LaurieWrites

Overheard in the Airport

Quotes from the airline security line:

Woman checking boarding passes: "That's how skanks think."

Man at metal detector: "Okay folks, wait for your bags to come down and take 'em, then we can all cha-cha real smooth."

Woman to her little boy: "Why can't you act normal? I am done. I am never going away with you again."

(Uh. He's seven. Don't write checks your mommy can't cash.)

Chicago morning

The view from here, Hotel Allegro

Patriots Act: How to Turn Your Blog into a GOtV (Get Out the Vote) Machine: Blogher 2007 Liveblog

Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women has been involved in feminist and electoral politics at just about every level you can imagine. We really have to in this next election. It will be women's votes that determine the outcome.

Growing up in the women's movement, she heard often that personal is political. But she also heard that sometimes the personal is just personal. When you talk about what affects you, it's affecting other people too. How many in the room feel on their blogs, the personal is poltical? The vast majority raised their hands. In 2006 there weren't enough of us with a broad enough reach. This time there are.

How many in 2006 blogged about the election? How many put a "register to vote" button on their blogs? Only five or six did. They are looking at womens' circles of influence. How can we educate women, get them politically connected and have them reach out in their own circles: co-workers, day care, beauty shop, reading group, and then expand. Blogs give a whole new opportunity to do that. We're moving from a reward-based model to engaging women and getting women to engage their peers.

She's looking for thoughts, ideas and engagement from us on how to do this successfully - engaging women in turning personal into the political. Sex Without Love is like electoral politics without democracy. We've gotten to a point in our country where we're fighting for a right to vote but lost a sense of what it means to have democracy. We all have to take responsibility, in local elections, school board votes, and see this country and this world as part of our responsibility.

Zephyr Teachout is no longer working for anyone. Write her if she's interested in engaging in a particular campaign. She has a lot of expderience with nonprofits and growing networks. One you can try to grow a huge amount of attention around it. Start an online petitions. All families should get a home visit within three weeks of birth? Start a petition. Don't worry about what politicians think is a reasonable thing to care about. Politics is so flexible and change happens so quickly. Start where you are. Get your local press list and blog list. Write a short email about the things you care about. Use the Internet to get offline. The most powerful networks are offline networks that meet repeatedly. We can find out each others' competence. SOme research shows that twelve people is the optimum - gives the different competencies needed to support a movement.

Liza Sabater started as a mommy blogger, started writing more about politics and culture. 2004 happened. As an independent blogger, her writing about politics didn't fit so well. She created the Daily Gotham, largest independent blog in NYC, where she writes about NY politics. She's heard politicians refer to the site as the 800-pound gorilla. She doesn't feel that way. She wanted to know the people who were responsible for her potholes. So she started this blog. It's a community blog. it's a kind of blog that has a calendar. It has forums, and a blogging area as well. It has a way of bringing in people at different levels of authority. It's what she likes to call a community management system. But she had started blogging on Movable Type. She wanted to write her site so that anyone who came there would feel as though they had something to do, depending on their interests. It's important to have a mailing list.

Meet-up is one of your first points of entry into your local political sphere. It's absolutely important that you know who the people are in your organizations. I go to so many meetings in a month. She is not normal in online politics because she respects her Republican politics. She supports her GOP counterpart at Urban Elephants. She has Republicans on her blogroll. This is a point of massive debate within progressive, liberal bloggers. Tough. She doesn't feel that way.

Christian home schoolers form blog swarms. Before that there were e-mail swarms.

We have to go to where people are now - Facebook and MySpace.

Morra: What did immigration people do right on the grassroots level?

Liza: They made sure they dealt with the communication reality of their base. They had cell-phone chains where people were text messaging each others. For those who had computers and blogs, they did massive blog swarms. People can tack onto that and create a massive wave of attention.They had different clusters of people in case the police came when they were protesting. She was impressed how they had really worked out logistics, both preliminary communication and on the ground with very simple technology.

Sarah: A blogger says something, a mainstream media reporter reads it, does more research, and writes a story. All of the radio hosts in California were on non-stop talking about rallies. In the middle of a campaign, supporting legal immigration and what it does for the state and still appealing to Republican base media.  was difficult.

Liza: There was this huge summit afterwards of ethnic media where they got into a room this big and shook each others' hands. All these ethnic media were doing their own thing to support the marches but most had never met each other.

In California, they started putting registration cards for voting into their newspapers. It was a simple act that moved people to get out on the street. At least half of the readers might not have been able to vote, but they see the card and it encourages you.

Sarah: It freaked out people on the other side. What is this going to do to Latino turnout? Is it going to increase? Will it impact our ability to win? The media was very fair in the context of the Schwarzenegger campaign. They released all ads in Spanish that mirrored their English-language stuff. The minute they started polarizing messages based on what ethnic groups they're talking to, it looks like polarizing.

 

Kim: They did a great job of getting on the streets. Women bloggers got bodies out in Washington, D.C. to make an impact. Established organizations are worried about bloggers: they're going to sit at home on the computer and not get out and help. You need to use your online presence to motivate and get offline.

Liza: Political bloggers need to get involved. It expands your reach on the local level.

Sarah: It's not that hard to reach people. And ten people agitating so Sarah has to go to her boss and say they have an issue is important. A lot of campaigns are run by young men, most without families, they don't get it, so you have to let them know what's going on.

Beth Corbin has a blog called Yikes. Because of her day job she travels a lot. In the 2004 election season, she was in Pennsylvania and met people who are doing organizing there. Brought home to her the local impact of politics. They have a list of 1,000 names and e-mail about who they support. Some of their elections are won or lost by ten votes. Anyone who wants to win has to meet with these women because if they don't get approved by them, they won't get elected. This needs to be duplicated. When we do this, we will have the power.

Sarah: RNC learned that even though they'd won the war, they'd lost many battles. They needed more personal, individual contact. Phone or in-person contacts are best. They

Blogging: the Voice For Silenced Communities: Blogher 2007 Liveblog

This panel began by observing a minute of silence for silenced women all over the world. Over the past couple of days we have been able to hear from many women - articulate, with much to say. There will be three questions, and then we'll open the floor.

The first question is: "Who are you?" "Why do you feel you are being silenced?" "What are you doing to break the silence?"

