| 4.29.2004
So
they finally opened the WW2 memorial in D.C.
The images
I've found of it make it look really beautiful,
and, if I must say so myself, it looks damn good on
the front page. I think photos of that shape look better,
and it's better to have a bigger photo than to have
a lot of text (since there's too much text on the page
already).
I
called Jesse yesterday from the grocery store parking
lot to inform him that I was planning to quit my secondary
job and move into Raw full time. It looks like revenues
are good enough for that. But don't you get it in your
head that "if we have all this money, why don't
we pay contributors?" I'm talking enough money
to pay my half of the rent; we never make more than
$2/hour. You gotta start somewhere, I guess.
I
don't know if you saw this headline yesterday, I think
I put it up two days ago: Putin
calls for ban on public rallies. Now I
don't know what this means to you, but to me the freedom
of assembly is one of the cornerstones of democracy.
He's already done away with freedom of the press (none
of the news television stations are independently operated),
and most stations carry his daily doings as the lead
story every single day even if he's just, well, going
to the dry cleaner. I think it's frankly scary the kind
of road he's taking, and the fact that the U.S. is continuing
its merry little "don't step on my toes I won't
step on yours" sort of policy with Putin in the
same way it does with Musharraf (who recently announced
he probably won't be abandoning his post as head of
the military).
On
the home front, I'm starting to worry again that good
ol' Dubya isn't going to be re-elected. People keeping
say in forums around the web that Kerry isn't really
doing a great job positioning himself right now. My
thought is that he has to spend his cash before the
Democratic convention, so why not get started? Ol' Dubya
has been spending like a racehorse pissing. Okay, that
wasn't quite the simile I was looking for. But you get
the idea.
Posted
by John at 10:04 a.m.|
|
4.28.2004
One
more thing:
We
got this from one of our readers. It's a re-touchup
of one of Jesse's wonderful photos from D.C. No relationship
to those ads that have been copyright. None at all.
So
I haven't been posting to our fabulous blog. Mea culpa!
Mea maxima culpa! I've been preoccupied with a spate
of problems, from the malfunctioning site meter that
may or may not appear at the very bottom of this page
-- some browsers might say: "Connecting to s11.sitemeter.com"
and never get there. The key, I guess, is to add the
code at the bottom of the page so that if it doesn't
load, its no big deal.
Then,
Haloscan stopped functioning, the site that does our
commenting scripts. Now it seems to be working intermittently.
If you see that their aren't comment options on a few
articles, this is why.
Some
funny news is that we're receiving a shitload of referrals
from http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com
(on the links page), an amusing site if you haven't
already checked it out. I really wanna know who did
his PR campaign, because we sure as hell could have
used it. Goes to show you that you can still win with
a ridiculously long URL.
The
number of sites linking to us has passed 2,000, now
sitting at 2,074.
Updated
by John at 5:50 p.m.|
|
I'm
SO nervous right now. As I write, Pennsylvania's moderate
Republican Senator Arlen Specter is fight for his life
against conservative challenger Pat Toomey. I just looked
at PoliticsPA.com
and they are reporting that with 77% reporting, Specter
is just TWO points ahead (51% 49%)--and that may not
even take into account a 95,000 vote error that Bucks
County erroneously credited to Specter. It's so close
and I'm praying that Specter goes down in flames!
As
any faithful Editors' Blog knows, not only am I based
in Boston, but am a native of St. Paul, Minnesota. And
of course, I'm not a Republican. Why then, you may ask,
am I so invested in a Pennsylvania GOP primary? In 2002,
while a student at Oberlin College, I was in a program
that placed selected students with political campaigns
throughout the country. My placement was with Joe
Hoeffel's campaign for reelection to the Pennsylvania
13th congressional district seat. This year, Hoeffel
is Democratic candidate for Senate from Pennsylvania.
The generally accepted knowledge in the state is that
Hoeffel would have a strong edge over Tim Toomey in
the general election, because PA is an overwhelmingly
moderate state (Governor Ed Rendell is a Clinton Democrat,
and the wholly ineffective Homeland Security Czar and
former Governor Tom Ridge is a pro-choice moderate Republican)
and Toomey's conservative credentials are on par with
John Ashcroft. However, if Specter makes it through,
my boy Joe will have a tough time because the incumbent
draws strong support from traditionally Democratic constituencies
like
labor, trial lawyers, and Philly Jews!
The
race is far from over, even now at midnight. I'm praying
for a Toomey victory, so we can ensure an R to D shift
in at least one seat this November. But we probably
won't know until morning, so I hope I can sleep tonight...
On
another note, if you tried to post a comment on my blog
yesterday, you probably noticed it didn't work. That's
because I messed up the scripts. So, go ahead Jeff Schwarz,
this is perfect fodder for you to criticize me.
Posted
by Jesse
at 12:00 a.m.|
|
4.27.2004
I'm back in town and it seems
like for the three days I was away a whole lotta stuff
changed at Raw Story. Some ads are gone, others are
added, traffic is soon to be up...and the weather is
beautiful in Boston!
Actually, the weather sucks, but
I'm trying to make a point. Who in the hell are the
losers who go out of their way to make useless comments
about how much they dislike our blog? I don't mean folks
who simply disagree with us like our friend Brad or
Jeff Schwarz, but the anonymous people the say "get
over yourself" or "no one cares about the
weather in Boston." Unless I'm mistaken, no one
is forcing you to read our site. Though, if people were
forced to read Raw Story, it may be a good way to up
our traffic.
At any rate, I am back in Boston
after my brief journey to D.C. for the March for Women's
lives. It was an amazing experience and I don't think
I've ever seen that many people before in my life. While
estimates have varied from 500,000 to a million attendees,
this was certainly one of the largest marches in Washington
history. It was so empowering to hear from such great
leaders as Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem, among
others, who eloquently spoke of the need to defeat this
fascist regime in order to preserve each individuals
rights to privacy and self-determination.
On the other hand, despite the
size and energy of the march, I'm not sure how effective
it will be in ensuring a progressive victory this November.
