Why Biden Got It (and not HRC)

Blue Gal (short:) It's the people, stupid.

Want to know WHY it's Biden for VP and NOT Hillary Clinton?

Go. Read.

If you don't have Blue Gal bookmarked, you are so missing the good stuff...

Ya know...

The best fun of being in Denver isn't going inside Pepsi Center or Invesco. I agree with Markos. I don't give a damn about going in. Under other circumstances, I'd actually prefer to work from The Big Tent the whole time.

No... The real fun is the core of the progressive blogosphere, all these people we work with all year but so rarely get to spend time with in person. We're all in the same room, hanging out together, working from the same place.

Now THAT is rock and roll.

I mean, BLUE GAL is around somewhere. Tomorrow, she's likely to come over and say hi. How cool is that?!

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GNB Masthead Changes

Kindergarten graduation, Georgetown, Kentucky. Click for LARGE.

Promotions, New Staff

I am pleased to announce the following Group News Blog masthead changes:

Current Staff:

Sara Robinson, to Managing Editor.

The Littlest Gator, to Staff Writer.

Evan Robinson, to Staff Writer.

New Staff:

Maggie Jochild, to Staff Writer.

Minstrel Boy, to Staff Writer.


Sara Robinson is an extraordinary futurist and writer. She is a Fellow of the Campaign for America's Future where she blogs at the Blog for Our Future. She will complete her MS in Futures Studies from the University of Houston in 2009 and holds a BA in Journalism from the USC Annenberg School of Communication. She is a principle blogger at Orcinus and a co-founder of Group News Blog. Over the last year, Sara's many years of new media and journalism experience have saved and guided us, over and over.

The Littlest Gator is the Managing Director of an extraordinary restaurant, first opened in Tokyo's trendy Omotesando District, with a second version now open in Kona, Hawaii. She manages a staff of 50 people. The restaurant's commitment to local, fresh food is so enormous they have purchased their own farm on Hawaii so as to ensure the quality of their supply, its variety, and to guarantee it is grown without harmful chemicals. The food they are unable to use themselves in their restaurants on Hawaii and Japan, they sell to local customers.

Evan Robinson was one of Electronic Arts' first computer game developers and later became a Technical Director, one of the people who says if a product ships or not. He went on to be a Senior Computer Scientist at Adobe, ultimately accountable for a core portion of Adobe Acrobat. He spent twenty years in Silicon Valley, working his way up to being a Technical Director, Engineering Manager, and Consultant. He holds a MBA in Management of Technology.

Maggie Jochild is a poet and a writer. She is currently writing "The Great American Lesbian Novel", Ginny Bates. Maggie is a radical dyke second wave feminist activist. She was one of the most widely active agitators of the 80s on the west coast, and helped start The White Night Riot.

Minstrel Boy is a professional musician, a member of the Apache Nation, and makes delicious truffles. He made three tours with Seal Team Two in Viet Nam.

Jesse Wendel, Publisher
Group News Blog

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Technical Problems

Jesse:

Massive technical problems. As in, I am gonna eat their ass.

Downstairs in the lobby on the wireless network from hell...

Beautiful hotel, but they has gots me upstairs (non-ADA) which is not only dumb, but PAIN. LM and/or Hubris have to help me up and down the stairs, carry my bags, and in general, wait on me.

Hmmmm. Strike what I said about “dumb.”

Hopefully LM and I get moved in the morning. I sure as shit can't go up and down these stairs another day. (Although maybe if they got me a mountain bike. Some of those suckers gear down so low a rider could climb telephone poles.)

Ooooh... and Maggie Jochild is here in the morning!!! Go Maggie!
.
So... No more writing from me tonight. Not till they fix their fucking technical problems. Or till I get to the convention center.

I'm also not even naming the hotel...YET. Not till after we, um, negotiATE an appropriate change in our room charge given I had to go down and up the god-awful stairs from my room which I'm paying for to their lobby which I'm not...

Austin rocks. This hotel's IT setup is rocky.

Lower Manhattanite:

“Whats a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?”--Gene Wilder's Waco Kid to Cleavon Little's Sheriff Bart

What am I doing here? Hanging with the rest of the GNB crew, commiseratin', “conversatin'”, and Netroots Nation-aytin', faithful readers. Be fooled not--this is not some cow-town, this beautiful Austin, Texas. From the moment I hopped off the plane, I knew I was in what one would call "cool" environs. It probably had a lot to do with the huge, bronze statue of the amazing Texas political giant Ms. Barbara Jordan, staring down thoughtfully, weighty book on lap and glasses at rest.

Nothin' like that at Kennedy or LaGuardia, kiddies.

Then, walking to the ground transportation area, I was captivated by a beautiful woman in a coral-colored dress--seeming to walk in slow motion in the sticky night air. She floated damn-near, dress catching just enough breeze to where she looked akin to something descending from a cloud---but then, it could also have been simple fatigue on my part--a tough flight after a doubly tough night full of more drama than Wagner's "Ring Cycle" on crack. Ye Gods!

But, the kid is here, along with Jesse, Hub, TLG, and Mme. Robinson. The nicest touches were entering the hotel room, and finding it festooned—not with corny-ass hotel art--oh, no! Instead? A beautiful, striking, vintage silkscreen poster of Bobby Womack and his Peace Band playing at Port Arthur, Texas from back in the “That's The Way I Feel About Cha” days. Then, descending the balcony steps, the ring and peal of live music from across the street at The Continental Club. Oh yes...I think this could be fun. Fun indeed. But now...on to sleep, perchance to dream...of a nice breakfast.

I doubt it will be bagels. :)

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Farewell Melanie Mattson

Blogger Melanie Mattson, Dead at 53

Melanie was my dear friend.

Born July 18, 1954, died June 27, 2008 at her home in Falls Church, Virginia. The word is only now getting out, and I so don't want to know why.

