Ms. Mon & Ms. Clark

Two new blogs by two local women at two MSM:

Ms. Mon's Salon
Frances Monahan (Ms. Adventures on the Mon, This Just In @ Pittsburgh City Paper) is also now blogging at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (Thanks for the shout out!)

Ms.blog: Jeanne Clark
Jeanne K. Clark (PennFuture & President of the Squirrel Hill chapter of NOW) is now blogging at Ms. Magazine.

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Members Only: New Post-Gazette Site

As Chris Potter first reported here, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is offering a members-only web site.

From the Post-Gazette:

At midnight tonight, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will launch PG+, a members-only Web site with interactive features and exclusive content by Post-Gazette staffers above and beyond what the Post-Gazette already provides in its daily print and online versions.

PG+ will not replace post-gazette.com, which will continue to offer the same breaking news, features and multimedia content as always. Rather, it will allow subscribers access to a new stream of exclusive blogs, videos, live chats and behind-the-scenes insights into the news of the day.

The new site, hosted by a team of PG bloggers, will emphasize user interaction, with commenting throughout the site. Members also will be able to create a social networking profile to keep the conversation going.

The content will be provided by some of the Post-Gazette's best-known personalities, including Ed Bouchette, Mackenzie Carpenter, Doug Oster, Gene Collier, Reg Henry and Jack Kelly.

There's an annual membership fee of $36 vs. a monthly membership of $3.99.

You can tour the PG+ site here.

Potter had floated the rumor that PittGirl would be part of the new site, but from his Slag Heap post yesterday -- and the tour -- she appears to be MIA (at least for now).

As Potter also points out:

...this online membership fee is being applied to everyone -- including those who already pay for the print edition. So I'm afraid the P-G just lost a print subscriber: me.

[snip]

I'm not sure losing print-edition readers is the kind of revenue enhancement the P-G has in mind. But I doubt there's a lot of overlap between print and online readership anyway. So this could be smart business even if it ticks me off.

I think he's right about the lack of overlap.

I guess the perks of the new site include the ability to "interact personally" with P-G writers/bloggers, or is that blogger-writers? The regular online edition of the P-G still does not allow reader comments on it's news stories/columns -- something that many online editions of newspapers have included for some time.

One of the features includes something called "FACE OFF LIVE!" Which is a daily "live right-left chat on the world of politics" between Reg Henry and Jack Kelly. It behooves me to point out that Dayvoe has been fact-checking Kelly FOR YEARS now.

I may decide to splurge the $3.99 and give the site a whirl even though a large chunk of it appears to be sports-oriented -- not my cup of tea -- but undoubtedly something to attract the huge Pittsburgh Diaspora crowd.

Anyhoo, I still find the whole newspaper writers as newspaper bloggers phenomenon to be strange -- especially when the writers are columnists as opposed to journalists. I mean, what do they have to say on a blog that they can't say in their columns? What is the point? What am I missing?

Are we supposed to take their blogs as somehow being less serious than their columns? Or, does it just allow for a more diverse range of topics for them to cover?

I guess I just don't get the mentality behind it.

They are still responsible to a corporate entity -- no? -- something that regular little ol' bloggers do not have to worry about.

I guess I'm asking if corporate bloggers are truly bloggers...
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PittGirl Fired

Well this sucks but is not totally unexpected.

From KDKA:

Virginia Montanez, also known as PittGirl, was the marketing director for the Pittsburgh-based scholarship program NEED.

Montanez revealed her identity in an interview with KDKA's Jim Lokay on Wednesday.

She said she was fired this morning.

You can read her take on it at her blog.

And some people wonder why so many bloggers remain anonymous . . .

[sigh]
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Bill Clinton at Netroots Nation + Other NN News

President Bill Clinton will be giving the keynote speech at Netroots Nation 2009 this Thursday. Those not living under a rock know that NN 2009 (formerly known as YearlyKos) is being held in Pittsburgh this week (August 13-16 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center) and that it's a national convention for progressive bloggers.