Let's make some noise!

Katherine Stone writes PostPartum Progress. She experienced post-partum OCD in 2001-2 after the birth of her son. She wrote a piece about it in Newsweek in 2004, which got a lot of nice respoinse. There are 450,000-600,000 women in the USA alone who experience post-partum mood disorders. We are silenced for three reasons: Women don't get or delay treatement because of myth of motherhood and because of stigma of mental illness in general.

She referenced Lisa Nowak, the NASA astronaut. The media called her the "Astronut". If you're a woman experiencing a disorder and see this laughed about, will you call somebody when you're having a problem if you see these kinds of stories? The second reason is the media often portrays postpartum mood disorders with pictures of women who are sobbing and out of control, or stories of infanticide. They never show strong, competent recovered mothers.It drives her crazy. Yes, there is a lot of crying that goes on, but we are strong people.

There are more untrained ob/gyns and psychiatrists than you would ever think. I can't tell you how many women reach out to her and have been told, "you'll get over it," and "if you just go back on the pill, you'll be fine." Women are getting horrible information that's making them suffer longer. Her blog is the most widely read in the U.S.

Jennifer Hogg, member of Iraq Veterans Against the War . Being silenced in the military and even the anti-war movement is multifold. The opinion you have of yourself in the military, you gotta be tough. The lack of speaking about your own situation is a problem, whether it's PTSD, or traumatic brain injury, etc. It's macho but the women do it too. You had to earn respect as a woman in the military. If you complain, it looks bad. Being a woman and gay in the anti-war moment adds to being silenced. People are blogging from the war, now. There are YouTube videos of the war. Information is blocked. Alot of this has to do with your own view of yourself and what you're allowed and not allowed to say in the military. If you're not on duty, not in uniform, you can mostly say what you want. Certain comments against the President or advocating violence are not allowed, but other things are fine.

They do a lot of recruiting in the military, they meet with soldiers to help them get past the hurdle of people who agree with them but aren't willing to put themselves out there. She is in the organization working with other veterans trying to organize women within to speak louder, make sure we bond together, if a woman is silenced by her organization or outside to bond together and help her. It's good to do this in the veteran's community. She is involved in the Service Women (SWAN) led by women of color.

Liz Henry is a contributing editor for world and is a literary translator and a poet, she translates from Spanish to English, poetry and blogs. From a translator's point of view she thinks of the issue of speaking for other people. That can have other issues as a white person from the US with a ton of privilege. She also writes on various personal, anonymous and real name blogs about disability. Now she's really talking about it a lot, not hiding it, because people want to here. She's talks about being bisexual, gender queer, polyamorous. It's not like she talks about having a hot night last night, she'll just reference other partners. By being open about some of these identities that you're supposed to keep silent, other people have reactions. She thinks there are a lot of commonalities in the way the media can choose to frame people they don't understand. They want to ascribe that one "thing" to you, to simplify and reduce, whereas we're all complicated and multi-dimensional community.

Broken Clay is a great journal, the Art of Intermittent Disability. Wheelchair Dancer is another really great blog.

Beth Aguilera: How do you sensitively give a voice to a silenced community of which you are not a part?

Liz: Quote directly, identify your sources, give your positions...that's what I do, and I don't know if that's enough, but that's where I start. A couple years ago she started reading APRacism on LIveJournal to start learning, she doesn't comment, she reads. She doesn't need those people to have to read her processing her "whiteness". I can do that somewhere else. Listening to anti-racist movement has been interesting. If I'm going to talk about black bloggers, I'm going to look at black weblog awards, and that community's judgment of it's own stuff.

Shelly Risma, outing herself as a visually impaired person, although she doesn't blog as such. She thinks she will start. She keeps being visually impaired to herself because there's so much baggage in how people relate to her. People in the visually impaired/blind community talk well among themselves. Since she's in the larger community, she struggles with how she lives in both worlds. How can you "polish up" disability so you have people relate to it but don't make it boring.

Liz: there's pressure to be a diplomat if you move between worlds, and that's hard.

Katherine: Most people don't understand. She was perfectly sane her entire life for whatever that means, until she had that experience. To tell her friends who know her as a CEO that she just thought about smothering her son with a burp cloth, it's a tough discussion. Even the people who love her the most would have that glint of "I don't know about this" in their eyes. If you haven't had that expderience of being in a wheelchair, etc., it's extremely difficult, almost impossible, to explain. It's best to be honest. It's good to use analogies: "What would you do if you woke up and fell to the floor, and before you could walk." She used to be in charge of her thoughts and one day she wasn't. She's asked psychiatrists how she could explain. Why do people who lose their minds have such negative thoughts? Why couldn't she have had thoughts of romping through fields of daisies? No one can explain it. It's something that happens, and you deal with it.

Jen: A certain point where she couldn't even talk to her parents. When she told them her thoughts they said that she couldn't be against the war. Both of them now subscribe to the same thoughts. She has a great job and she can talk to her boss. But having to self-censor it's hard. She could never change. She could not not be against this war. She feels like she has to do it.

Liz: Yet there are real world repercussions for her job.

Jen: Same thing with being gay. Still can't talk about it with her mom, but we've moved forward on the war thing so that's okay.

Audience: What was their best and worst moment as a blogger?

Katherine: Has her own email on the blog. Women email her from all over. They'll tell her she saved their life. It's not just her - it's a large group helping - but there's nothing like it. She thinks her worst moments are yet to come. She worries about her son. How will he react. Also, men often make comments about how they are all silly, simpering women who can't deal with the hard work of being a mother. Delete. Delete. Thank God for the delete button. She is there to help these women. A personal injury lawyer recently posted. Delete.

Jen: When she blogs it's on her organization's Website or her MySpace, and leaving comments on other blogs. There's a movie coming out by Robert Greenwald, an impeach Cheney one. The ad for a movie was a woman with her mouth duct-taped, legs open. She thought, "That doesn't have anything to do with impeachment." She blogged about it, others did...the ad was gone the next day. Her director asked if they wanted to sign on endorsing the movie. "Not with that ad," she said. Worst is they have a message board, negative posts. She's had to learn not to get caught up in them, take control to delete.