For over a month I've been calling and calling to no answer. We used to talk two or three times a week.

A former front-pager at DailyKos, a co-founder of the FluWiki, a theologian and a bassoonist, Melanie was lovely in every way. From her blog, Bump in the Beltway, to her wonderful holiday recipes which I posted last year, Melanie was a class act.

Melanie was a close friend; I don't know what to say. This hasn't been a good year. We lost Steve, and now we lose Melanie. I am certain had she had health care coverage, she would still be alive.

I've spent the last hour reading over old emails between us. She was an amazing writer, a good person, and a good friend.

I'll miss her.

American Street
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Pogge
Suburban Guerrilla
Effect Measure

Update: 11:20 AM

Her death is tentatively being reported as a heart attack, although other reports suggest the root cause likely was her pancreatitis. Pancreatitis -- her long-term health issue -- made it extraordinarily difficult for Melanie to eat or maintain nourishment.

It would not be inconsistent with pancreatitis for her to have a heart attack, due to electrolyte abnormalities brought on by fluid imbalances, vomiting, poor intake, and other medical indignities.

Melanie was in poor health and without health care. Like so many of the Americans she passionately wrote about, and deeply cared for and loved.

Tat Tvam Asi.

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“Hello Readers...Yes, We Need Ya...”

Your Humble LowerManhattanite Kicks Off This GNB Fundraising Post With The Bangin'est Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons Jam Ever Recorded, To Get The Ol' Tote Board A' Movin...

Well, this is an odd post for me. I normally try to bring you folks something informative in the way of news or analysis—or maybe I whip up a scalding pot of verbal / visual grits to be schwa-plapped “Al Green Style” at a deserving, offending target. There's snark, too. Even the occasional bit of video cobbled together in the hopes of rallying the right people (you), and pissing off the even-righter people (Oh, to be-numb the left arm of an enraged Vice-President for just ten measly seconds is all I ask, Lord...).

This post is none of the above—and I must say that what it is is sort of uncomfortable for me to put across, but I will, because it's damned necessary...

It's that time, people—our first time really, here at Group News Blog where I / we ask for you the readers / perusers to come off a little bit of coin and donate to GNB to cover our outlay for the special reportage we have coming up for you—namely, our in-person / on the ground presence at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this coming August. Now, I know “money's too tight to mention” for many of you out there. Times is tighter than a nun's...rusty old change-purse clasp. For everybody. Trust me. Situations and fortunes have changed for us all, readers and writers alike, and as we pinch pennies to get that extra gallon of gas, or scale back the vacation plans (in many cases—postponing them until times are better), or hell...switch to brown-bagging it in lieu of those pricey-ass bought lunches, we here at GNB absolutely understand the strictures you're under.

But bear with me as I lay a couple of things out for you.

We're going to Denver pretty much as a start-up “news” organization, and we'll be coming out of pocket for lodging, meals, probably gas, and all manner of extras (pay WiFi where we won't be able to all use what the arena will provide, copy services and computer extras, a spare laptop battery or two, perhaps a pass-around jump drive), and yes, digital video tape and so on for the multimedia things we've got planned for you.

Those costs'll mount, my damies. And with that, that's where you fine folks come in. I'll keep it real. I hate the idea of asking you, because from jump—the folks here have been all about giving to you. It's been a year since we kicked things off here, pulling ourselves from a month-long muck of sadness, post-the loss of “The Big Fella”...but we did it.

And I'll be damned if in spite of all the work to get the doors open and the shingle hung, it hasn't been a lot of fun. And one of the things that has made this so much fun for us, and ultimately a major labor of love is that it was a chance for us—Jesse, Sara, Hubris, L'il Gator and Evan—to do all the things we really liked and really wanted to see in a blog we ourselves would want to visit every day.

We may not have gotten it all right, but God-bless-it, we have busted our asses trying...working to bring you the very best we can bring you.

We sweat the details—and the big stuff too.

It's one thing to say it...but ironically in a case like this, visuals help mightily. Cue up the mighty, mighty Driftglass from a couple of days ago:

Dear Arianna,




















Your Photoshopping sews socks that smell.

Yeah, sure, Poe once said “There is no exquisite beauty…without some strangeness in the proportion”, but this slovenly digital Hydrocephalism isn’t that.

This is just awful.

Amateurish.

And, most importantly, entirely avoidable.

So consider this your…iconogenitory intervention, because this is just embarrassing. I mean, you laid out seriously Big Cake to buy yourself a top-shelf blog. Popped for the Mark Levinson Lexus LS 430 sound system. Killer rims. The Guerlain's KissKiss Gold and Diamonds Nipple Rouge.

And you get people like Alec Baldwin, Barack Obama, Walter Cronkite, Peggy Noonan, Jim Webb and most of the rest of the celestial chorus of Left, Center and Right Blogistan to write for you.

You’ve got Best Selling-book income. Speaking-gig income. Blog-ad income. And whatever you have left from the divorce.

(Emphasis mine—LM) And yet for all of the vast resources at your command,




















you can't do better than this?
-----------------------------------------

...the “art” is a fucking disgrace.

Look, I have no formal training in graphic arts. None. And my first Photoshop efforts were, well, nothing to blog home about, but shit, Arianna, I’m just a leeeeetle fella and I’m actually mortified for you. So as a public service to all the young ballplayers out there, let's break this failure down into coachable moments.

First, the web is a Visual Medium, so pick your palette accordingly. If you want to convey face-to-face conflict, pick some images where the story is already clear, sight-lines are clean and the choreography simple.

For example, would the average reader out there even catch on that the foundation for your graphic was this vid capture from...


“West Side Story”?

I sure didn’t.

------------------------------------------

Given your high profile, Arianna, and the resources you can bring to bear, there was no excuse for this shoddy workmanship; America’s coffeehouses, gentlemen's clubs, call centers, boxcars, and community college faculty lounges are full of unemployed and underemployed pixelslingers whose services are available for very reasonable rates.

