Category: Blogging

Hey, Richmond bloggers, let’s have ourselves a carnival!

I’ve set up our very own blog carnival site at blogcarnival.com. Through here you can get info on the carnival and upcoming editions.

I’ll be hosting the first bash this upcoming Monday, August 14th. All entries are due Sunday, August 13th by 6pm. The carnival is open to any and everything from Richmond bloggers. You don’t have to be talking about Richmond, you don’t even have to be talking about anything in particular. Random rants are fine by me. Just toss me a few posts that give a good look into the minds of Richmond bloggers.

You can submit by e-mailing me at jasonkenney@gmail.com or through the blogcarnival.com site

If you’re interested in hosting a future edition of the RVABC, e-mail me and I’ll add ya to the list.

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and gaze in awe and wonder at the amazing feats of Virginia bloggers!

Democrats gathered in Charlottesville for a political carnival on Saturday. Greg Bouchillon and J.C. Whitmore were in attendance. No word on the deliciousness of the funnel cake.

Let us journey with Kat (aka Romeocat) as the family goes to the National Air And Space annex out near Dulles (with SWEET photos of neat planes and more). I am jealous.

If fortune telling and future gazing is your thing, Virginia Conservative Chad Dotson knows just who you should get in touch with.

That guy who isn’t that chef Emeril (but still makes a kick ass chicken and veggie dish from what I hear) has some thoughts on the Gay Marriage Amendment. If those don’t tickle your fancy, consider this: If you take the tile of his post “My Thoughts On The Gay Marriage Amendment” and translate it to French using AltaVista’s BabelFish and then translate it back into English, it becomes “My Thoughts On The Merry Amendment Of Marriage”. So just by using the title and translations, we can all assume that he and everyone else who speaks of this “Gay Marriage Amendment” think it’s a merry thing to do. Or so the French would have us believe. On a side note (because I’ve been staying on topic up to now), I’m Not Emeril’s favorite Beatle is the recently late Billy Preston.

Before you leave, be sure to make your own planet (sponsored by Shaun Kenney).

What kind of a carnival would it be without food? Oh, wait. Waldo’s talking about organic and healthy stuff. Carnivals are all about cotton candy and funnel cake and corn dogs and getting sick on the ferris wheel. So ignore Waldo. He’s just talkin’ crazy.

Kilo ventures into the great unknown and pulls back the curtain on the bearded lady we all know and love as Zogby Interactive.

Ghana knocked the US out of the World Cup tourney on Thursday and nobody in Virginia really cared.

Let Spank That Donkey teach you a thing or two about Geo Strategy. His pet peeve is people who fail to use cruise control on the highway. You are all put on notice.

Gasp in shock and horror as Rick Sincere recounts his lunchtime escapade with the one and only Dick Cheney!

Snoopy at RiverCity Rapids highlights a big chunk of people who may be thinking about running off to join the circus in a near future. Seriously, though, Richmond as a 47% graduation rate. Really. Only 47% of Richmond students actually graduate. More than half don’t finish. Where’s the outcry?

If you’re a true carny lover, then please visit the Virginia Blogging Conference Carnival hosted by the one and only Semi Truths.

And now for tonight’s main event….

The JD Code

For the longest time I’ve firmly believed that Jaded JD is a fourteen year old girl who’s really into Kylie Minogue. But now I’ve found that I’m wrong. Oh so horribly wrong.

You see, I’ve cracked the JD Code.

Closer to the Bible Code than the DaVinci Code (but not where near as sweet as Morse Code), the JD Code simply requires you to be a super genius and just know what to look for.

Let’s take JD’s post earlier this week where he opines upon Blogethical landmines. Sure, he may make some good points on ethics in blogging and disclosure and all that jazz. But if you go through the post and circle letters in a pattern that may appear random to more simpleminded individuals but is really a highly mathmetical process only attainable by folks like me, you will find JD’s TRUE identity!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the Virginia Blogosphere, Jaded JD is Bob Saget!

The JD Code also revealed that Bob at times will go by the names “Sue”, “Satan”, “Larry The Cable Guy” and all three of the Rice Crispy elves. He also predicts a cataclysmic event to befall the city of Lovington, Nebraska sometime between 2010 and 3243, but while Bob Saget might be loved and adored by millions for his work on Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos, he’s not exactly known for his psychic abilities. Perhaps time will tell…

Thanks for joining us on this leg of the tour of the Virginia Blog Carnival. I’ve been your barker, Jason “Not Shaun” Kenney. If you or someone you love would like to host next week’s VBC, check this out for details. We now return you to your regularly scheduled non-sense.

