Blogs
Flags... and the People Who Wave Them.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/15/2004 - 07:59While surfing at Blog Explosion, I stumbled across an interesing blog entry, where the writer rants about flag waving three year olds. She writes, "There's nothing more moving than a small, impressionable child in the midst of a crowd waving a piece of cloth that represents your country, is there? ... I have to admit I get a different feeling when I see pictures like this. It's a sinking, disconnected feeling -- disgust, even."
I wrote the following response:
State Representative Debates
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 10/14/2004 - 09:30My wife, who is running for State Representative, has her first debate this evening.
As we've prepared for the debate, I've been looking at various sites to get good information on the issues. The Center for Policy Alternatives has a great website for looking up some information.
We've also had some good discussions with people from Democracy for America.
I sent out an email to people that had been involved with the Democracy Forum, and they have sprung back to life. Please visit the new Democracy Forum Blog.
If anyone reading this has specific comments about issues that Kim should address in her debate, or information that would help her, please post it here.
More about charities
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 10/14/2004 - 09:17Over the past few days, I've been talking a bit about supporting various charities online. In particular, I highlighted, Strengthen the Good which promotes various charities and the the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
Another charity that has been getting a lot of blog attention recently is Project Apollonia. Please check them out as well.
Locally, someone from the Stamford, CT Red Cross posted a link to a survey about the local Red Cross. If you live in or near Stamford, please consider filling out the survey.
Democracy: A government by the people
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 10/13/2004 - 16:05(Originally posted in Greater Democracy)
Greater Democracy was formed, in part, to explore the roots, goals, and intentions of democratic governance. I love democracy, from Jefferson, to Wilson, to others who have fought for and written about democracy that I don’t yet know about.
Yet democracy is a fairly broad concept, a government by the people. How do the people decide to govern themselves? To they require consensus? Do they elect people to represent them in a governing body? To they use Robert’s rules of order to suspend Robert’s rules of order? Democracy can take many shapes.
News of the Day
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 10/12/2004 - 12:14A little over a week ago, I wrote, October Surprises talking about how October has always been a surprising and disconcerting month for me. This October is turning out to be no different.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, last Monday my mother was hospitalized with chest pains. She is home now and seems okay, although we do need to follow up on it. My wife’s opponent was arrested for DUI the same evening. Kim has been getting a fair amount of media inquiries about this. We want to keep the campaign focused on issues and not personal mistakes, and Kim has her comments about it on her campaign website. To top it off, a table blew off a passing truck and hit Kim’s car on Wednesday. She swerved to avoid the accident, and the only damage was the driver side review mirror being sheared off, and some dents in the driver side door. Kim was shaken up a little, but is fine.
Beyond this, we celebrated Fiona’s third birthday this.
As I mentioned earlier, , Christian Crumlish’s book, The Power of Many has come out. It is a good book to read to get a sense of what is going people online getting offline and involved. Jerome Armstrong just wrote about it on DailyKos. In the discussion that followed people have linked The Power of Many to what is going on with Sinclair Broadcasting. There are many articles about Sinclair Broadcasting out there, if you haven’t read them. Mitch Ratcliffe provides a good summary.
Over at Greater Democracy, Jock Gill does a good job of contrasting the Sinclair Broadcasting mess with a great post by Britt Blaser in his blog.
And for the final news, there is the sad news about Christopher Reeve’s passing. Kim had road with his brother in Pony Club. Miranda went to nursery school with his son. He lived not far from us. It struck use fairly personally.
We were driving to a family reunion when we heard the news, and a lot of time explaining it to Fiona. In particular, we talked a lot about hope, and how he symbolized hope for so many people. We talked about embryonic stem cell research and the hope that that brings. If you read my recent post about Strengthening the good, you will know that I am a big fan of bloggers promoting worthy charities. I urge everyone to do their little bit to help, and now would be a wonderful time to contribute to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