Hell, available for reheated pizza and a pot of decent coffee.

Seriously, Arianna, how about bringing the visual content of your blog up to the same world-class professional level as the written content?

And to get you started in the right direction let me point you towards the proven graphic talents of these extremely gifted and politically-savvy artists:

Lower Manhattanite of the Group News Blog.

Mark Hoback at The Aristocrats

And Darkblack over at Darkblack.

Which prompted me to comment thusly:

Drifty...

Don't sell yourself short on “teh skillz” as you point out the third rail that these people kick like Robert Shaw in “The Taking Of Pelham 1,2,3” when they scrimp on the visuals.

You see, above and beyond my being a graphics professional for the last thirty-plus years (got my first sign-painting job when I was 11) and having a certain level of pride in presenting nice things to look at, there's also simple respect for one's readers to take into account. When I surf the web, and come across shitty accompanying graphics to a post or story...I always feel a little bit cheated. Like somebody just didn't care, and roughed some shit off without a thought.

That is a turn off and a half.

I sweat the details, as do you and DarkBlack and Mark because I realize this is a multi-media thing we do. It ain't just about the “command line” any more. Give the people that extra little something to make 'em laugh, or think, or at the very least stick in their heads a little bit in their hundreds of click-arounds during a day.

Plus, a well-done accompanying (or main) graphic gives what you put out there that much more resonance and depth when it works well.

It's one thing if the stuff is intentionally kitschy or roughed off to give a particular feel—but that HuffPo abomination is flat-out, “We don't care”.

We here at Group News Blog care. Straight up. The details are sweated big time.

Patrick Ewing in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter sweated, actually.

















(Sweaty Pat Ewing graphic aid to show basic level of GNB dedication to you, the reader.
CLICK TO ENLARGE FOR EXTRA SWEATY EFFECT—OR NOT)

There's an absurd amount of outlining, fact-checking, assembly and yes...plain, old hard-ass writing that goes into the pieces we put before your eyes and minds. But as noted in Drifty's post excerpt above, and my ensuing comment to it—there's an awful lot of extras we try to give you to keep you interested, maybe a touch titillated, but mostly, to give you the very best, and most rounded experience when you deign to click over here to see what we have for you. There has been a very, very conscious effort from jump here to maximize your experience in every way possible. That includes the exclusive videos produced here under the Group News Blog banner. And all of this stuff takes an awful lot of work.

There's the sheer brain-power, and the basic editorial and artistic skills that goes into every post. And we pour our hearts and souls into this stuff—on occasion to the detriment of health because of working well past the fatigue point a workday, plus familial obligations and the other demands of life beyond blogtopia calls for.

Why?

Well...because as I said in the comment at Drifty's: “There's also simple respect for one's readers to take into account.”

We respect you. We care. We bust our asses every way we can. And thus, we come to you on the eve of the convention—a very expensive convention for us to cover, I might add (And that we'll be handling 95% of the bills for ourselves) to ask for a little help—as was said in Eddie Murphy's “Coming To America” “Donations! Donations!”

And to get those “Donations! Donations!” in hand, please visit our PayPal link here.

We don't half-step around here, folks. Because we want to give you the very best—writing and graphics-wise. Here's a little graphic I whipped up for a piece yet to come. You may recognize the poster and movie it spoofs...



That's how we roll...for you. So kick in what you can from your bank-roll, huh?

Trust me...you won't be sorry.

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HaloScan Bought Out by JS-Kit

Good and evil kittens. icanhascheezburger.com.

Tired of HaloScan Sucking? Rejoice, Rejoice, Rejoice.

The deal is scheduled to close in 30 days.

Implementation has already started.

Some of the recent suckage has to do with migration issues. The claim is, as sites migrate over -- in theory, seamlessly and you can believe as much of that as you want -- the remaining sites will go faster as the load on HaloScan's servers decreases. The migrated sites moved to JS-Kit will go faster because they're on the good stuff. Thus, all is of the good.

So they say.

We're backing up comments. A lot. Frequently.

The Washington Post

JS-Kit, a provider of Javascript comments, ratings, and poll widgets for blogs, has announced their acquisition of HaloScan, one of the largest hosted comments service providers. This announcement is also coordinated with the launch of several major features. Financial terms were not disclosed.

HaloScan had previously partnered with JS-Kit in January to provide the users of their comment system with "one-click" deployment of JS-Kit's ratings widget (providing ratings for articles, not ratings for comments). This acquisition will result in an exponential increase of JS-Kit's customer base, providing new access to over 520,000 participating sites, bringing its total reach to about 550,000 sites. JS-Kit also claims that with this new acquisition, it will be registering 300+ new sites per day. HaloScan's comment systems will integrate with JS-Kit's Ratings, Polls, Reviews, Navigator, and Advisor widgets. JS-Kit's comments also comes with full Akismet spam protection and profanity filters.

JS-Kit will leverage its newly acquired users to launch important new features. One of which is the implementation of an open standards-based, portable, user profile. Users will have access to all of the comments made on any JS-Kit participating site through an OpenID login system. The portable profile is accessible through a pop-up on the hosting site. This does lend itself to easier discovery, which could possibly help with adoption for new publishers.

This also goes hand-in-hand with another new feature that JS-Kit is implementing, SEO support. JS-Kit now sets up a static page for indexing comment content, which you can host on your server as a sub-domain, so search engines see the content on your site, and not JS-Kit's.

Faster, better, standards based. Better technical support and backup solutions.

Also, you get access to ALL comments on EVERY site you comment (with OpenID.) This is causing a fight with JS-Kit's competition. Whatever.

What I like most is GNB will get credit for links to Group News Blog -- thousands of them across the Internet over months -- which people put in comments. It certainly will drive our rankings higher. Good news babycakes.

