Merry Christmas 2007

I hope today will be peaceful in the Middle East and that our women and men in uniform are able to connect with their loved ones.

Also, a special note for Aldon at Orient-Lodge, I hope life will get better for you and your family.

We are entertaining old friend for the next few days. He has no family to speak of, so the last 2-3 Xmases, we've had him with us. He's great company and an excellent helper in the kitchen as well. It's our view that we can always set a plate for one more.

I'm posting the DU 2007 Holiday Pets Video for your enjoyment. It's a montage of pets. JeffR wrote the first piece of music. It's wonderful.



Of course, I would be remiss in not mentioning John Edwards. At the Daily Kos, AJ WI has written a wonderful post called an Edwards Xmas Carol. Worth reading.

My best wishes to all of the bloggers who believe this man could turn our country around. I'm hoping next Xmas I'm making plans to go to the 2009 inaugural and seeing JRE sworn into office.

From our house to yours, have a very Merry Xmas.

Pax...

Friday Blog Spotlight: Orient Lodge

Haddy haddy ho, hoddy hoddy ho

BW Readers, I have another treat for you tonight. I am spotlighting another artist/entrepreneur-like blog. As you know, I wanted to do this every 2-3 weeks, but to be honest, once a month is what I have time to do.

Tonight's spotlight is on Orient Lodge, by Aldon Hynes in CT.

Aldon chooses to go by his real name when he posts anywhere; he is not like me or Digby, who are pseudomyous. I met Aldon online 18 months ago, maybe longer because I admired his work with the Dean Campaign, but more forcefully for John Edwards during the time we have been acquainted. As most of you know, Orient Lodge is on my blogroll.

Aldon has worked many places, including Wall Street, and has a great understanding of hedge fund management--and how it works. He has pointed out on more than one occasion that some of them are not evil, as portrayed by very far progressives, and the WSJ has chosen to do with Democratic candidates who worked for one, but for the right reasons: the understanding of those markets and what one could advise in the future to improve.

As BW readers know or if they don't by now, I am drawn to blogs who have balanced views about art, life, family, progressive politics, and just transparency, even through sharing of Flickr photos.

Aldon strikes me as someone who understands the rat race, and got away from it. He chose to first back Howard Dean in 2003-04 primaries. Not a bad choice. Dean was my second choice behind JRE.

But Aldon has the intellectual and emotional IQ of many bloggers. He is struggling yet loves his family and trying to make his entrepreneurial ventures work. Wall Streeters may not be following in his path, but as a business librarian, Aldon and Orient Lodge hit the middle for me. He's not defining centrists in their ideology, but what could work for all of us.

Via e-mail, I asked Aldon what he would like to accomplish through his blog and other posts. He replied with his current activities and interests about blogging and Second Life:

Hence, I have a mix of articles about Second Life, Wordless Wednesdays, talking about writing, whether it be NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, or my recently added section for poems. I try to reach to the bloggers in the other arenas, at home moms, homeschoolers, folks who try to connect using sites like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, BlogExplosion and so on. These are the people I want to reach. I want to write in a way that doesn't breakdown into troll rating wars. I want to touch the authentic American experience in all its beauty, the way Sen. Edwards celebrates American hereos.

Aldon Hynes and Orient Lodge, I salute you for what you post and enlighten us all.

Update: Aldon took notice of numbers through the blogs, and while my numbers aren't are good as many, he happened to notice my post about him. Thx Aldon! I like your posts, they fit the criteria I'm looking for. Hope some readers who vote may view it similarly.

Strength in Numbers

As Chancelucky alluded to on his comment on my last thread, Elizabeth Edwards has another health issue to tackle. As we await word (about 90 minutes from now), I found a post by Aldon Hynes at Orient Lodge that seemed to resonate with me about "the trick to being strong". With his permission, I am reposting its entirety here.

During my vacation, I found some time to start reading an advance copy of Jeffrey Feldman’s upcoming book, Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (And Win Elections). It is a great book that I hope anyone interested in politics spends some time reading.

We would do well to spend more time reading speeches of former leaders. The first speech analyzed is George Washington’s first inaugural address. He spoke about being called by “the voice of my country”. Feldman talks about the “humble servant” frame, of great leaders responding to a call by the country and a recognition that they it takes much more than just a great leader to solve our country’s problems, it takes the strength of the American people.
When my wife ran for State Representative in 2004, she reflected upon this theme in an address to the local Democratic Committee.