A million people is great, but I'd bet each one of the
voting-age people in attendance were already planning
on voting against Bush. Because the so-called "President"
consistently hovers around 50% in polls, no matter how
much things are fucked in Iraq, or how devastating the
domestic economy is, the only way we can ensure his
defeat is to register and engage new voters--specifically
those 18 - 25 year-olds who turned out en masse for
the huge anti-war protests last year but haven't voted
since they came of age. The problem with the march is
that this simply didn't seem to be the focus. The most
that happened was one speaker who told everyone to look
to the person beside them and ask if they're registered
to vote. Right. That'll do a lot.
Of
course, a lot of this rests on John Kerry and his being
able to galvanize these people, specifically to convince
them he is a true progressive and a real reason NOT
to vote for Ralph Nader.
In that case, perhaps I should
begin my Canadian naturalization soon.
Posted
by Jesse at 12:34 a.m.|
|
4.26.2004
Photos
from the women's rights protest in Washington, by Jesse
Kanson-Benanav. All of the photos (in ridiculously large
file sizes) can be seen at http://www.kanson-benanav.com/dc/.
Jesse will add more here tonight. The bottom one is
Jesse with "that guy from the TV commercials who
humps national monuments," according to Jesse.
Jesse is on the right in that photo.
I
guess I just have delusions of grandeur. I was hoping
that, with our new front page ad and little tag saying
advertise for just $7/day, that I would wake up with
ads up the wazoo. But not so, or at least, not yet.
Personally, I think its an eminently affordable price
and a good bargain. But I'm, well, a little biased.
So
the number of sites linking to us has climbed to 1,689,
a three week increase of about three times. Hopefully
some of these folks are using the new "link to
us" icon. If you've already linked to us from your
page, consider using the new icon -- it looks more professional
and also provides people a little more information to
entice them to click.
Ok,
I just added a little too much sugar to my
macaroni and cheese.
Jesse
will be back today, provided isn't intercepted by the
CIA on his way home. Expect a bunch of exclusive photos
from the march on D.C.
In
other news, I've been hearing a little chatter about
the fact we add too many stories too often and thereby
make it hard for people to pass along Raw Story to colleagues
for specific stories -- they've often slipped off the
page by the time they've gotten to the site again. I'm
going to try and reduce the turnaround a little. But
bear in mind that that was the whole reason we created
Raw Story Midday and Raw Story Evening.
Posted
by John at 11:15 a.m.|
|
4.25.2004
So
you're probably sitting there scratching your head,
saying to yourself, "Something looks different
about Raw Story, but I just can't put my finger on it."
What's different? We got rid of the leaderboard advertisement
at the top of the main page! We're also adding a nice
new little ad from David Dvorkin, whose book, "Business
Secrets of the Stars," you should definitely
check out. Kudos to David for placing the first locally
hosted ad on the site.
Got
your own site you'd like to advertise? Get an ad now
while the rates are cheap -- ads
start at just $7/day, and with PayPal payment, they
can be added to the site almost instantly.
Jesse's
down in D.C., where he just took part in the huge women's
rights march. C-SPAN apparently said it was the largest
Washington march ever, at about one million people,
but some estimates place it as low as 450,000.
I'm sure it was a blast to be there.
Posted
by John at 10:13 p.m.|
|
4.24.2004
First
off, we got a comment in the forums that says no one
cares about Boston weather. Well too fucking bad. It's
our blog, and if you want to visit articles relevant
to "the site," you're welcome to visit the
main page or the myriad archived exclusives linked from
the editorials page. Or if you're really bored, head
to the archives. Read the forum discussions. And don't
be so lame as to not even register and post a one-line
critique.
I
have a lot of damn stuff to tell you about today. Let's
start with the site (ahem, yes, the site -- see, we
don't always talk about weather). I've spent the better
part of the last two days tweaking Raw Story for search
engine optimization, primarily (to start) around the
keywords "breaking news," "alternative
news," "liberal news" and "liberal
politics." I'm not going to get into all the sneaky
tactics ;) -- but suffice it to say I think we'll start
pulling more of our weight in Google. One of the more
interesting things I discovered is that Google apparently
puts a lot of weight into the URL, hence the URL for
this page should probably be something like "editor_blog"
rather than "eblog," but I don't intend to
rescript the site for that. However, all exclusives
will now start getting more descriptive titles in the
URL themselves. And we've set up forwarding subdomains
(the first one should be working, it's at http://breaking-news.rawstory.com)
to see if this helps us any.
Concurrently,
I was aghast to discover that there wasn't even a META
tag for keywords on the page -- it must have been accidentally
deleted along the way. To build it, I borrowed from
some high ranking sites in the breaking news search
category, and made sure that they were also repeated
both in the title, the description and on the page.
For
anyone looking to optimize you own page in the search
engines, checking out http://forums.seochat.com
is a must. And this ad-hoc page, Google
ranking factors list, also provides some insight
into the closely-held algorithm that dictates Google
searches.
Most
are aware of the fact that having sites linking back
to you is a major boost in all search engines; I'm proud
to announce that among a host of different engines,
our site is currently tracked back from 1,293 pages.
In the past two weeks we've more than doubled the number
of sites linking back to us, largely through my tireless
emailing of sites that link to sites similar to ours.
We're
also going to be attracting more traffic now because
Google has somehow boosted the power of our advertising,
expanding our Google ads to a litany of news sites and
other content providers. In the past day, we've drawn
traffic from such sites as USA Today and About.com,
among others. Google charges five cents a click, which
we obviously don't make back, but exposure is critical
to our success. If the visitor keeps coming back, we've
made our money back and more.
In
some sad news, for any Oberlin alums out of the loop,
Oberlin's Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith has died,
after a quick and virulent battle with pancreatic cancer.
Associate Dean Bill Stackman is now acting dean; he
is, however, departing for Tennessee at the end of this
year.
Posted
by John at 4:59 p.m.|
|
4.23.2004
Well
look at me, posting a blog entry two days in a row!
Isn't that unusual? Actually, I wanted to write something
to let you all know that, yet again, I will be out of
town this weekend and most likely unable to write anything
until Monday. Because of my frequent habit of leaving
the Boston area, John is starting to get on my case.
