won and who lost but when this campaign started over a year ago I never would have dreamed that we would do so well. Since then eight states have voted and every single one has handed Obama a victory. Now we are hearing that Obama will win Wisconsin, we will see how that plays out. Later tonight the polls will close in Hawai’i and we will see how Obama does there.

But no matter what the final results of those states are one thing is clear. We must March 4th Together for Barack Obama. What does this mean? It means on March 4th four states will vote. Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio and Texas. It means whatever happens tonight and until then we must keep it going, we must March 4th. And we must do it together. That’s why I’m relaunching the Obamathon as the March 4th Together for Obama fundraising drive.

I want to start off by stating something obvious.  The corporate media has a massive amount of power when it comes to information access.  Until the internet became popular, we had no effective alternative form of mass communication and information distribution.  But with widespread access to the internet (or at least widespread enough) came new tools for spreading information.  One of those tools is the blog, which has become one of the most popular methods of sharing information.

Unfortunately, the blog is a “pull” medium.  By that I mean the only people who read a blog are those who’ve heard about it elsewhere.  And even if you have heard about it, you have to go searching it out, which can be a chore for the less technically savvy.  The vast majority of blogs are small fish in an interstellar ocean.  Even the big blogs are not well known.  Furthermore, what you read (or hear or watch) on blogs (and other online news sources) often requires following links to further information sources to fully comprehend what was originally posted.  This requires the reader to be willing to take even more time, and so the original article must find a way to pique the interest of the reader.  In other words, the article has to “pull” the reader in and make them want to learn more.  No easy feat.

Traditional media is a “push” medium.  You sit and watch TV or listen to the radio.  The newspaper can be delivered direct to your doorstep.  And what you get is supposed to be trustworthy.  Unbiased.  Truthful.  So you shouldn’t have to think about it.  Just let them tell you what’s going on.  They push their memes into you.  Brainwashing.  (Don’t kid yourself thinking it’s not.)  Day after day after day.  Sometimes even hour after hour, if it’s cable news.  The only way to tune it out is to turn it all off.  But then you have no info at all.

A couple recent essays discuss the problem in more depth.  EENR for Progress: Corporate Media and the Progressive Movement and Wither the Fourth Estate?  I also wrote a diary along similar lines about a year ago.  (Not as well written, and rather rambling, but I think I still made the point.)  My original intent in this essay was to discuss these issues a little further before moving to the potential solution you’re about to read, but I think this is long enough as is.  So instead, I just recommend that you follow those links and read so that you have a clearer understanding of the issues I’m addressing here.  (See!  There’s that blog “pull” I was talking about.)

Barack Obama quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr a lot on the campaign trail. Particularly he says a lot about how he is running because of what Dr. King called the “the fierce urgency of now.”

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.”

Those were the words that Dr. King spoke in his address delivered at Riverside Church in NYC on the 4th of April, 1967. The speech was entitled  “Beyond Vietnam.“

This is a potential wave of change that can sweep the nation, and it would not be possible on this scale without the two movements scratching each other’s backs. However, because both movements are roaring, we stand at the brink of a transformational moment in American politics. -Chris Bowers

Today at OpenLeft Chris Bowers has a very good post. It’s about what happened yesterday and what it could mean for the progressive movement and America. Yesterday progressive champion Donna Edwards defeated corrupt incumbent Al Wynn in the Democratic primary for Maryland’s fourth congressional district and Barack Obama rode a wave of new voters to overwhelming victories in Maryland, Virgina and DC.

We are in the process of figuring out how to get Docudharma more….actiony.

The thrice beloved On The Bus, whose official title is Chief Technical Wizard, has recently added a box on the far right hand side of the page for hot tags. Now I am EXACTLY the wrong person to try to tell you about anything technical. I only got on the net a couple of years ago, before that, I was a carpenter. If it is made out of wood, I’m your man. Silicone and ones and zeros and code and stuff? Not so much. I like Number Two Ticonderogas. They have good erasers.

But here we are, all digitalled up. Which means that we have a ton of info passing through teh blog everyday, much of it is actually useful and important! And since one of the marvels of digitalness is the ability to store and access info, we should do all we can to take advantage of that…as well as taking advantage of the mediums possibilities and opportunities for action.

These two intersect in the use of action tags, and the opportunity to have access to action items through the Hot Tags box. OR through some other systems. Or both. Since the admins here are smart enough to admit we aren’t that smart we are, as we try to do with just about everything, throwing this out to the community for general input, ideas, and to receive your brilliance.

Consider this an open thread on both tagging, and how to facilitate and make it easier to engage in various Action! items.

“None of us is truly free while others remain enslaved. –Archbishop Desmond Tutu

This Christmas people around the world celebrate. But take some time to think about the problems of the world. For example. Think about this.

27 Million People Live in Slavery.

Even today our fellow humans live enslaved. That’s why I am a abolitionist. And despite being Jewish. I am making a Christmas wish and goal to end slavery. 2007 marks the 200 year anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain so what a better year to make a commitment to end slavery? Thankfully we can take simple steps to help end slavery. Keep on reading to learn how.

Today Public Citizen released a new report “Santa’s Sweatshop ‘Made in DC’ by Bad Trade Deals”. According to the report toy safety problems have skyrocketed as major U.S. toy corporations relocated their production overseas to exploit sweatshop wages in countries where they cannot ensure the safety of the products.  Thankfully the good folks at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has put together a easy to use petition to the presidental candidates that simply says this:

Our current imported toy safety crisis is a symptom of race-to-the-bottom globalization. We need new trade policies that protect our kids and support strong consumer safety protections – not trade deals like NAFTA and WTO that promote the relocation of toy production overseas to venues where safety cannot be ensured.

The U.S. President has the power to ensure U.S. trade policy doesn’t undermine the safety of children at play. Urge the candidates to oppose provisions in trade deals that provide special benefits and protections for manufacturers to produce goods in other countries and limit U.S. border inspection and imported product safety standards. Also urge the candidates to provide greater funding for domestic agencies responsible for product safety.

That sound sensible to you? Join me below the fold to learn more about the issue and how to take action.

Cross posted to Dailykos, VetVoice & Turn Maine Blue with link to here to post comments.

I am tired. So tired. I usually use an editor for my diaries because of my head injury and poor organization, grammar, repeating myself and essays that are generally too long.  Those take me 10 hours or more and then an editor.

This one is straight from the heart and hip and will be written in short order and to the point (I hope).

During Viet Nam there were tons of protests and large marches and people in front of the

White house and more.

This war is even worse and the condition of our nation is far worse. We have some small and well meaning attempts at rallies and marches. Nothing near the ones of the Nam era.

No, it’s not strike news, but  Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers. Here’s from  his statement, titled AN EMBUGGERANCE:

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but … it seems to me unfair to withhold the news.  I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism.  For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. … Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet :o)

PS  I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should

be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as

will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell.

I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I

would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Sigh.

Today’s strike summary (& action links) below the fold.  

This is more a clippings dump than a summary, but hey. It’s also up at dKos, where we’re chatting while watching The Daily Show/Colbert reruns. Or not, as the case may be.

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