Perhaps I’ve been more involved than many people my age. I have always made it to the voting booth. However, other than voting, I never thought too much about my responsibility in the political process.

Then George W. Bush became president, and suddenly the America I grew up in seemed to be losing itself. A booming economy slowed to a trickle, and environmental legislation seemed to go backwards. September 11th happened, and then it seemed possible, for a brief moment, that we would come together as a nation and rally once more. We had the world’s sympathy and support. But that only lasted for a moment, and then we slipped even further into economic downturn and world isolation.

As I’ve watched the current presidential campaigns, I’ve wondered if anyone will embrace the humble servant frame. For the past forty years, our candidates have seemed to shun this frame. They have been caught up in the hero worship and the idea that if you vote for them, they will solve all our problems.

Gov. Dean challenged this idea by saying, “the biggest lie people like me tell people like you is that if you vote for me, I’ll solve all your problems. The truth is, you have the power.” Perhaps we, as a nation, are not at a place where we are ready to elect leaders that recognize and honor the power of the American people. I would have hoped that September 11th would have reminded us of that strength.

Yet as I’ve worked for campaigns and suggested that candidates admit that they don’t know everything and that they will need all the people around them working lend a hand, people looked at me as if I was nuts.

Perhaps I am, but I still have faith in the American People, in the empathy and compassion that made our country strong and has helped us through difficult times.

Today, we will see what sort of candidate one of the 2008 contenders is really is. Yesterday, John Edwards cancelled a campaign event to attend a doctor’s appointment with his wife Elizabeth. They will be having a news conference at noon, and ABC News is running with the headline Elizabeth Edwards' Health Could Halt Her Husband's Presidential Prospects.

Anyone who has helped a friend or family member fight something as devastating as cancer recognizes the wisdom that Elizabeth Edwards shared in her book Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers: "There's a trick to being strong," she wrote, "and the trick is that nobody does it alone."

While I hope that there are no new complications in Elizabeth’s health, I do hope John and Elizabeth use this as a moment to remind all of us in the strength of the American People when they offer and accept help from the people around us. I hope that we focus on much more than people posting blog posts and videos online and instead call everyone to help those around them, whether it be a large One Corps organized events, or something as simple as bringing a casserole to a neighbor having a tough time. I hope that such actions help heal our country and move us closer to One America where we reach out not only to people like us, but to those who are different from ourselves.

Will Senator Edwards and his wife be able to return the leadership of our country to one that honors, listens to and recognizes the importance of relying on all the American people? I hope that will be the silver lining in the clouds of Elizabeth’s battle with cancer.

Amen, Aldon, and prayers for Elizabeth.

Benny's World Linkages: Introducing New Blogs & Familiar Ones

BW readers may note I've added some new sites to my blogroll. Here they are and my comments.

Ezra Klein's blog is a good one. He's pretty fair about questioning any Dem (or Repub) on their ideas or issues. I also like his weekend volunteers there and on TAPPED. I have been getting to know a couple of them now personally via e-mails I send them. I met Ezra in Iowa when Edwards announced his candidacy on December 28th to the MSM. I was impressed how someone of his youth (sorry Ezra, you are like JRE, you are youthful looking, and it's because you are, with idealism, I think, with a mix of pragmatism) has already been on C-SPAN a couple of times and is a rising star as a pundit.

Aldon Hynes is the blog master of Orient Lodge. Hynes' posts appeal to me as Chancelucky's do because he finds 2 x 2 are 4 and 4 x 4 are 16. Hynes looks for patterns of ideas coming together, and finds them on a variety of topics. He also finds good articles to post to Newstrust, something I'm still trying to give better critiques of news articles, as opposed to Digg, which is more on what's popular, and generally more techie. Yes, in case you want to know, Hynes has been a technical consultant on the Dean and Lamont blogs, and he supports Edwards. He gets paid as a professional blogger (and rightfully so, he has a few blogads, and other gigs going, I am surmising) and I say, more power to him as he does a great job, whereas I am still learning so much from what he writes and does.

I hope Hynes reads Chancelucky's blog, as Iddybud does.

In a recent e-mail, I mentioned to Hynes that Chancelucky writes superb reviews in the world of entertainment, and still manages to find the socio-political linkages that I appreciate when I've missed them.

All of these places provide linkages to the patterns. They write from intuition, but are good at providing details to support their posts.

A great renaissance of diary writing--all on the Net.

And sometimes, not. I misspell or mistype constantly.