Thursday, September 29, 2005

Community member Seth starts new site: Seth in the City

Okay, quickly because in less than two hours I will be back up.

First off, big welcome to community member Seth who just started his own site. Seth's site is called in Seth in the City. He's one of the two members that were discussing sites. If we have another one this weekend, we'll note it. Seth's been added to the permalinks.

Seth's first entry is called "The First Post" and here's an excerpt:

This blog is about my life and the world I find myself living it in. And what a world, huh? I think we're going to get to the sunshine of a brighter day sooner or later, but for the moment we're practically living in the neo Dark Ages.
You'll notice that I'm a history major. One of the things that has always fascinated me the most about history is how arbitrary it is. Think about it for a minute. None of us has any control over where we're born, or in what time period. Fate made me a 21st century American, and there's nothing I can really do about that, short of changing my nationality. But even then, I'd still have been shaped by growing up in this country, in this time period.
The cool thing, though, is that we do have some control over how we help shape the place and time we're born into. Especially in the age of the Internet, when we can all make ourselves heard and come together like never before.
This is going to be a very political blog. There's no getting around that. Life itself is political. You can't exist in this world without being directly affected on a daily basis by politics.
So you can expect me to be sharing my views on a lot of political issues, pretty much all the time.But this isn't going to be a blog just about politics. This is going to be about life as I find it. I'll write about college life, about movies, music, books, or television shows that catch my interest. I'll write about my friends and family. I'll definitely be writing about hot guys. Sexuality is just as big a part of our lives as politics. In fact, the two are very much intertwined these days, especially if you happen to be a gay guy or a lesbian.
So, if you're someone who's going to be offended by political views that are decidedly to the left of the majority of Democrats currently holding office, this blog may not be your thing. If you think George W. Bush is doing a decent job, or if you think John Roberts is going to be a hell of a good Chief Justice, you're not going to find much here at Seth in the City to agree with.

Welcome Seth and visit his site. We need more voices, not less and Seth's should be an important voice for the community.

That takes care of introductions. Now for corrections. Benny's name and facts were posted at The Third Estate Sunday Review, we just didn't put in his quote. That's because we were tired and meant to go through Jess' notes. Jess interviewed him and had felt Benny's voice merited inclusion. So as we hurried to get the repost together, we put in the facts from the note pad (where Jess had written the voices he wanted included from his interviews), we just didin't bother to hunt down Benny's comments on the tapes. His comments have been found and they're now included in "'Why Are You Here' and 'What's Changed'." Thank you to Shirley for catching that. Thank you to Dona for locating the tape. Our apologies to people who read it and to Benny. It was our oversight, we were extremely tired and didn't realize when we posted that we never did go through Jess' tapes to get your quote. (Jess had transcribed two of his quotes but the rest required listening to his tapes. He left Sunday and that entry was finally completed on Monday morning.) Here's Benny:

87) Benny, 17, high school student: For the first time it feels like maybe a difference can come. We're studying about government and it really seems wild and out there but it's about us and I guess Cindy Sheehan drives that point home to me. So I am here for that reason and the change is that people wake up and you can see it in my class. We're debating and discussing what does free speech mean and what are your duties to be an American and stuff that I have never taken time to think on and it just seems real and connected to me. Maybe it's selfish and all too because we got the guys on campus goin, "Sign up and we'll take care of you. Free college." All these promises and you ask about war and like injuries and they don't talk about it. They brush you off or say, "You just watch out for yourself and you're fine." And I bet the 1900 men and women who are dead were watching out but that didn't save them. So it's just a lot to think about and maybe having government this year drives it home.

We'll all be noting it at our sites tomorrow. Thanks to Jordan who e-mailed that she noticed it but knew we were all tired. We were but that's not an excuse for us. Again, our apologies.


Quick heads up. Don't miss Mike's interview with Betty. Don't miss Betty's latest entitled "Thomas Friedman's Endgame Should Start With A Shower" (Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man). Don't miss Rebecca's "christine & pop politics" (Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude). Don't miss Cedric's "Back Home and Blogging" (Cedric's Big Mix). And don't miss Elaine's "The gloom of the world is but a shadow" (Like Maria Said Paz). Erika asks if Kat's fine. She was wiped out by DC but she also had a few work and fun things to take care of (including a concert tonight). I doubt she'll post (at Kat's Korner) before Friday but I could be wrong.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com. Again, welcome Seth. And tomorrow morning's entries will be very disappointing, I'm sure. I'll be up in less than two hours, don't expect much.









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