Amateur Blogger Broke Both “Bittergate” and Bill’s “Scumbag” Meltdown

Mayhill Fowler broke two big stories during the Democratic political campaign: Obama’s description of marginalized working-class voters as “bitter” and Bill Clinton’s wild tirade against a Vanity Fair journalist in which he described the reporter as a “scumbag” among other derogatory terms.

What’s interesting about Ms. Fowler is her employer. She’s an unpaid volunteer in the Huffington Post blog experiment called “Off The Bus”, where volunteer bloggers follow the campaign and write stories that the mainstream media presumably might miss.

Ms. Fowler got herself into the closed Obama event for donors where he made his impolitic remarks because she is a Obama supporter, donating the maximum $2,300. This is certainly something that mainstream journalists wouldn’t be allowed to do, even those supposedly “in the tank” for Obama. Ms. Fowler muses that she hestitated in releasing the “bitter” comments because she knew the effect it would have on the Obama campaign. She also tried to minimize the effect of the “scumbag” remarks by dumping them onto the internet on Friday afternoon, but to no avail.

The question in my mind is what value does Ms. Fowler add to the campaign? As an Obama fan myself, I was upset at the attention paid to “bittergate” by the media. But its value is the focus that the Obama campaign needed to make on people not naturally inclined to support Barack. Of course, the mainstream media, the Clinton oppo reseach team and the Republican hate machine all tried to spin the story into the mainstream mold: elitist latte-drinking limousine liberal just doesn’t understand real folks. That Obama was able to refocus the campaign on what his Presidency would do to help all Americans was beneficial, despite the short-term blowback.

The Bill Clinton “scumbag” flap was more like the tripe the mainstream media throws out and calls news these days. Yep, Bill was increasingly losing his shit out on the hustings. Bill blames everyone for his wife’s slowly eroding campaign EXCEPT his wife, her handlers and himself. Big deal. The Vanity Fair article was also of questionable merit. Find upset staffers to squeal about the shortcomings inside the campaign and to throw innuendo on the fire about Bill’s personal life. Ms. Fowler’s piece had some staying power because a lot of people have fond memories of our former President and are not used to seeing ex-Presidents being that earthy.

I haven’t read much of the “Off The Bus” stuff, but what I have seen is relatively good–instead of just soaking up the stale campaign circus and reporting on the horserace, some of the bloggers actually seek out real voters and interview them. Now that’s some innovative reporting that I’d like to see spread out of blogging and into the mainstream media. Ms. Fowler’s batting .500: and that’s good in any league.

Ishikoro–The State of Blogging In Syracuse

According to an article on blogs written by Sarah Boxer in the NY Review Of Books: “Today there are, by one count, more than 100 million blogs in the world, with about 15 million of them active. In Japan neglected or abandoned blogs are called ishikoro, pebbles.”

Unfortunately, more and more of the blogs that I like to read have become pebbles. It’s easy for me to find new blogs on the things that interest me–rock’n’roll, baseball and politics–it’s becoming harder to find blogs written about local issues. About the only new stuff being created comes out of the Syracuse.com world: newspaper writers that are reaching beyond the page to extend the conversation.

There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve learned a lot and have been able to have conversations with great journalists like Sean Kirst, Brian Cubbison, Maureen Sieh, Mark Bialczak–something that would have been impossible pre-Internet.

But are we losing the spark of independent voices joining the fray? Look at the blogroll listing of 27 Syracuse area blogs on NYCO’s Blog, the acknowledged hub of local blogging about local issues: 6 are non-profit organizations listing events, 1 is exclusively on national politics and 4 are Syracuse.com blogs by reporters.

Of the 16 remaining independently produced blogs:
5 haven’t posted in 2008 and 3 have only a few token posts in 2008.

That leaves only 8 active, independently-produced blogs talking about Syracuse issues. Please let me know if I’ve missed any blogs or if I’m totally off-base. I’d really like to be wrong on this. Even better, set up a blog to criticize my point and to talk up the state of blogging Syracuse.

Two Interesting Rock Blogs

I’ve stumbled across a couple of real interesting rock music sites recently. The first, Professor of Pop, is written by Andrew Goodwin who actually teaches a course at the University of San Francisco on Led Zeppelin. While it all sounds like so much juvenilia, the blog is well written and interesting. He is a drummer as well as a scholar, so his critiques range way beyond the typical “this band sounds like a cross between The Beatles and Ozzy Osbourne” school of rock criticism. Why couldn’t my school offer a course on Led Zeppelin? That’s a class I wouln’t have skipped. This blog will probably heat up with the big Zep reunion show coming up, as well as the rumored tour and recording to follow.

