My body, my choice

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Blog for Choice Day - January 22, 2007

This year’s topic is a simple one: tell us, and your readers, why you’re pro-choice.

Because I want to be a parent now, not when I’m 17 years old.

If it weren’t for access to safe abortions, I would be the mother of an adult by now. While I’m sure the child I didn’t have 18 years ago would have been the joy of my existence, I would have been a fraction of the parent she deserved. Now I have a good job, a loving partner, a stable home, and the maturity I needed to be the most excellent parent I can be. And hopefully I will have the opportunity to be one before too long.

Happy anniversary, Roe v. Wade!

Low blow

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As if I needed more reasons not to like her, Hillary Clinton’s campaign appears to have bought the domain name edwards08-dot-com and pointed it to hillaryclinton-dot-com. Actually, I’m not sure who registered it.

I heard about this story from a blogger I don’t know, and I looked up the domain and the WHOIS information is inconclusive. It’s possible that a “rogue” activist did this and not her campaign. The original registration date is 2/19/04. Anyone care to do additional detective work? And can someone write a press release because this is the kind of garbage that needs to be reported on.

Hello? Paging the MSM. Come in, please…

Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it ethical (as Clinton’s husband well knows). Doesn’t she have a better way to get her message out than by deceiving voters?

Wrong politics, wrong time

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Did you hear the bad news? Hillary is running. Many of us wonder who are these “Democrats” who keep telling pollsters they’d vote for her? I haven’t met any of them.

No-one would benefit more from her nomination than Republican organizers. She’s their public enemy #1, possibly a better bogeyman than Osama Bin Laden. Meanwhile most Democrats (base voters) response to her is something along the lines of… “eh.” If there are still Democratic party leaders that think they can win something by leaning to the right (as she does), I’d like to send them to re-education camp at the Rockridge Institute.

Much as I love the idea of a woman in the White House, I think that right now what we need is a progressive candidate with integrity and grassroots support. Most importantly, the Democratic nominee needs to be someone who can sincerely run on an anti-war platform. That does not spell H.R.C.

By the way, I can’t help but notice that her website looks very familiar…

Gulp

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I just read on Beth’s Blog and PDF that Convio have just bought GetActive. These are two of the biggest providers of web 1.0 engagement tools for nonprofits. I spent some years working for a very large customer of GetActive, in fact I was the resident GetActive “expert” on staff. While I always had suggestions for improvement, I shared my colleagues’ widely-held relief that at least we didn’t have to use Convio!

So while this may be good for GetActive, Inc. I’m not optimistic about the impact on the online advocacy space. Beth raises some excellent points about interoperability, and links to other blogger reactions.

Also more info and some useful thoughts by Michael Silberman at Echo Ditto: “Will this encourage more healthy competition from the other vendors and providers? (I hope so.) Or will Convio innovate less due to their massive new market share and potential perceived lack of competition? (I hope not.) And will this make open source solutions even more attractive to potential clients and users? (I think yes.)”

SuperBlogger!

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SuperBlogger!
The illustrious Ethan Zuckerman of GlobalVoices.org is in my “speed geeking” group as we hear from 10 different online resources that can help bloggers and advocacy groups. Among his many talents, Ethan is a superb blogger and he’s noting all of this so check EthanZuckerman.com for his notes (in a few minutes).

Local political information

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Much to my chagrin, I am missing Chapel Hill’s kick-ass annual Martin Luther King day protest, but I have a good reason: I am attending a national “working meeting” on local political information on the Internet organized by the Sunlight Foundation and Berkman Center at Harvard Law School.

Last night we enjoyed dinner and a brief-but-illuminating talk by Dave Weinberger. I hope to get a chance to post more thoughts later, but meanwhile you can read other bloggers’ coverage via the tag BerkmanSunlight. (Why they held this meeting on a holiday – not to mention such an important one at the local community level – I do not understand.)

Now, back to paying attention!

Remember

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As Brian said:

America is so lucky to have had a human like Dr. Martin Luther King born among us. His work reaches way into the future and teaches us still. I’m confident many many future generations will benefit from his work.

When I listen to his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence I want to cry. Not because of the horrors that he speaks against but because of the beauty of his soul. Dr. King was RIGHT! WAR IS WRONG!

Please read a transcript or listen to his Beyond Vietnam speech. It could so easily be said today and be called Beyond Iraq.
– Beyond Iraq: King is right! at Yesh.com

We best honor the man by remembering his words and actions so that we may continue the struggle that he brought to the forefront of the American psyche. Volunteer if you like, but King’s legacy is ACTION.

Read or listen here.