I am pleased by their promises. Now... we shall see.

As always, what counts is action, not campaign promises.

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Vote for Maggie to Attend Netroots

LOLCAT Weekly Roundup 10, courtesy of Maggie Jochild's Meta Watershed.

Hey everyone...

I just noticed (through my pain) the updated request to vote Maggie Jochild a scholarship to Netroots Nation.

Seems the available scholarships got upped from 9 to 20, and the qualifying deadline got bumped to midnight June 13.

MAGGIE HAS A REAL SHOT AT GETTING A SCHOLARSHIP.
We have enough GNB readers to help in a major way.

Please vote for Maggie Jochild, friend of GNB.

Meta Watershed

UPDATE: The number of Netroot Nation scholarships available has been increased from 9 to 20, and the deadline for applying/voting extended to June 13th. I've been deeply moved by the response so far -- more than I can express. But I'm hoping any of you who missed this the first time around will be motivated go here and voice your vote for my getting one of these precious windows to community contact and influence.

------------------------

My readers, I have applied for a scholarship to attend the upcoming Netroots Nation Conference (progressive bloggers from everywhere), which is going to be in Austin on July 17-20. The application is through Democracy for America, and will pay admission (several hundred dollars) and lodging (which I may not need if I can get transportation to and from the site).

The nine scholarships will be awarded to "The applicant with the highest amount of support voiced on their application page by members of the DFA community will earn a scholarship. All other scholarships will be chosen at the discretion of DFA senior staff." Thus, I need your support!

Please go here to read my profile and register your support for me as a candidate. Spread the word, every vote will count. Click on the nomination box at the bottom.

Thanks for your help. I'll make great use of attending, you can count on that.

All of Group News Blog's writers will be at Netroots Nation.

Please help Maggie attend:

Vote for Maggie Jochild for a Netroots scholarship.

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One Year Later

Gilly Bear on Steve Gilliard's hospital pillow. photo by Jenonymous Feb 25, 2007.

A Food Post for the Stomach and the Heart and the Mind

Hey everyone. This feels strange writing this right now. I tried for the past few weeks to try to think of something meaningful to write. At first I thought of a food piece, and then a political piece, and then a health piece. Then something happened that made me want to do all three. I got inspired over this past Memorial Day weekend. I couldn't help but think about what Gilly would have posted. I put off thinking about the post and kept pushing it to the back of my mind. Then, on Monday—after a four-day weekend—I got a surprise and very much welcome spur-of-the-moment invite to a friend's house to partake in a small family get-together and bbq. I had been out taking pictures at the park; I had been in all weekend sleeping and killing zombies online, and needed the fresh air. Then my cell phone went off, the invite came in, and I found myself running back to my apartment to grab a bottle of decent red and my jacket, then out to the bakery for some dessert, and then on to the subway to the far end of the outer boros.

On the train all I could think about was the Blog-a-Ques that Gilly and I would go to every summer. I thought of the dessert and the wine—would he have approved? We used to bring loads of food with us whenever we got invited to anything, and used to coordinate ahead of time. I remember grilling with him under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, the Labor Day before 9/11.

It's 9 PM now. I just got in; I'm typing in my work clothes. I'm going to go change and keep typing. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is in re-runs on BBC America. Gimmie a minute. I need to change and wash off my makeup and get a drink.

*aaah.* Better. Gilly actually "got" my infatuation with Ramsay; he said that if he ever wrote a book on management he'd buy it and read it. But I digress.

Back to food and memory. So, I was at this BBQ and towards the end of the evening, the hostess (who was familiar with Gilly's body of work) said something to the effect that "Gilly would have never supported Dem candidate X." And suddenly, the evening came into very sharp focus.

"No, we can't say what he would have thought NOW," I said.

And that, dear readers, is Important Point Number One I am trying to make with this post.

As much as we all love and miss him, we have to remember that nobody can say what he WOULD have done or whom he WOULD have supported.

HE'S GONE.

His troubles are over, but so is his active work.THAT is the tragedy here.His voice was silenced prematurely, and we will never know just what a strong voice he may have become, especially in this election.

We'll never read the book he was having me help him with the pitch letter for.

Still, these are selfish thoughts in a way.Gilly also missed out on all of the other things he wanted to do for himself.

I remember, before he went in for that second surgery, the one that he didn't get out of the hospital from, I was trying to give him a pep talk.I wanted him to envision himself as a healthy man, so that he could make real plans for the future and take some real care of himself. We talked about that on the day when I went to give him the bear in the picture.

"So what are you going to do, Gilly, once you get well and get that kidney?"

"I'm getting the money together from somewhere and going to England and seeing Manchester United play their home turf.First thing."

During the two times that I went to Europe while I knew him, he asked me for only one thing—home team footie jerseys from the city I was in.I still have a ManU knockoff from Thailand that Gilly gave me when he went and sprang something like $130 for the real item.

Here was a man who was so erudite, so well educated, so knowledgeable…and he hadn't ever even left the US. Come to think of it, I don't think he ever even went on an airplane. Really. I vaguely seem to remember him saying he'd been on one once ages ago, but that's it.

Imagine what he could have done had he taken that trip, seen a bit of the world?

We'll never know.

Which leads me to Point I am Trying to Make Number Two:

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES. IF YOU HAVE A HEALTH PROBLEM, DO NOT MAKE EXCUSES. DO NOT LOOK FOR LOOPHOLES. DO WHAT YOU CAN TO BE AS WELL AS YOU PRACTICALLY CAN BE GIVEN ANY LIMITATIONS THAT YOU HAVE.