Liz: Bad moments, that same thing: you just go, "That strikes me personally as sexist." There are professional repercussions. Just by speaking up, people will say, "We don't really want her working for us because she'll make trouble." Having disapproval from other women who she looks to for solidarity tell her to keep her mouth shut. It just makes her "rocket into existenial despair." There's a book by Joanne Russ, "How to Suppress Women's Writing." She can look at every horrible moment and think it had to do with trying to silence her, either she shouldn't write it or if she DID write it, something terrible would happen. She has to look at the power of being honest and open. The volume will help. Friendships and relationships have happened. People send her books. Some of her best friends become even closer because we all blog together. So all the really good things have come from personal relationships.

Katherine: She doesn't want to create the sense that she's the Nazi on her blog, suppressing dissent. Disagreement is fine. People with an agenda who just want to sell their services, those people she has no time for - go find someplace else.

Audience: When your blog is a success, you sometimes lose your integrity. You come to a point where if you say the right things, it's going to be more popular, and if you keep your integrity, it might not. She's trying to stay a central course but she struggles with that. She wouldn't feel good about it.

Liz: She doesn't think she has a successful blog, but she has felt that pressure. If she does the things they say you should do, blog in short bursts, don't cause controversy - but she decided not to do that. She'd rather be not so successful and do that.

Jen: Before she was on the board of directors, it was what needed to be said but also conscious of not stepping on a whole lot of toes.

Katherine: When she started there really wasn't another blog related to mood disorders. It became number one blog in her community. She works with PostPartum International, number one organization for these women. If she got on their board or became a state organizer, she would have to run her posts and comments by their communications team. She's not going to do that. There are two bills in Congress to do a screening at six months of whether a woman might be suffering. They've been discussing this for years. One person started bringing it into the abortion issue. What an ass. And I can say, "He's an ass."

Earn Our Votes: What Questions Do Women Bloggers Want Candidates to Answer in Election 2008? - Blogher 2007 LiveblogLias

Lisa Stone introduced Morra Aarons, the moderator for today and Blogher's political director. Lisa is the timekeeper.

Morra is so honored by the women who have come to this panel and the women in the room. She will start with pollsters and strategists.

Sarah Simmons, GOP political strategist

Anita Sharma, Lake Research Partner, specialist in education and women's issues.

Jen Hogg, will lead Iraq breakout group. She is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War

Mary Catherine Hamm, videoblogger and blogger at townhall.com

Dr. Val Jones at Revolution Health will be leading the healthcare section.

Closing speakers will be Gina Cooper, executive director of yearlykos.com, Jennifer Posner, founder of Women in Media and News.

Morra handed it over to Sarah Simmons to talk about women voters. She says she always gets invited to these things because there aren't a lot of "Republican chicks out there". That's wrong. She would counsel you to remember that women are a diverse group of people. There are no "women's issues" - all issues impact women.

Who are women voters?

58 percent of women work outside the home. 52 percent are between 45-54,

62 percent are married, 35 are moms, 37 are single, and 27 are married moms.

In 2006, 55 percent voted Democrat, 43 percent GOP. In 2004, 51 percent voted Bush, 48 percent Kerry.

What do women care about?

She thinks Republicans did a great job in 2004, bad job in 2006 of figuring out what specific voters care about, and talking to them about it so they'll get up and vote.

Number one issue we think candidates should be talking about is Iraq. What's interesting is looking at the comparison of younger to older women. Women under 50 are much more concerned about healthcare. 30-60 have figured out how to do healthcare forms for children as well as parents.

Issues from most to least important according to polls.

Iraq
Health Care
Job creation/Economic growth
Illegal immigration
Terrorism
Environment

Older women are more likely to think that the situation has gotten worse than younger. Younger women are more likely to say that it's stayed the same. Older women are more likely to be home during the day, she says, more likely to watch the news?

Men believe that illegal immigrants help much more than it hurts, whereas women believe the opposite. Men: 50 percent believe it helps, 41 percent believe it hurts
Women: 43 percent helps, 47 percent hurts.

Women are much more likely to talk about how the kids get less attention at school because of focus on second language issues, or less service at the emergency room. Women personalize issues: environmental health means, "do my kids have access to clean drinking water?" or "can my family go on a hike." Politicians can personalize issues to talk to women in a more effective manner, rather than talking globally on a "plain paper" sort of issue.

Anita Sharma will echo Sara's statements about women voters. She'll recap women's vote in 2006.

Women decided in 2006 that the country needed a new agenda. Women's vote was key in the three Senate races in VA, MO and MT - the gender gap is how women and men vote for a candidate.

With each passing year America becomes more "unmarried". 2005 - 45 % of Americans were unmarried vs. 32 percent in 1960. Turnout in unmarried women shot up in 2002 and 2006. Unmarried women were more likely to vote for Democrats in the next election.

Women's agenda much broader - goes beyond Iraq to health care, education, environment, women's rights. Environment is a "second tier" issue for women. Why? It's a local issue where you can see the impact you can have yourself. Also some women tend to believe that we've made progress on the environment where we haven't on prescription drug costs or equal pay for women. If you use the word "environment" you won't link them in, but connect it to a broader platform, and you'll see more emphasis on women.

2006 as the year of the women leader. We asked voters on election day how they would rate women's issues. Over half said having a woman speaker was important. How do you think more women in Congress would impact growing scandal and corruption there?

Will 2008 be the year of the woman President?

A July New York Times poll said favorability for Clinton is 70 percent for Democratic women,  66 percent of Democratic men, 39 percent independent women, 35 percent independent men, 15 percent Republican  women, 9 percent Republican men.

Sarah Simmons says in focus groups, swing voter women have issues with Clinton because she was able to get what most women can't get, which is a great career, and an ability to support her husband and family. She was able to have gotten to the level she's at without the struggle that most women go through.

The same New York Times poll said that 53 percent of single women have a favorable opinion of Clinton. 43 percent of married women, 39 percent of single men, and 32 percent of married men.

Nancy from buildpeace.blogspot.com - YOu can get skewing depending who you're talking to. Was there a control question such as finding out if people who like Clinton, for example, know she was pro-war. Do they know what they're talking about?

Lisa Stone: How do you qualify responses?
Nancy: It's all corporate mainstream

Jen from ToledoLefty: How can women candidates deal with jealousy because of their success?

