In thinking about the week that was, it strikes me that McCain has been unually nasty this week -- probably in part because of his new team taking charge, partly because of his tendency to open the mouth before the brain is engaged, but mostly, I think, because of Obama's week ahead.

There was a minor incident connected with the murder of President Kennedy which was little noted much less remembered. After the shooting, Jackie scrambled back over the trunk of the limo, was met by a Secret Service agent, and returned to her seat. You saw it in the Zapruder film and subsequent stills. That brave lady, said the press and an admiring populace. In that moment of emergency, she sought to insure that agent was safely established on the rear bumper before the dash to Parkland Hospital. She's a heroine.

Lenny Bruce, subsequently using the sequence in his stand-up act, said, if ever your wife or daughter is caught in extreme circumstance, and if she impulsively responds naturally, if she hauls a__to save a__, in other terms, then always Jackie will be held up to her. Jackie succeeded, she will be assured, while you failed. You're no heroine.

And it's all a lie.

The revolutionary Obama Organizing Fellowships are unpaid positions open to graduates and recent graduates to become extensively trained world changers.

The application deadline for the training has been extended to May 15th. The Field has the story: http://ruralvotes.com/...

With the link to the Obama web site page with application:
http://my.barackobama.com/...

Perhaps Daily Kos could sponsor a few?  

I was watching "Medium" on TV Monday night, a very well-written show.  The DuBois family has been going through a rough patch this year.  Joe, the father, lost his job as an aerospace engineer and has been on unemployment.  Allison is persona non grata with the new DA.  In this most recent episode, their middle daughter, Bridget, has a school assignment to use a solar electric panel to power a Christmas tree light, a stupid idea, as Bridget rightly complains, because who needs a light when the sun is shining?  Joe tries to help her by using the solar cell to power an old boom box but he can't get enough juice through the cell.

Then he has a dream.  

He invents a mirror-based power boost for solar cells that not only powers Bridget's school project but also may have real potential to power much more.  Who knew?  Photovoltaics as a plot point in a network TV drama.  Now that's market penetration.  

And that's not the only TV show featuring solar and green ideas.

I'm a native Gettysburgian (PA), and am back home from Chicago for the next few weeks, helping out with the Adams County for Obama group.  Our highest priority right now is getting people who want to vote for Obama registered as democrats.  Right now, there are voter registration drives going on at Gettysburg College, at the local campus of the Harrisburg Area Community College, by phone (we have a list of registered indys), by personal appeals, and by canvassing.  Tonight we are having our first meeting with a paid Obama staffer -- hopefully, he will help get us even better organized than we already are.  

I wanted to use this diary as a sort-of clearinghouse on PA registration issues.  Hopefully, you will find it useful in some way.  If you do, consider rec-ing it up so that the larger community can make an impact today on the PA primary.  

I am not a gifted blogger. I can not write long in-depth inspiring diaries. In my time at DailyKos, I have made the Rec List probably twice. My day job, though, is Marketing/Publicity. So one thing that I enjoy very much is trying to get more people to read the Diaries at DailyKos, as well as other similar sites.

One of the sites I use is Digg. For those of you that know what Digg is, it is a "news site where the stories are chosen by community members rather than editors." Similar to DailyKos, members submit an article and then other members "digg" the ones they like. The ones with the most "diggs" make it the Front Page. The really popular ones go into their version of the Rec List where the can stay for hours.

So why is this so important?

After the holidays, I realized I was in a bit of a reporting slump. So instead of writing that many diaries (at least ones that require a lot of work, anyhow) I've been focusing on improving my beat coverage.

I had a dynamic day yesterday, but this morning I got an e-mail that served as a wake-up call. A DKos user wrote to ask me if I could offer any help to the Pretty Bird Women's House in South Dakota, which is having some trouble with the local city council.

I'm too far away to do anything about it personally, but I decided that what I can do is help Kossacks learn how to get the attention of your local and regional media.

