There's a scene in the first season of House of Cards where Frank Underwood tells Zoe Barnes, "Everything is about sex, except sex." I can't help but be reminded of this as the UK heads into another election with the main topic of the last three years - Brexit - quickly receding from public discourse yet again.
This time it is especially ironic, as the current elections underway are for the European Parliament. Normally, British voters use these elections as a chance to register a protest. No one really much cares about Europe in normal times. These are not normal times, of course. Europe has been the overriding political issue for so long that journalists seem genuinely surprised when Brexit is not the lead story on a given day. Strangely, now that we have a European election that should really be about Europe, Europe is not really get much mention. Well, not really. There is a sort-of pesudo-discussion of European issues. The party expected to win next week's poll is the new Brexit Party, run by former UKIP leader Nigel Farrage. There's a lot of talk about the Brexit Party, but that's not the same as talking about Brexit per se. The biggest media talking point, by far, is how badly the Conservatives will do in the election. A poll out today puts them in fifth place behind the Brexit Party, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens. Other topics of note are Labour's inability to have a clear Brexit policy, and the incredible shrinking poll results of Change UK (née the Independent Group). But no one is talking about Brexit itself. There is no discussion of the issues. This is precisely what happened in the 2017 general elections, when the expectation that there would be an election-long public debate on the issue was completely and utterly wrong. With Brexit dominating all political discussion and action outside of election periods, and Brexit being the last topic anyone wants to discuss directly during an election season, there is precious little opportunity for the British people to give any sort of mandate on what exactly Brexit is supposed to be. Brexit must be like sex - everything is about it except itself.
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For the last few years I've been growing increasingly fanatical about Australian Rules Football, or "Footy" as it is known. I don't have a terribly good explanation for the source of this passion. I am naturally curious about the world I guess, came across it, and kept coming back to learn more about the sport.
It is a brilliant sport, and for many different reasons that are not immediately obvious. Here's my attempt to capture some of the magic of footy: 1) It is fast paced with lots of scoring like basketball, but goals (worth six points) are still a big enough deal to rate real excitement (unlike basketball - in my opinion). 2) Aussie Rules is derided for being overly physical, but it's not the giant, organized fight most Americans and Europeans think it is. Yes, it is rough, but the rules are enforced and players are not put in regular danger. And when I say rules, they mostly make sense and are easy to follow (unlike Rugby). The game flows, there is a lot of tackling and scrapping, but not to the point that distracts from the game itself. 3) The pitch (playing field) is HUGE!!! Honestly, after watching three seasons now I'm still amazed at what a big playing surface it is played on. This is because, historically, Footy was developed as a Winter sport to be played at cricket grounds, like the MCG. This is, I assume, one of the reasons the game can be so fast paced but not have goals every few seconds. 4) It's easy to enjoy as a newcomer. I'm probably years away from understanding the finer points of the game, but the basics are easy to follow. A quick search on YouTube will bring up several videos to explain what a "mark" is, how far the ball can be carried without bouncing it, etc. After that you can easily watch a game and enjoy it. 5) Great rivalries and traditions. This is a sport that grew up in one single city: Melbourne. Even today, more than half of the teams in the Australian Football League represent different Melbourne neighbourhoods and suburbs. The clubs are some of the oldest in organized sports. My team, North Melbourne FC, is celebrating its 150th season this year! Why am I talking about Footy now you wonder? The new season is just a couple weeks away. "North" narrowly lost out on the playoff spots in 2018 after being picked by most to be dead last. We're hoping for big things in 2019. Proud to be a #shinboner! News Growl published three articles today:
I didn't write any of these articles, but I was in charge of putting them online (as I am most days). I was aware that it was International Women's Day today, but I only really thought about that when it came to the third article (which is about International Women's Day). Of the three, by far the most traffic has been for the article about Ms Norrell. In fact, the fashion profile of her is one of the most read on the first day we've ever published (it is coming close to rivalling the profile of Ambassador Vlora Çitaku, our most read fashion profile to date). This could have easily not happened. Before Gail (the author of our fashion column) went away for a few days yesterday afternoon she sent me four articles, including two for the News Growl fashion column. One was about a male state legislator from Oklahoma. I thought the profile of Ms Norrell was much better, so I went with that one. We'll probably publish the Oklahoma guy next week, but with a chance to do more editing. A couple hours ago, for the first time since its launch over a year ago, our fashion column received a complaint. It came in the form of an email entitled, "International Women's Day - why would you do this?" It came in on Gail's email account, but as she's away I responded. I explained how the fashion column is meant to focus on style and fashion and not just appearance (as the writer alleged), and that the column features men and women (although, to be fair, we struggle to find male politicians worth profiling). A few more angry emails followed from the same complainant, and in our correspondence I explained (1) that I was not "mansplaining" - Gail is away and I thought it important to respond, (2) the decision to publish that particular profile on that particular day was mine, not Gail's, and (3) that since launching the column we've received many thank you notes, Facebook shares, and retweets from the men and women we've covered in it. It's not ever meant to offend anyone ever. I also pointed out that the BBC published an article about women's fashion in politics today, except unlike us they did it with the explicit intent to tie it to IWD. My interlocutor did not ask me to do this, but I then went ahead and emailed Ms Norrell explaining the same points I mentioned above just in case she was actually offended. The last thing I would want to do is upset someone with these articles. I offered an apology if she was offended in any way, and even offered to take down the article if she wanted us to. It occurred to me afterwards that, as a politician, she is unlikely to want to respond to such an email (and she hasn't so far), but I do genuinely hope she took the article in the same spirit in which it was written. And, despite the fact that I disagreed with the premise that a fashion article that refers to a politician as being stylish is inappropriate to publish on International Women's Day, I went ahead an apologized to the person who complained via email. The fashion columns are meant to be fun, entertaining, and complimentary. They are not meant to offend anyone. If they do, they have (at least in one respect) failed. And that deserves an apology. Okay, so something happened in the last few days I never expected. A News Growl fashion profile of Vlora Çitaku became a HUGE hit in Kosovo.
I should explain, the Honorable Vlora Çitaku is the Kosovo ambassador to the US, so she there's a connection. But who knew that the people of Kosovo would have such a great reaction to what we wrote. Here's the introduction to the article that set everything off, from Kosovo's biggest online newspaper, "Telegrafi": "The famous magazine "News Growl" has named Kosovo's ambassador to the United States of America, Vlora Citaku, as the most stylish ambassador in Washington." That's right, the famous magazine News Growl. Once it appeared in Telegrafi, the story quickly spread to dozens of other Albanian-language websites. I don't actually know how many - more than twenty at least. It's hard to count them all. Lots of sites blatantly copied the Telegrafi article, like the entry from Ekonomia News. MCN Radio did a version with the same words but different pictures. Meanwhile, the Gazeta Express found a somewhat original way to describe us saying, "The prestigious magazine Growl has devoted an article to Kosovo's ambassador to the United States, stating that there are few diplomats in Washington approaching her for fashion." Prestigious! Prestigious or famous - I'll gladly take either! Now, which Kosovar politician do we profile next? :) Like many early adopters of the Internet, I got my first blogging experience with Live Journal. When I decided to create a new blog to chronicle my experience building a news website called News Growl (along with some other AMAZING people) I thought I'd check in on LJ again and see if it still worked. A nostalgia trip, really.