Sarah: SOmething women can do much more effectively than men can be empathetic. Choices she has now compared to her mother are amazing, but they also offer a series of challenges. Women can talk about this with an authenticity that men cannot. You cannot pretend that women don't struggle with these issues.

Ramona Oliver from Emily's List says it's true that women can have problems with women candidates, but they ahved found that women overwhelmingly support women candidates. Biggest support for women candidates is women. Emily's list supports pro-choice Democrat women at all levels of government. They provide training and financial resources for women interested in running.

Jen Hunter from Learning Catalyst: What do you see as the opportunities in experiednce in polling to enrich the dialogue rather than just react, engage in political maneuvering.

Anita: Using the word "crisis" gets overplayed. Many things get labeled with "Crisis" (enivronment, health care, education) but using this term turns people off. YOu need to educate voters instead, inform instead of talking over or talking to.

Emily McCann - Motherhood.com - where do women play out in international affairs? Have you seen women's attitudes shift post-Katrina.

Sarah: Katrina has been a contributing factor. 70 percdent of Americans think the country is going in the worng direction and Katrina was a catalyst.  International humanitarian issues don't register.

Jen Posner from Women in Media would like us to focus on the fact that women may dislike Clinton because of a Republican smear campaign or dislike of her voting record instead of jealousy or cattiness related to her success or things that have nothing to do with her political record.

Sarah agreed, but reiterated that there were

Dana from the Hillary Clinton campaign is here. She adds that one thing they have found over the past six months, is they're seeing in the early states like they did in NY that the more people get to know here, the more they like her. They get a better sense of who she is, and overwhelms a lot of the Republican parodies that have been made of her. She won NY with 67 percent of the vote, and in many counties where George Bush won. Every time she goes back to Iowa her numbers go up. The voters get to know her.

Sarah: Your job as a political operative is to break some of her paradigms, put her in situations to promote.

Lisa: At the end of the day, do you as pollsters feel that women make decisions based on policy or personality? Issues have nothing to do with how much she likes somebody.

Sarah: I worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger, king of personality politics - she used that personality to highlight issues that matter to voters. It's a mix and you have to find the right one. There are candidates. Phil Crane -the first survey he did, the numbers were upside down. We got him out and introduced him to voters. After six months his numbers were worse. Elementary school students cried after a visit from him - hmm, perhaps we were wrong.

Anita - Voters are so diverse. Some may base their votes on voting history, a specific issue (choice, healthcare) and someone may

Lisa: Are their reps of other campaigns in the room?

Tracy Russo from the John Edwards for President campaign.

Catherine Morgan - Blogher contributing editor and dabbler in politics. Her biggest problem with the "Hillary Clinton issue" is that it's life and death for women. If Hillary loses, it may signify that women can't. IF she wins, it will empower women and show that women can try. I'm afraid that if she loses it's almost a failure for woman.

Lisa: Would you vote for a women based solely on gender?

Kim Gandy, president of NOW is here: We always say we're going to vote for and endorse the person who is best for women. We are bipartisan, omnipartisan. We support the best candidate who is right to advance women. Do we love it if it's a woman? YES! Because the mirror is powerful - for ourselves as well as our daughters. To look at that person in office and say that that could be me, it's powerful. IT's important for our sons to see that women can be leaders. How will they deal with a woman boss or CEO if they don't see women in leadership?

Anita Sharma: Hillary losing wouldn't be black and white - let's point to the number of women leading state houses in the country right now. There are other powerful offices women are running.

Lisa - three minutes before breakouts, three more questions

<a href="http://www.sairy.com">Sarah Grainger</a> - runs democratic campaigns. One of her clients is Emerge, supports women running for office. Having the first viable woman running for office is a big deal. Even if she doesn't win there has been progress.

Deborah Segal, Grl With Pen - Does any poll data speak to older and younger women and how they view Hillary? A reporter from the Post went to a block party HIllary was having. It looked like boomer women trying to appeal to hipsters: "They were playing all the wrong songs." ANother piece that ppeared in the American Prospect disagreed, said that "younger women are down with Hillary."

Sarah: Remember that single women also includes women who are older, widowed, never married - not just young people.

Lisa: Are you seeing a split between boomer women and 18-24 over Hillary today?

Anita: It's less an age thing than a college/non-college thing right now. Average Iowa voter, non-college, married; 39 year old white, college-educated women are going more for Obama.

Lisa: Not all women vote alike.

<em>The group then broke out into four groups: Iraq, health care, the environment and economic future. I sat in on the healthcare panel. </em>

Esther Dyson: When are we going to face the tough questions rather than promising nirvana? How do we deal with the fact that health care has to be rationed?

Katherine Stone: When will we achieve mental health parity?

Catherine Morgan: Insurance companies are questioning doctors. Someone decides on a whim that "depression isn't so important.:" Insurance companies need to get out of deciding - we need them to get out and let the doctor treat.

Veronica from Chicago Moms Blog: How will a candidate lead on health care policy without it being a partisan issue? How will they lead us in a good debate over healthcare issues that are threaded through with religion, unscientific methodologies.

Are we going to pick questions we think they're going to answer or are we going to pick questions that will push them?

What will we do about veterans? How will we allocate budget?

Emily McCann: What is good for women? What is good for families?

Artificial Intelligence doesn't do it justice.

Day two of Blogher just began, and we're already in a fascinating panel that is much more accessible and fascinating to me than the title - "Artificial Intelligence" - suggested. (Also, there was bacon for breakfast. Yay for bacon.)

Esther Dyson is a rockstar. I was so happy that she brought up the concept of access to information and literacy itself as a problem, in response to the question "are blogs elitist?" If a person can't read, then she can't read a blog, anymore than she has equal access to a job application or a driver's license (although someone may have given her a "gift" of a high school diploma to keep their graduation numbers stable, whether she could read the text on it or not. I had a student this year who couldn't spell his middle name.)

I sat here looking around the room at all the women with expensive laptops, who spend a great deal of time, for the most part, writing online and reading what other people have to say. We all do it for our own and usually vastly different reasons, but I'm aware that even though I'm not rich by any means or even close, I have access to most of what I need each day through the information I can find almost immediately.