CREDITS
(Listed In Order Of Appearance)

The Daily WhackJob
Cville Unity Rally Today

Richmond Democrat
Virginia Democrats unite in Charlottesville (photos)

CatHouse Chat
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Virginia Conservative
Mark Warner’s astrologer

I’m Not Emeril
My Thoughts On The Gay Marriage Amendment

Shaun Kenney
Make Your Own Planet

Waldo Jaquith
“Organic”: It’s not what you think.

Spark It Up!!!
What is Zogby Interactive?.

Spank That Donkey
Geo Strategy Lesson For Liberals.

Rick Sincere News and Thoughts
My Lunch with Dick Cheney

River City Rapids
47 Percent

Semi Truths
VA Bloggers Blog Carnival

and Bob Saget as Jaded JD
Blogethical Landmines

I shall be hosting the upcoming VBC. If you’re interested in participating or have seen some super sweet posts in the last week that you think should be included, check out the submissions guidelines here. All entries are due by 6pm tomorrow evening. Woo doggie!

J’s Notes will be hosting next week’s Virginia Blog Carnival. Get all the gory details here and send in them submissions! I loves me some submissions…

I’m Not Emeril’s hosting this week and yours truly shall play the barker next week. Woo doggie.

What is the VBC? Well you can get your hands on all those juicy details right here.

Wanna submit? Shoot me an e-mail with VBC somewhere in the subject by 6pm EST Sunday evening with the following information:

* Name of your Blog
* URL to your blog
* Your name (or the name you blog under)
* Where in Virginia you live
* The title of your post
* Permalink to your post
* Astrological sign
* Pet peeves
* Favorite Beatle

Those last three are optional. Gimmie what you got!

John Grohol has a great article up at A List Apart about the relationship between identity and community on the internet and while the article focuses more on communities created by sites such as Wikipedia that have visitors submit information, it still makes some relevant observations on anonymity vs. pseudonymity that apply to the blogging community just as well.

Dave Rogers ruminates on last week’s Long Tail conversation and about how none of the Technorati folks have responded to his questions. He also takes on the Cluetrain Manifesto. Read the whole thing, its actually a good post if you’ve been following the topic (and links to previous posts to get you up to speed if you haven’t). One part in particular stood out to me, though:

Technorati, again, as near as I can tell, is held in positive regard, at least by the members of the “A-List.” I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if this was an act of inspired genius to create a list that simultaneously flatters the egos of the people most in a position to criticize the company, draws attention to itself, and exploits the attention-directing “authority” of high attention-earning webloggers (the A-List) to draw even more attention to itself. I’d say probably not, since it’s been done before; but it’s still a pretty effective way to garner attention and achieve a measure of insulation from criticism.

Which is a good (and very correct) observation.

A Bloggers’ Bill Of Rights?

We, the inhabitants of the Blogosphere, do hereby proclaim that bloggers everywhere are entitled to the following basic rights:

FREEDOM TO BLOG.

FREEDOM FROM PERSECUTION AND RETALIATION BECAUSE OF OUR BLOGS:

1.) If an employer wishes to discipline an employee because of his/her blog, it must first establish clear-cut blogging policies and distribute these to all of its employees.
2.) Blogging employees shall be given warning before being disciplined because of their blogs.
3.) NO ONE shall be fired because of his/her blog, unless the employer can prove that the blogger did intentional damage to said employer through the blog.

Blogophobic companies, who violate the Bloggers’ Bill of Rights, will be blacklisted by millions of bloggers the world over.

Whatever happened to responsible blogging on the part of the blogger? I’m sorry, but most jobs I’ve had in the past have 1) required me to not discuss company politics or inner workings outside of the company as per a contract and 2) been “at will”, being Virginia and all. If I divulge company secrets, I’m a goner. And that’s fair, because I should know better. There are competitors out there that thrive off of this kind of information, and if I’m just going to give this stuff away then I shouldn’t expect any sort of job security. Whether or not they explicitly tell me not to share it. Common sense has to kick in at some point, folks.

The Conglomerate has some thoughts:

[I]f Gordon and I came up with a code of ethics (and surely we could come up with a better list than Mr. Cohen’s check sources/note conflicts/post corrections list), I don’t think that anything additional would happen to me if an unethical action of mine breached the code. Right now, if it came to light that W.R. Hambrecht was paying me to argue night and day about online IPO auctions (I wish), I think I would feel the heat whether or not I had a code conspicuously posted on my blog.

A code without a governing body to enforce it is useless. And I think you’d be hesitant to see any bloggers willing to submit themselves to a body should one be formed. It’d change what blogs are, commentary on news and events with some reporting, into straight forward news outlets of which we have many. When’s the last time a columnist was held to any real code of ethics for making outlandish comments? Does Ted Rall submit to a code of ethics? Sean Hannity?

Update: Though I do have to admit that the idea of creating a Blogs Code Authority stamp like the old Comic Code Authority one and slapping it on my site is running through my mind…