It worked okay, pretty much. There were some nice features - posts were automatically posted to my Twitter feed, etc. There was some pesky advertising i could not turn off, but I could live with that. The only weird thing was the habit of the system to switch to Russian when I logged out. Wait, what? Yes, Live Journal had been acquired by Russian investors in 2006. Who knew? But it still contained a relatively large, relatively lively English-language community so I decided it was just something to ignore. Oh yeah, News Growl has published the occasional article that is critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and other people associated with his regime (including Leonid Slutsky, Oleg Deripaska, and the occupation of parts of Ukraine by Russian forces). Okay, looking back on it, News Growl has been highly critical of the Russian government on a regular basis, but not in an overtly partisan way. Just in the same way every other news site not owned by Russia has been for years. Would anyone at Live Journal care if I mentioned these articles on my Live Journal blog every once in a while (along with stuff about American politics and Australian Rules football)? The idea seemed preposterous. Until this morning. I got an alert via Google there was a problem with my blog. When I tried to log on I got this message: "Your journal has been suspended. All posts from your journal are not available for reading. If you have not received information regarding this suspension, please submit a request to Support Team." I had not received any information, of course. I filled out a ticket for the support team. So far no answer. And guess what I found in the Terms of Service? Blogs must comply with the laws of the Russian Federation. I don't know the laws of the Russian Federation very well, but I can imagine I've at least brushed up against a few. So, no more Live Journal blog. Welcome to my Weebly blog! I sure hope the folks at Weebly steer clear of Russian investors. Here are some links I thought I'd share.
One is an article from the Independent Journal Review about private citizens working to clean National Park land in Washington DC with the government shut down. It's a good article, but also noteworthy because it cites a News Growl article I wrote as a source! :) https://ijr.com/national-park-clean-up-national-parks/ Also, I tried writing a blog post for Kinja. I'm not totally sure I'm going to stick with this platform. I'm trying different ones for pieces that are too much opinion for News Growl, but too long and meaty for this live journal thingummy. My third opinion piece for the Independent Voter Network was out this week, talking about the unexpected flurry of lobbyist-related stories I wrote for News Growl in December.
Normally IVN sticks to electoral politics, but were happy to run a story about lobbying. The more I learn about this the more I'm convinced this is a crucial part of government decision-making that gets way too little scrutiny. December was a great month for my relatively new position running the shop at News Growl. It also marked the first full interview on the site led by me. I've played a part in all of our previous interviews, but mostly behind the scenes. Now Patricia and I have sort of swapped roles for interviews, where I take the lead and she makes suggestions and edits.
The first result, an interview with Laura Reese, was a huge success. Laura is a newcomer to political activism, and with help from the crowdfunding platform Lobbyists 4 Good she hopes to end federal subsidies of animal agriculture. It's a big task, but the option L4G provide to ordinary citizens is really exciting. There is another interview underway (it's one I'm really excited about, mostly because it involves one of the most under-reported stories from the recent midterm elections) and there are plans to do several more. Hopefully we can get back into the swing of things as our interviews were one of our most popular features under Patricia's editorship. Oh, and December was notable for two other lobbyist-related stories: an mini-interview with Maryland pro bono lobbyist Jimmy Tarlau (I don't count this as a full interview as it was much shorter than our usual ones), and a story about South Dakota's Deb Peters, who left the South Dakota Legislature just after her reelection to join a health care association (and as I found out, must have applied for the role no more than three days after her recent election to a new four year term). Expect more on the confluence of these three lobbying-related stories soon (I hope). Slowly but surely, our new website Fashion Growl is gaining traction. Yesterday we published our twelfth blogger profile, and we have several more fantastic ones in the pipeline. Meanwhile, one of the bloggers we've featured, Milicia Stanišić, is now proudly displaying the sticker we made up on her blog iammiliza.
I was really pleased when I saw this. We don't require anyone to display these — it's just something we made up to say thank you. But it is still very gratifying to know that someone wants to show off the profile we did of them. To be honest, I still feel much safer when I'm working on the news content for News Growl. When I'm working on Fashion Growl I am normally out of my depth a bit, and relying much more than usual on my colleagues who produce the copy and organize the content. But anyway, we're getting there! And traffic has been great! We're actually ahead of where we were with News Growl at this point. Now that's a surprise! Stay tuned as we have another development we're working on for Fashion Growl and I'm hoping to have an announcement soon! |
AuthorSteve has many disparate and unconnected interests. This, he thinks, entitles him to claim the label "Renaissance Man." Archives
March 2019
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