Use your newfound power for good -- not evil! ;-)

I went skiing with some friends today.  We spent a half day at Mount Wachusett in Massachusetts.  It was corn snow, very few icy patches, better conditions than I expected considering how warm it was this week of January thaw.  As usual, I wore my home-made Impeach the Bush/Cheney Junta button [paper laminated with clear storage tape and a safety pin attached to the back with duck tape, Bush/Cheney colored red, blue edging on a white background].

The first person to comment was a woman in the ski rental shed, "Either that or assassination."  

"I don't hold with that," I said.  "Impeachment, international war crimes tribunal, and Truth and Reconciliation Commission between the peoples of Iraq and the USA."

"That's a start!"  she replied.

Some people say...that bloggers aren't making news.  We are just talking about it.  Well, there are plenty of reasons we know that isn't true (emptywheel, ePluribus Media, Mike Stark, and more).  But this is a story of how a diary on Kos led to my appearance on Boston television today.

Is it major BREAKING news?  Not so much.  But will people learn something?  Maybe reduce their carbon footprint?  I hope so.  

On Sunday April 22, I went to Waltham, MA for their Earth Day celebration at the old (and famous) Waltham Cooperative Extension Experiment Station.  I assembled my portable solar show and took it on the subway to the train, got off in Waltham and then walked a mile or two to the Experiment Station.  Portability test passed with flying colors.

Most of what you see on the two wheeler is the gear for the solar fountain, including the water.  Unfortunately, when I assembled the fountain, it didn't work.  During the course of the day, I took the fountain apart and fiddled with the pump impeller but it still didn't work.  That is, not until I got home.

What I eventually set up included a solar oven and a parabolic dish and a simple hot water heater plus posters and some simple solar and hand crank products.  I think it was enough to get the idea across.

Marketing and Publicity
After many requests, I thought I'd skip ahead a bit and talk about what happens when your book actually appears - what the publisher is likely to do to help sell it (not much if you're a new writer) and what you can do about it (quite a bit). Most authors don't have the time, doggedness, or sheer personal charm to pull off what John Grisham did with his book: he bought 1,000 copies from his publisher and sold them to... well, everyone, really. There are publicity strategies for varying levels of time, affability, and money that you're willing to invest.

To co-incide with the Yearly Kos Convention, Byron York of National Review Online wrote an "opposition research" piece on a prominent Daily Kos writer.  The writer, having been "outed"... i.e. publication of his name, location, profession, law firm, and that firm's client list, announced his decision to quit blogging.

The right celebrated, while a significant number on the left claimed that the writer had "outed himself" by not being more careful.  Added to this the writer had a long list of enemies and fair-weather friends, as they had in the past been insulted, down-rated, or banned by him.  A lawyer on the left celebrated too "He's an asshole who deserved to get burned."  Meanwhile, back at the convention the "outed" writer was being toasted and applauded at an occasion from which he was forced to withdraw.

Now all of this is pretty ugly, but another issue raised its weary head:  There Is No Right To Anonymity or Privacy if One is an Internet Blogger  The general consensus is that if one blogs on the internet and achieves a significant following sooner or later you will be "outed."

I was looking at Jotter's list for May 30, High Impact Diaries of May 29, and I wanted to find out what is the CONTENT of these diaries. Happily, there were only ten meta diaries on that day..... for all other categories of CONTENT Daily Kos looks pretty good.

Because of the increase in publicity for Daily Kos, (since the Sunday New York Times Magazine article covering the Yearly Kos Convention) I was concerned about what the non-registered reader had access to. What kind of face do we present to the general public?

On the day I did this table there were 971 items on Google News about Daily Kos, and I was embarrassed about a lot of the content those readers had access to..... mostly Meta.

Sorry if dupe..

I found this headline on  fark.com

"World record set for enclosing most people inside bubble. No, it wasn't set by dailykos.com"

Should we be insulted or greatful for the publicity? Lord knows I'm grateful for being INSIDE the dailykos bubble!!!