Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Picked up Sydney at the barn. On the way home, the radio played the first song I ever bought as a kid -- Freda Payne's "Band of Gold". A perfect bit of faux-Motown that may be, it occurs to me all these years later, a lament about impotence: "Love me like you tried before"? Hmm. Then the oldies station played "Brown Eyed Girl" for my brown-eyed girl and me. Nice. 7:10:37 PM    comment []

Reading Penthouse for the articles...or at least one article -- Halley has a short story in what might be the last-ever issue of the magazine. Send her $15, and she'll send you an autographed copy. Earlier this fall, the versatile Ms. Suitt published an article in the Harvard Business Review. She has not posed for either magazine, to the best of my knowledge, but she could pull it off. So to speak. 7:02:32 PM    comment []

It is obviously a good thing that Carolina is once again beating teams it should beat. Even better is the way they've been doing it. They are jumping on people and pummeling them. On top of all that, Thad's back. 3:10:00 PM    comment []

I sent the following email to NPR's All Things Considered program -- they don't list an email address for reporter Ari Shapiro -- about last night's story: enjoyed your piece (monday 11/24) on political blogging, until the quote at the end about the swiss army knife -- the reference to email, fundraising, and blogs as the Internet tools available to a state of the art campaign in late '03 is out of date. the swiss army knife already has some vital new tools.   here is a case study of the dean campaign that shows in some detail how social software is already as important or moreso than those technologies...   As yet, no response. 2:57:21 PM    comment []

Elizabeth Edwards: "I have found there is an element on online dialogue that is inhibiting to political candidates (and surrogates) and maybe also inhibiting to productive analysis generally -- and that is tone...an imperative of an entertaining edge." But good weblogs don't have to be glib. Glibness is a trap. Some of the best weblogs manage brevity of post through clarity of thought. Another way to avoid glibness is to participate in a full-fledged conversation with commenters and other bloggers, not just offer one-liners -- draw traffic by participating in something, not just playing to the crowd.  It's interesting to appply her critque of blogs that feel like marketing to the John Edwards campaign blog, which seems to be more staff-driven and less of a vibrant community hub than the Clark and Dean weblogs. 2:48:11 PM    comment []