Clearly even owning a computer puts you in a different strata. It gives you mobile access to essentially everything that you could possibly need to navigate this crazy, complicated world. That doesn't necessarily make you elitist, it just makes you lucky. And it's good, if you are, to be aware that you are, but everyone isn't, so you can't assume that it's a level playing field. To say that doesn't matter would teeter over into elitist. Hell, even having the luxury of discussing whether the "blogosphere is elitist" could make you elitist.

It was Annalee Newitz (also, so smart and a great speaker) who pointed out that it's not the blogs themselves that are elitist -but that PEOPLE who blog can be. Exactly.

"The Art of Reviews" liveblog

Maria Niles is moderating the "Art of Reviews" panel. She wants to let you know that if what you're interested in learning about is disclosure policies and how to accept products to review, it will not be included in this panel. It'll be covered tomorrow.

Barb Dybwad of engadget.comis filling in for Mia Price, who works at Weblogsinc,

Claire Zulkey writes for Zulkey.com, also movie reviews for the LA Times and runs a reading series in Chicago called "Funny Haha"

Eugenia Williamson is a writer in Chicago. She runs Literago, and also writes for Time Out Chicago and has written music reviews also.

Maria: What makes a review, since bloggers are functioning as reviewers now?

Barb says her site is middle ground between what a friend might tell you and what a "Consumer Reports" might say.

Eugenia

Claire: When the LA Times started "ShowTracker" they wanted to make sure it was more than a show recap. The editors wanted to focus on making each track or post more than just a recap - more of a piece. It's fun for her because she takes television pretty seriously - she tries to find themes to work on. You don't want to make it overly grandiose but you don't just want to report the facts. I do believe in writing reviews as so moved in an articulate, non-inflammatory way.

Heidi O'Connor: What do you inject besides facts?

Claire: Example, from So You Think YOu Can Dance? She takes details and stories from the show, such as an interview with dancers. They want each post to be intelligible to people who have just tuned into the show, so you're not feeling alienated when you read it, even though you're not a huge follower of the show.

Barb: Try to find relationships between products and others in their class...how it might be compared in terms of feature set; make some kind of value judgment between whether it's better or worse. How does the device fit into her life in terms of workflow and what I do?

Liz Rizzo of Everyday Goddess: Just got into book reviews and now is working on tv shows. What makes her feel the most like a poser when she's writing reviews is there is a need to summarize the show or the book, and I find that kind of boring and difficult. How do you summarize and how much?

Eugenia: In her book reviews she tries to keep summaries down to more cursory sentences. Stay away from plot summary - it's boring. Next time you read a prominent critic in the New York Times, if it's a movie, see just how much they summarize the plot and then go see the movie. If you're a good enough writer it should just be a good piece of writing and you won't give away any spoilers.

Claire: You have to include the spoiler in tv - boil it down to the tiniest nugget.

LiteraryMama spoke about injecting personal experience.

Claire - Default lede from Time Out Chicago is pop-culture related.

Eugenia - You just have to realize who you're writing for. For Time Out it's a general audience. For the NYT it's a very specific audience.

Maria: How do you deal with negative reviews? Do you put them on regardless of your reaction? Do you shy away from them?

Barb: In the vast majority of cases we're reviewing something someone has sent us. We try to work against being nice just to maintain relationships. Shilling positive review of product we don't believe in does our company a disservice. We don't shy away from speaking in the negative at all.

Claire: Book reviews, first-time authors, for instance, might not be ready for a review. With tv, if there's nothing to say we don't say anything. When I do want to say something negatively, I was covering ER last season, and my last post was, "Is that it? For the season and the show?" THere's a certain level of snark that's too much - it's just terrible. You wanted it to be good, it wasn't good, and you don't want to act like you've been waiting to take a big dump all over this.

Eugenia - My mom once told me "If you can't say anything nice." I've written scathing reviews of rock shows, but as far as literago goes, we would never post a negative review of a reading. We want to get Chicagoans excited about literary events.

Our Bodies, Our Blogs

I'm liveblogging "Our Bodies, Our Blogs" just for my own interests.

How did Laurie Toby Edison get into this work?

She was raising two kids ten years apart in age. Her younger daughter was teased for her weight. She was getting harrassed at school, and she was dealing with the barrage of the media messages about the beauty industry. There was an epidemic of anorexia in the fifth grade. The actual precipitating event was a lunch at a conference, and a friend was in tears. A man she thought was her friend said that he would never go to a nudist colony because his biggest fear was meeting a 300-pound woman with an appendectomy scar. She ended up being "the token skinny" on a panel of women discussing body image.

You start looking at the way that women with disabilities get treated, the way that older people get treated, women in Japan getting their eyes cut so they'll be round.

This experience made her a photographer. That was the gift.

Wendy McClure: First she started blogging about the Dove campaign because men started writing mean-spirited articles about the "realistic" women on the billboards. There was a sense of entitlement. Part of her resents the idea that the idea behind the campaign has to be "sold" to her. There were people saying "Why do we have to look at this stuff," the idea that "if a woman isn't eye candy, she's disgusting. This was not just morning radio - it was the Sun-Times. She just started writing about it, and it was fun.

She has the attitude about things like loving yourself and positive body image. She's cynical - allergic to term "positivity". I don't really get "love your body day". There's a lot of ugly stuff foisted on women. The size/body stuff is only part of it. When it comes to fat women, the gloves come off as far as what guys feel about women in general.

She felt like, "I'm not going to stop writing about this."

Yvonne Marie - Experience online has been very personal. Has posted lots of images of herself online. She gets a lot of reader feedback.

She does it for herself. She posted her body after her daughter's birth, stretch marks, etc. She thought she was a beast - felt like the only woman who looked like that. When she would get e-mails from women showing their bellies, it would make her feel better, like she could relate to people and not feel so alone.

Jen wants to know what Laurie's idea was behind the book of male nudes.

She says she realized that there was nothing more invisible than fat, female bodies. Also, there are few representations of "real" men nude (not talking about porn here.) Men are put in boxes also.

Audience: Women who have a hard time with their bodies struggle a lot with shame as well. The hardest part is letting go of shame of being big, internalizing your shame with eating.

Jenny: has the blogging community been supportive.

Audience: She calls herself a fat-ass, a lard-ass, to be blunt about it online feels nice.