Honestly though I don't blame him. He already does a
majority of the work on the site, and when I go away
it means he has to pick up the slack. So I've promised
him that this is my last outing for some time, and that
he should really get his ass out of Cambridge. By now,
for all of my getaways, I probably owe him three weekends
of non-stop Raw Story work.
I
couldn't resist going away this time, however, because
I'm planning on attending the March
for Women's Lives in D.C. Among all the civil liberties
that have come under attack by the neocons and religious
conservatives in the White House, a woman's right to
make private decisions about her own body and effectively
determine the future course of her entire life is most
at stake. Already they have used misinformation to ban
the "late-term" abortion procedure, and advance
misnamed "woman's right to know" laws that
spread disproven "facts" about abortion and
breast cancer links. These men (and yes, it is only
men--did you see the picture of the smiling men huddling
around Bush as he grimaces and signs the late-term ban)
are despicable and must be stopped! I expect this march
in D.C. to be one of the largest we've seen in recent
times. Hopefully it'll spell the end of the Bush regime.
Speaking
of the president and abortion, has he secured the Pope's
endorsement or something? The Vatican released a directive
that Priests should not give the holy sacrament to politicians
that support abortion rights. This is clearly directed
at John Kerry, and seems to be motivated by a desire
to sway Catholic voters away from him. My question...what
does the Vatican think of politicians who support capital
punishment?
Posted
by Jesse at 7:43 P.M. |
|
4.22.2004
FYI:
This is a blog entry I meant to post yesterday. But
I am a jackass and completely forgot to upload it to
the server. One thing I do want to add is in response
to the smart-ass who commented on my last blog (4/22):
Get
over yourself.
Anonymous | 04.16.04 - 2:39 pm | #
If
you self-righteous prick don't like what I have to say,
don't read my damn blog.
Now, back
to our regularly scheduled program...
I
hate how often I start blog entries with the phrase,
"Yes, I am still alive." Alas, today is no
different. I've been back in Boston since Monday evening,
but have not had time to write anything here. But I
have exciting news, so now is as great a time as ever
to write again.
As John mentioned last week, I believe, we have been
discussing plans to organize a Raw Fundraiser in Boston
(and eventually New York and San Francisco). Tonight,
I am happy to announce that we have initial agreement
from a band that is interested in performing. Their
name is Dusky Silo,
and they are a new band based here in Boston. I’ve
been able to see them perform a couple times, and they
are quite good. We are hoping to get something arranged
with them in the next couple months, and another event
in May or June with a few more groups. So look out for
new development on this front in the days to come.
On
a completely different note, I am disappointed to tell
you that here at Raw Story we overlooked the story of
the century last month. I was watching a rerun of that
crappy talk show with Craig Kilborne tonight, and a
clip of Pete Rose’s induction into the Professional
Wrestling Hall of frame in late March. You can see an
article about the event over at ProWrestling.com.
The same article has an interesting piece about World
Wrestling Entertainment’s choice to drop Roman
Numerals from the WrestleMania title.
Posted
by Jesse at 12:00 A.M. |
|
4.21.2004
Good
to see a prescription drug import bill on the floor.
They will probably need to be myriad before anything
really gets hammered through, but I think its becoming
so much a bipartisan issue that it seems imminent, though
doubtful in an election year. There's no sound justification
for the subsidies Americans pay prescription drug companies
in overpriced drugs. A few state attorneys' general
have taken to calling Big Pharma "the other drug
cartel." And with good reason.
We're
starting to get posted about on other people's blogs,
which is increasing our base readership significanting,
now to about a solid 4,000-5,000 unique visitors a day.
To get to a point where we can pay two full-time positions
tho, we're going to need about a sixfold increase in
revenue. It isn't unrealistic, but certainly challenging.
Once we get there, we'll have the leeway we need to
afford to pay writers.
And
for writers that are reading this -- visiting our advertisers
helps immensely. Click a few each time you visit and
we're on the road to success. There's plenty of interesting
offers, at least to click. You don't need to buy anything.
For
writers, I have a persistent qualm I just wanted to
mention: PLEASE (oh please) keep your commas inside
quotation marks. All punctuation goes inside quotation
marks in U.S. AP style, and its a very tedious task
to have to reformat every quotation. Much appreciated!
Posted
by John at 10:48 A.M. |
|
4.20.2004
Nice!
I actually have something to write about! Not much,
really, but it was incredibly exciting to see an ad
for John Kerry in this space, even though I've publicly
asserted that I'm not going to vote for him because
of his stance on the gay marriage amendment in Massachusetts
(amend the constitution, he says -- no marriage for
gays, only civil unions. [My take on that is that it
is separate but equal all over again, taking a page
from the segregationists playbook]) and of late for
his stance on the Rantisi killing.
But
the point is, we've got a little John Kerry ad, that
we made 20 cents every time someone clicks. Now, don't
y'all go clicking away fastidiously, but you can if
you want. It takes you to a donation page. Lord knows
I'm not donating for that man. My boyfriend wrote two
checks to Howard Dean (lotta good that did him).
I
love our little front page bit about Condoleezza Rice
calling Bush her 'husband.' Now THAT would be scandal
for the times; a mixed-race baby on a Georgetown doorstep,
courtesy of the Casa Blanca.
Posted
by John at 11:09 A.M. |
|
4.19.2004
Monday!
It's supposed to get up to the mid-eighties here in
Boston, temperatures we haven't seen in nine months.
Time to dig up that air conditioner I lugged upstairs
from the trash collection that had "This works!"
penned on it in permanent marker. I sure as hell hope
so. That thing was heavy.
The
latest troubling thing to come out of the Woodward book
is that Bush
spent $700 million that was intended by Congress as
Afghan aid to prepare for his dirty little war in Iraq.
Like I said before, it's great to see Woodward's publisher
leaking stuff out bit by bit, with each story making
the headlines on separate days.
What
else is new?
Jesse,
in theory, is back from his weekend jaunt to New York
City. He now owes me two weekends! Sarah, our marketing
manager, has written her first column on Jabe, an arrogant
musician of the eponymous band. We're actually going
to be advertising for interns at her alma mater, Smith,
to help us out with a number of things this summer.
