I suppose this was spam, but I fell for it, so this is the best post you're going to get in this time slot

Okay, you're smarter than I am. I bought it.

by Ken

I don't usually fall for spam scams, which I guess this was. I sat down at the computer with something like 50-55 minutes left to bang out a post, probably from two subjects I had vaguely mapped out. I did a little further tinkering with one of them, but decided to check my e-mail to see whether maybe God had e-mailed me something that with just a little dusting and polishing could be turned into a post. I didn't see that, but I did see what looked like an Amazon offer of a 90% discount offer, if you just clicked through and did something or other in order to get your download code.

What can I say? You think I'm not interested in a 90-percent discount on something I would be using anyway?

It's crazy, but the time pressure -- I really had to get back to my blogpost -- made me more susceptible, and one of the thigns I clicked on said that it (whatever it was) was only valid for 30 minutes, so I figured, okay, I'll click a few clicks, get my download code, and then get back to my post.

Don't you dare try to use my Coupon ID!

Only the first two of these weird "survey" choices involved really bizarre stuff. One of them had me signing up for some kind of supposedly free service (in order to complete a survey?), and another (or maybe the same one) had me giving a credit card (even though it was free), and with the clock ticking I finally clicked through to the free-lunch offer, which merely (ha, merely!) asked about my household's shopping habits. Except it kept going on and on.

And on. And it was pretty invasive. And, in case I didn't mention it, it kept going on and on

And even when it announced "one final question," there was another question, and then a list of surveys to choose from. And none of this seemed in any way related to my supposed download code.

And then I really didn't have time -- not even time to pursue one of my originally designated post ideas.

It looked like an actual Amazon e-mail, of which I get, goodness knows, about a jillion a day. I suppose it probably wasn't, so I can't blame Amazon for wasting my time. Apparently I'm not going to get my 90-percent discount coupon or whatever the hell it was supposed to be.

Well, the joke's on you. All you're getting is this crappy post. There's a lesson to be learned here, I'm sure, but I don't have time to learn it. I have a post to get up.

NOW ALL I HAVE TO DO --

is get a post done for 9pm PT. I still have two live ideas, but they both still need work, and for Pete's sake, it's Friday night.

Wait, I think I'll check my e-mail and see if maybe something has turned up there that could be turned into a post with maybe just some light dusting and polishing. Wish me luck! (See you at 9pm PT/12am ET.)

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Oh no, Pam Spaulding is closing down "Pam's House Blend"

Thanks, Pam!

by Ken

Just because the bombshell wasn't all that surprising doesn't make it less of a bombshell, or less of a cause for sadness. Today Pam Spaulding made it official: "Goodbye Pam’s House Blend: after nine years, closing the coffeehouse July 1." ("Pam's House Blend" is currently hosted at FireDogLake.)

All good things must come to an end, even after numerous awards and accolades, it’s time to acknowledge that I cannot continue to run on fumes alone. The Blend could continue limping along, but my health and well-being come first; over the last few years burning the candle at both ends with a full-time offline job and PHB. It has taken a severe toll -- most readers have learned that I am dealing with chronic pain conditions -- fibromylagia, and in the last couple of years, aggressive rheumatoid arthritis.

My decision to close the blog is just as reality-based as its content has been. If I cannot produce material at the frequency or with the same level of quality, enthusiasm and effectiveness, it’s really time to close the doors to this coffeehouse -- and work to ensure it continues to have a life as an archive, a snapshot in our digital political history. Pamshouseblend.com will redirect to archives.

The outpouring in response has been tremendous, understandably and deservedly. There really is no way to overstate the contribution Pam has made in all these exhausting years of covering LGBT issues from the standpoint of a Southern woman of color and lesbian. As she herself puts it, "looking back,"

I churned out pieces at an incredible pace -- up to ten posts a day -- many long-form pieces, commentary, curating news articles I thought my audience should check out, and occasionally (and increasingly) doing citizen journalism at news events and conferences. All of this while holding down a full-time day job with no connection to politics or activism. And most of of those posts were done in the wee hours, so I didn’t get much sleep over the lifespan of this blog.

Along the way Pam found time to encourage and cultivate generations of younger would-be citizen-journalists

Political blogging changed mainstream journalism in many ways. Save for a few who were able to monetize their blogs or who were cherry picked to help traditional outlets get their feet wet in new media, the vast majority of citizen journalists and opinion-makers toiled with little hope of quitting that day job. The LGBT movement was energized by the speed and reach of new media, and at times appeared quite threatened by it — mostly because it was a venue where Beltway orgs, and even the White House, didn’t see any possible way to co-opt or control what was being produced by this first generation of online political rabble rousers and activists. I’ve made a lot of great friends and met a lot of people along the way, and hopefully opened a few eyes, particularly with my posts about the intersection of LGBT and race.

The Blend sat in a unique place in all of this -- I brought the perspective of a black lesbian living in the South to the dialogue -- broadcasting a voice certainly not represented in the power structure of the LGBT movement. It was the first major blog to feature a transgender contributor, and it was important to me to bring talent to the blog from under-represented regions and voices.

As we keep learning (it's a lesson that demands to be learned over and over), "outsiderness" can be an invaluable tool in casting a critical eye on established society, and nobody illustrates it better than Pam. She also clearly has outsize supplies of conviction, determination, work ethic, and -- what else to call it? -- charisma. The fact is that it wasn't just all that hard work that got her listened to; she developed a voice that people wanted to hear.