Other pols and local luminaries participating in various panels include:

Gov. Howard Dean
Sen. Arlen Specter
Gov. Don Siegelman
Rep. Joe Sestak
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
PA Rep. Chelsa Wagner
Mayor John Fetterman
City Councilman Bill Peduto
Witold "Vic" Walczak
Dr. Cyril Wecht
Rev. Janet Edwards
Khari Mosely
Celeste Taylor
Paradise Gray
Kimberly "Dr. Goddess" Ellis

Full Speaker list here and agenda here.

I am looking forward to hearing from some of the rock stars of my world including: Digby, Pam Spaulding, Marcy Wheeler, Jane Hamsher, Christy Hardin Smith, Amanda Marcotte, Amanda Terkel, Robert Greenwald, Matthew Yglesias and Gen. JC Christian. I also plan to attend the Official "Unofficial Opening Night After-party" and the mixer sponsored by Keystone Progress.

Or, I could decide to bag it all and attend the competing conservative blogger conference in Pittsburgh this week (RightOnline) and see Joe the Plumber -- talk about your star power!

If you'd like to help with NN 2009, you probably can still volunteer by contacting Eric Thut (eric@netrootsnation.org), but you'd better be quick about it.

Also, check out the forum in pghRoots where there are folks looking for room shares, rides, etc.
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bram on my teevee

Bram Reichbaum of The Pittsburgh Comet blog spoke at today's Pittsburgh City Council meeting today during Public Comment.

He applauded Council for deciding to put their meetings on the Internet, but asked them to make the video downloadable. He explained that while Allegheny County Council has video of their meetings available to view, it is not downloadable and therefore not editable. If, for example, you want to direct your blog readers to a particular comment made during a County Council meeting you can only provide them a link to a six hour meeting and tell them it's three hours in.

Councilor Bill Peduto said that Council wants to make the video not only downloadable, but also searchable and embeddable. [Yeah!]


Note: In the course of Bram's comments he gave a shout out to numerous blogs that cover Pittsburgh politics . . . 2pj not being among them. Thanks, Bram. ;-)
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Around the Burgosphere

The Reformation is making a comeback with the re-launch of City Councilman Bill Peduto's Reform Pittsburgh Now site (he even nails his theses to the virtual door).

Progress Pittsburgh notes a need for election workers in Pittsburgh's 7th and 8th Wards for the May 19th primary.

Progress Pittsburgh (again) and The Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society report on yard sign thuggery against Natalia Rudiak and Susan Banahasky (I also hear that Georgia Blotzer supporters are facing intimidation when putting up her signs in their own yards and it sure as hell is not coming from the Rob Frank camp).

Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents gives a queer perspective on the City Council District 6 race.

The Pittsburgh Comet "Will Make You Talk About Pat Ford If It's The Last Thing This Blog Does," dammit! (You go, Bram!)

The Busman's Holiday's April 22nd post is relevant anew as Lil Mayor Luke dodged the making his schedule public question one mo' time at this week's mayoral debate. Bonus points to Lukey for blaming it all on Dowd instead of Mayo asking the question. Meanwhile, Early Returns gets all hairy over the debates.

The City Paper interviewed local bloggers Bram and Matt H on print vs. blogs and agendas (which we blogged on here).

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat provides a sneak peak at web-based permitting.

View from the BurghChair interviews, uh, everyone!

And, A Spork in the Drawer takes on Pooh.
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Some thoughts on tonight's debate

If we were back a year ago during the Democratic primary presidential debates, my inbox would have been full already with emails from the candidates' campaigns spinning the debate. Luke, what are you spending that million+ on?

Someone: Please tell Ms. Robinson to look into the camera (she did get much better as the debate went on).

Dowd: You had my grandmother at hello (actually, she mentioned something about "children are our future," "teacher," "school board," etc.) .

Joe Arpaio?!? Really, Wendy? From Wikipedia:

- From 2004 through November 2007, Arpaio was the target of 2,150 lawsuits in U.S. District Court and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts; 50 times as many prison-conditions lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined.