Finally,
it's unsettling to see that the UK is now following
the U.S. lead on fronts other than wars -- they've now
quietly slashed environmental protection funding. I
would think on an island as small as that they'd have
grasped the meaning of "don't shit where you eat."
And
the Sox lead the Yankees in their home series, two games
to one.
Posted
by John at 9:34 A.M. |
|
4.17.2004
Update:
This killing of Rantisi is so fucked up. Obviously,
Hamas is a terrorist organization. Obviously, any leader
of Hamas is, in many peoples' eyes, a criminal. I don't
contest his culpability in the whole series of suicide
attacks. But it is NOT just, and it is NOT a way a nation
state does business.
The
"policy of assassination" goes against international
law, and against the basic realpolitik of nation states.
Even the most basic International Relations class will
tell you this -- the reason why is because it creates
a situation of anarchy, in which all leaders are subject
to attack. As numerous experts have remarked, including
to the BBC this evening, "It is more likely to
strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority."
The
road to peace is NOT paved with assassination.
Furthermore,
this kind of action solidifies the positions of the
Arab "street" against the United States when
the U.S. won't condemn these types of assassination.
It's frankly disgusting to see that the U.S. is now
accepting assassinations as a status quo policy of any
nation state.
Nothing
less than appalling.
Final
Sox score, a 6-2 win. NY Times headline: "Red Sox
give Alex Rodriguez a rude welcome to rivalry."
The NY Post put it more bluntly, "CURSES!"
It's
pleasing to see that Bob Woodward's new book, unlike
his earlier, sycophantic "Bush at War," is
a bit more acerbic in its portrayal of the Administration
and its long-held plan to obliterate Iraq. I'm also
pleased that his PR person is letting the book leak
out in bits, so that big media has covered various angles
of the story in new articles each day. None of it, really,
is at all surprising, but it may weaken Bush among undecided
voters who are fed up with his disingenuousness.
Certainly
it was also pleasant to see Karl Rove's mea culpa over
the "Mission Accomplished" banner, which now
seems sourly ironic, given how many Americans have been
killed in Iraq this month. And Iraqis, for that matter.
From a pragmatic perspective, the idea of a mission
accomplished may be decades away in terms of bringing
full and fertile democracy to Iraq. The other possibility,
which no one seems to be floating, is that Iraq will
recede into a nation of warlords like Afghanistan. More
probable is that Iraq won't be the democracy America
envisions, rather it will be a nation ruled by some
iteration of Islamic law, and likely be a one-party
state (at the least), like the inchoate democracy of
South Africa.
For
all of you Jesse-lovers, he's away all weekend, so you
won't be hearing from him for a bit.
Updated
by John at 10:32 P.M. |
|
4.16.2004
Update
2: Sox looking to win, 6-2 in the 7th.
Update:
The Red Sox are nailing the Yankees now, 4-0, after
only the first inning -- the Yankees made errors, and
then two home runs for the Sox. I was expecting to turn
in on and see that they were already behind, after that
pounding they got by the Blue Jays the other day....By
the way, have you read our piece on Pat
Buchanan?
WHOA!
When did Ellis Burks rejoin the Red Sox? I remember
his Topps card from the 1980s... He was originally drafted,
in fact, by the Red Sox in 1983...
This
morning: Jesus, Jesse. When I got up today and went
to update, I was greeted by this headline:
Officials
remove divisive abortion language from Minnsota state
website
What's
wrong, you ask? Let's all look up Minnsota in our trusty
dictionaries. You can't find it? But we all know Jesse's
home state of Minnsota, right? Or should we pronounce
it Minn-soda? I must say, Jesse, I think your parents
have a right to worry if you can't remember how to spell
your own state!
Anyway,
I'm up disgustingly early because today's the day I've
got to work at the office. I'm hoping to switch the
day I work so it's more amenable with Jesse's work schedule,
because on Fridays Jesse doesn't have a chance in hell
of updating since he's never at the computer.
But
I will hand it to Jess for picking a nice clean picture
for the front page lead photo. Nice work, Jess! I'm
going to start calling you Jess from now on. What's
the letter "e" between friends?
Posted
by John at 8:28 P.M. |
|
4.15.2004
I'm famous! I had a letter to the editor printed in the Boston Metro today. John was angry to hear that the letter had nothing to do with Raw Story.
For
those of you who don't live in Boston, Philadelphia
or one of the many European cities with versions of
the newspaper, the Metro is an international corporation
that prints free newspapers and distributes them to
commuters on public transit systems. Because it is free,
their income is only dependent on ads (as opposed to
subscriptions and purchases) so the paper tends to be
more supermarket circular-esque as opposed to a newspaper.
It's not us usual then, to find articles that are only
one sentence long and only there to take up space between
ads. For instance I have a coworker with gout, and I
found him an article from the metro that said: "Researches
find possible cure for gout." That's it. Nothing
more. Needless to say, my coworker was not impressed.
So it's really not a big deal at all that I was able to have my letter printed. In fact, this is the second one of mine that they've printed in the past six months. I find that as long as I respond to something that was published in the paper, and do so in a sarcastic/humorous voice, they're sure to print it. Yesterday I was reading an article about a proposed bioterror lab in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, and a letter that leading physicians, physicists, and Nobel Laureates in the area wrote in opposition. The president of the city council responded in the article, saying that these scientists are "misguided" and just "playing into people's fears of the unknown."
My letter:
After
my initial hesitancy about the proposed bioterror lab
in Roxbury, I was heartened to hear such convincing
assurances of safety from Michael Flaherty. Obviously,
the Council President with his background in law is
much more knowledgeable about such issues than some
know-it-all physicians, biologists, and Nobel Laureates!
Forget the doctor, next time I'm feeling sick I'm going
down to City Hall!
Cute,
huh? My last letter they printed was ripping into some
jackass who said that professional athletes have such
a hard life, and that we should really not be so tough
on those Yankee thugs that beat up a Red Sox fan during
the playoffs last year. The gist of it was: "Oh
boo hoo hoo. Professional athletes have it so rough,
making multimillion dollar salaries, living in huge
multimillion square foot homes. You want to know rough?