Karina - Celebration of Curves - Has been writing about her experience of "fake it til you make it", where she just got so exhausted from looking in the mirror and feeling miserable. There's no amount of dieting or exercise she did...her mother had her on a diet her whole life. Nothing changed the words when looking int he mirror that were ugly or hateful. She made herself stay in the house until she could say three nice things about her body. Beauty can be found in every shape and size. She'd better feel that way when she looks in the mirror. Since she's done this, life has gotten progressively better. Some people might call it affirmations, but it's been a great experience for her.

A guy posted a comment on her blog about how fat people are lazy. She looked in the mirror today and thought, "fat and ugly" and she wrote a post about it.

Wendy McClure says there's so much diet narrative in our culture. What do we do about it?

Laurie says men go through body image issues also. She doesn't want to make it a female problem only. About diets, the thing that disturbs me, is she knows people who eat well, exercise, but haven't lost weight and they feel like a failure so they stop. The idea is to eat well and exercise - you shouldn't have to feel like a failure because you haven't become skinny.

Lena from Cheeky Lotus - for Yvonne. She knows she was successful with her weight loss and lost quite a bit of weight. Wanted to know if she felt she'd been disconnected from her readers when she lost weight.

Yvonne said no, she'd lost a lot of weight but she still had a lot to lose. She felt like her readers were supporting her and cheering her on.

Beth - Bethyclaus.com - I have been known to call myself a lardass. With a lot of oppressed groups we see them taking the words other people use to try to empower herself. I have to question that when we can say "Shame on you, Chicago Sun Times," but then we use the word.

Yvonne had never questioned that kind of talk before. It had always been disturbing to people who knew her. Now she does.

Wendy has tried not to go there, her pet peeve is when people, if they're not talking about your weight they're talking about her self-esteem. She's protective about her own self-esteem. She hates on discussion boards when there are squabbles between people who are dieting and people who aren't.

Rachel - has spoken with Yvonne on the phone and emailed for several years now. Before she started reading blogs she was very judgmental of people for how they looked. You'd see someone but not think they're going to be good friends. She met her and did not think of her in any particular way...just saw her as a person.

Jenny: Hates "you have such a pretty face". Do we not have a right to take up more space?

Kate Harden - fat acceptance blogger. Fat does not equate with "lardass".

Tanya: Iateapie.net - Why do you think that people are so obsessed with or even care what other people look like?

Heidi - is here on behalf of Quaker and Tropicana. How do you feel about government organizations and NGOs? How do we feel about guidelines and rules that don't work for everybody?

Laurie says people are so barraged with this stuff that it's hard not to get sucked in. If women took all the energy they spent on weight loss and put it someplace else, amazing things happen. She doesn't want to have fat and health debate here. Health at any size standpoint is that most HMOS believe that diets will fail.

Wendy - talking about taking this beyond fat/size..as soon as you put a picture of yourself online, people feel entitled to talk about it. Back when she started putting her photos online, commenting wasn't a regular thing. There was this sense of distance...if you did put up something, just the idea that someone would talk about it, it was crossing a line. Now that line isn't there anymore.

Jessica Ashley from Sassafrass believes claiming this space for women without talking about men is okay. There are so many bloggers here right now who are owning who they are in the journey, being excited and hopeful about their bodies, she respects this about the conversation. She chooses to approach writing on a fitness blog as "feel good about yourself". She's writing it to herself as well as other women. Do you have ever have feelings about being fraudulent to your readers?

Yvonne: That's been int he back of her mind. She's very honest. She felt like a failure because she was losing so much weight and talking about it.

Laurie: I always try to write real and true.

Woman from beautyandthebreast.org: Blogging is a personal journey, but can it also be something else - a counterpoint to cookie cutter images posted and produced elsewhere...not just for you yourself but for a lot of women to take it upon themselves and understand.

Laurie: Body Impolitic discusses issues of body image - it's not really a personal blog, just twice a month. You're talking about girls getting breasts for their 16th birthday The broader image is "the body modification stuff".

Cory: WHen you've thought through an issue long enough, you need the counterpoint that other people can provide. That's the point that you guys are trying to make: this is a community that can work together. What if it were energy to use to try to help each other in a different kind of way> That's what I as a blogger feel disconnected. I read this and that story, but I don't get a sense of a larger community.

Jenny: The power of the community is so important for changing the perceptions. Honest dialogue is the first step.

Shauna: Dietgrrl - started out at 350 pounds, full of loathing and anger. Through the process, self-acceptance came. She started out thinking there was something wrong with her. She realized how much energy she had wasted with all this hatred, and realized it could be redirected.

Jenny: YOu're a role model.

Shauna - I'm not trying to preach. It's about finding balance.

Dani: A big problem that women have in society is we have this fine line that we don't differentiate between which is through who we are and this body image. It's a cycle in your mind. I don't think any woman, whatever you look like. The things that people write to each other and we think in our own minds and write, the comments ands upport you get through the community, you would never say to another person what you would say to yourself. I would never go up to someone and say "Hey, lardass," but you would say that to yourself.

For panelists who have blogged about body image issues: Is there danger in blogging about this? That commenters need help beyond commenting on a blog...a community of bloggers is wonderful, but if you are suffering from an eating disorder, if you started that conversation, what would you do?

Wendy: Has gotten a lot of distressing e-mails from readers, not showing up in comments. A lot of them are about "how do you come to a place of acceptance?" If I suspect eating disorders, I suggest seeing a therapist. It's all I can do from behind a computer.

Laurie: Needs to say again that there's this very big picture. We make this very personal. Everybody is being barraged with this stuff in society, every time you see a magazine, newspaper, everything. You're not just dealing with this issue because it's about you. It's because there's society and this huge industry telling you there's something wrong with you. It's important to recognize that it's in this context.

Wendy: The whole "let's give ourselves a hug thing". I don't want to give myself a hug. I want to kick the guy with the "No Fat Chicks" t-shirt on in the balls. What do these companies get out of feeding these messages. She'd love to see the activist blogs.

Laurie: You don't get the job if you're fat, older, of color - these are all body image issues. That for me is the most important part. Feeling good about yourself is obviously important but the world itself also has to change.

