Blogging

I am getting that seasonal antsy feeling. I need to shake things around with my writing and bring more variety. About a month ago I suggested to my peeps David and Michael that I'd love to give each day of the week a theme. I don't necessarily need other contributors to enter the fray --am down with everybody posting whatever they are good at. Yet I am finding that I personally need more structure in order to introduce more variety ... and I hope that makes sense.

Anyhow, here's what I will be experimenting with during the next few weeks :

• Market Monday : Anything and everything having to with economics, finances, sales, marketing... I'll even sneak in some product development if need be.
• Tech Tuesday : All tech all day. I have been trying to get more technology writing in the blog, and this is going to be the day I do that.
• Feature Wednesday : Anything exciting or worthy of a change of our banner will be featured every Wednesday. It's time to bring Barack's mug off the blog and that's going to happen this Wednesday.
• Thirsty Thursday Yes. Booze, coffee, tea, juices, and the food to go with these libations. Anything liquid in bounty or in crisis as in "The Worldwide Water Crisis". I've found out through my blogging for Kenneth Cole there's a HUGE water crisis all around the world and that most of it is not related to global warming but to natural resource poaching by big corporations like Coca-Cola. I am definitely using Thursdays to focus on the water wars happening around the world.

Skippy birthed the idea or at least kept it warm and cozy in his marsupial bag. Jon Swift was the midwife (or was it the other way around) and I am just one of the many godmothers to take care of their baby.

So here's a list of bloggers you ought to know about :

Rox Populi
http://roxpopuli.typepad.com

Jeffrey Feldman's Frameshop
http://frameshopisopen.com

Eric Mueller
http://isthatlegal.com

Media Girl
http://mediagirl.org

American Street
http://reachm.com/amstreet/

ePluribus Media Community
http://epluribusmedia.org

Skippy the bush kangaroo
http://xnerg.blogspot.com/

In Search of Utopia
http://grupo-utopia.com/blog/isou

Terrance Heath's Republic of T
http://republicoft.com

Sister Talk
http://sisterstalk.tblog.com

Unapologetic Mexican
http://theunapologeticmexican.com/elgrito

Matt Ortega
http://mattortega.com

Roberto Lovato's Of America
http://ofamerica.wordpress.com

Kai Chang's Zuky
http://zuky.net

Orange Citizen
http://orangecitizen.com

Migra Matters
http://migramatters.blogspot.com

¡Para Justicia y Libertad!

UPDATE BY LIZA SABATER:
Kos speaks --Steve

*****

The Rude Pundit is responsible for my finally meeting Steve. Lee had just released the CD of his awesome one-man show and he threw a party to mark the event.

At he time I was a homeschooling mother of two and sometime consultant so I had barely any time to drop by. Lee said the magic words : Steve is coming.

O. M. G.

Having the opportunity to meet two of my superheroes in one night was too good to pass up and so I begged and implored the patriarchy at home to release me. As fast as I could, I oiled myself into a pair of jeans and scooted to the West Village.

When I got there once I gave a big hug to Lee I jumped all over Steve and to say he was a bit taken aback but loving it is not to be off the mark. I needed to let him know how much he meant to me as a writer, as an activist and as a blatina. I needed to cram as much in as little a time and thusly went to town.

Believe it or not, he blushed.

Steve was a muscular writer but in person he was could be quite unassuming. "Stop it!" He said it many times and so after the fangirlishness susbsided, we just shot the shit.

At that time neither of us had medical insurance --an issue of which we wrote about occasionally. I knew he had problems with his kidneys but once he told me the litanny of ailments he had and I told him ours, we had a bit of a bitch fest about doctors and money and the whole 'culture of health' in this country. I gave one last hug for good measure, hoping it would not be the last.

The First CK banner image

Lorraine is gone for the summer and I am going to miss her terribly during this hiatus; even though I am also excited that she's on such a creative high that needs to be taken care of NOW. It's the kind of rushes a lot of us creatives get in fits and spurts --and it makes us jelous when others find the key to turning it into a test of endurance. I'd love to have one of those long distance writing moments over my kabillion writing sprints, anytime.

Yet, Lorraine's hiatus got me thinking again of how long I have been at this thing here called culturekitchen.

I went through my records and found out that I got the domain back on December 21st of 2000. Once I put a little page up with the name while I contended with breastfeeding and terrible twos tantrums.

Sometime in the Spring of 2001 I already had put some stuff up --I was working on a couple of website projects at the time and so did it during ebbs of my consulting flow. This, by the way, while I also accepted a job as a technical writer --and yes, I was still breastfeeding.

2001 proved to be a banner year for us here in more ways than one. I quite my job because the cost of going back to work in hard money was far greater than my staying at home with the kids. My body also had not healed from the multiple injuries and ruptures I suffered while giving birth to my little one.

2000 had proven good to us in terms of art funding. Napier had gotten funding from Creative Capital as well as grants from the Jerome Foundation, NYFA, NYSCA, and other sources as well as privite collectors comissions --not the least in part to the great advice we got from Kathy Brew, the woman who used her position at the Lower Manhattan Culture Council to bring digital and netart to the attention of the New York art scene.

Then the world changed on September 11, 2001.

To pick up on a theme I alluded to last time, let's start with an excerpt from Part 2.