Try being a single mother living on a minimum income
that forces you to choose between feeding your kids
or paying the rent..."
I
know none of this interests any of our readers. But
I have some down time at work and I wanted to appease
the obnoxious"anonymous fan" who posted a
response to John wondering where I've been for two
whole days. Well, you've got
another thing coming because I'm going out of town this
weekend. God only knows when my "anonymous fan"
will hear from me next. Got it mom?
Posted
by Jesse at 2:07 P.M. |
|
Addendum:
I remembered something I intended to include in today's
blog, a bit of comment about Oliver Stone's feature
on Fidel Castro, which HBO screened yesterday evening.
As
the Times said in their own review, the crux of what
one got out of the piece was that Castro is aged and
weak. Despite his military garb, the man looks worn.
I would go further: Castro's answers are tired. Each
time Stone asks him about dissidents, Fidel remarks
that all of them are funded by the United States (he
adds that only .02 percent of the popular are truly
dissidents). It's just sad to watch this man stumble
answer over answer, really, despite the fact that he's
executed numerous "dissidents" without appeal,
the most recent and notorious being those who tried
to hijack a plane to fly for asylum to the United States,
who were killed within eight days of their offense.
Also,
some fun stuff from the Wall Street Journal: "Orthodox
Patriarch Bartholomew I accepted Pope John Paul II's
apology for Crusaders' sacking of Constantinople in
1204, boosting reconciliation."
If
only Bush could do the same.
In
the comments on the blog yesterday, an 'anonymous fan'
inquired where Jesse has been. and I have to confess
that I don't know! I mean, he's been around in the evenings,
albeit late, but he must be cooking up some new scientific
invention or something to aid community development,
since he's doing, as one reader put it, "God's
work" so much of the time.
I
took a bold move and threw the Bin Laden story across
all the columns; I don't intend to do it often but I
think it's a really big story, the first time al Qaeda
has hinted at the fact that they're struggling to manage
so many fronts at once. And all these new organizations
saying 'Bin Laden' instead of Bin Laden (implying that
we don't know it's Bin Laden), I think its quite misleading,
as every tape that has been analyzed by the CIA said
to be Bin Laden has been verified. Sure, it's good to
fly on the safe side, but it's a pretty surefire bet
that it is Bin Laden himself.
Don't
think I've ever typed Bin Laden so many times in one
paragraph!
It's
great to see so many people engaged in discussions in
the comment section of pieces, but we'd like to move
the discussion to the
forums. If you haven't signed up, please do -- it's
free an offer an interactive and responsible way to
engage others (in that you have to post under a registered
name).
Finally,
I threw the survey cube up on the front page; hopefully
that will draw more people to fill it out. We're only
about halfway to the 200 we need to be eligible for
higher-paying, more relevant ads.
Updated
by John at 12:48 P.M. |
|
4.14.2004
Traffic
miraculously seems to be on an upswing, despite the
fact that we're not spending a lot of money on advertising,
which is a great sign. I think our new design deserves
some credit, both for its faster loading and easier
interface. This should keep people coming back who were
fed up with the site before. We've also turned a lot
of our popups off for large swaths of the day, which
can't hurt either.
I'm
thrilled to announce we're going to plan some Raw Story
D.J. nights, the first one to be held in the Boston
area, probably in three weeks or so. The idea will be
that we reserve a bar and bring one of Jesse's many
D.J. friends, charge a nominal cover charge (maybe $10
-- we've got to make this site profitable somehow, and
raise more money for advertising), and have a good ol'
time. If it works out well, we plan to stage D.J. nights
in other cities, most notably San Francisco and New
York.
I'm
also excited to introduce Sarah Bayle, who is going
to help out with marketing the site. Her boyfriend,
Jason, will likely help us in a professional redesign
as well.
As
far as the news is concerned, I have to hand it to the
Russians this week for the craziest spate of news I've
ever seen flow from the post-Soviet continent. First,
a Russian MP proposed banning practice of the Saudi
brand of Islam (sheer brilliance), and now another has
compared the Kyoto protocol with Auschwitz. That, I
think, is truly offensive, and a disgusting political
ploy.
By
the way, does anyone know what trackbacks really mean,
and how we could get one?
Addendum:
We just received a job inquiry that began, "Dear
concerned authorities." I don't think I ever thought
of myself in such a way before.
Updated
by John at 2:22 P.M. |
|
4.13.2004
My
new computer has arrived (and I know you really care!)
But it does mean good things for the site; the redesign
that would have taken days on my old computer took but
hours, and I've been able to update more frequently
than before. It's also just a damn pleasure for me to
have a computer that's more like a Corvette and less
like, well, Ralph Nader's infamous Ford Pinto. And a
17" flat screen monitor is no joke -- it's so ridiculously
big. I feel like an actual professional doing an actual
job.
Ok,
maybe not an 'actual' job. ;)
I
want to express my personal plaudits to Recardo Gibson
today for his fine work on the African Americans' voting
piece, and apologize to him publicly for taking so long
to put it up. We're really in dire need of more hard
news reporting, and this sort of thing helps the site
broaden its own coverage immensely. I should also apologize
to Marie Jones, whose first two pieces vanished into
the maelstrom that is my Yahoo inbox.
Which
reminds me of another rant I need to make. All of you
who are naively ranting against Google's new Gmail service,
have I got a bone to pick with you! If all of your whining
about Google 'invading' your privacy turns out to derail
this project, I'm going to be irate. Really.
This
is NOT an invasion of privacy; it is computer software
doing its job. I'm sure similarly idiotic individuals
railed against the development of the (gasp) credit
card, which tracks your purchases, and the location
of where you buy things. No one is coming out against
grocery store cards, which also track what you buy,
down to the item, or CVS cards, which likewise trace
purchases. Nor is anyone lashing out at clubs, whose
new software designed to thwart fake IDs actually copies
ALL of your personal information from your license into
a central database -- hope you don't have your social
security number on there.
Perhaps
what gets people is the idea that Google can read your
email. If you want to comically argue that huge service
providers do read your mail (I can tell you, I don't
even have time to read all of mine), you're seriously
deluded. And the fact that Google can read your mail
is nothing new -- so can Yahoo!, or Microsoft, for that
matter (Hotmail).
