Tag: Bloggers

Info Ink Retrospective

So ends another year and a time to look back on whether Info Ink is doing what I originally intended……

I started my blog as a way to rehab after my leg was crushed thanx to that bitch Katrina….I also wanted to try help people understand politics, theory and philosophy a little better….not trying to convince people to my way of thinking (but if they did I would be eternally grateful)…….I hope I have succeeded a bit and have been helpful……

In the beginning it was a place for me to cut and paste info from Middle East newspapers during the last Israel/Lebanon conflict….since the days of my employment in the Middle East I still read read Arab language newspapers and there was reporting that was seldom seen in the US….so I decide to let their own words speak to the conflict……

But once I began posting I realized what a great outlet for my talents of observation….and began writing on subjects that I had tried to leave behind years ago…politics and economics……and it has become more successful than I had thought it would be…..I thought it would just be my rambling thoughts with little or no interest…..I was wrong!

I have tried to give my readers information that I feel they need know to be knowledgeable voter and citizen….in doing so I have not had the success that I had anticipated…..I cannot decide if people just do not care or have I misinterpreted what people want to read…I believe it is the later more than anything.

I have wrestled with myself with the idea of changing the content of Info Ink and deciding on a possible new direction…..but what direction?  Would it be more gossip?  Or maybe more tech stuff?  In trying to decide I fell back to something my grandfather said when I first started writing…..”It is better to write for yourself and have no one than to write for everybody and have NO self”……so my decision was made, thanx to my grandfather, I will continue on this line of posting and not compromise my principles……

As this year ends I would like to post on what is happening at Info Ink….it has been an excellent year, I got new and prolific viewers….Larry at Woodgate’s View, Spinny at Spinny Liberal, Hansi of Hansishallucinations, Phillip of Darklynoon, vjack of Red State Progressive, jolly roger of Plutocrap, Dusty of Leftwing Nut Job, Kendrick of Prince and Little Prince, Don of Doninmass  all to go with my long time regulars like Quin of Quintessential Havoc (who has since decided to leave), Terrant of My Corner To Rant and Chris of Why We Worry (who is taking a sabbatical)…..you can go to blogroll and visit all these sites….they are interesting and well informed…..go…visit…often!  We have had many guest over the past year and some really great comments and participation……and if I left anyone out…I apologize.

To date I have gotten 97,226  hits,  10, 111  comments,  posted 4844  posts and blocked a whopping 199,168       spam….I also started publishing a daily paper, The Daily Agitator (go to blogroll and visit it when you have the time)………all in all a GREAT year!

Thank you everyone!  I appreciate and enjoy our times together and I hope to have a long and fruitful friendship with you all….may we all have a good and fruitful 2012….it may prove to be an interesting year……I think it will to silly as well as interesting and entertaining….I look forward to everyone’s input.

Also if you have any ideas you would like to see me do on Info Ink, please feel free to let me know and I will see what I can do……may we all have a great 2012……once again Thank you all!

An Anniversary Post

In August 2005 I lived through the longest day of my life….Hurricane Katrina, all 14 hours and 37 minutes of it….I say long because most hurricanes last about 6 to 8 hours….I am sure everyone remembers the photos and the tape of the devastation ….I was working for the state of Mississippi at the time and was a first responder….myself and 4 other men worked endlessly to sure up houses that could be saved so people could live there…..I continued to work in houses to make them ready for habitation and on 26 December 2005 while working from a ladder it shifted and threw me onto a concrete slab….my leg was broken in so many places I had to have surgery to repair…….

I tell this tale because of the bitch Katrina I had a long rehab and on 27 December 2006 I started my blog….in those days it was called “Studies And Observations”……I had been on many discussion forums and found that people are idiots….NO one wanted to debate issues and such but rather spent most of their time belittling anyone who did not agree with them……I used my name, Chuq and because I would write stuff about the Middle East I was immediately an Arab infiltrator…..I thought people would be interested with a perspective from an American that had worked in the Middle East…I was WRONG!  After many months of trying to be reasonable I decided to give it up and write a blog with the hopes that people would respond to the posts and we could start a substantial conversation…..

I still read Arab newspapers and their point of view is very different from that of Americans….so I began cutting and pasting articles that showed an opposing opinion to what the mainstream media was giving the American people……I feel people need to hear opposing points of view so that understanding can be had and in doing so make the world a little better….that was my hope.

After awhile of cut and paste I decided that since I had given up on political analysis years before I would try it again by posting my personal point of view……that was FIVE years ago today.

MY first post was an Introduction……

Hello and welcome–I will be posting my political studies and observations as often as I can. Hopefully people will find it thought provoking and interesting. I look forward to any and all comments.

