Yay! One of my faves, Alison at Creekside, has joined the party.
Follow her on Twitter.
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Blogging
I loved it. I loved that we were citizen journalists and pamphleteers. I loved that we were rigorous and funny.
I loved kicking ass and taking names. I loved spending days researching and calling out what our 90+% Con-fluffing media owners lacked in both reporter hours and inclination to report on. And I loved the attention.
I loved Holly Stick or Beijing York or other bloggers rocking up the comments with links to what I had missed or gotten entirely wrong because, as @trapdinawrpool says below, credibility was our only currency and we all defended it fiercely on each other's behalf.
I loved that bloggers knew each other's interests well enough to quietly pass on stories/data to whomever had excelled in that particular niche.
I loved the camaradarie across political lines. I loved that out here on the Wet Coast we got together in real life in various combinations of political bent and butted heads and made friendships as people.
It was of course the nine year reign of Stephen Harper and the rise of the right that galvanized many of us into blogging in the first place - that and the realization that money and lots of it had more to do with the inner workings of our neoliberal corporate-captured governments than whatever pap we had been inculcated with about progress and democracy in our youth.
Now Harper is head of the global IDU, the right has gotten pointier, and blogging has been replaced by the silos of Faceplant and the relentless context-free scattershot weaponization of data on twitter.
When blogger/researcher The Sixth Estate quit blogging three years ago, he asked - in a rhetorical analogy to people - why the cape buffalo and hippos in Africa did not rise up together against the lions who killed and ate them. Three years later the lions are unhappily sharing the same slowly sinking life raft with the cape buffalo and the hippos. We're still the lions though, the lions reassure each other quietly, their claws sinking ever deeper into the life raft.
OK, where the hell was I going with this lions business? Oh yeah. The lions are not going to listen to us - not as bloggers or tweeters or Faceplanters. That blogger camaraderie to make common cause wherever and however you find it now -- as in life, that's what counted all along about blogging .
Showing posts with label Alison at Creekside. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alison at Creekside. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 November 2019
Friday, 28 March 2014
Forget the Gong Show, Let's Concentrate on City Council
Well, Matt Galloway on MetroMorning did the best job (so far) of any interviewer's attempt to hold Rob Fucking Ford to account.
Given this, at least:
But there are still seven months to go for interviewers and opponents to learn how better to deal with RFF's bullshit. We live in hope.
If RFF's tenure has taught us anything, it's that while a mayor can embarrass the hell out of us, under a weak mayor system, she or he needs collaborators on council to get things done.
I propose turning our attention away from the giant gong show that is the mayoral race to wannabe city councillors.
We need to rid Council of the morons, the toadies, and the mindlessly ambitious, which of course puts Mammo at the top of the heap, overlapping all categories as he does so effectively.
OK, then. Here is an immensely useful graphic (more about its provenance below*). I'm sorry it's kind of hard to read.
It's arranged in rings by year, innermost being 2011, when RFF had max influence. Note how much support he had then.
By 2012, less support, more opposition. Even more so by 2013.
For an overview, this is very handy. For my money, no one with a preponderance of blue and green should be returned to office.
Here is the list of current councillors. Find yours.
Next step, follow @GraphicMatt who has been doing heroic work in tracking how each councillor voted, presented in colour-coded tables.
Some examples here and here. You can also find his work at
MetroNews.
Decide whether your incumbent deserves your support. If so, get your butt out for him or her.
If not, check out who else is running. Here is the current list of contenders. The list will no doubt grow. Some incumbents have not yet registered. And some contenders are probabaly still testing the waters.
Check them out. Find someone with ideas, integrity, and a lively sense of civic responsibility.
For example, Dan Fox is contesting Ward 24, now held by blue/green Ford-supporter David Shiner. Dan could use some volunteers.
Remember that the mayor, while potentially possessed of great persuasive power, has only one vote.
There are 44 others that -- collectively -- matter more.
*Provenance of graphic: It was tweeted by cinemaven. I asked and looked but couldn't find an original, even though it says "thegridto.com" in the corner. I tweeted a couple of times asking for help and got no joy. In particular, I complained about how hard it was to read, how it needed embiggening.