Part
of what makes it easier for me to understand Google's
advertising service is that we use Google ads, both
for advertising our own site and for bringing in revenue.
From experience, I can say it's a highly effective system
that allows even small business to hawk their wares
(starting from five cents a click), and the access to
millions of new users through Gmail would be an outstanding
opportunity.
Not
to mention the 1 gig of free disk space for email users,
a whopping 500 times the amount of space offered by
rival Hotmail, and 250 times the space offered by Yahoo!
Posted
by John at 7:02 P.M. |
|
4.12.2004
After a hellish couple weeks in
Iraq (though of course it's all hellish in war), things
are finally starting to hurt Bush. Newsweek published
a poll today that showed Kerry leading Bush 50% to 43%.
Even with Nader drawing 4%, Kerry leads 46% to 42%.
A statistical dead heat, of course, but the significant
thing is that after weeks of Bush leading in numerous
polls, Kerry has surged ahead one-on-one. But this change
is hardly indicative of people being thrilled with Kerry
as his favorability rating remains stagnant at 51%.
Rather people are very upset with the way Bush and his
administration have handled the situation-his favorability
rating has dropped to an all-time low of 48%, and an
overwhelming 59% of Americans think he's taking the
country in the wrong direction.
Of
course, one can never get too excited or place too much
value on polls. We all know that results change from
week-to-week, are dependent upon so many uncontrollable
factors (domestic economy, foreign affairs, recent scandals,
etc), and there is still so much time left in this election.
In
fact, I think that Kerry is even further ahead than
this poll shows, especially when they ad Nader to the
mix. Apparently, he is taking about 4% of nationwide
voters from Kerry, but I don't think that's true. When
people respond to polls they can be more prone to speak
from emotion--as the decision is far less serious than
casting an actual vote (for those that even bother to
vote these days). Emotions may run high in reaction
to the blow-up across Iraq and a liberal/progressive
voter may be just as upset at Kerry for supporting the
resolution that got the U.S. in this situation as they
are at the Bush administration for lying their way into
this war. Thus when the pollster calls to solicit their
opinion on the race, this hypothetical voter will gladly
claim to support Nader. But where they to actually cast
their vote today, they would understand the greater
implications for this decision (i.e., re-electing a
monster) and actually reluctantly vote for Kerry. I'd
suspect that the race is actually more like Kerry 49%
to Bush 42% to Nader 2%. Though it's sure to change.
There is my political analysis
for the evening.
Posted
by John at 12:03 A.M. |
|
4.10.2004
Another
beautiful day. To me, any day with sun and reasonable temperatures is a beautiful
day here in Massachusetts, given the number of rainy and cold "spring"
days.
In
a way, I'm not surprised they've signed to make a movie
from Richard Clarke's book, "Against all Enemies."
But what I am surprised is that they've signed it so
fast. I think this will actually be bad news for Clarke
-- not financially, of course -- but for his own credibility.
Regardless of the fact that Sen. Frist's comment about
making money off 9/11 is hypocritical (in that he's
selling his own bioterror book), it certainly has more
sticking power if it comes out that Clarke is going
to rake in a windfall from a feature film.
Have
you noticed how Iraq is slipping from the news, despite
the fact that 49 U.S. soldiers were killed in the past
week, along with some 450 Iraqis? I guess it's not fair
to say that it's slipping (in the way that we've totally
forgotten about Afghanistan), but it certainly isn't
getting the kind of play that it should be given the
tenuous situation in that country. Each day, I think,
the American public is more and more apt to see if as
akin to Vietnam, particularly, I think, U.S. lefties
who weren't born then. To me, despite the fact that
is has marked similarities, it isn't the same; there
aren't as many U.S. troops, there isn't a draft, etc.
But the fact that the enemy is so vague is truly troubling.
Oh,
and my computer suddenly hopped on the fast track. It's arriving Monday! Posted
by John at 10:43 A.M. |
|
4.9.2004
It
seems as though we have lost a day somewhere in this
blog. The one you are currently reading was published
in the wee hours of April 9th, as it is labled Yet John's
entry below which was posted in the early hours yesterday
morning, is labled April 7th. The problems is that we
often write the blog in the evening, to be posted after
12:00 A.M. But when the time rolls around to post, I
sometimes forget it actually is "the next day."
See
the problems we face? Actually,
my problem right now is that I need to wake early tomorrow but there was not blog
written for today, and John doesn't want to do it when he wakes up. So now I've
written a completely useless blog, and so as to avoid wasting any more of your
time, I'll just end it here. Posted
by Jesse at 12:15 A.M. |
|
4.8.2004 Holy
shit! You think
-- he's gotta have a pretty good reason to use that kind of language, right? Well,
I do. According
to my taxes, I'm due more than a thousand dollars in refunds! Hard even for me
to believe. I guess, uh, not making any money pays off! Or something. There were
some tuition deductions, and I had had money withheld for taxes, which I apparently
wasn't making enough to be paying. The
wonders of the modern world. Mmm.
In world news, I was glad to read that Greenland is melting away; I never liked
that country. Too cold. Plus, it has an ugly shape. Also, it's affiliated with
Iceland, which spawned Bjork, who, aside from a few songs, is an annoying and
crazy person. More
importantly, if the sea level rises 20 feet, it will drown Florida (and maybe
Katherine Harris with it!). And that's just Greenland! I'm assuming the Arctic
and Antarctica will melt away as well! That's
the real reason I was pleased. Days
'til John's new computer arrives: 7
Posted by John at 10:43 P.M. |
|
4.6.2004
Today
was an amazing day in Boston. The sun was shining all
day (though a bit cold) and I was able to make the most
of it--or as much as possible with a full-time job!
I had to spend time outside today, walking around a
particular neighborhood scouting out territory for a
door knocking campaign I'm designing for my
job as a Community Organizer. Then, because of daylight
savings, for the first time in months the sun was just
setting when I got home home (as opposed to having set
hours before) which made for a beautiful run! I love
spring, and I look forward to it getting even warmer!