Cristin Jones - Eat Like Me - Take photos of everything she eats every day. Similar to if she called herself a bad name, calling a food a bad name, she gets the same kind of flak. People call her out on it. She gets a lot of comments from eating-disordered people, telling her about symptoms. She will not answer questions like this on the blog. She'd be doing a disservice to you to do this over a blog. You owe the reader the best help they can get.

Susan Wagner wants to know if panelists think that blogs can change the culture. Laurie says it depends on the blog - what the blogs are saying.

We shouldn't tell people what they can and cannot say about ourselves. It's important not to censor what women say about ourselves. Wendy agrees with that.

Jenny: Examine your motivations for self-deprecations.

Laurie: You should be able to say any damned thing you want to on your blog. When you're in a cafeteria or public space, it's different.

Reader: Mother had a double-mastectomy, her sense of herself as a woman. She's five weeks pregnant - looking at pictures on flickr of pregnant women. All these experiences as a person, not just as a woman, but those are important aspects.

Jane: Mamacita...Almost didn't come to Blogher because she has a very large readership and didn't want them to see me.

Jenny: "Stand up, Jane".

Jane: No. My body and self-image is bad because my body's bad. Started packing on weight when children were in grade school. We had 40 kids in the house every night. Their moms were at the gym, looked so good, I looked like this. I looked like my mom. And I couldn't get the weight off because I never had time.

Curvy woman: we have such a limited ideal of what the sexy female body looks like. There's areal human being behind the boobs - keep showing positive images of femal bodeis. Some of my best friends are skinny.Some of my best friends are skinny and they worry about the size of their thighs. We all have body image issues.

Finding and Following Your Passion - Blogher 2007 Liveblog

I am liveblogging the first breakout session of the Blogher conference, "Finding and Following Your Passion." Here's the description from the conference website:

"Many people define blogging as writing with passion. How do you define passion? Do you follow your passion when you write, when you work, when you go through your day? Could you? Is blogging the only way and time that you allow yourself the freedom to follow your passion? Join bloggers who are blogging about and with passion every day."

Speakers for this session are musician and blogger Christine Kane, , Sheila Scarborough, who writes about travel AND drag racing (among other things) and Carmen Staicer, she of the ELFF Diet.

Christine Kane said this is a small session and this may be because the concept of "passion" is a more nebulous topic - the whole bottle of "be, do, and have." We should start with what we are and the rest comes from that. How did they start a blog just with the simple seed of what they were passionate about and how it grew. Christine Kane: Why I blog and why I'm here is because of that idea of reaching other people. I've been a songwriter and singer for 15 years. It's about creativity, what it takes to be a performer and hav a career as an artist. I wanted to challenge myself to step out of little "songwriter wanna-be" and realize what it takes to help other people with what she knows.

Carmen Staicer is here because she started a diet and weight loss blog. It's an offshoot of her first blog, about her life with six kids. After her fifth and sixth kids were born, her youngest was diagnosed with a mild form of autism. She was self-medicating with food, depressed. In September, 2005, she made a new year's resolution to lost weight, no matter what. She talked about it so much on her blog that her readers were unhappy. She then started the "ELFF" Diet. It stood for "eat less food fatty". People were offended! She changed it at her husband's suggestion to "Eat less fatty food." Since starting that blogh she has lost 75 pounds. She is training for a half-marathon. She is passionate about helping other women - encouraging them to exercise: "Yes you CAN take a martial arts class. She wants to tell people that they can do it.

Sheila Scarborough's interests are travel and drag racing and NASCAR. She comes at the blogging thing "from both sides of the brain." Her main blog is hosted on an Australian travel site, "Boots 'n all". She retired from USN about a year and a half ago, became a full-time freelance writer. A friend from the Houston Chronicle said if she was going to be a writer, she needed an online presence. She began a family travel blog. Growing up in and then being in the Navy, she traveled the world and uses that experience.

Christine says there's a slow build to being able to be vulnerable, and finding your voice at the same time.

Next question from Cory, who has blogged since 2003. If you take joy in writing and telling stories, you take joy in building memories. When she writes she hopes there's a response, but at the same time it's for her. It's her voice. Once she had her daughter it clicked for her, because she's changing so fast, it's the first time she can really track. Ultimately it doesn't matter to her if no one ever read it.

Christine says some people have that healthy, great attitude...others want people to read and want to be heard. Cory says that would be great, but in response to the fear of getting started, specifically, try to approach it as a gift to yourself and try not worry about other people.

NotSoSage says her process started slowly, where she didn't know what she was doing, and just started writing about stuff. Because of her life circumstances, she may not be able to do what she wants ten years down the road. She's using her blog as a way of telling people about things that aren't very well known. She has a second blog talking about the way health news is reported in the media - deconstructing it. She started off blogging her life.

Christine talks about getting caught up in stats. What the thing about blogging with passion - the mistaken belief, and same thing for the performer, is that your whole essence should be about the contribution and not worry about recognition. It's natural to worry.

Jenny from Three Kid Circus: Should focus be on "passion based in expertise." She's a parent blogger - she's an "expert parent" but it's a learning process. There's a community that supports you and lifts you up and you become better for being a part of it. Does becoming passionate about something make you an expert? Christine says she hates that word. As Elizabeth describes it, being expert is about the process.

Moxie Mom  has a question: how do you find your passion? She's not just about one thing and nor is her blog. Basically her blog is a timestamp. This is what' been happening to me. She likes the idea of a unique voice. How do you find a focus?

Christine asks does anyone have an answer? Sheila said that travel was her thing growing up. Carmen would never have believed that exercise would be a passion. She says that your passion finds you. No one is more surprised than her about hers.

Christine says one of her blocks when she started songwriting was she knew all the things she loved but she was really scared. She was too scared to admit she could do it for a living. Her life was not about "you can do what you want." In an hour and a half we can't get to what peoples' passions are, but the central question is "what don't i want in my life anymore," and "what do I want?" Write about it, blog about it. Stop listening to the voices of fear. If you have a kajillion interests -pick one. Follow your heart, and it'll take you where you need to go. Don't get caught up in all the options.

Statement from the audience: She keeps changing her focus. She's had twelve blogs. She writes about "Mom" stuff. Wonders if other people have found a way to keep it about "you" and still keep an audience. She feels her efforts and her audience are really diluted. Christine says you should explore the belief that "If I do it this way there's no one out there that gives a crap." If you find a voice, know your voice, you'll find an audience. There are plenty of blogs out there that are about many topics that have a large readership.

