May 12, 2004

A smooth way to get back into the groove

I've been trying to think of a smooth way to get back into the groove on the blog. I haven't come up with one. I've got a lot of catching up to do, and one of the options that has been hanging out there is to try and squish all the catch-up items into one big return entry-- but there's too much to do that properly.

So instead I'll post a preview of items that I plan to post about in the coming days and the rest of this month:

--A fuller explanation of the context behind my dismissal from the Russo campaign, and a number of my thoughts on the choices facing the delegates at the upcoming Libertarian Party convention.

--The very sad story behind the loss of one of my pets about 10 days ago, and the difficulties that unfolded from that event.

--My thoughts on this ridiculously tragic war.

--My thoughts on this ridiculously tragic upcoming presidential election.

--(Probably) a request for donations to help cover the cost of getting me to the upcoming LP convention.

--Some links and commentary about some of the articles I've come upon in recent weeks.

On that last note-- while this past month has been one of reduced output for me on almost every project I'm involved with, I've been trying to keep things flowing on The Little Brown Reader. I've posted 1081 entries to that part of the site since I started it in June of last year. At some point I moved to a very trimmed-down format for most entries-- which is to say, most entries these days are just a link, or a link and an excerpt. Very few comments, and I haven't done the rating system in months. It was just too time-consuming. So the 'LBR' functions mostly as a sort of an eclectic news ticker nowadays. It's not all of the articles I've read online, but it's a lot of them.

So far, the top three categories in terms of entries are:

Presidential Campaigns: 179 entries

War: 168 entries

Libertarians: 110 entries

It makes sense that those would be the three dominant categories, I guess. (And they are dominant-- the next largest is California Recall with 85, and then Civil Liberties with 59). The first two links above serve as pretty good compendiums of news articles on Election 2004 and the war in Iraq respectively-- not complete pictures in either case, but probably a lot of stuff you may not have seen in your e-travels.

If you want to get a sense of what I read in any given month, you can flip through the archive pages for March, April, or May here:
http://freedom2008.com/reader/archives/2004_03.html(March)
http://freedom2008.com/reader/archives/2004_04.html (April)
http://freedom2008.com/reader/archives/2004_05.html (I'll give you three guesses...)

You can of course find many other ways to sift through the 1081 entries at the main Little Brown Reader page: http://freedom2008.com/reader

I apologize for letting such a big lull develop in my updates. The plain truth is that the past month or so has been filled with a lot of deep reflection, and not a small amount of internal (and external) struggle. It's not really an excuse for falling behind, but it's the primary reason why I did. There are other, related reasons that are more substantive, and I'll touch upon those in the course of addressing some of the things I listed above.

All things considered, it feels good to be back. :-) I wish I hadn't stayed away so long.

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January 13, 2004

Thanks for Linking to...

I am way behind in acknowledging folks who have linked to Freedom2008.com, and I'm going to try and pick off a few at a time so I can try and catch up.

Most recently, I noticed that Paul Kelly, a stand-up comedian in the Chicago area, has me listed among his right-column links on his itsfunny.biz blog (and not as a humor item, as far as I can tell.)

Former LP Campus Coordinator Marc Brandl includes me in his blogroll at O'Lucky Man! as well.

Rob Booth, a "libertarian Republican" (<--an oxymoron, if you ask me), posted a link to E-Actions for Freedom back in late November. He didn't comment on it (though he referenced my presidential campaign in the link), but I have to give him kudos because the day he linked, the top action at E-Actions was from the ACLU. Further reading seems to indicate that he's a pretty nice guy. He's what they call a "South Park Republican" -- which is a libertarian who hasn't fully swallowed the pill yet, and therefore continues to glom onto the GOP out of a sense that it's the morally superior of the two parties "that can win". Ultimately, they are still sold on the GOP's false promise of limited government, and that whole Ronald-Reagan-national pride-moral fiber-"traditional values" thing. Which is all well and good -- excellent, in fact -- on the personal and social level. But which is not all well and good when it results in defending the mingling of church and state, and is not good when it turns into warhawking jingoism, and is not good when it results in "Freedom Fries", or "defense of marriage" inanery.

I don't know which if any of those political sins Rob Booth is guilty of, and I don't mean to direct those barbs at him. Just those like him. ;-) No...seriously, I'm generalizing about no one in particular, but I bet many of you know some folks who are riding the moral-superiority-in-politics wave. If you're tapped into the Republican talkstream, you either know what I'm talking about, or you're doing what I'm talking about and don't know it.

That's why it took me so long to post about his link-- because visiting his site stirred up some thoughts in me. I still haven't expressed them very fully, but that's all I can afford right now. And again, let me say that Rob seems like an alright guy, as far as I can tell. No besmirchment of him is intended. (Except the first part where I said that "libertarian Republican" -- a label he gives himself -- is an oxymoron. I stand behind that.)

Anyway, thanks for the link, Rob, and Marc, and Paul! I'll be sending one back as soon as I resurrect the links panel on the right side of the page.

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January 08, 2004

The Lance Brown Syndicate

I've been working on a bunch of different things recently-- not the least of which has been trying to reconstruct a viable home page for this site, after my blog setup crashed on me and wouldn't allow me to post new entries, almost a month ago now.

The second week of December was tech madness week here-- just as I had cracked the egg on launching BillofRightsDay.com, two of my sites had huge problems. PeoplesForum.com became unavailable all of the sudden, kicking off over a week of messiness while we tried to straighten out that problem. (You can read all about it at PF's downtime message site PFisdown.com.) At virtually the same time, this here site had its crasheroo-- kicking off a month of variably sketchy band-aid solutions while I tried to steer toward a better direction.

During that same week, I was launching the Boot Boortz Blog, which I haven't even mentioned here yet, because I wanted to give it a proper intro. I'm not giving it that right now, but it needs to be at least mentioned, because it's on the front page now. (You can read my first brief explanation of it over there.)

Which gets me back on track in terms of this entry, because it's the new front page of Freedom2008.com that this entry is about. You'll see that there is a new feature on the home page, and I couldn't be much more excited about it than I am, despite its relative simplicity. I've got what are called "feeds" showing from 8 of the sites or blogs that I'm involved with-- currently, the following are listed:

-The Little Brown Reader
-PNAC.info
-CampusLP.org
-E-Actions for Freedom
-NCLP News and Views
-Nevada County Bill of Rights Defense Committee
-BillofRightsDay.com
-Boot Boortz Blog

That leaves GreenLiberty.org, Future Solutions, and StopCarnivore.org unlisted-- because right now none of those sites aren't set up to be "syndicated", which is the term for when bits of one site are fed onto another.

It should go without saying that having my wider network on active display will present a much stronger front to new visitors who happen upon the home page. And if it doesn't go without saying, then consider it said.

I've got a lot of little items to post, so more's on the way.

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September 15, 2000

Contact Lance

Lance Brown for President - Year 2008
14204 Owl Creek Rd.
Nevada City, CA 95959
lance@freedom2008.com
Phone: 530-274-2474
ICQ#: 2694547

(Disregard the date of this entry. This contact information is current.)

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