Archive - 2004
August 13th
Creating political maps
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/13/2004 - 10:50Recently, I’ve been interested in using computers to generate maps for political purposes. Folks from CCAG helped train me in using ArcView. ArcView is a very impressive mapping program. It is very powerful, and hence very complicated. I’ve used it to produce turf maps like this.. I still feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface. I am hoping to see some integration between mapping software and projects such as CivicSpace or Advokit
About patriotism...
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/13/2004 - 09:21A recurring theme I've been running into is taking back patriotism. Samuel Johnson's quote, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" has often been brought up. Many people claim that his barb was really aimed at those false patriots who equate patriotism with their specific political philosophy.
On one mailing list, I sent this as my reply discussions about flag waving at the Democractic National Convention:
August 12th
My Social Networks
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/12/2004 - 10:45Today, I receive an email inviting me to join Multiply.com I'm on many online social networks, so I thought I would provide a few comments about them here.
Ecademy
I've been on Ecademy for a long time. It is based on an early version of Drupal, and is a pretty good group of people. It has a strong focus on ebusiness and particularly in England.
Ryze
I've been on Ryze for quite a while as well. It seems very business oriented, particularly in the States. A lot of people are on both Ryze and Ecademy.
August 11th
Blogging the Republican National Convention
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/11/2004 - 17:24(Initially published at http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/archives/000161.html)
After my experience blogging the Democratic National Convention, I have been spending time thinking about what I want to do during the Republican National Convention. I have been offered credentials by the Republican Party, and I sort of doubt that I will. I have asked around to see if I can find some other way to get credentials through working with a more traditional medium, but nothing has materialized.
However, as I discovered last time, much of the story takes place outside the convention hall, and I suspect this will be even more of the case with the Republican convention. Today I received an email from the New Democratic Majority about a Progressive Tourism Bureau that will be set up at a performance space called The Tank.
The Progressive Tourism Bureau is “an exciting collaborative project during the Republican Convention in New York of [many organizations] … to give protestors a direct route into the massive grassroots effort underway to win this election and to build an enduring progressive coalition at the local and national levels.”
August 9th
Transformations
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/09/2004 - 12:07For years, I’ve been putting up webpages, writing articles and blog entries, but it has always been as a renter, as part of some other site, and not as a homeowner. My writing has been my passion, but not my vocation.
I’ve kicked around ideas of writing books or articles, and I have various pieces under construction, but they’ve languished on my hard drive. Last month, I received an invitation to be a credentialed blogger at the Democratic National Convention. It was a wonderful experience and I hope many of you read some of my commentary over at Greater Democracy