- Family members of inmates who have died or been injured in jail custody have filed lawsuits against the sheriff’s office. Maricopa County has paid more than $43 million in settlement claims during Arpaio's tenure.

- In 2004, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team led a raid on an Ahwatukee home in a gated subdivision, looking for illegal weapons. No illegal weapons were found, but during the raid, the house burned down, SWAT officers forced a dog back into the building where it subsequently died, and an armored vehicle rolled into a neighbor's parked car as a result of brake failure.

Wendy if that doesn't grab you, you might want to click on this link and read the part where Arpaio's deputies arrested Village Voice Media executives and Phoenix New Times editors and where a reporter for the Phoenix New Times, was surrounded and intimidated by Arpaio's deputies while trying to examine public records at the City of Phoenix public records counter. But then again, you seem really hopped up on the whole chain gang idea. Bob, please have a talk with Wendy.

Mayo: Nice question about the mayor making his schedule public -- too bad he never answered it.

I agree with Anthony:

7:56 Luke just mentioned O'Connor. God, give me strength.

7:57 Isn't it comforting to know what Luke now admits--that he wasn't ready to be mayor when O'Connor died. So in 3 more years, is he going to admit that he wasn't ready in 2009, either?

UPDATE: Other Burghosphere reactions to the debate:

Pittsburgh Comet
Tunesmith & Anthony
Infinonymous
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Blogroll Update

These blogs have been added to 2pj's local political blogroll:

after the bridge (Because Sherry now blogs about politics as much as she blogs about poetry and because as someone put it "Sherry is at the epicenter of the 'Burghosphere")
http://www.afterthebridge.blogspot.com/

Pgh is a City
http://pghisacity.blogspot.com/

Pop City
http://www.popcitymedia.com/

The Huddler
http://thehuddler.blogspot.com/

The Radical Middle (Chad Hermann's P-G gig)
http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/radicalmiddle/default.aspx

thoughts on government...and other stuff (Another Schultz blog)
http://techandpolitics.blogspot.com/

View from the Burghchair
http://burghchair.blogspot.com/

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Housekeeping for 2009

Hopefully, you've noticed that we changed our header. We've had George W. Bush at the top in one form or another since day one of this blog. He's loomed over this blog as he's loomed over the world (reigning down destruction and failure). But he'll be gone in 19 long days so it's time to say:

Good riddance to bad rubbish
We've also updated our blogroll. In addition to putting some blog links out to pasture under the heading "Retired Local Blogs" we've also added a few:

Local:

414 Grant Street
http://414grantstreet.blogspot.com/

CP's Slag Heap
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Section?oid=oid%3A41056&category=oid%3A41825
(On the off chance you don't know; the "CP" is both for City Paper and Chris Potter.)

Gab Bonesso
http://gabbonesso.com/

The Bag of Health and Politics
http://thebagofhealthandpolitics.wordpress.com/
(Been meaning to add this for ages.)

The Blog of Burgher Jon
http://burgherjon.blogspot.com/


National:

Corrente
http://www.correntewire.com/
(I'm sure they'll keep tabs on Obama.)

Feministe
http://www.feministe.us/blog

Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald

James Wolcott
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott
(But only because I once served jury duty with his wife, Laura Jacobs, and we were sequestered. OK, I'm kidding about the "only" part.)

TalkLeft
http://www.talkleft.com/

NOTE: As always, additions to the blogroll are based on making my life easier in getting to what I want to read.

I'd like to also take this space to link to some recent funny local postings around the Burghosphere that you may have missed:

Lady Elaine's 12 Days of Pittsburgh Christmas at View From The Burghchair

Anthony's 2009 Predictions at Tunesmith & Anthony

Pretty much everything The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat has written for the last three days. (Mayor's Office Reopens After "Santa Incident", "Open Season" Declared on Feral Municipalities, New Years Resolutions, and Pittsburgh City Council Greenlights New "Webisodes")

And, maybe the best national blog post of the year:

The House That Jack Built
by Stirling Newberry at The Agonist
I'll close this post with M.I.A.'s Paper Planes video. Even though it came out in 2007, it pretty much sums up the McCain/Palin Campaign's underlying theme:

Fear "The Other" (Undercover Terrorist Immigrant)


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Noooooooooooo!