The second site is Bill Wyman’s blog Hitsville. No, not that Bill Wyman, this one has written about rock for places such as SF Weekly, Chicago Reader, Slate.com, Salon.com and worked for NPR radio. He writes insightfully and very tartly about the new economics of rock music. Ever wonder how Lenny Kravitz can indulge his taste for the extremely expensive homes he seems to purchase regularly, despite not having any real album sale royalties in recent years? This blog spills the beans.

He also is the creator of the Moby quotient, a mathematical formula that he and a friend came up with to chart exactly how badly an artist has sold out. They named the formula after Moby since he once bragged that he had licensed every single song on his 1999 album “Play”. The formula is pretty good, because it weighs offenses to our sensibilities based on the evilness of the licensing client, the sacredness of the song to the rock canon and the reputation of the band for being either revolutionary or an outsider. Hence, they believe that Kelly Clarkson can sing for her supper pretty much anywhere, while a serious tear in the world’s space/time continuum has been created by The Clash’s shilling for jeans and automobiles.

If you want more infomation on the Moby quotient and a handy calculator go here.

Dedication

Dedication

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I’ve just moved and my trusty iMac and its peripherals are packed up in two or three boxes either in my new bedroom or in the hallway next to the kitchen…Oh, and I don’t have any phone or internet service set up for the new place either. It’s rather peaceful. . .no computer, no phone, no TV. I have my iPod hooked up to a portable speaker in the living room and the company of my wife and three doggies for entertainment. (However, the cable is still on at my old place so I take a folding chair over on Sundays to watch The Sopranos.)

Don’t worry, I’m not a Luddite and I’ll get wired again soon. But I’m not rushing it. I’ll try to steal a few minutes from work to tap away at this here blog-thingie.

Blog Love And Loss

A link to one of my Springteen posts was put up on a forum over at Backstreets–THE Bruce web site. Since that time, my traffic has ballooned 10X my normal rate. Welcome, Tramps!

The post was about my concern about Bruce’s ad for Fender guitars and my overall squeamishness of rock commercialization.

While I have been basking in the hits from Bruce fans, I did notice that one of my favorite daily blog reads removed my site from their blogroll. We’d commented on a couple of each other’s posts, sent an e-mail or two. I noticed a few referrrals from that site. Now I’m gone. Oh well, the web works in mysterious ways I guess. (I have taken their site down, too. I know, it’s childish, but it made me feel a little better.)

A Blogroll Stroll

I updated my blogroll with the blogs that I am reading with regularity (excluding more technical things, like those written by non-profit agencies etc.) Here’s some detail on the new blogs I added (check ‘em out):

blogJosh Josh Shear updates this more frequently than his Alive in CNY blog, with a wider variety of topics.

Groovy Green If you miss regular posts to Baloghblog, catch all the posts Steve contributes to this group blog on sustainable development.

Cookin’ In The ‘Cuse Great writing on food issues and the photos can only be described as food porn.

Further On Up I discovered this blog after Janey posted on my prior blog to comment on my Springsteen obsession. She’s a much more devoted Bruce fan than I, but her site also talks about issues such as her career in adolescent mental health and her beautiful doggies.

Listen Up Mark Bialczak is the music writer for the Post Standard. He covers a multitude of local events and even got a song named after him by Fritz’s Polka Band (how cool is that!)

Gen X At 40 Alan’s blog out of Kingston is about a little bit of everything–but the fact that he’s a fan of both the Red Sox and Syracuse U. was why I started reading. Now, despite Alan’s continual arguments that blogging is all a bunch of crap notwithstanding, I can’t stop reading.

The Salt(ed) City
Interesting writing about economic development in our fair city from a couple of bloggers, one of whom is a member of that caste we’re so desperate to lure back home–young professionals that left CNY for a hotter career.

This Biochemical Life This blogger earned a PhD at S.U. in biochem and now has his eyes trained on a law degree–all while parenting a young toddler with his wife. How does he find time to blog?

Shakin’ the Blogger Dust Off My Heels

This is the new and improved version of my earlier blog (Racing In The Street). Let’s see how this works out. Blogger hates both Explorer for Mac (as does Microsoft since they have discontinued it) and Safari. It got so bad that I couldn’t even log on to my account to post.

Even though I saw a dispiriting entry in the WordPress FAQ that essentially tells Safari users to run over to Firefox as fast as their little feet can carry them, at least this blog can be updated. No bells and whistles and ricketa-racketa, just honest weblog goodness.