A Blue View

A Blue View's Second Anniversary!

I can't believe it but A Blue View is 2 years old today!

Initially starting out as 'Take Back the White House' while I volunteered on Obama's primary campaign, it has now expanded into this more general blog where "I scour the Web everyday so you don't have to: news, analysis & commentary from a progressive perspective." (One thing I've surprised even myself with is the "everyday" part: I haven't missed a day in 2 years!)

Our audience, as measured in (unfortunately) 3 entirely separate ways:

1. Over the two years, I've posted more than 6,500 times and those posts have been viewed on the Web site nearly 75,000 times (100 per day) by 37,000 different people (50 unique and 20 repeat visitors per day).
2. On average, 115 of you read our posts every day, not on ablueview.com, but elsewhere and these posts have been viewed 119,000 times at these other places. For example, 45 of you subscribe to the free email service (where it says 'Enter your email address' at the left) that brings A Blue View to your inbox daily.
3. And yet another separate set of statistics indicate that more than 100 of you follow A Blue View on Twitter.

It's kind of amazing that a guy spending a few hours every morning from his office can communicate with upwards of 300 different people every day, 37,000 from the Web site alone, all for <$10 a month (Typedpad's fee). 

More details:

• 30% of the site's traffic are from repeat visitors: 20% of visits were from visitors who have been to the site 2-25 times, 3.5% have been here 15-25 times, 3.5% visited 101-200 times and 5.5% of your visits are from those of you who have visited more than 200 times.
• The site has had visitors from 156 countries with Canada and the UK being number 2 and 3 after the US.  For some reason I cant determine, Norway and Brazil have the most repeat foreign visitors (respectively 63% and 42%).

If you're curious to learn, more let me know.

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Landmark Legislation Empowering The FDA To Regulate Tobacco Likely To Pass

As posted a month ago, Philip Morris, the world's largest cigarette manufacturer, being astute enough to see the hand writing on the wall, supports the legislation the NY Times today reports is likely to pass Congress & be signed into law by the Pres:

Richard M. Burr, the Republican tobacco-state senator who tried a filibuster this week against a bill that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the cigarette industry, flew home to North Carolina for the weekend, conceding that the landmark legislation was likely to pass next week.

Although a Senate filibuster killed a similar measure in 1998, times have apparently changed. Mr. Burr acknowledged Thursday that his effort would probably be blocked by a cloture vote that the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, has scheduled for Monday evening. “Clearly the cloture motion will pass,” Mr. Burr said in an interview.

“Probably with flying colors,” David Ward, his press secretary, added.

After that, a final vote on the tobacco control measure could come Wednesday, Senate staff members said.

The House has already passed almost identical legislation, and President Obama has indicated he will sign the measure.

Tobacco regulation used to be a fight to the death in Congress, but now Mr. Burr stood largely alone in the filibuster effort.

“There’s been a fundamental change in the last 10 years,” Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group that has been a leading proponent of the legislation, said in an interview Friday. He noted the rising public concern about the effect of secondhand smoke on children and the trend toward smoke-free indoor air laws in most states — even, effective next year, in Mr. Burr’s home state.

“There has been a change in attitudes about the need to act to reduce tobacco use and a condemnation of the tobacco industry’s continuing behavior,” Mr. Myers said. “I don’t predict Senate votes, but I think the debate this week showed extremely broad support.”

The legislation, known as the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, would for the first time empower the Food and Drug Administration to measure and restrict the harmful chemical components in tobacco and cigarette smoke. It would also require the agency to review new tobacco products; ban the use of terms like “light” and “low tar” that might misleadingly suggest those products were safer; require new, larger health warnings on cigarette packages; and tighten restrictions on marketing and advertising.

The legislation is being shepherded through the Senate by Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. Although the effort’s longtime champion, Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, was not present because he is battling brain cancer, Mr. Kennedy’s legacy was invoked often in the debate last week.

A Blue View's Audience: Not The Largest, But Quite Loyal

Like most blogs, most visitors only come once (typically as a result of a search for something specific they were interested in). 37% of A Blue View's visitors (9,800+), however, have come back repeatedly. And of those who come back, most come back pretty often. In fact, 2,100+ of you have visited this blog more than 200 times since it began about 400 days ago.

I'd love to know what you think, what you like, what you don't, what you want to see more of, etc. ...

A Blue View Is One Year Old Today!

It is hard to believe, but A Blue View is having its first birthday today! On Feb 17, 2008 I started this blog and 9 people stopped by to visit. Since then, a lot has happened:

• number of posts: 3,368
• number of page views: 34,940
• number of visitors: 23,295
• number of unique visitors: 14,609
• number of page views per visit: 1.50
• average time spent per visit: 2:38
• number of active subscribers (as of yesterday): 61 
• 63% of the 23,295 visitors have visited only once (generally as a result of a search).  The rest are pretty loyal and visit many times:
  5,000 people have visited A Blue View 26 or more times! 
    