Gilly got the proverbial memo too late; the first bout of open heart surgery just didn't sink in. It's almost impossible to Monday-morning quarterback someone's life when it's over, but I will say that had he pursued a little more exercise, a somewhat better diet, and (CRITICALLY) more aggressively pursued better diagnostic and preventative care, he'd probably still be here. I blame nobody, but the tragedy here is that even a slight improvement of any one of these things would have broken the "perfect storm" that sank him. Throw institutional racism and indifferent healthcare providers into the brew and it gets toxic real fast.

Having said that, Gilly and I both loved to cook, and to eat out together and with others. Somehow, a memorial post wouldn't be complete without a recipe or two. So, herewith, I give you a HEALTHY option that can be prepared in one evening after work, easily. Please enjoy:

Beer Can Chicken

Oven Fries

Garlic SuperSlaw with Garlic Dressing (adopted from the Wings of Life cookbook, alas out of print now)

SHOPPING LIST FOR THE WHOLE SHEBANG:

--One chicken, 3-6 lbs

--Waxy potatos of some sort; small, longish fingerlings are the best (enough for your crew-at least 2 lbs)

--Olive Oil (light grade)

--Spice Rub of your Choice

--Head of Garlic

--One Savoy Cabbage or bag of prepped shredded slaw salad mix

--One Medium Red Onion

--One Smallish Bunch Scallions

--Red Wine Vinegar

--Mayo Brand of your Choice

--Salt, Pepper (kosher salt if you have it)

--Heavy cream, or dairy substitute cream (ie soy cream) or milk

Equip and stuff:

--One can of beer or soda—if you have a tallboy beer can, use that—with the bev still in it

--Shallow jellyroll pan or baking pan

--High-sided pan to prop the chicken up in (or one of those chicken-beercan-cooker-sub thingies)

--Paper towels or clean dishcloths

--Blender (optional)

--Clean sink (really)

Instructions:

When you get home or get back from shopping, the first thing to do is heat up the oven. Put one rack in the middle and one on the bottom. Preheat to between 350 and 375, depending on how big your chicken is (use higher heat for a SMALLER chicken) and how flakey your oven is. You may want to put foil on the higher shelf to aid cleanup as oven-done beercan chicken tends to splatter.

Okay, now prep the slaw cabbage IF you are using the whole Savoy cabbage. Quarter and core the cabbage, and slice into slaw strips. Put the strips into the biggest bowl that you have and sprinkle the strips with kosher salt and toss very well. Cover in plastic and set aside to let it weep out.

Now prep the potatoes. Scrub and quarter the "long way" to make fingers—but don't peel—the potatoes. If they are bigger taters, cut into fat circle slices at least ¼" thick. Take the jellyroll pan and oil it very very well with the light grade olive oil (NOT the heavy stuff or it will scorch and smoke and mess up yer taters). Keep the olive oil out. Now, consider which spice rub you are going to put on the chicken—either a pre-done mix or seasoned salt or your own blend. Put the taters in the pan and add more oil. Now, add what my Mom calls "too much seasoning" and toss—use the same blend you'll use on the chicken if you want. Add more and toss. Add more and toss more. Make sure you also have enough oil as well.

Make sure that the taters have enough room and don't overlap if possible. Put in the lower level of the oven, uncovered.

Now go to work on the rest of the slaw. If you are salting the cabbage, keep letting it do its thing and save this for LAST. If you are using pre-cut slaw mix, start here. slice up the scallions, thin, up to about 3" into the green part (don't use the gross slimy ends of the scallions). Slice the red onion first in half and then into the thinnest crescents that you can.

Now onto the dressing. Only make this right before you're going to assemble the slaw.

Set up your blender. Peel at least 6 cloves of garlic. Proportions are suggested; I use 1/3 cup for each "part" here. Put in 2 parts mayo. Have the pepper grinder ready. Dump in the garlic and give it a whirl. Add in via a few splashes one part red wine vinegar. Whirl like HELL on the highest speed. Add a LOT of black pepper. IF you are NOT salting the cabbage (ie using slaw mix) add a LITTLE salt. If you are salting your cabbage, add NOT ONE GRAIN of salt. Then, pour in one generous splash of cream and whip like hell again.

Hand-toss the slaw mix (or the rinsed cabbage—see below) with the onions and scallions. Pour in the dressing and toss by hand, very thoroughly. Cover tightly and let hang out in your fridge while you work on the rest of dinner.

Remember the potatoes? Good. Don't worry, they are impossible to screw up. Stir them gently and go prep the chicken.

Take the chicken and rinse and dry well. Spray PAM or something on your pan and on your beercan chicken apparatus if you are using one. Season the chicken with lots of whatever you like on it. If you want, rub it down with some of the liquid from the can of your choice first—Gilly like using either Coke or beer—before you put the spice rub on. Now, either pour out half of the can's contents (or drink it) or pour it in the beer can apparatus. Stick the can or apparatus up the open wide end of the chicken, and balance the mess carefully in your pan. If you are using a can, GREASE THE CAN. CAREFULLY put the bird in the center of the upper rack of the oven.

Now, if you are wilting your cabbage, you can let it keep wilting for at least 15 more minutes. Go stir the potatoes again; if you need to, drizzle in a tad more oil. Now make sure your sink is CLEAN, especially if you rinsed the chicken in it. Fill sink with cold water and dump in the cabbage. Stir like a batch of laundry—rinse off that salt! Swish and drain in a colander, or just use a bunch of paper towels to squeeze out the water. Rinse again if need be. The cabbage should be wilted, and will taste salty—hence no salt in the dressing. Assemble salad as above.

Okay, now all you have to do is let the chicken cook. It should take around an hour. Do try to stir the taters at least once more. Towards the end of the cooking process, the oil will darken and thicken and the taters will shrink a bit and get a great crust of spicy goodness. If you need more time on the taters, you can always leave them in the oven for a bit more while the chicken rests.

Chicken is done when your favorite superstitious method for chicken doneness tests positive. I usually use the "if it smells done, it is" test.

If the taters are still in the oven, leave it on, obviously.