So far it has been an amazing time for me…many good people stop by and offer their points of view and we have exchanged ideas on many topics…Info Ink has many excellent participants and I look forward to more and more….

Thank you, my friends!

A “Republic Of Letters”

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Philosophy/Activism/

The original title of this post was to be “Academics vs Activist”…….there is a wide divide in the political field between academics (intellectuals) and activists….and this is my attempt to rectify that divide (wish me luck)…….

Years ago when I was much younger I was asked to participate in a scholars conference on the campus of the Univ. of Louisville….I was asked because I had lectured on the shortcomings in the theory of non-violent action….I was not a big hit because most of the academics that were there were big admirers of Gandhi, King, et al….and thought that they had changed the world…my point was that these people set stuff into motion but it was the people that actually made their goals happen…I take nothing away from those that I criticized…… very brave and influential people…..anyway I was asked simply because even though I was educated I worked at blue collar jobs and the panel wanted a different perspective and I was introduced as a “blue collar intellectual”…at first I was uneasy with that title but as the conference moved along I became rather fond of it……I really got a hateful reception when I accused my fellow panel members of neglect…..I said that NO change will come from the bottom up because the academics and intellectuals talk to each other and not the people….they spend their time writing and talking with colleagues, using terminology that the average person has No idea what they are talking about….and because of that disconnect the average person basically ignores them as much as possible…..and that most people do not walking around with a Thesaurus in their pockets……..as you can see….I was not that popular of a speaker (but I got over it)……and after years and years of research and activism….not much has changed….the people still do not understand much of what the so-called intellectuals have to say…..Intellectuals and academics seem to lack passion, they have plenty to say in their writings, but they lack the fire of passion for what they say or write….and there is the major disconnect they have with the people they try to influence……

This can be changed if we go to a tool used in the past to communicate ideas and techniques…..it was called “Republic Of Letters”…..I know….huh?

The “Republic of Letters” (Respublica Literarum), a term apparently coined by the humanist Francesco Barbaro in 1417, was first intended to designate the community of early modern scholars who restored the ancient “Orators, Poets, Historians, Astronomers, and Grammarians” who would otherwise have been lost forever; but the term later encompassed other writers in the emergent public sphere of early modern Europe. Also connected to the term was the international network of the European university, which was a basically ecclesiastical foundation, but which, through the faculties of arts and law, contributed also to a large secular intelligentsia.

Since academics have NO idea how to talk to activists…..and activist think the intellectuals are overpaid wind bags…..how does the theory get down to the public?  The average person is the only way a theory comes to reality and if academics cannot accurately convey the idea….how will it become reality?
This is where the “Republic of Letters” comes into play, with some minor adjustments……..academics and activists come together through correspondence to talk about theories and ways to make them work……actually we have that….the problem is that it is used to rate records or gossip or other mundane issues…….in today’s world it is called…..”blogging”…….
Political bloggers are doing their part to make political theory work…..whether I agree with their premise or not……it is a free exchange of ideas and issues……and that free exchange can bridge the gap between academia and activism…..but to make it work all need to agree that all logical avenues are acceptable and need to be talked about, worked on and finally implemented……
I have always supported the exchanges between the intellectuals and the activists…..sadly to say….not all my fellow politics feel the same way…….and that divide will prevent any and all rational discourse to succeed….we need to work together in a new “Republic of Letters”.

A Blogging We Will Go

How many of my blogging brethren go to the townhalls and try to interact with their duly elected officials?  If not, you should!  That is how you can get up close and personal with the guys that are acting in your behalf, well, at least pretend to act in you name……and then the bloggers need to go and write a post about what they learned or did not learn from their time with the possers, we call politicians…..

If that is what you are going top do or would like to do then there are a few questions I know you have…..like what do I look for when in the presence of these guys and gals…….Howard Fineman wrote in the HufPo about the tips he got from a journalism student, Tyler Kingkade….some great points…..

  • Attend the small political gatherings at the local restaurants in your town. In Iowa, he said, they tend to be at a chain called Pizza Ranch. Your own town or state has its own equivalent. “In a small groups, people are willing to say more,” Tyler said. “You learn more about what people are thinking and what they care about. There is no filter, and that is good.”
  • Get out of the big city. “In Iowa everybody thinks the action is in Des Moines, but that isn’t true,” said Kingkade — who is from Des Moines. “In the Iowa caucuses, what happens in small towns and counties really matters a lot, and the national press corps tends not to know them or visit them.”
  • Talk to local groups — real local groups. “There are national groups that come in to try to influence things,” he said, “but in Iowa the local grassroots groups that are from the state have a lot of credibility and influence.” On the conservative side in Iowa, he said, one of them is a group called Everyday America, founded by Iowa state legislators. On the other side politically is Citizens for Community Involvement — a group that will become important next year, when, in the general election, Iowa will once again be a swing state.
  • Keep track of the TV ads: who’s advertising what, and on what shows, and listen to local talk radio. Again, it’s not the national blowtorch of Rush Limbaugh who matters, but the local stations the national reporters don’t hear or care about.
  • Look for things the “pack” doesn’t notice: things that only a local, and an amateur, would see and appreciate. That could be a conversation in the neighborhood, a flier or email, a meeting that draws more voters — or far fewer — than expected.

