Oregon Senate Dems: we have a blog! Now what?
Carla Axtman
The Oregon Senate Democrats stuck a baby toe into the blogosphere last month, launching a blog with the clever title: Oregon Senate Democrats.
So far it seems to mostly consist of press releases and short entries highlighting members or bills, but it's a pretty decent start. They've got tabs linking to their agenda and an excellent page featuring photos of the members which link to member pages. They also appear to be ramping up a social networking presence with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
There's other stuff too. Go check it out.
Hopefully they'll start adding photos of members at work and video..and maybe even provide a link to legislation and news pieces. I'd also love to see video interviews with Senators. And maybe direct links that give easy peasy contact info for member offices.
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connect with blueoregon
Apr 3, '09
Carla,
Thank you for the acknowledgment! The Senate Democrats are very excited about this new step and hope this site continues to expand the ways that Oregonians connect with their elected officials.
This blog, as with much of the Internet these days, is an ever-evolving tool. We are currently in the process of adding new features, legislative content and educational materials to tell the story of the 2009 Legislative session . To that end, the feedback of the online community is certainly encouraged and appreciated. As it happens, I just finished building a sidebar with Senate office contact information that you can see on our homepage. Please keep checking back for more updates.
As for an official name we are definitely open to feedback if any BlueOregon readers have something clever in mind. You can send those ideas (and other comments) to [email protected].
Thanks once again,
Josh Lustig Outreach Coordinator Senate Majority Office
oregonsenatedemocrats.com
1:35 p.m.
Apr 3, '09
Let's hope they do better than their House counterparts. They haven't updated their page since early December. But that's OK, nothing's really happening in the state house this year...oh, wait.
Apr 3, '09
Wonderful! Great news! Now they can tell us how we're supposed to run a state with 30% budget cuts for every agency in state government.
Apr 3, '09
This of course is just a cynical political stunt, yet another example by those lacking serious leadership ability to co-opt social networking phenomena by a group of people that to a large disrespects the true democratizing ethos of the model.
What's great though is that these clowns managed to turn it into an April Fool's joke right out of the box: All of the posts are dated April 1! And they apparently don't even allow comments in response to the press releases.
Apr 3, '09
Think any of them will post a well-reasoned opinion piece defending our privacy rights and breaking with fellow Democrats who support this?
Anyone have taking bets on when "Net Neutrality 2: Revenge of the Self-Serving Pols" rolls, they'll make sure "official" blogs like this are in a separate class that is guaranteed high-bandwidth.
My question is: Will these guys now pass a law protecting bloggers as journalists? Or will they continue to perpetrate a farce, like their April 1 joke story about their gutting of ethics regulations (it's volunteers who can benefit most financially from the service who are the biggest problem), in which contributors of official propaganda are given the protection of journalists, but not citizen bloggers who are in the best tradition of pamphleteers.
At least Blue Oregon gets what blogging is all about and opens the forum up to critical and friendly voices alike. We can disagree with Carla, Kari, and the rest, but at least they demonstrate true class and civility by letting everyone be heard and letting the free-for-all proceed at a time when the core principle of our democracy --- the right to disagree, even disagreeably --- is under attack.
Apr 3, '09
Oh?
9:42 p.m.
Apr 3, '09
All in all, the blog/website is very clean, elegant, easy to navigate, and all that. Nice links, nice look, thumbs up.
One growing pain: I wanted to post a comment thanking the Democrats and Sen. Hass for their work passing Senate Bill 596, i.e. a ban of bioaccumulative toxin decaBDE in response to a story, and the comment feature didn't work. Either remove that feature or get it to work. Or tell me I'm a fool who's had a long week in Salem and needs to wake up in the morning and try again.
Apr 3, '09
Check out our new Quarter Back for the Denver Broncos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXTNeqVvFKw
We got 2 first round draft choices and a 3rd round for Jay Cutler
Check out how fast his release is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrAJNQ_e8Jk
7:03 a.m.
Apr 4, '09
That Name Needs a little work.
Apr 4, '09
Note Fooled notes: ...at a time when the core principle of our democracy --- the right to disagree, even disagreeably --- is under attack
Yeah, like here: http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/04/the-wingers-are-coming-the-wingers-are-coming.html
Apr 4, '09
Interesting, I too value the right to disagree disagreeably... yet sometimes I am the first SHUSHER up here when I sit through the same mundanities of trite bellicosity from people like Harry Kershner. There are times I'm just sick of the reliability of his scripted ire... so I may seem as if I'm against the need for ppl to be able to rant without fear, or even SPEAK their truths in safety - but there ARE times when I'm just heartily bored with certain of the one-trick voices here. There discussions wherein folks weigh in with their expertise, their experiences and/or their research. And then there are those who post on anything so as to turn the air, for the moment, to a core element of ire or disturbance within their personality, as opposed to an actual engagement in topic matter at hand.
Apr 4, '09
Y'all need to make sure they get the comment feature enabled. That would be the #1 most effective action you could take to reduce the troll load on BO.
Posted by: Stephan Andrew Brodhead | Apr 3, 2009 4:48:57 PM
Oh?
See...
Apr 4, '09
Uhhh.... Josh, have you noticed the plethora of out of work bloggers out there? That "out of work" pretty much defines "bloggers"? Uh-huh, didn't think so, you're far too important, know everything there is to know and if 'ya ask you'll tell us so. There is only one "Party".
<h2>Never-the-less, I would gladly accept remuneration today for content to be delivered Tuesday.</h2>