VERY VERY CAREFULLY and with GREAT CARE take the teetering chicken out of the oven and put on a stable surface. Use oven mitts.

Don't even think about getting the chicken off the can yet. Gently tent the whole mess with foil and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Get your cutting board or your serving pan ready. Using tongs and a mitt/glove, hold down the can with the gloved hand and use the tongs to pull the chicken off of the can. Or, if you have silicon gloves, use them to lift the chicken off the can. The can will be full of boiling hot liquid; you don't want 3^rd-degree scald burns; they suck. Be careful. Put the chicken on your board or your serving tray.

If the taters are still in the oven, they should be over themselves by now. Give a stir, and take them out of the oil and plate.

Give the slaw a deep stir from the bottom. Use tongs to make sure that the onions and scallions are well distributed.

Serve.

Enjoy.

NOTE: The slaw ages well and is even better the next day; make a day in advance. It keeps about a week in the cold part of the fridge. Also, the oven fries make the ABSOLUTE BEST hash browns as leftovers and are also good cold believe it or not.

Hash Browns: Using a smoking-hot cast iron pan, melt down a tad of butter with some olive oil. Brown-crisp a yellow onion. Toss in diced ovenfries and some red bell pepper if you feel fancy. Add a dash of very hot hot sauce and let sizzle down. Serve with eggs or tofu scramble or whatever—would also be a great hot side with fish, etc.

ENJOY AND BE WELL.

It's almost 11 PM. I need to sleep. Take care, remember, and preserve yourselves so that we can all stay on and fight.

Thank you.

---Jen

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Minor Technical Glitch

HaloScan Not Incrementing Comment Count

HaloScan is working. Mostly.

I've sent a note to HaloScan support. They normally respond quickly.

The issue is the Comments link isn't incrementing as comments are added. People's comments are being entered just peachy. Although to be safe, please SAVE your work before pressing Publish.

Normally where HaloScan says Comments at the bottom of a Post, the Comment field would change -- 1, 2, 3 -- to tell you how many comments are there.

Not happening. We're working on it.

Thank you for your patience.

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Down In The Mouth

Recovering At Last. Thanks To Antibiotics And That Mind-Bending Mistress, Vicodin

Been out of the loop for the last few days as I had my second, and thankfully (hopefully) final round of gum/bone graft surgery last Thursday. I wasn't expecting it to be quite as intense as it was, thinking it would be more like the first round the previous week.

I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

While the previous week's work was palliative, this past week's surgery was the fix, the repair. I thank God my dentists are caring enough folks who take the time to talk with me and numb the area enough so I couldn't feel the pain from the pretty intensive job they were doing. Which basically entailed cutting open my gum, cleaning HARD around the affected pocketed area, putting in a synthetic membrane, then filling the gap with a bone-like polymer, letting that set a bit, then closing me up with sutures and applying lovely, custom-cut, in-mouth bandages I must somehow manage to keep on for two weeks until my follow-up. Again, there was no pain during the surgery, but I could feel the pressure of the doc and his hygienist doing hard, knuckle-cracking work in my grille for nearly three hours.

If you've ever had a fire in your home, you'll know the way fiirefighters in their quest to save lives have a tendency to bigfoot around with heavy steps, ripping this and that out, in search of flames and heat. Well, my mouth was a house afire, and it was only after they were done and I felt the numerous shots wearing off when I began to feel the effects of their going in hard and putting out my fire.

You know you're in for the shit when minutes after you're out of the chair (and spitting out what looked like what Dick Cheney would spit out if interrupted while eating a baby) they hand you a Vicodin and say. “Take this NOW.”

I'd kinda scrimped on the painkillers after Round One of my oral pain-a-palooza. Not this time. Thursday was bad. Friday was actually worse, as my lower right jaw swelled a little after having been sliced, diced and julienned and then having foreign substances—the membrane and synthetic bone put in at last. Didn't eat really until Saturday. Grits and scrambled eggs, chewed on the left side of my mouth—oh, so enjoyable. And of course, the prescriptions. Antibiotics, Vicodin, Peridox gargle. Lovely. But I am getting better. My body is still adjusting to the new stuff in my jawline, but things have stabilized considerably.

And best of all...after being told that I could not drink anything hot (or eat anything hot, spicy, or overly chew-intensive...which is everything that is yummy), today I had my first cup of coffee since Thursday.

And I love a good cup of coffee. My brother had gotten me a bag of South American beans, roasted on the day he'd gotten them himself, and we were on the final bit of that burlap bag of Brazilian bounty in my house for the weeks leading up to me getting my jaw sawed the fuck open. I was missing my Java and since the supply was dwindling of the good stuff at the house (It's gonna be hard goin' back to Dunkin' Donuts joe after this stuff), I had my wife set aside a bit of the last of the whole beans.

Today...I had some. And what sweet ambrosia it was. Ground 'em up m' self and made a big, steaming cup—which I carefully drank, still keeping mostly to one side of my mouth. But, ohhhhhhhh...

The bag, the bowl, the Brazilian Bounty still to be a' ground. Mmmmmmmm!!

So incrementally, I'm getting better. Thanks to all of you who wished me well and sent me good health vibes. Papa LM is recovering—even if the gauzy veil of Hydrocodone (Vicodin) makes the thought processes a little difficult of late. I swear, I don't know how people can pop this stuff recreationally. Fuck a “trip”. It sends me on scary voyages. The reflexes? Please. I couldn't quick-draw a salt-pained slug. I found myself waiting for the bus the other day—a long wait—watching the cars go by, and got entertained when they appeared to be going in slow-motion. I thought I was musing to myself on the taffy-pulled vehicles (that's what they looked like to me) when I noticed a woman who had been standing near me at the bus stop moving away from me.

Apparently, my dreamy “La-la-la-la”-ing I thought I was doing in my head while watching the Fantasia-esque parade of cars was actually being pharmaceutically vocalized.