Some really great tips if you truly want to approach your political blogging in a professional way…..As I have said in the past….I trust serious bloggers more than the MSM….even the ones that I do not agree with on much……bloggers are NOT held accountable by some multi-national corporation and told to toe a particular line of thought or writing……an observation by Politicususa…..

Bloggers, journalists, economists, and average Americans warned of Republican malfeasance to no avail and now a credit rating agency has confirmed the fears of millions and started the ball rolling that ends America. The blame lies with Republicans, teabaggers, and the stupid American people who elected them because they did not want universal health care or a Black president. They have embarrassed and humiliated America again and it proves America is not exceptional. It is like S&P said; America is a dysfunctional nation with little hope of recovering from the stupid Republican agenda that has damaged the economy for the second time in 5 years. America will never recover a third time and Mitch McConnell promised Republicans will repeat last week’s performance again next year; they want to assure there is further downgrading. There is little left to downgrade though, and that suits Republicans who caused this disaster. They must still be congratulating each other while the rest of the country despairs and grieves the demise of this tragically pitiful country.

Yes, we bloggers were not the paranoid little toads living in our mother’s basement eating Cheetohs….we knew what was happening and refused to go blind like the MSM……but will they ever listen to us?

I try to encourage all political bloggers to go out and get the news and the views from the politicians…..get the talking points and these tips, a fact checking app and hit the trail…..you will be surprised how really easy it becomes…..good luck, my friends.

The Media As A Referee?

(Let me finish laughing…it hurts so bad)……NO!  A thousand times NO!  To say the media….ALL the media….were just reporting the facts to the American people is in NO small way delusional……I, as well as many of us on the so-called Left, have said that the media is nothing more than op-ed TV….that is why most of the people that I know that want the facts and only the facts go to….BBC News or Reuters et al…….but to my point….the whole debt deal that was played endlessly in the American media showed just how silly the media was in its handling of the ginned up “crisis”……yes, I will continue to bitch about this subject!

For instance…….this from a much respected news man Tom Brokaw……

Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press :

This is not just a Democratic problem or a Republican problem, the whole country was in on this to get us to this stage. Now, we’re in a huge spending binge in this country. Everybody was along for the ride for a long, long time. President Bush started a war on a credit card. It’s been going on for 10 years. We have prescription drug benefits for the seniors that are not paid for. SEC wasn’t looking at what was happening on Wall Street. Democrats were pushing house ownership for people who didn’t really deserve and shouldn’t be buying houses. At the same time, they were not willing to step up on reforming Medicare and on Medicaid and Social Security. The country itself, they were spending money like crazy, and they were—they’d gotten used to having Washington take care of whatever they needed.

That seems to be the common narrative on this pile of bovine fecal matter……Joe Rosen has a different view about what Brokaw and others are reporting…….

This is what the majority of our journalists believe about the debt crisis. It was created by both sides. It will have to be resolved by both sides. The American people are hugely to blame, as well. The division of responsibility is thus miraculously equal: one third to the Democrats, one third to the Republicans, one third to the public.No distinctions between the parties are tenable. It’s 50-50 all the way down. Symmetrical. Equal and opposite. Neat and clean. Exquisitely balanced.

To the press? Zero responsibility.

This is what a majority of our political journalists believe. Therefore, they should go to war for this interpretation. They should own it. For it is theirs.

[…]

They should drop the fiction of themselves as chroniclers, referees and interlocutors and get down in the muck with the rest of us. Here’s what we think and goddamnit we think we’re right!

The media continues to pretend that they some how speak for all of us….that is CRAP!  Bloggers are more in tuned than the press will ever be…..the press likes to identify us bloggers as people who sit around in our mother’s basement eating Cheetos and typing…….their arrogance is why they are JOKES!  Most political bloggers are very astute observers of the subject they write about….I am NOT talking about those people that spend all their effort calling names and insulting anyone who does not agree with them…..but for the media to try and paint bloggers as some whacked out nerd sitting around in the underwear is just petty jealousy and arrogance.

2010–It Has Been A Good Year!