• The 3 most popular posts are
  • The Brown Shirts At McCain & Pallin Rallies visited 778 times by 687 unique people
  • Meet Jill Biden visited 635 times by 546 unique people
  • Al Jazeera On Kentucky visited 546 times by 474 unique people

So what do you think of A Blue View? Why do you read it? What value do you see in it? Any suggestions as to how to make it better? I'd love to know via comment or email.

A Blue View Reader Is "Outraged"

A loyal A Blue View reader emailed me to post the following because she is "outraged" by Obama's decision:

Women Are Not “Pork”

Responding to President Obama's request, House Democrats cut a provision from the stimulus package that would expand contraceptive family planning for Medicaid patients-usually poor women and girls. Why did this happen? Click here to read

Here's how I replied:

While I too want this money ultimately included, I disagree that it had to be in this bill. As I posted in Keeping Eyes On The Prize, they do intend to bring this legislation forward again (so it's not a dead issue) but they've chosen to remove it from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act at this time as way to make it more politically palatable becuase this crucial bill has to pass quickly.

To me, it's a question of the greater good and keeping one's eye on the ultimate prize: while the (temporary) loss of this one health care provision is bad, getting a bill that builds momentum for universal health care & covers millions more people immediately is more important. Btw, another little know thing about Obama's Plan is that it tries to be fairer to women by categorizing heretofore non-traditional industries as "infrastructure": Stimulus Not Just For "Burly Men" and Universal Health Care Now.

And it's not the case that Obama just caves-in to the GOP: he's a savvy politician willing to deal at the margins but not compromise fundamental goals: Lines Obama Won't Cross and Closer To Universal Health Insurance And The GOP Is Mad!

And, separate from the health care issue, but certainly symbolically & substantively important to you & I, the first piece of legislation Obama has signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Act strengthening Equal Pay For Equal Work.

What do you think?

A Blue View Readers React

Some of the emails I've been receiving (send me your thoughts):

The long, awful nightmare is over. Bush is gone. Thank God. Now we can take all of the negative energy that was once directed at a corrupt and deluded administration and transform it into good, positive energy for the new Obama administration and we can get to work fixing this country and helping to heal the world. This is good. This is so good. I haven't stopped smiling all day.

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Someone put it succinctly: "The end of an error."  Yea!!!!!

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I loved the speech. Thought it was very powerful, timely and truthful. And his delivery was better than ever- impassioned yet forceful, controlled yet inspirational. As good as the speech on race- in fact, better. I think it will go down in history as the best inaugural speech ever.  (Kennedy only had 1 memorable line- Obama has many) He is one classy guy, elegant, intelligent guy.

Sorry to hear about Kennedy but did love watching Bush get on that helicopter.

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Words to Live By

These things are old. These things are true.

And we are not to break with rash and brash entitled hubris those things that anchor us. That is what virtue can teach us. And we are better for listening to and hearing words that hold meaning like full fruit, and that are served in a cadence that itself recalls us to the time and place where our better selves were named, where and when we ourselves named those things we which need to hold to be better, and to be reminded over and across time to be better. That we deemed them to be self-evident does not mean we remember that they are. All the mighty truths and all the mighty words that we the people call our pole star are as ephemeral or as enduring as our intention to remember them. We are to remember that even in this exponential digital google age of trash and discard, we are defined by our deeds propelled by our beliefs. If we wreck and dismiss our ideals in a fit of pique or a convulsion of power and greed, we exist in a moment and then we are history; shattered atoms of a wasted and wasteful nation, an antipodal paradigm even in its mass fission, a polar opposite to the hard clear concentrated light of a star.

Thank you for saying it all, President Barack Hussein Obama. Belief, solidity, our touchstone for national bearings, our call to account for our stated principles. A clear-eyed, fair-minded, powerful, and authoritative assessment of our time and place. No apologies for truth, and no pretense about what was false. This was an inaugural address to us here and now, and its call for the ages was premised on the imperative to pick ourselves up and begin. Obama and his family in the colors from a prism on a clear and cold January morning model civility, decency, humanity, and certainty. We forgot what that looked like out in front of us. Yesterday he held up our truths for us and for the world to see. Like children faced with the broken heirloom, we need to own it, to fix it by using new glue, to renew what is timeless, and to live with that contradiction that calls us to account and to be better for it. And to make each other better for it. Dare I say it? Our new president said it yesterday. Yes we shall.

What's Next For A Blue View?

I'm considering what if anything to do with A Blue View now that Barack has won and would really appreciate your feedback.  Have you found this blog useful?  Would you like it to continue?  Would you keep reading?  Would you read it more or less frequently than you have been? Do you have any particular areas you'd like it to focus on moving forward?  If you'd like it to continue, please let me know!

Gail Collins Imagines A Future Now Less Likely To Happen

Too bad Gail had to write this witty piece before she knew the results of the debate:

To be fair, it had been a very long week for McCain, what with ruling out the debate, ruling in the debate and returning to a Senate from which he has been AWOL so long that it’s believed his desk is now being used to store janitorial supplies.

He raced there in answer to the crisis call, after a brief detour to New York to deliver a desperately needed speech on fossil fuels at the Clinton Global Initiative. He could not have sounded more filled with passion about service and country and the need for his leadership. Then he joined President Bush, Obama and members of Congress in a White House meeting that his campaign had orchestrated, where he sat in near-silence as a bipartisan consensus fell apart.