As
I was running today, I was listening to a show called "On
Point" on Boston NPR.. The topic was
CEO compensation versus worker wages in the current half-assed 'recovery,' based
on study done by a professor at Northeastern University. Basically, the gist is:
unlike any of the 19 past recoveries from recession, we are currently seeing unprecedented
growth in compensation paid to corporate executives as opposed to middle-class
wages. Usually worker wages account for around 38% of all wage increases, but
instead today corporate top-pay accounts for over 40% of said increase.
I'm
no economist and honestly did pretty horrid in college
economics class, but this trend seems pretty dangerous
to me. The small number of corporate CEO's to the overall
workforce can't alone stimulate the lagging economy.
First of all, these "workers" (in quotations
of work because they probably don't do much work) don't
reinvest wages back into immediate goods that stimulate
manufacturing and related fields, thereby effectively
circulating wealth throughout the economy. CEO's buy
stock and other reinvestments that only benefit the
whole economy under a disproven Reagan model called
"trickle-down." Maybe I'm full of it, but
this seems the case to me.
The
guests on the radio show mentioned a number of reasons
for this current position, including the decline in
union representation over the entire workforce (now
below 10%), coupled with the fact that executive compensation
is determined by corporate boards made up of executives
at other companies whose salary is set by similar boards!!
The culture of corporate America today breeds this disgusting
mentality of progress at all costs, and nothing is done
to curb it. Trials get overturned against even the works
corporate crooks like Tyco, while only giving lip service
by prosecuting only benign crimes like that of Martha
Stewart who really just gave rampant Capitalism a taste
of it's own medicine!
So,
things are pretty bad in America today. There really
isn't any deep-rooted "recovery" at all, just
a creative twisting of numbers by corporate economists
at the successors to Anderson Accounting!
On
the bright side, I suppose John and I are executives
here at The Raw Story corporation! I'm rich!
Posted
by Jesse at 12:30 A.M. |
|
4.5.2004 Finally,
a delightfully sunny day here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For days, we've been
mired in the cloudy maelstrom that reminds one of London. It's still cold, too
cold for comfort, but at least there's some sun. I plan to get outside and do
some car flyering today. We
started up some Google ads again, so you may see that you don't get a popup when
you visit the main page. We'll turn Google ads off during peak traffic periods
(in fact, probably when you're reading this). Did
y'all see the latest bumble for the Bushies? Turns out a Florida FBI informant
is now a terror financing suspect. Something about that state, it seems. True,
he did have links to Clinton's FBI as well. You can read my more thoughtful rambling
on this in my forum
post. I think
I may actually be evil, since I take a perverse pleasure out of the fact that
Jesse's laptop is befuddling him. Mine is dead broke, broken screen, and faulty
power cord -- the battery is completely gone so if the computer jiggles and the
power cord becomes upset -- goodbye work. My new computer comes in about ten days. Oh,
one more thing. Someone sent be an email saying they didn't like our site because
it had too many graphics and was slow to load. The only time I've seen this be
the case is on a dial-up modem. How does it load for you? Word
to people who still use dial-up: Come on, y'all, come join us in the 21st century. Posted
by John at 10:15 A.M. |
|
4.5.2004 I'm
starting to get a little nervous about my new computer--generally it's doing pretty
well, and I'm very happy with it. However, I've noticed that my battery doesn't
fully charge. It just stops at 99%. Granted, a battery that is only 1% less than
full is better than 98% of the other options, but it still makes me nervous because
I know it originally reached 100%. I feel right now like a new, overprotective
parent who gets freaked out by every little possible thing that may happen to
their child, no matter how inconsequential. But
this all points to a larger problem I have--I don't know how to take care of the
battery on my computer. The last laptop I had was always plugged in. However it
eventually got to the point where it would not function after 10 minutes of being
unplugged. My little brother recently pointed out to me that when you keep some
computers plugged in after they're fully charged, it actually burns out the battery.
This, I suppose, is exactly what happened to my old Toshiba computer. What I'm
unsure of, however, is if this a problem that only afflicts older-model laptops
and is most likely not a concern with my new Powerbook G4. Anyway, you probably
don't read this blog for pointless laptop battery rants (if you bother to read
it at all), but if you have any insights for me, please let
me know! On
another note, if you look to the right you'll notice that I finally changed the
links for the Booksense ad. I find it very hard, however, to decide what books
to recommend. I try to make the feature books coincide with current events--like
the Red Sox book with Major League Baseball opening day this past weekend, and
of course the Kerry and Nader books with the...echem...Presidential race. But
really, my recommendations are very bland. Honestly, I don't ever plan on ever
reading John Kerry's book, and would like to feature works that people may actually
buy. I guess what I'm asking for here are recommendations from YOU! What books
should we feature? Tell me, now. Well,
that's all I have for you this evening. No political rant or any substantive comments.
But as I said in my last blog entry, stay tuned to Raw Story for a great new feature
regarding my love-life (or lack-there-of, haha). You're sure to get a kick out
of what we'll offer, and maybe help me get a date! Posted
by Jesse at 12:34 A.M. |
|
4.4.2004 Man,
sometimes on days like today where the weekend traffic is really slow and my computer
is even slower, I just want to throw in the towel. I've decided this week will
be an all-out real advertising week, where I make up a thousand car windshield
flyers and paper the town. A thousand, at least, is someplace to start. To
give you an example of how slow my computer is: I tried to type a percent sign
on the front page, and it took one minute and 20 seconds from the time I pressed
the key to the time it appeared. Also, my computer now does the thinking sign
every single time I type a letter in this blog, so it comes out on the screen
in time delay. To top it off, my computer purged all my Netscape settings (and
not just the settings, but it erases them every time I close the program). So
I am in something of a sour mood. I don't feel like doing a lot of updating today,
and probably won't. It's still two weeks before I get my new computer. I
found a cool new news blog today -- its called WhatReallyHappened.com.
And there are daffodils finally blooming, even if the temperature won't shuffle
past 45 degrees Farenheit. Posted
by John at 12:56 P.M. |
|
4.3.2004 It's
a cool, crisp Saturday and I'm making noodles with peanut sauce. Our parrot, Chelsea,
is squawking for food even though she has some already in her dish, our little
dog Denver is sitting quietly, and I'm here, in front of my broken-screened laptop.
