Personal/About the Blog/Open Thread

For my friends in the west, I urge you to take a look at the moon after the sun has set (assuming your skies are clear somewhat). I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the moon's orbit and phases, but if you see what I saw tonight, you should be pleasantly amused. The moon is giant here and it is only just a sliver. It might even been an eclipse? It is beautiful though. Is the moon supposed to be capitalized? Is it proper? It is just a moon, not the Moon, right?

I wanted to share 2 songs with you guys. I don't know how to embed audio so it will have to be YouTubed. They are like light rock, but the lyrics and performance is amazing. The band is called Imogen Heap. It is only one girl who also puts stuff out under the name Frou Frou. She is a musician's musician and a ton of her stuff is featured in soundtracks to films, tv, and commercials. So you may recognize her. The only things I can think of off hand is a song she did for Shrek. She redid Holding Out for a Hero, and it was amazing.

About the blog, I am very pleased with what is happening. I'm sure other people will contribute over time, but the more we personally grow with it, the better it will get. We had great posts this week. Then I muddied it up with the videos. I won't do that again unless I have the correct code to put the rest beyond the fold. If you ever come across that code, please shoot me an email. I feel guilty enough for posting these two videos, but they are well worth it. I tend to drift away from politics on the weekends. I'm sorry if that may have rubbed you the wrong way. I just wanted to share those videos with you guys and really, we need a break from politics every once and a while.

As for me, I am working on writing a substantial post on Swine Flu. You may have seen the draft sitting in our account. I've been working on obtainting a video which describes how viruses work (the H's and N's), comparing now with what happened with the last swine flu outbreak, a little avian flu, and the events of 1918. I am also concerned about the politics of the situation and will discus Tamiflu. I want everyone to be as informed as possible before it is time to consider the vaccine. In a perfect world I'd like to run my post by Rita (since she is an RN) before posting it. What do you think, honey? --Is that sexist by the way? I say hun a lot too. I don't have a sexist bone in my body, so please don't take offense at all. I'm just gay. --

What is going on with everyone? Please listen to these songs all the way thru. I almost guarantee you will LOVE them. You will at least love Hide and Seek, no question.



Ok, there is annoying screaming as an intro to this next song. Skip to 12 seconds and beauty will ensue.


I don't want to post another video. If you want to see Hide and Seek performed live click here.

Blog Update

Lisa, Magnolia, Kerry, and I all have our own accounts now so when we write a post it will say at the top who is writing it. Thank you, guys. Again, anyone at all who wishes to make blog posts just needs to email me at Jradkins@gmail.com and give me the specific email addy you would like to have associated with the site. 

I've been thinking about how I am personally going to use this blog because I would like to benefit from it in ways beyond just social. So I am going to post stuff as I learn it and hopefully if you are able to teach me more, I will have the benefit of learning from your knowledge and experience. For example, I don't really know much about energy reform. I am going to be looking into the issue in my free time over the next few weeks to really get into the issue. As I find videos, sites, pictures, ideas etc, I will post them. 

The thing that is most beneficial is that I have a feeling Lisa knows a lot about the environment and can help guide me in my quest. Then other people will learn as well and we will all be more knowledgeable than others when the energy reform issue takes the limelight, after health care.

Also I think I am going to do a kind of video round up about once a day and just make one post that features political news of the day and clips from the shows the night before. I don't want to make a post every time I find something and end up with 50k posts from me that contain just an embedded video. Do you guys watch videos at your computers or would it be a waste of my time? I would put segments up off Rachel, Keith, Daily Show, Colbert and stuff like the video below that I found like 10 minutes ago. 

This is a video I found today of a protest called "Billionaires for Wealthcare."

Added @ 4:14pm (CST) : We had a problem with Disqus. I don't know why. It was working on some posts but not others. Now it is working on all new posts and this one old post, which wasn't working earlier for Kerry. I don't know what is going on. We seemed to have lost all the old comments even though it appears they are still there when you are look at the main page. 

Blog Update/Open Thread

I wanted to let everyone know that all I need is the email account you would like to use for your posting privileges here and I can add you immediately (if I haven't fallen asleep). This way the authors will be tagged and we will know who wrote what. 

This is a video I thought you may enjoy. I wanted to post it on AmBlog, but I'm not allowed to post videos there anymore. This is Carol Channing singing a song to Alice in the musical for tv adaptation of Through the Looking Glass. For those of you who don't know, Carol is the real Dolly (Hello Dolly!). I'm so gay. This is relevant because she is trying to negotiate with Alice and it is very similar to the tactics used by Obama on several progressive issues including DADT/DOMA, Health Care, Energy.... I stand by the sentiment I expressed on the other site: All of these stories have been told by gay people throughout the past thru art/music.

I was hoping this would function as an open thread too, just to centralize everything. It seems kind of scattered right now.