But perhaps the trickiest aspect to prove out of all of the aspects listed up there is “reasonable fear.” American legal requirements are fraught with these ideas and concepts of what a “reasonable” person would do and feel. The reasonable person standard has evolved over time from being a reasonable white male standard to being a more inclusive reasonable American citizen standard. Historically, the reasonable man standard excluded all women and males of color for a very long time. It excluded people with mental disabilities and children. As the needs and the values of each of these groups integrated into the American social fabric, the concept of what is reasonable to an American citizen has changed slightly. Plus, it’s a bit fearful for any marginalized group to realize that mainstream society — the society that feels almost at home when it’s excluding or ridiculing someone on the margins of opportunity — considers itself a beacon of reasonable progress.

Before I go any further, allow me to share the source of the series title because its implications bothered me then. They still bother me now.

Remember this clip?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3RjiVcIlhY

In the first few seconds, Richards tells African-American hecklers that 50 years ago, he and others would have them upside down with a f**king fork up their asses. And the audience laughs, howls, and cheers -- the same audience that files out of the club moments later when he starts calling the hecklers niggers.

In recommending legal remedies, you may note that I said a blogger has the building blocks of a case if they receive a bothersome threat. I felt reluctant to say that bloggers have absolute awesome odds of winning every legal case ever because each legal provision has its elements. If those elements are not satisfied, then the chances of prevailing in court (or even getting to court) are slim.

Let's take the provisions of cyberstalking as an example. To successfully bring a cyberstalking suit, the following must be proven:

(1) the defendant intentionally used the mail or any facility of interstate or foreign commerce;

(2) the defendant engaged in a course of conduct with the intent to place the victim in reasonable fear of death of, or serious bodily injury to, herself, her spouse or intimate partner, or a member of her immediate family; and

(3) the defendant’s course of conduct actually placed the victim in reasonable fear of death of, or serious bodily injury to, herself.

Now, if I'm learning my lawyering skills properly, it's our job to make sure we can prove every single facet of those elements true for the satisfaction of the court. We have to break down each element into its component parts and work on resolving the issues. So, for the first element, there are three things that we must find to satisfy it -- that the defendant in the case did the alleged behavior, that the behavior committed was intentionally done, and that the method used for doing it was "mail or any facility of interstate or foreign commerce." If it can be established that someone else used the defendant's computer to send the threatening message, there'd be a problem. If it could be established somehow that the defendant did not intend to use the device on which they sent the offending message, there'd be a problem. (And trust me, there are legal requirements for intent that sometimes defy common sense, and a good defense lawyer bills you highly to find them and to use them.) If the offending message was somehow not sent on the methods listed, there'd be a problem. So lawyers comb through each element, looking through little loopholes like those to worm through victories for clients on either side of the "v." in a case. It is not easy, and television makes it look easy, though the courtroom speeches and magical eloquence of actors inspire quite a few litigators, I'm sure.

So I guess you all have heard about the Kathy Sierra situation and the public outcry for ending online abuse because of her case, right? If not, take a look at Sierra's account and the horribly misogynistic threats left by anonymous and psuedonymous commenters and the resulting effects on her ability to blog and on her safety. Read BlogHer's response concerning hate speech and misogyny on the internet. Finally, check out this BBC article about the whole Sierra controversy and some brief remarks at Zuky concerning online abuse. (Hat tips to Carmen (via e-mail) and Kai for the information.)

I'm trying to fight my inclination to spiral all over the place with this entry; there are so many associations running through my mind. My mind enjoys weaving fragile patterns of analysis together, either with rope, with wire, or with webbing. But in doing such connections, sometimes I can lose a point or make too many of them at once. Bear with my mind and its impulsive blossoms of insight, please. This post has ruminated in my head for more than a day now. Though I'm writing in the evening currently, I don't expect to post until I've had a full night's sleep (or more) and time to review my writing.

You bloggers really are becoming the 800 pound Gorilla in the room.

That is what a good friend said to me today (paraphrased), I think with some surprise behind it. He will laugh that I am using that line, but in retrospect it really set the tone for this evening.

My friend is a major player in Brooklyn politics. I'd say who because I have lots good to say and he has some ambitions, but I think he prefers to keep his name out of the blogs. But today he said that bloggers have become the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room. I laughed and let it pass as we talked about local politics. But tonight I kept coming back to that statement as I stood, among some of the biggest big wigs of the party, and realized that it was true.

Yesterday a bunch of us got invited as guests to a major DCCC dinner in Manhattan honoring Nancy Pelosi. This really was playing with the big boys, and we got invited. The venue was Cipriani, a prime ballroom on Wall Street with Corinthian columns that make everyone, even Eliot Spitzer, look short. The ceiling is dilapidated and needs major restoration, but the rest of the place was spectacular...in a way that is gaudy and I largely dislike. But this is the kind of place where the big boys play.

I got there early. The doorman sneered at me, and asked in disbelief, "Are you a guest?" I said yes and he ushered me in. Largely he was the only one to condescend. With the exception of a few snotty big shots, people were very friendly and enthusiastic. I got a glass of red wine (an excellent Merlot) and was settling into observation mode. Just as a string quartet poised way up on a balcony began playing, Eliot Spitzer walked into the still largely empty room. I should have gone up and said hello.

Harry Reid is in da house ... and he's too mellow for my harshness. Man, he's so laid back. Yet people are eating up every single word coming out of his mouth.

That's celebrity leadership.

By the way, what is it with the gratuitous stand-up ovations?!?!