Carmen says reading other peoples' multi-topic blogs show you all facets of that person. SJ has been blogging since '01. She's always been IAsshole, but she's blogged about many things - home birth, divorce, graduate school. When she shut her blog down, people protested. She found her passion in inspiring other people. She got another woman blogging, who appreciated her message and her experience.

Christine agrees. What she likes about "women bloggers" is they aren't as "niche" - don't need all the taglines and marketing tools. It's a lot more "flowy" and "interested in a million things."

Grace wants to advocate for having multiple blogs. She says No One Watching is "totally narcissistic, all about me". She started out not having a large readership and now she does "and it's weird and I have no boundaries." The second blog split off from the personal blog. It's great for her because she has a "URL she can give her mom" and a URL she would NEVER EVER give her mom.

Christine says there's "so much process about it and that's the part that makes us uneasy." There are many blogs about "rules of blogging - it's very very mental." She adds that it's the process of it that makes your passion come up. There's a seed and it grows. There's all these little things. You come face to face with all of your beauty and your wildness, and also all of your complete "screwed-up-ness."

Marty Long is sitting her listening to the questions and wanted to say that she thinks your life can be your passion. It doesn't have to be something specific. Most of the blogs she reads are just life blogs, mommy blogs or journals. She thinks it's okay. It's nice that people are passionate enough about their life in general and want to have that journaling process and archiving.

Jennifer  wants to throw out a resource for anyone wanting to find or identify passion - "The Artist's Way". It's a wonderful resource for finding out what you care about. Christine used it too and so did Liz says "I'm a mommy blogger". She never made it past page 2 of the Artist's Way: "the more you fear something the more you need it." She's a mom to a 16-month old son. She stays home every day and it blows her mind. Carmen says she likes people who are real.

Lisa at Nerdy Renegade referred to Renaissance Soul, for people who have "too many passions" - fabulous book, very affirming. Take the pressure off yourself. It might just be what you're passionate about NOW. We want things set in stone. The world is changing quickly and we're evolving as people - what we're passionate about now will lead us onto other things.
Debra Roby hated like hell the Artist's Way. But Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Process" will give you everything you need to know to be a habitually creative person. Sheila says that your passion is whatever you pull the Excel spreadsheet up to hide on your desktop when the boss walks by.

Miriam says she thinks that reading different people's blogs really gives her permission to be, think, do or not do. She could come to this conference because of all the reading she's done. She feels it's been a very great resource for her. Christine says blogs are a great creative writing practice...there is nothing enlightened about "shrinking so that other people will feel comfortable" (Marianne WIlliamson) There is an audience out there that needs what you have to say.

Asks Christine if someone who is expert or more known in a field needs to have a different approach to her blog. Christine has done a different approach. She used to write about the road. She wanted it to be something that contributes to people in their lives. Wanted to say what it was like to screw up on stage, get bad reviews, share her expderience. She wrote one that said what it was like to be on tour" - it was fun, very vulnerable - she got tons of responses from readers who liked hearing about the weird stuff that happens as a traveling musician. She keeps hers focused because she does have bad days, but she likes to stay in service with her blog and focus on how she got THROUGH the bad stuff, not ON the bad stuff.

Christine wants to know what "unexpected benefits" came from blogging. Sheila says as a full-time writer it's handy to have a number of posts to show an editor. It's a ready example of her voice. She's anal and makes sure her blog is in good shape because it's her porfolio. She doesn't get paid for Boots'nall but her writing there has gotten her paying work elsewhere. Carmen's work on her blog has also gotten her paying work elsewhere.

Christine says the benefits far outweight the fears and insecurities. She already had a career. But she got hired by the Federal government to teach workshops on creativity, earns her several thousand dollars a year. They had seen her cd in Borders but reading the blog sealed the deal. Blogging with your passion has all kinds of little doors and windows that will open. If anyone has any questions and requests for practical suggestions, all the speakers are available to help.

Blogher began, yes it did.

Just a word of warning - it's going to be nauseatingly Blogher-centric around here this week. I'm here at the conference and I'm so excited about it, so I'm sure I'll just be blabbing on in my maelstrom of excitement. I am up and trying to listen to the volunteer orientation, but my brain is already full. Please note that I was up and out of bed on the first try at 6:30 (7:30 my time, but STILL!) which means that I love this event or something.

I actually could leave Blogher '07 now feeling quite fulfilled, because of the people I've met and re-met, and the great conversations I've had already. I'm not going anywhere, of course - going to stay until the last minute of the "unconference" on Sunday, I'm sure...and I'm here in Chicago through Monday, so it's on, so to speak. But still, it's not at every event - or any other event - where I can walk into a room and immediately meet a writer I've admired for years, and have a conversation with her based on nothing more than a few blog posts that made a small difference. I'm really looking forward to her panel tomorrow.

It was great to meet other Blogher contributing editors that I've only "met" in comments and through their tiny headshots on the site. That means Morra, Catherine Morgan and incredible travel blogger/writer Pam Mandel. It was awesome to meet and talk with Deb Roby, and to give Maria Niles a huge hug. It was wonderful to check in to a message from the beautiful soul that is Stephanie Roberts, and to see the other women I met at Blogher Business in March - the awesome Jen Lemen and her sister Kristen, along with baby Nathan.

I got to see Professor Kim Pearson again, who is one of my new favorite people. As she put it when we looked around the room, "This is the conference for cool women." And my other roommate, Genie, who saved the day for me at the crazy W.

I had an inspiring conversation at dinner with Valencia Roner of Content Black Woman, (thanks for the nice mention - I felt similarly about you!) Others around the table were Lynne Johnson, Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen, my roommate and good friend from last year's Blogher, Lauren from Oodleday, fellow editor for feminism and gender Suzanne Reisman, and SJ of I Asshole (loved meeting you! We'll talk, I hope.) She shares my interest in the LOLcat craze, specifically lolbrarians, for her, cause she's a librarian.

Oh! I almost forgot Liz Henry. She was there too. : ) Okay, the program's underway and Elisa just announced the Bloghers Act issues - I need to pay attention now.