Friday, November 16, 2007

The Boston Weblogger November Meetup Group

A great opportunity to meet other local bloggers !

Host: The Boston Weblogger Meetup Group

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Algiers (cafe)
Street: 40 Brattle Street
City/Town: Cambridge, MA
Phone: 617.492.1557 (Algiers)
Email: alaiyo@gmail.com

Description
This month's meetup will feature a discussion about political blogging and will be led by local blogger, Ofer Inbar, who was a blogger and Internet advisor to several state legislative campaigns.

All are welcome to attend. We will be meeting upstairs at Algiers in Cambridge.

The Boston Weblogger Meetup Group is a monthly meetup group for people that are interested in blogging and meeting others who are interested in blogging. Topics discussed range from blog content to blog software. All interest levels are welcome.

The Boston Weblogger Meetup Group:
http://blog.meetup.com/3/

Give me a break...

There are times where I really hate being associated with Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I heard that Cambridge officials had put a stop to the local Boy Scouts care package drive for the troops in Iraq at polling places because "political messages are not allowed inside polling places."

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, not a fan of the Boy Scouts based on their history of and current practice of discrimination, particularly of homosexuals and not a fan of the war-we need to be out of there.

However, the troops need our support and care packages mean much. The scouts were supporting the soldiers NOT any political world order. IF you substituted "soldiers in Iraq" for "victims of wildfires" or "homeless families," it would be the same act. I think that is must also be said that many of the places where people voted in this past round of anemically attended elections are community places-churches, community centers, etc. where what these scouts did would not be out of the norm.

I don't understand where common sense has gone. The head of the election commission received the complaint from one resident that the message was "pro-war." I saw one of the bulletins in Cambridge mentioning that this was taking place and nothing about it was pro-war. If anything, it was pro-'so while you are taking time out to vote, you can do even more good by dropping something of for the soldiers in Iraq that may be your child, sibling, parent, friend or someone else's child, sibling, parent, friend. The city's law department was consulted and they gave the permission to pull them.

Based on one complaint? A complaint that apparently did not reflect the true language of the flyers? It usually takes a fatality in spite of many complaints for the city to do anything constructive in the interest of public safety but they jump because someone said that they saw care package collection boxes that might have read "pro-war"?

Of course those who have for years been skewering Cambridge for its more radical, liberals elements are having a field day-witness the editioral in the Boston Herald: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1044992

I can't says I blame them.

Those who want to support Troop 45's effort can send funds to purchase the supplies (toiletries etc.) for care packages for the soldiers in Iraq can send them to:

Boy Scouts
Troop 45
P.O. Box 381241
Cambridge, MA 02238.

Of course checks should be made payable to Troop 45.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Tis the season...

Tis the season...

The holidays are upon us. The first harbinger is the annual list of the most dangerous toys in America. Not surprisingly, many of them were made in China.

People are starting to get antsy with Thanksgiving only one week away. This weekend will be "fun." I still have to buy much of the fixins' for dinner and I imagine that much of this will be raped and pillaged by the time I get to shopping on Friday and Sunday. Still, to battle! Fortunately the turkey is spoken for. I ordered it from Bates Turkey Farm, which provides the best turkey in this country. They are located in Alabama and they have been the gold standard for turkey in this family.

Finalizing the Blogger Meetup (http://blog.meetup.com/3/) has been good. I've been posting far and wide about it. A local political blogger will be talking about what he does and how he does it.

I checked out my blog at MySpace and was pleasantly surprised to see that there have been views and other things. I got my highest numbers this time last year when I blogged about my time in New Orleans from November 8-14. I think it was some of my better blogging.

MySpace blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&friendID=3592208

On Saturday, December 14th

 I spent a good portion of the day watching the Flintstones holiday marathon (with some breaks for “A Christmas Story,” “Knots Landing”-the...