As much as I miss the recent departure of local blogs like Teacher. Wordsmith. Madmen, The Burgh Blog (PittGirl), The Conversation, Pittsburgh Pist-Gazette and others, I really mourn for the loss of The Burgh Report.

When I wanted to read about local Pittsburgh politics it was my first stop, and my second and third . . .

I have no insight as to why they closed shop. I do know that The Burgher had to, at least, take a break and was looking for someone to cover for him/her, but the fact that the archive is now gone and that video final blog post leads one to believe that the anonymity of The Burgher may have been threatened.

But who knows? Not me.

All I know is that it is damn hard to keep up a blog consistently for years -- even a group blog like The Burgh Report.

And, Bram: You are forbidden from closing up shop.

I'm also glad that the Post-Gazette's Early Returns has stepped up their game.

Damn, this sucks.
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Around the Burgosphere

PittGirl says goodbye to blogging making it safe once more to look for love (and other stuff)on craigslist.

Sue has been selected to participate in the LGBT Blogger and Citizens Journalist Initiative in DC (CONGRATS!).

Bram gives much thought to Pittsburgh's Ethics Board.

Progress Pittsburgh reminds us that the p2 pac is hosting a Happy Hour TONIGHT at Max’s Allegheny Tavern, 537 Suismon Street, Pittsburgh

and

They inform us that for a mere $500 you can attend a fundraiser with Bill Clinton for Lil Mayor Luke Ravenstahl (I guess all those snubs of Obama were worth it for Lukey).

Gab tells us how those bloggers still left in the Burgh can get into a free showing of the Players Production Company's Pittsburgh premiere of David Lindsey-Abaire’s Wonder of the World.

Finally:

Normally I'd think that it would take some chutzpah for a Spork to make fun of a cookie cutter, but not in this case.

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VEEP! VEEP!

Of course most of you will be doubling your enjoyment of tonight's VP debate by going to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Early Returns blog for the Big Burgosphere Live Blog, but just in case you want to commune with in-the-flesh types there is a debate party you can attend:

VP Debate Watch Party! Oct. 2 Hosted by Western PA Women for Obama
Where: Schenley Ice Rink Meeting Room (1 Overlook Drive in Pittsburgh)
When: Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008, at 8 p.m.

For more details, and to RSVP on BarackObama.com, click here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=30557&id=14109-1367448-wvL38ox&t=11

At the party, you can also sign up with the Obama campaign to help get out the vote! With just 33 days to go, there's no better time to come together and get involved in helping Obama and Biden win in November.

UPDATE: CNN is doing a live feed the entire evening from the VP Debate Watch Party. Help pack the venue. If you can't make it - tell your friends!

For your viewing pleasure here's Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits:


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Bloggerific!

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Early Returns blog will not only live blog Thursday's VP nominee debate, they've also invited a galaxy of the Burghosphere's star political bloggers to join in on the fun. So far both Dayvoe and I and The Burgher and Bram and Schultz and whatever Conservatives they can scrounge up in this overwhelmingly Democratic town will be participating (full list of luminaries TBA at a later date).

And, the best thing about it is that we get to participate from the comfort of our own homes (or the undisclosed location of our choosing) so expect lots of Cheeto dust on our keyboards and malice towards all!

While McNulty is busy getting to know us a little better, he initially pictured us as the crew of the Love Boat:

Since I just can't see myself as any of those cast members, I have taken it upon myself to plumb the depths of the Love Boat Guest Star List to find someone to portray me. I've chosen four from that vast list and ask you to vote in Comments on who should win the role:

1) Eve Arden

2) Julie Newmar

3) Andy Warhol

4) Jo Anne Worley

Cast your vote NOW!
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Chad Hermann Says Buh-Bye

With an op-ed.