Well. In my email last night was a message from Ace Blogger and Photoshopper Extraordinaire Alison @ Creekside, with an improved and slightly embiggened version of the chart. Yes, that Alison, who to the dismay of the masses does NOT have a Twitter account. So, how did she get mybat signal Alison signal?
She's not saying, is she? Me, I think she has an alter ego on Twitter. Maybe @80sDougFord. Feel free to speculate in the comments.
ADDED: Of course there are municipal elections across Ontario this year. All of us need to do our duty and vote good people in.
Given this, at least:
No interviewer can possibly keep up with the volume velocity of Rob Ford's lies.
— Ryan Day (@lizzhatesme) March 28, 2014But there are still seven months to go for interviewers and opponents to learn how better to deal with RFF's bullshit. We live in hope.
If RFF's tenure has taught us anything, it's that while a mayor can embarrass the hell out of us, under a weak mayor system, she or he needs collaborators on council to get things done.
I propose turning our attention away from the giant gong show that is the mayoral race to wannabe city councillors.
We need to rid Council of the morons, the toadies, and the mindlessly ambitious, which of course puts Mammo at the top of the heap, overlapping all categories as he does so effectively.
OK, then. Here is an immensely useful graphic (more about its provenance below*). I'm sorry it's kind of hard to read.
It's arranged in rings by year, innermost being 2011, when RFF had max influence. Note how much support he had then.
By 2012, less support, more opposition. Even more so by 2013.
For an overview, this is very handy. For my money, no one with a preponderance of blue and green should be returned to office.
Here is the list of current councillors. Find yours.
Next step, follow @GraphicMatt who has been doing heroic work in tracking how each councillor voted, presented in colour-coded tables.
Some examples here and here. You can also find his work at
MetroNews.
Decide whether your incumbent deserves your support. If so, get your butt out for him or her.
If not, check out who else is running. Here is the current list of contenders. The list will no doubt grow. Some incumbents have not yet registered. And some contenders are probabaly still testing the waters.
Check them out. Find someone with ideas, integrity, and a lively sense of civic responsibility.
For example, Dan Fox is contesting Ward 24, now held by blue/green Ford-supporter David Shiner. Dan could use some volunteers.
Remember that the mayor, while potentially possessed of great persuasive power, has only one vote.
There are 44 others that -- collectively -- matter more.
*Provenance of graphic: It was tweeted by cinemaven. I asked and looked but couldn't find an original, even though it says "thegridto.com" in the corner. I tweeted a couple of times asking for help and got no joy. In particular, I complained about how hard it was to read, how it needed embiggening.
Well. In my email last night was a message from Ace Blogger and Photoshopper Extraordinaire Alison @ Creekside, with an improved and slightly embiggened version of the chart. Yes, that Alison, who to the dismay of the masses does NOT have a Twitter account. So, how did she get my
She's not saying, is she? Me, I think she has an alter ego on Twitter. Maybe @80sDougFord. Feel free to speculate in the comments.
ADDED: Of course there are municipal elections across Ontario this year. All of us need to do our duty and vote good people in.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Why Do We Even Bother Blogging? Part 2
When Pope Maledict resigned, of course we had something to say.
Natch, lots of other people, especially on Twitter, had contributions to make.
In our opinion, this one won the Intertoobz.
Its brilliance in turn inspired others, including Alison at Creekside, who applied her mad skillz to produce this further work of genius. (Note Ratzy's 'delicate' condition.)
The Hive Mind® is truly terrifying, innit?
Natch, lots of other people, especially on Twitter, had contributions to make.
In our opinion, this one won the Intertoobz.
Resign? Sorry, Benedict. You cannot resign. You must carry your papacy to full term. #bestpopejoke
— emjb (@emjb) February 11, 2013
Its brilliance in turn inspired others, including Alison at Creekside, who applied her mad skillz to produce this further work of genius. (Note Ratzy's 'delicate' condition.)
The Hive Mind® is truly terrifying, innit?
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