Yikes.

So, that's why I've been away. The old judgement and common sense centers are still just a tad off. But they are getting better as I wean off this “stuff”. Coming backatcha, people. Coming backatacha!

Just do me a favor, though. If you notice me going “La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la” in a post, promise me you'll be kind and just hip me in comments and NOT cyber-back away from a brother, okay? Thanks!

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Pain: Pt. 3

Meta Watershed: LOL Weekly Roundup

“Ouch!” (We're still healing...)

Quick update on your intrepid bloggers. And other notes.

LM had his dental surgery Thursday as scheduled.

Lots of ice, rest, taking his meds, watching old comedies, being a good patient.

He's recovering well, if posting a tad too much while still in pain. (And yes, as he pointed out, the Sean Bell verdict came in when it did. So he posted. Still. Take it easy, dammit. You're recovering from fracking surgery. “Doc” has spoken.)

*waves to LM sweetly*

As for me, I met with the pain doc Tuesday as scheduled. I am also recovering, and hope to resume a quarter-normal posting schedule late next week.

We -- my medical team and I -- think we have a fix, but it's been three, increasingly long months. Last month was the worst month I can remember having in, well, a long time. Probably a year and a half, back while I was still not myself quite yet. Pain is rated on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst. Each month when you visit the pain doctor, you answer a number of different question sets, in order to draw out a baseline over time.

One of these questions sets is:

What is your current pain level?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What was your worst pain in the last week?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What was your least pain in the last week?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What was your average pain in the last week?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Normally, I average -- this, mind you, even with all the medications I take -- about a 4. We try and keep me in a range where I don't peak above 6, with lows of 0-2 pain; that's a good week (month.) This is normal for me, as much as I have a normal.

Three months ago my minimum pain was 4 with breakthrough pain up to 8. Two months ago I averaged 6 with peaks to 8. Last month I averaged 8 peaking to 10. Everyone who is around me closely, noticed. Bad month. Bad. *smiles*

This month my pain doc and I aren't getting fancy, we're just hitting the pain head on with more of the same drugs already known to work with me. So far, so good. My pain levels are dropping and associated issues are getting back under control.

If all goes well, sometime next week, I'll likely start posting again. Not at my normal pace; taking it easy. Now I'm still waiting to see if the meds really do bring the pain levels all the way back down to normal.

'Cause we sure as hell don't want the pain levels going up to an eleven.

Hmmm... I wrote about that once.

Group News Blog

“Ooooowww... Fuck!”

Furthermore, the numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven. Most blokes you know, will be torturing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten. Where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere. Exactly. What we do with the Raytheon ray-gun if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Put it up to eleven. Exactly. One more painful.

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Bottom line... If you need time to get well, take it.

The rule at GNB is, wellbeing comes first. Period.

All of us at one time or another have taken a break to handle life issues. We love journalism, and we love you, but in order to do any of that, we must take care of ourselves -- and honor our parents, too. (Yes, I did talk with my Mom today, thanks for asking. And thanks again for those wonderful photos from your trip to Tucson. [That was a shout out to a regular whom I'm not going to mention.] But if you take a trip to Tucson, you can score with me by sending photos. I'm just saying I miss Tucson. Still. Always.)

People ask me sometimes, “what is it that makes GNB fundamentally different from other blogs?” Is it that people here are so smart? Or classy? That our men and women are so damn sexy? Our military coverage?

All these help. And yes, we inherited Steve's legacy. But more than all this, it's that at Group News Blog, we are profoundly committed to making sure people are left taken care of, in the interactions they have here. A year ago right now, the heart of who GNB is now was forming, as we worked together to make sure communication stayed in, and that everyone was taken care of, that people remembered to breathe.

You're our people.

We're in our tenth month, and committed to taking care of you.

Thank you for being here.

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Google Takes it to the Cloud

Developers Get Access to the Google Cloud

Yesterday, Google announced that Developers could Beta new services from Google. Specifically, that web applications could be developed taking advantage of all of Google's internal structures, from Google Bigtable to the Google File System.

This is a BIG FRACKING DEAL.

'Course, the catch is, as a developer, as other's have said, you're tied in tight to Google, and it would be nice if they gave you more than just Python to hack in. Sure, if you wanted to migrate away, you probably could write abstractions and move out, but still. On the other hand, for those who want to live in Google's world, this is the way to go. Everything from authentication to mail is handled.

May a million startups bloom. The age of needing your own hardware to run a startup is damn near over. Thrown everything up in the cloud, even if you're video intense. You'll still own it. Just run it on someone else's stuff. Focus on what you do best, which is hacking code, and getting customers. Managing infrastructure is no longer a core competency for a startup. Or at least, it doesn't have to be.

Matt Cutts

This is pretty cool. Google launched App Engine, which lets you write code for a web application, then Google takes care of the scaling/failover/logistics-type issues. You can store your data in a Google Bigtable using the Google File System. There’s a bunch of App Engine APIs to simplify things like sending email and fetching urls. Your application can authenticate users that are using Google Accounts, so you can avoid the whole “ask your users to create a new account” issue if you want.

The official blog post makes it clear that this is a preview release, so Google will be adding more functionality over time but they’re opening the program up now to start to allow real-world applications and to get real-world feedback. The first 10,000 developers to sign up get to play with it now.

My favorite part is that the usage model looks pretty solid:

During this preview period, applications are limited to 500MB of storage, 200M megacycles of CPU per day, and 10GB bandwidth per day. We expect most applications will be able to serve around 5 million pageviews per month. In the future, these limited quotas will remain free, and developers will be able to purchase additional resources as needed.

ReadWriteWeb

Let's firstly review what this is - and what it is not. Google App Engine is similar to the Amazon Web Services stack, which rolled out at the end of 2006 and has since gone on to be utilised by many startups for their infrastructure needs. But it is not a set of standalone services like Amazon's - which includes S3 for storage, EC2 for hosting and the SimpleDB database. Google App Engine is an end-to-end service and bundles everything into one package.

