Day: April 7, 2009

Now and are added to the filter: please join the discussion!

OK, as I see it, I’m pretty good with this (combining Aaron and Dave’s suggestions):

• Privacy-locked LJ group blog created. (Still need a name for this — suggestions?)

• Each member picks one day of the week. That’s their posting day, and theirs alone.

• Each member then decides on posting frequency: monthly, biweekly, or weekly.

• Posts could be anything up to 5k or so, emailed to participants (or posted to the LJ, if you prefer — although I’m leaning towards Dave’s suggestion of emailed manuscripts with the comments and discussion being held on the LJ).

• Each member should be expected to comment on at least three submissions a month, and to do so within three or four days of their being posted.

Am I forgetting anything, or is there anything else that people would like to add or bring up for discussion?

(This is a question posed as part of my Reader Request Week — go there and suggest a topic!)

writes:

“So, how is your local media responding to the gay marriage ruling in Iowa, and do you think that other Midwestern states might soon see the error of their ways and come around to treating all people with the equality and respect they deserve? I am sure that Larrytown is cool with this, but I am curious about the KC and Topeka stations, etc.”

Well, truthfully, I don’t know. I avoid most local media like the plague. Part of this is a factor of where I live — deep, deep, DEEP ConservaTard Midwest. I know that my local news will only drive that fact home, again and again, and I wish to avoid high blood pressure. Part of it, though, is that in my experience, local TV news *everywhere* I’ve lived (even in NYC) is the same provincial, sensationalist, fear-mongering-mixed-with-meaningless-human-interest CRAP. Newspapers are a bit better, if only because of the additional detail they can provide. I get my local news via the LJ World website, which is award-winning, but still just “meh”, for the most part.

There really hasn’t been as much coverage of Iowa as I would’ve expected. What I have seen has been a repetition of the “activist judges” meme. Of course, now Vermont has legalized gay marriage, and it was the *legislature*, not judges, so that argument is gone… but of course, it’s Vermont, so the Right Wing will just roll their eyes and talk about “Eastern Liberals”.

The Midwest will not see the error of their ways. The only way it’s going to be legalized here is by a Supreme Court ruling (which may end up becoming necessary as more states recognize it — you can’t have marriages legal in some states but not others. It will be challenged Federally, sooner or later.) — and even then, the Midwest will still consider it taboo. (See Deep Southern attitudes about segregation and interacial marriage, even after those became legal.)