Which makes it all the more enervating -- to Pam herself, no doubt, but also to the rest of us who wonder how to make a useful real-world contribution -- that beyond the earned respect there was so little tangible reward for all her efforts.

Pam's decision has already occasioned a round of soul-searching among friends and colleagues. A lot of the colleagues know only too well the frustration, if not futility, Pam talks about. Once again there are cries that we have to figure out -- or, still more discouragingly, "someone" has to figure out -- a way to make independent blogging pay well enough to sustain life for the would-be independent blogger.

However, at a time when ever larger segments of the mainstream media are trying to figure out the same thing, I have to wonder whether this isn't one of those questions to which there isn't an answer.I'm not sure I'm ready to hold my breath for anyone to figure out any such thing. We're rarely taught in school that there are many such questions (most questions?), but there are.

Like all of her colleagues, I'm happy to hear that Pam is making a priority of taking care of herself. What could be more important? It's also great to know that not only will she "still be active in social media" and especially that she plans to "make time to mentor folks as I can." Excellent! However, she says, "It’s just time for someone else to pick up the ball and run with the daily activist grind, and forge new ground in an ever-shifting new media."

Speaking of which -- on FDL, a rebranded blog will debut on the channel with my talented current contributors Laurel Ramseyer, Alvin McEwen and Autumn Sandeen. Look for more information on that effort soon.

I'll have a "goodbye" post on July 1 that takes a look at some of PHB's nine-year history.

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Bloggers On The Bus-- Don't Leave Home Without It

Netroots Nation is coming up this week. President Bill Clinton is giving the keynote address. I love Pittsburgh-- especially the Andy Warhol Museum-- but I'm not going, I've never gone. I know I should and I usually want to in like February or March. But then something always happens like a trip to Mali or Bali and... I miss out. All that not withstanding, I just had my dozenth call from a candidate or office holder who is going, looking for advise. "What should I do there? Who should I meet?" They all want to know.

They'd be better off asking me about Timbuktu-- awesome place-- or Ubud, Kathmandu, Kerala, Kabul or... how to get to Bush's rancho in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay. But here's my advice to candidates who are going. It's real simple: always be genuine and never pander. Don't say anything different to the netroots than what you'd say to your constituents back home. If you do, that message will definitely get back home, and probably before you do. Oh, and before you go, get Eric Boehlert's book Bloggers on The Bus. Reading it I learned so much more about people I thought I really knew-- not just from reading their work for years but by hanging out with them in real life too. In fact, despite starting the part about me by likening me to "a golden retriever suddenly blessed with the gift of speech," I recommend the book to anyone looking to figure of the progressive blogosphere and some of the characters populating it. And you can get it right on the first page of the Down With Tyranny Books & Music Store. And so can all the candidates and incumbents with the slightest bit of interest.

And if you don't like to read books, our friend Doonesbury captured the spirit of the blogosphere real well in this cartoon and you should study it carefully:

Quotes of the day: The man who wrote the book on civil, rational political discourse (he's agin it) puts "nutty" bloggers in our place: "angry kooks"

"The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in public discourse."

"People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog."

--standup comic Karl Rove, at yesterday's Citizen 2.0 gathering in Washington, D.C.

Today's reading has been pretty heavy going, no? We all need some comic relief, right? Amanda at ThinkProgress catches us up on the antics of the man known to the politically wise as "Mr. Civility":

Rove Decries ‘Nutty’ ‘Vitriolic’ Bloggers Who Spew ‘Bad Words’

Yesterday, ThinkProgress attended a Yahoo-sponsored Citizen 2.0 event in Washington, DC, at which Karl Rove discussed the intersection of politics and the Internet. Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web, but then proceeded to use his speech as a partisan bashing of the netroots. According to Rove, bloggers are “nutty,” “vitriolic,” and “kooks.” The Washington Times reported on his remarks:

“The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in public discourse,” said Mr. Rove, who served as one of President Bush’s top strategists until he resigned this past summer, and is a noted technology nut.

“People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog,” Mr. Rove said during a speech about politics and the Web at the Willard InterContinental, a hotel just blocks from his former place of employment.

“I’m a fan of many blogs. I visit them frequently and I learn a lot from them,” Mr. Rove said. “But there also blogs written by angry kooks.”

He also claimed that liberals use more “bad words,” comparing sites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground to Townhall and FreeRepublic. The “netroots often argue from anger rather than reason, and too often, their object is personal release, not political persuasion,” said Rove.

The Internets is not the reason hyperpartisan politics have been elevated; people like Karl Rove are. A look at some of Rove’s contributions to anger and vitriol in public discourse:

--When Bush ran against Democratic Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994, Rove was connected to a rumor that Richards was a lesbian.

--A former Rove staffer said that during the 1996 Alabama Supreme Court race, the campaign of Harold See--run by Rove--“initiated a whisper campaign” that See’s opponent “was a pedophile.”

--“Political operatives” have charged that Rove orchestrated a “widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered mentally unfit for office.”

During the Q & A session, Rove admitted that despite the coarseness of the political debate, he hopes the netroots “keep at it” because it helps Republicans. If only the blogosphere were as civil as Karl Rove.

[Note: For the links throughout Amanda's post, check out the ThinkProgress version.]

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