The week between Xmas and New Years is notoriously slow…..slow for news…slow for political junkies like myself……and this new year has been NO different…..NO news and only rattlings from the political lunatics……so I take this time to reflect on the past year…..

First, I would like to thank all those who have participated in Info ink….loyal readers like Quin of Quintessential Havoc….Chris of Why We Worry……and all those who chose to visit my site……please be kind and visit those friends of Info ink….go to my blogroll and it will get you to their sites and their thoughts……

As this year comes to an end I would like to think back and reflect on the happenings that made it a memorable year……my spam went from 17,000 to over 44,000 in less than a month…not something that is exceptionally good but it shows that I have arrived…LOL

1– Info Ink  went over 6100 comments

2–Picked up new readers to make it a good year for hits

3–A lot of good and interesting stories to keep us on our toes, Tea Party, elections, of course, one Sarah Palin, wars and diplomatic antics

4–I figured out Twitter …thanx to Quin of Quintessential Havoc…(blogroll will get you to his site….stop procrastinating and go there)

5–Great nominees for Person of the Year and Anal-Ocity…..

6–Our yearly predictions were good and accurate……about 60% accurate……not as good as Nostradamus, but no one needed a decoder ring to figure them out….

7–We went over the 4200 posts mark…..

Onward and upward…..time for another year to begin and time for Info Ink get back to work….with analysis, agitation and humor…..should be a good year for the games politicians play and a good year for posts…may we all have a great new year…..

A Special Thank You

A personal note to my readers…….

Holy Moly!  We did it!

I am so proud of Info Ink!  Just yesterday my blog got its 5000th comment….I never thought that I would see that on my blog and I owe it all to my regulars…Quin of Quintessential Havoc, who is my most prolific commenter and Terrant of My Corner To Vent, Chris and Clint of Why We Worry, LOUDelf of LOUDelf (blogroll will get you to these great sights listed….visit them and open a dialog) and to my newest regular commenter, Natassia….and of course all my other commenters who visit from time to time….even though we may not agree on everything…it has been a pleasure……to all THANK YOU so much!

I started my blog about four years ago while recovering from a crushed leg caused by Katrina…..it was just a way to cope with my immobility….but as the days rolled on I decided to get back into more and more politic stuff, which I had given up about 15 years before…..I tried then to educate people in the political process and its consequences….and I realized something that my grandfather had told me years before….he said that my efforts were admirable but it was like teaching pigs to sing….you waste your time and you piss off the pig……after that I spent many years trying to ignore the silliness that was occurring in Washington and the world…….Katrina forced me to return to reality and sanity……

The truth is that in a way I was glad that I had been hurt….why?….it made me face the fact that I needed to use my education and political training to help in anyway that I could…..and thus Info Ink was born!

I owe the success, at least I think it is a success, of Info Ink to my readers……THANK YOU so much for a great 4 years and I hope it continues because I enjoy the exchanges we have had in the past…..ONWARD!  If there are any ideas that my readers have and would like to share….. please do so…..

A Special Thanks To My Readers

I like to commemorate special events that happen on this blog with a post of thanks or whatever needs to be said…….

For the first time since I began Info Ink I have had more comments than posts….I would like to thank my loyal readers and especially those who take the time to comment on a post.

A special thanks goes out to Terrant of My Corner To Vent and the followers on Why We Worry and all others that have participated….and a super thanks to Quin of Quintessential Havoc for keeping me on my toes……Please go to blogroll and participate on these blogs…they are thoughtful and insightful….

Thanx again guys…..you help make the experience worthwhile………

Announcement

I have changed the theme of my blog…I wanted to make it more user friendly….I do a lot of writing and it is difficult to keep up with me normally….this new theme will let my reader click on a specific category and find all the posts there….I am hoping this will increase the number of people commenting because I would like to hear all points of view on any given subject…..Please if you disagree with me or just want to add to the discussion, please do so…..I always respect someone’s opinion and I do demand civility from all comments…..we can disagree with being disagreeable…..I hope you enjoy the change….if not let me know and we can readjust the blog…..look forward to the comments and the debate……

A Personal Thought

It is a new year and I was reading a friend’s blog (My Corner To Vent…go to blogroll…it is a good and thoughtful blog) and he posted on his most popular posts of the last year and I thought that it was a great idea and I went to my stats to see what was the winner in my popularity poll……..

I do a lot of reading and writing and have spent many many hours in front of this damn keyboard…lots and lots of post and opinions on economics, politics, and just about everything that I thought would be of interest to my readers….after searching the stats I was shock and a bit disappointed…after all the observations on the happenings in the world and my most popular post was………..WATERMELON MAKES YOU HORNY……..

The world is going to sh!t around us and watermelon making someone horny is the most popular……now that is just fuc*ing sad…….