He signed off his own blog with this:

The rest is silence.

I do have to say, however, that it might be a teensy bit melodramatic signing off with Hamlet's dying words. Though symbolically, it's probably better than Iago's last words:

Demand me nothing. What you know, you know./From this time forth I never will speak word.

In any event, it's too bad. Chad's a cool guy (I'm still waiting for the lunch he promised Maria and I. Chad? Anytime there, buddy!) who wrote speeches for Mark DeSantis, another cool guy. Now he writes speeches for Tim Murphy. Not-so-cool. 

UPDATE:  My bad.  I should have dug deeper on this one.  Hermann was a consultant for three months for the Murphy campaign (the confirmation is here).  

Ed Heath comments:

Hermann’s piece on today’s PG’s “Next Page” was absolutely vintage Hermann. He titled it “The Out Post”. I suspect he might have titled it the “Last Post”, but apparently part of the reason he stopped blogging is because he seemed genuinely stung when his flippant criticism of Randy Pausch was so negatively received (he said he received three death threats). The page is laid out in the style of his blog page, complete with the virtual bric a brac on the right (including an “official soundtrack”, an “official muse” and praise from readers).

I think this “Out Post” gives us the quintessential Hermann experience. How he started before everyone else, but not in political blogging. By the time he started, blogging was already a wasteland (he says “Voices rose. Standards fell”). He was begged to ride to our rescue, to open a window to higher culture and thought. He would post to the level of major-paper, op-ed quality. He would not be self-indulgent, but would write every day, “make every word, subject and syllable count”.

Now, anyone who reads my blog knows I have criticized Hermann in the past, but I will confess I enjoyed reading his stuff when he was telling non-political anecdotes. But I have been told a story about how Hermann antagonized a particular political figure during a political event, making whispered comments at this persons back and then feigning innocence when the person turned around. That may neatly capture, for me, the “Hermann” experience.

That last part is correct. I was there. It was very funny. One of the questions posed to Hermann was during that "event" was "Hey, do you want to take this outside?" That's something I would have loved to have seen.

More later...

Around the Burghosphere

1) T&A bring teh funny:


You can view episode two here.

2) Agent Ska is back to blogging at her own place (she can also still be found at The Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society).

3) DfP has photos from "The Goals We Share" potluck in the park.

4) Who wants to read Bob Mayo write about some boring old ethics news when you can read his review of the new X-Files movie instead?

5) While, not a blog, PennFUTURE is a great group that wants you to support Pittsburgh's Climate Action Plan. Go there RIGHT NOW and email Pittsburgh City Council RIGHT NOW -- there's a preliminary vote today!

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Tales from the Burghosphere

Congratulations to Bram at The Pittsburgh Comet and The Burgh Report for bringing to light an obvious conflict of interest regarding (on leave) Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Pat Ford and Lamar Advertising.

Video here.

Note: There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that the after the latest revelations that Lamar Advertising has decided to stop their civil lawsuit against Pittsburgh City Council members (FREE THE LAMAR FIVE!) and will put up inspirational/motivational billboards free of charge around The Burgh starting with this one:


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Tricks and Treats

TREATS:
Hey! There's some blogger chick out there named PittGirl. The Post-Gazette interviews her here.

Hey! There's other female bloggers in the Burgh too. You can read about them in another Post-Gazette article here.

TRICK:
The links in the above mentioned article to Ms. Adventures on the Mon and to some blog called 2 Political Junkies do not work.

No hits for you!

Around the Burghosphere

Pittsburgh may only be the third bloggiest city, but there are days when it's the number one snarkiest city:

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat reveals Ravenstahl's "vision thing."

Tunesmith & Anthony "winehouse" some well known Pittsburghers.

Maybe we should run a poll on which winehoused Burgher will be the first to end up in rehab? On second thought, I say "no, no, no" to that idea.
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