Blogging Women - continuedAs I research this question more material has appeared. Women have important contributions to make in the blogosphere. For example, Barbara O'Brien's blog is full of interesting information and good links. Here's a Hat tip toher at The Mahablog (ranked 1977 on Technorati) for Wednesday's Tom Friedman column (via TrueBlueLiberal) with some interesting insight on Syria.
Friedman begins and ends with these paragraphs,
One wonders what planet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed from,
thinking she can build an international force to take charge in south Lebanon
without going to Damascus and trying to bring the Syrians on board. . . .
What do the Syrians want? They say: respect for their security interests in Lebanon
and a resumption of negotiations over the Golan. Syria is also providing support for the Sunni Baathists in Iraq. Much as the Bush team wants to, it can’t fight everyone at once and get where it needs to go. There will not be a peace force in south Lebanon unless it’s backed by Syria. No one will send troops.
I repeat: I don’t know if Syria can be brought around, and we certainly can’t do it at Lebanon’s expense. But you have to try, with real sticks and real carrots. Syria is not going to calm things in Lebanon, or Iraq, just so the Bush team can then focus on regime change in Damascus. As one diplomat here put it to me, “Turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving.”
Yesterday I posted about women bloggers quoting from articles from some months ago. Today a more recent article appeared in The ContraCoastal Times (5/21/06). It gives very good background on the Blogher site. They are having a convention this weekend. To quote,
In February 2005, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory des Jardins, each a successful Bay Area writer and entrepreneur, discovered they collectively shared
more than two X chromosomes and a passion for blogging.
. . . (Des Jardins) found Stone, Camahort and a shared vision for a media company to celebrate and empower women. Together, they decided to stop talking about where the women bloggers are and create a place for women bloggers to read each other and be read by everyone. They built on the earlier efforts of women equally determined to amplify muted female voices such as Jeneane Sessum, the Atlanta founder of Blog Sisters.
. . . It's still early going, but BlogHer has taken off like Carrie Bradshaw in pursuit of a pair of Manolo Blahniks, kicking off with last year's sold-out conference attended by 300-plus women bloggers from around the country and supported by such major corporate heavyweights as Yahoo and Google. More than double that many women bloggers plan to attend BlogHer's second annual conference this July in San Jose.
. . . Consider the digital decibel level now: A few months ago, the trio launched an embryonic yet fast-growing online community by women bloggers for women bloggers. Even with no official launch and no marketing campaign, BlogHer.org already has some impressive stats thanks to word of mouth.
Nearly 2,500 women have registered for the site, which contains nearly 2,800 blogs
managed by 60 contributing editors in more than 20 categories from race and ethnicity to religion and spirituality. And BlogHer has attracted major bloggers from conservative commentator La Shawn Barber to Dallas mom Jenn Satterwhite, the infamous author of the blog, "Mommy Needs Coffee."
. . . "There is no topic, no corner of the blog universe that women are not writing in and doing amazing stuff," says Maria Niles, 43, a freelance brand manager who iscovered blogging while setting up her own company in Oakland. She is a contributing editor to BlogHer in the fields of small business, personal finance and real estate.
Britt Bravo, a 36-year-old nonprofit consultant from Oakland who also is a contributing editor for BlogHer, says she became a blogoholic last August. Connecting with other bloggers in a global conversation about how to make the world a better place fuels new ideas and optimism, she says. "In one way, it's a very solitary sport. You're just home with your computer. On the other hand, it's a very non-solitary thing. I feel like I am able to meet people all over the world and share what's important to us. Reading about other people's incredible projects gives me hope."
Additional references on women bloggers:
- Jude Nagurney Camwell (ranked 16,025 at Technorati) blogs: Syracuse.com and iddybud.blogspot.com [includes extensive list]-"Who are the Women Blogging?")
- Blogher, with their list. I joined this site today; but it may take two weeks to get accepted.
- Progressive Women Bloggers Ring: blogroll of 375 (today). I also joined this group, and will wait to be accepted, along with 14 others in line.
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