Two weeks to go until I get my brand new computer.
Though
it may be redundant, I must say I'm amazed at the level
of dialogue in the forums. Some of the more educational
posts for me are "What
is the liberal view of libertarians?" and "What's
the liberal view of liberals?" You can read
them yourself by clicking on the links, and by all means,
if you've something to say, register and join us.
In
site news, which I haven't spoken of for awhile, we're beginning to enjoy the
virtues of being linked in many places -- referrals to our site. We've also been
pretty successful in terms of our banner swap program, whereby we host banners
from other sites in exchange for them hosting our banner on theirs. Of late, I've
set it so that we actually sell our banner space instead of swapping it most of
the time; it pays pretty pathetically, but we can place the banners on the bottoms
of the page, and on pages that most advertising companies don't allow (i.e. forums,
because the pages are so often refreshed). It
also looks like our revenue from Google ads is slightly up, because we've stuck
them on the forums pages too. Please visit our Google advertisers; they pay us
a lot if nobody clicks but pay us nothing if nobody does. This
news about the Pakistani scientist being a confidant of Osama isn't too good.
It's probably true. But what can you do? Note
to Jesse: Change the Booksense books ;). Posted
by John at 11:24 A.M. |
|
4.2.2004 It's
quite late for me right now, far past my bedtime (12:22 AM actually), but I will
still post a blog entry because John wont have time to do much tomorrow and this
page needs to be updated at least once in the next 24 hours.
I
want to agree with what John wrote in his blog yesterday,
that Air America
is indeed great. However, I do still have a bone to
pick with his choice of Katherine Lanpher as co-host.
But even with Lanpher, Franken is hilarious and the
network offers other great programming. I am especially
impressed with Randi
Rhodes. She has a great radio presence, is a straight
shooter, and was not afraid to take on Ralph Nader about
how self-centered he's being. If you haven't had a chance
to listen yet, make sure you do tomorrow. Their programming
starts at 6 AM. Here
is their internet RealAudio feed.
Unfortunately,
that's all I have to say right now. Stay tuned to the editor's blog and the Raw
Story forum over the next few days. I may be unveiling an interesting and exciting
new project for our readers to participate in. I don't want to say much yet, but
it has something to do with what John wrote about my love-life in a recent blog. Posted
by Jesse at 12:37 A.M. |
|
4.1.2004 Hello
to April! It's spring but it's cold and raining in Boston. And I've been drinking
Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Janeane Garofalo is laughing like a cackle-beast and playing
her fart-machine and it is the middle of the nine-o-clock hour. So
what do I say in my blog today? I damn love the forums; we've had more comments
in the forums that we've had for all the comments in the site overall, which is
pretty impressive considering the forums have been up for four days and the site
has been up for more than sixty. I've
been listening to Air America Radio for two days now, not every hour, but a lot
of hours, and it's surprisingly good, except for all the Ad Council ads. As I
said in the forums, The Raw Story has better ads than Air America Radio, and they
have MILLIONS of listeners, as we have only thousands. Pretty pathetic. Something
else. Hmm... No, nothing else. Did
I say that they said FUCK on Air America yesterday? Randi Rhodes hung up on that
son of a bitch. Poor bastard. Posted
by John at 9:47 P.M. |
|
Well,
April Fool's day is upon us, but I don't have anything up my sleeve. Every year
since I was a child I've wanted to plan some big practical joke on someone, but
never get around to planning. Of course, this year is no different. On
a completely unrelated note, tonight I make a promise to our readers. For now
on, I pledge to never go more than two nights without posting a blog. HAHA!
April Fools! Isn't
that cleaver? I told you I had no joke, but then pulled one on you! Of course
I wouldn't make such a ludicrous statement, it would be impossible for me! It's
a good thing that this is a two-person blog, because I'm just not cut out to be
a full-time blogger. Also, I'm sorry this is so lame!
But
don't loose interest just yet! I do want to talk about
something substantive in this, my infrequent contribution
to the blog. As you are probably aware of, Al
Franken's new liberal talk show--Air America Radio--launched
on the internet and a few radio stations across the
country. While I was not able to actually listen as
I have no speakers on my computer at work, I was interested
to see people's reaction on the Raw
Story forum thread that was active today. In particular,
it wasn't not surprised to see the strong reactions
some folks had to Katherine Lanpher, Franken's co-host
on the O'Franken
Factor.
Ms.
Lanpher comes from Minnesota, where I grew up. I
remember her originally as a columnist for the St. Paul
Pioneer Press. While I never read her columns, as I
was relatively young at this point, I can imagine that
she provided a somewhat refreshing progressive voice
in what is otherwise a disgustingly conservative, biased
newspaper. However, if her next gig is any indication
she probably didn't even bother to talk about real news
like "politics." After leaving the newspaper,
she took over as the mid-morning host on Minnesota
Public Radio. Now, understand that MPR is actually
one of the top public radio stations in the country,
and produces great radio like Prairie
Home Companion (maybe a little lame in subject,
but great storytelling nonetheless), Marketplace,
and the NPR documentary division American
Radio Works. But with a squeaky, awful radio voice
Lanpher provided listeners with a show that unintelligibly
covered the hard-hitting news stories like what South
American gourd is in season, or how to stitch a great
new crochet pattern. And you think my April Fool's joke
was lame!
Of
course I don't actually knew Katherine Lanpher, and
I'm sure she's a very smart, talented person. I don't
mean to make that the issue. The real problem is simply
her voice: it's just not cut out for a medium that makes
high pitches so unbearable. Granted, I haven't heard
the show yet so I should reserve all judgment. I'll
try to listen in tomorrow and give you the final verdict.
If
you heard the Air America Radio programs today I really want to know what you
thought of it. Not just what you thought about the Franken Show, but also the
other shows like Janeane
Garofalo or Randi
Rhodes. Join the discussion
on the Raw Story forum and let me know. Posted
by Jesse at 12:06 A.M. |
|
|