In that respect Google App Engine is more like the so-called "Platform-as-a-Service" (PaaS) apps like Bungee Labs, which we profiled firstly in April 2007 and then more recently in February when it launched a new version. Other PaaS contenders include Salesforce.com's Force.com platform (nicely summarised by Dan Farber) and Morfik's Ajax platform.

There are many compelling reasons for startups to use Google App Engine; and Alex Iskold summed them up in his post Reaching for the Sky Through The Compute Clouds. Alex explained why the likes of Amazon, and now Google, are providing a valuable service to startups:

"We are witnessing a fundamental shift in our ability to compute and this is just the beginning. Amazon is at the forefront of making massively parallel, web scale compute services available to the world. Free from the need to solve the scalability problems, startups are able to focus on the specific problems that their product or service is trying to solve. All of this is happening while the cost of hardware, bandwidth and services overall keep dropping."
(emphasis mine)

However, there are a few downsides to the Google approach. For one thing, it means developers must use Python as their programming language - PHP and Ruby are two other popular languages today. But looking at the bigger picture, startups which use Google App Engine are essentially tying themselves into Google's technology. They'll need to host with Google, do their processing with Google, store their data with Google, etc. And as some people have already speculated, having a web app built and deployed with Google App Engine makes it much easier for Google to eventually acquire that web app.

It does make you wonder: would you want Google to control your entire end-to-end development environment? Isn't that what developers used to be afraid of Microsoft for?

I'm not as afraid -- yet -- of Google as I am of Microsoft. Mostly I guess because Google is riding the historical wave, and Microsoft still is fighting the tide of history.

Cloud computing is here. It isn't getting here. It is here.

GNB routinely serves almost all of our data from the cloud. From Google's Blogger cloud (mostly), HaloScan's cloud (mostly), and from Amazon's S3 cloud (a little.) Plus other clouds we call to frequently such as Google's YouTube. In addition, we have a datacenter in Tokyo where we serve our "We Fight On" graphic. We run daily backups to our Tokyo datacenter and our Seattle headquarters. Not to mention some of us routinely back up our work to little flashdrives and aways have backups with us, where ever we go.

The point is, having our data live in the cloud and not on our own servers (except for local backup) means we don't have to concentrate on infrastructure. We don't have to pay for infrastructure either (which again, is a big fracking deal.) We just have to concentrate on what we do best, which is journalism and taking care of listening to our readers. This lets us increase our customer base.

This is precisely what Cloud computing is about. Off load startup infrastructure (and costs) to the Cloud, allows startup companies (such as GNB) to focus on their core competencies and see if they have a viable business. How you know you have a viable business, by the way, is if customers show up. If they do, you've got one. If they don't, you don't. Cloud computing lets startups test out ideas without having to make enormous infrastructure investments.

GNB (and The News Blog before us) wouldn't exist today without Cloud computing.

Bring on the Cloud.

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Learning From The Cultural Conservatives (Again)

Sara Robinson has Part III of Learning From The Cultural Conservatives up at Campaign for American's Future.

Learning From The Cultural Conservatives,
Part III: Taking It To The Street

If you missed them the first time, here are Parts I & II:

Learning From The Cultural Conservatives,
Part I: Messing With Their Minds
Part II: Talking Up The Worldview

Want to know how the conservatives have been -- literally -- changing the way in which you and I can think, what we are capable of thinking, using a highly sophisticated understanding of biology, history, linguistics, psychology, and science? It's all right here.

Highly Recommended.

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Twittering

Follow me on Twitter.

We never ask anyone to link their blog to ours.

If folks find our content worth it, we figure they'll link.

Twitter's different.

The value lies in people following Twitter feeds, and twittering themselves.

Feel free to "follow" my Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/JesseWendel

I've only been updating here and there, but as more of you start following, I'll update more and more, including from my phone and by email.

Also, while it's fairly unlikely, if GNB should ever have an outage, we'll provide updates on my Twitter feed.

Twitter: It's what's for dinner.

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Learning From The Cultural Conservatives

Sara Robinson in addition to a vacation and her normal writing at Orcinus, is half-way through a quarter-long gig writing at Campaign for American's Future.

Rarely is something so good, I say to drop everything and go read.

“Drop everything and go read.”

Learning From The Cultural Conservatives,
Part I: Messing With Their Minds
Part II: Talking Up The Worldview
Part III: Taking It To The Street

Part III will be up next Monday. I'll update this page, and post separately. (Note: Part III added above on Mar 11.)

Campaign for America's Future is doing rich, deep, thoughtful work, the kind which holds the keys to our future as progressives. Highly recommended.

I can't say enough about Sara's work. She is a world-class intellect at work.

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Battlestar Galactica Interview

Concurring Opinions Interviews BSG Creators

Roughly one hour of on-point interview (QuickTime) is available with Ron Moore and David Eick, creators of Battlestar Galactica.

Recommended for BSG fans ONLY. Everyone else, watch BSG first, or this will ruin the series for you. See my comments below.

Concurring Opinions

We are thrilled to offer readers of Concurring Opinions an interview with Ron Moore and David Eick, creators of the hit television show Battlestar Galactica. Daniel Solove, Deven Desai, and David Hoffman ask the questions. We would like to thank Professor John Ip for suggesting some of the torture questions. Our interview lasts a little over an hour.

Our goal was to explore some of the themes of the show in a deeper manner than many traditional interviews. Ron and David graciously agreed to give us an hour of their time, and we had a fascinating conversation with them.

Our interview is structured in three parts. Part I, available in two files (see the end of this post to download), focuses on the issues of legal systems and morality. It examines the lawyers and trials in the show. It also examines how torture is depicted, a