I tuned into APRN's Talk of Alaska, one of my favorite shows, this morning hoping to hear some interesting discussion on the topics of blogs with Steve "Primal" Heimel.
My hopes, and I'm fully willing to admit that that my reaction may be colored by the onset of seasonal bitchiness disorder, were dashed. The converstation began with a "wow, check out these new things called blogs" tack, followed by a brief stay at the mainstream media v. unchecked amateurs (that would be us) theme, and ended up settling into "are the bloggers being too mean to Vic Kohring?" and staying there.
No, we're not being too mean to Kohring, or any of the other Corrupt Bastards, for that matter. Most of what I have read about the topic hasn't come across as personal attacks, or the 'piling on' phenomena common to those crazy right-wing talk radio types -- it's been pure outrage. And as much as I hate bumper sticker slogans, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
TOA had on Alaskan bloggers Phil Munger and Steve Aufrecht (who have covered the Vic Kohring trial extensively in a way that makes me jealous.) Munger has started a new "Progressive Alaska" blog - welcome, by the way - which I'm looking forward to adding to my daily reading. If anything, perhaps it will mitigate extreme disdain for Wasilla.
I've promised Flic that I will host a Corrupt Bastards party if and when either Uncled Ted or Ben Stevens gets convicted of something. I confess that I'm a little scared at the idea of the possibility that Uncle Ted might get got. Or, as Flic might say, "Kott."
Because yes, he is rather a cranky, old (possibly Corrupt) bastard. But he is our cranky, old, (possibly Corrupt) earmark-bringing bastard. Perhaps the FBI could just settle for Jim Clark? Or according to local rumor, TCC?
5 comments:
What??!! What!!!??? Ted is not exactly OUR cranky old possibly (snort!) corrupt earmark-bringing bastard, he's HIS COPCEBB. His very own lil' Uncle Ted. And we should never ever forget that.
However, that said, one thing our Congressional Dinosaurs have going for them is the problem of infrastructure. The big pork that Alaska gets is in large measure devoted to infrastructure, something that pretty much every other western state has already long since taken care of (now they need a lot of maintenance on said infrastructure, because it's so old it's falling apart). Funding for this tends to get played up in the national press as pork, though, because, well, it's old history in the Lower 48, and they don't relate to the idea of a Young State (so to speak).
However, it doesn't help when ol' Teddy-poo uses infrastructure monies for actual pork (see the October Red Alert by Sören Wuerth in the Republic).
Anybody replacing these guys needs to study Senate and House Rules with a microscope, because one thing that makes these dudes powerful is attention to the Rules. You know them, you can use 'em to get what you want.
I heard that show, too, and was a little disappointed at its limited scope, too.
A whole show about Alaska bloggers in general would be appropriate, maybe even including that smacktard white supremacist in Anchorage just to show the broad range of bloggers.
Then, why hasn't the Daily News (or Newsminer or Empire or ...) done a piece on Alaska bloggers? Well, I imagine they might be a little shy to give much attention to citizen journalists.... Who knows.
I'm working with contacts in the Alaska Press Club to maybe get a blogger seminar at their Journalism Week in April. Theresa over at My Fairbanks Life is willing to help. Do you know her?
I agree we didn't really get into the issues like I would have liked either. I think it was hard for callers to let go of the content (Kohring) of the blogging and get into the process of blogging. And then we got pulled into the Kohring stuff too. It was a little distracting for me having a commenter and a post subject call in. Too bad bloggers like you didn't call in. If we had thought about it, we could have restricted the call ins to bloggers. Or at least given them priority.
I had a long list of topics and we only covered a few. But each of them was worthy of a show of its own. But then that's what we have blogs for isn't it? So I put my item on court access and blog credentials into today's post.
Maybe we need an Alaskan bloggers conference one day. But clicking on Alaska in my blogspot profile, I got 6000 plus blogs! Many are probably two week wonders, but still, that's a lot of people.
ishmael,
At the beginning of the Kohring trial, Lisa Demer told me that she intended to do an ADN story on trial bloggers like Steve Aufrecht and me. It never happened. I wouldn't blame Lisa. She's more excited about blogging and bloggers than are her bosses, who probably feel threatened by us.
I know from experience on the web that our host last Tuesday, Steve Heimel, spends a lot of time getting facts from the web. He doesn't comment much at blogs, but he's supportive of new ways of unbounded communication.
I agree with Steve that a bloggers' conference would be interesting.
CabinDweller,
Thanks for the welcome I live in Palmer, technically, on the way to Hatcher Pass. Steve says I'm from Wasilla to irk me.
Hah! Well, perhaps I'll take your hint, Ishmael, and do a piece on blogging. Done it before for the Carnival of the Green, why not the Alaska blogs? I needed a topic for my editorial this month anyway....
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