One thing we now know for sure. Electing John McCain would be God’s gift to the profession of journalism. A story a minute.

Imagine what would happen if a new beetle infested the Iowa corn crop during the first year of a McCain administration. On Monday, we spray. On Tuesday, we firebomb. On Wednesday, the president marches barefoot through the prairie in a show of support for Iowa farmers. On Thursday, the White House reveals that Wiley Flum, a postal worker from Willimantic, Conn., has been named the new beetle eradication czar. McCain says that Flum had shown “the instincts of a maverick reformer” in personally buying a box of roach motels and scattering them around the post office locker room. “I can’t wait to introduce Wiley to those beetles in Iowa,” the president adds.

On Friday, McCain announces he’s canceling the weekend until Congress makes the beetles go away.

Barack Obama would just round up a whole roomful of experts and come up with a plan. Yawn.

Have McCain's Lapses Actually Been Lies? Does It Matter?

For a while now, I've considered lots of demonstrably untrue statements of John McCain as mental lapses (there is even A Blue View category called 'McCain Lapses').  I purposely chose not to use the MSM's neutral 'misstatement,' but to call a spade a spade and use mental lapse since that's what many of them seem to have been (for instance, confusing the Shia and Sunni in Iraq).

A reader today, however, reminded me of the excellent Brave New Worlds video below that I originally posted way back on May 20th and it has caused me to reconsider: perhaps some of the things I've been thinking were McCain lapses were actually intentional lies and distortions.  The sad thing is, I don't know which is worse: he's too addled brained to get his facts right or he's been intentionally lying.

In any case, I will over the next few days recategroize many of my posts into a new, expanded 'McCain Lapses and Lies' category.  There will also be a fair amount of overlap with the another existing category: 'Hypocrisy'.

A Question For A Blue View Readers ...

An thought provoking post from Jeffrey Feldman on the Daily Kos that ends with an important question I have for you, A Blue View readers:

Time for some tough love, folks. A pep talk. A crash course in remembering who we are and what we do best ...

The Republicans have  hit fast and hard since their convention.  They've played dirty.  They've landed punches. They  have us scrambling. But people!  This does not mean we should forget everything that we have learned and discussed on this site for the past 4 years!  We can do better!

Look around you.  This site has become obsessed with presenting 'facts' that 'prove' Sarah Palin is not good enough to be Vice President. All that is doing is helping McCain.  But worse:  it goes against everything we've learned, everything we've dedicated ourselves to. We can do better!

You think McCain supporters will respond to facts?  ...

Stop with the Palin Diaries. I'm talking to you, friend.  That's right.  You--the diarist who thinks he/she has found the fact or scandal that definitively proves why Sarah Palin will be a bad Vice President, and who thinks he/she has found the most clever and convincing way to present that utterly devastating fact.  Stop, already.  We have seen it.  No more. There are enough 'Sarah Palin is Corrupt, Stupid, Dangerous, and Not Ready' diaries to fill a thousand blogs.   We get it!

But even 10,000 more diaries like that will only help McCain--only  help him.

Why?  Because Palin is not on the McCain ticket because she is smart, qualified, and ready.  She is on the ticket to shore up McCain's 'culture war' credentials--to put her on the 'right side' of the cultural wedge issues the Republicans use to divide the electorate and win Presidential elections.

So...the more we obsess over Palin, the more connected to John McCain the lunatic wing of the Republican Party feels ...

One of the most disheartening things I have seen in the past week is the level of fear and concern amongst people who are not connected via the netroots.

The media obsession over Palin has cast a dark cloud over a country filled with hope following the DNC in Denver.  The anxiety is so thick I can feel it in my throat.  More people have told me they are going to leave this country than at any time I can remember in my life.

WE MUST LEAD WITH OUR OPTIMISM, USE OUR WRITING TO HELP PEOPLE SEE THROUGH THE FEAR AND BACK TO THE HOPE AT THE HEART OF THIS ELECTION.

Do more than write diaries that reject the McCain language, that emphasize Obama's vision, that repeat our campaign themes, and that reject fear for confidence--take all those strengths and inject them into the off-line world to help revive a fearful nation ...

So now it is our turn to reclaim it--our turn to rebuild the kind of conversation that will win this election for those who believe in a better future.

Let's get busy. Let's work together. Let's not waste one more minute being afraid. Let's win this damn election.

So what do you think?  Should A Blue View focus less on Palin?

It's Time: Hypocrisy Is A New Category In A Blue View

Given the GOP's new found emphasis on saying one thing one day and an opposite thing later, I thought it time to create a new category I could use with my posts: hypocrisy. Categories, as you know, appear in each post's footer, and by clicking one, you can see all the other posts in that category.  And for those reading the blog at www.ablueview.com (the most versatile way to read it), you can do the same for any of the categories you see in the "Category Cloud" in the left hand column of the blog.

A New Blue View Design

We're trying out a new design and layout that is hopefully more enjoyable. Let us know what you think.