I wanted to make sure I pointed out this essay by Nonpartisan at My Left Wing. It, in turn, refers to an op-ed piece written by former ("A-list") blogger Billmon way back in September of 2004. It ends with this...To be sure, there are still plenty of bloggers out there putting the 1st Amendment through its paces, their only compensation the satisfaction of speaking the truth to power. But it’s going to become more difficult for those voices to reach a broad audience. If the mainstream media are true to past form, they will treat the A-list blogs — commercialized, domesticated — as if they are the entire blogosphere, while studiously ignoring the more eccentric, subversive currents swirling deeper down. Not the most glorious ending for a would-be revolution, but also not a surprising one. Bloggers aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, rebellious critics to try to storm the castle, only to be invited to come inside and make themselves at home.
Billmon was a real A-list Blogger... He saw it coming, and spelled it out like very few Bloggers ever could. No matter what the subject was. Some "other" A-list wannabe Bloggers are living the commercialized and domesticated dream now.
Good for them.
They don't represent my "more eccentric, subversive" views, nor what the bulk of the Blogtopia (y! skippy ctp!) is really about. They can continue to try and corner the market on that all they want, and to the exclusion of those that will continue to work for REAL changes.
But that isn't what I wanted to talk about. I pointed to that post by Renee because of Elizabeth Edwards recent announcements:
elizabeth edwards said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.
We all wish her, and her family well on her road to recovery. And while her post has nothing to do with Elizabeth Edwards directly, a comment in Renee's diary does in a roundabout way.
The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).
This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors /advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.
Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
A free Mamogram for someone that may need one. I rarely ever ask for anyone to pay anything to anyone on this website. I have no adds here to make money. I am no A-list Blogger (by a longshot... heh) and you should note that all I do is toil away on a regular basis trying to make a difference in this town, state and country. Not for money, not for noterioty, and Lord knows not for "access to the powers that be.
All I am asking you to do here is to click a couple of times with your ever-clicking-mouse-finger to make a difference, yourselves, for a stranger. Maybe even for someone you do know? No money, no buying anything from anyone. Just a few clicks. If you won't do it for me: Do it for Elizabeth Edwards and every other woman that has had to deal with Breast cancer.
Much like Elizabeth Edwards, I think we should all remain "incredibly optimistic" and and our expectations about the future should remain unchanged. Whether we are talking about storming the castle, speaking truth to power, toiling away and doing the little things that make a difference, or trying to cure cancers in our society.
It is the little things that we all do everyday that add up to the big changes in the world around us. Most of these things won't make you rich or powerful, but they might make you feel a little better about yourselves, at the end of the day, thinking you might have made a difference.
And it does, all of it, make a difference.
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