Watermark

Meet the Montana Political Bloggers

  Montana’s online activists are changing the balance of power in Democratic politics. Would you let these men drive your campaign?

Thus asks the Missoula Independent, in an article by John S. Adams, available online. The article is based on a birthday party for Jon Tester, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, so most of the bloggers present were from that side of the political spectrum -- but the article is broader than that:

Democrats across the country are taking notice of the new power-shifting movement within their party. The netroots are doing a better job of organizing grassroots support and framing issues than many highly paid political consultants, and they’re doing it for almost nothing. In a Montana U.S. Senate campaign that could see spending top $10 million (most of that coming from Burns’ war chest) Tester has embraced that movement and is relying heavily on the netroots to help him defeat the incumbent come November.

There are photos and profiles of several folks with whom we are familiar, if not personally, then blogally: Wulfgar!, Shane Mason, Pogie, Eric Coobs, Matt Singer, and Touchstone.

Hmm, no women. Interesting.

[Crossposted from The Big Sky Blog]

BlogDay 2006

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest . . . post a recommendation of five new blogs . . .

Not long ago I posted a list of 10 Blogs You Should Be Reading -- so I refer you there, and add five more for you to check out:

• Within/Without: Arbitrary Obsessions. Cities. History. Music. Feminism. Maami-isms. Patterns. Identities. Free Verse. by Neha Viswanathan
• under the fire star: an outsider in Chennai. by Nancy Gandhi
• (autobiology) by Siona
• little.red.boat: by Anna Pickard
• OKIR: by Jean Vengua

I've been reading all of these for quite a long time.

And I just noticed, they're all blogs by women.

Poetry Thursday

   Today I'm just playin' around...

 

Some of these links I've posted before:

Poetry Tool.  Via Ample Sanity

My girl poet name is Amanda Blatherfroth. My boy poet name is Sir Francis De La Smarme. What's yours? Hers. His.  Also via Ample Sanity, of course.

Others are new:

Magnetic Poetry
randomly generated beat poetry
NobodyHere [dunno what to tell you -- except use your mouse liberally]
depictr

And finally, today's challenge: The Poetry Cube:

The Poetry Cube (the first of three interactive digital poetic machines) acts as a bridge for print poets to rethink/create/write their poems in a 3-D, multi-dimensional, multi-linear form. We havent yet figured out how many different combinations one 16 lines poem creates once entered into the Poetry Cube, so explore and play and tell us your thoughts on how it makes you rethink your writing.  -- Jason Nelson

And this is a challenge, to write, non-linearly. Sort of three-dimensionally. Awkwardly.

I gave it a try:

Click for larger image

Explore. You will find more successful attempts -- there are a few familiar names on that list.

Go. Write.

Street Sign Generator via Revolving Duck.

Snapshot Poem 30 August 02006

It's not yet September
but the morning light
pales winter-dim. Forests
burn; our air thickens
with ashes and smoke.

I've pulled the rugs,
blankets, long-sleeved
shirts and heavy sheets
from the dark backs
of closets. There is no

poetry in me, only
lethargy and pain.
I resist, resist, this
cooling season. Vines
still bend with ripening

berries and yellow plum
tomatoes; honeysuckle
and roses bloom their final
flush. The parakeets sing
from their ornamental cage.

Official Watermark Seal

From Official Seal Generator via The Generator Blog

Anniversary

Last year, about this time, I was in a funk before Katrina struck, and then -- in my deep nest in front of the television -- sunk further down.

I watched Americans pleading for help that did not come, and did not come -- knowing with a dark certainty at my center that if these Americans had been white and shiny, waving from Connecticut roofs, help would have come much sooner. And yes, I do, still, believe this.

I thought I would never forget; I thought I would remember every day.

But I do forget. Days have passed without thought of this; a thoughtlessness that I, white and northern and safe (as safe as any of us) in my little house, can afford.

I checked the Thesaurus; nearly all synonyms for anniversary are celebratory: ceremony, festival, holiday... 

Last year, I was wordless for some time. Today, I repost the first poem I wrote after Katrina-- a commemoration:

Snapshot 21 September 02005

bird cries lift me
from the shallow
surface of sleep

while i slept
flood walls broke
southern cities drowned

these northern hills
bleached tan
the maples turn

birches rustle
storms swirl
lifting the sea

south and north
autumn comes
north and south

the darkening

 

 

Davi went to the market...

Equality Day

At the behest of Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY), in 1971 the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day.”

The date was selected to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.  This was the culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York.

We take this for granted, but my grandmother didn't. Montana gave women the right to vote in 1914, and then elected the first female member of Congress. From Wikipedia:

Jeannette Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and the first female member of Congress. A Republican and a lifelong pacifist, she was the only member of Congress to vote against United States entry into both World War I and World War II. Additionally, she led resistance to the Vietnam War.           

Jeannette Rankin was born not far from where I'm sitting right now, and her work continues at the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center here in Missoula.

Take the NWHP Women's Equality Day Quiz!, then update your herstory.

Still Feeling Evil?

Inspired by yesterday's post, a few evil kitty cats:

www.flickr.com More photos in My Cat is Evil

These cats hate you:

www.flickr.com More photos in ^^This Cat Hates You^^

And no wonder:

www.flickr.com More photos in Cats in costume

Don't be messin' with Spike, either:

For some no doubt kinder, gentler creatures, try:

Friday Ark
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Cats
Carnival of the Dogs
Circus of the Spineless
Weekend Cat Blogging

May you all have a lovely weekend. And if you're bored, just reload the page for new photos.

May you not be that bored.

Friday Squirrel