Framed

Tonight

It's Wednesday, and time once again for Drinking Liberally!  As usual, the Northwest Ohio group will meet at Manhattan's, 1516 Adams Street at 7:30.  Good drinks and chat.

Tonight

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means: time for Drinking Liberally in Northwest Ohio.  The group meets at Manhattan's, 1516 Adams Street, at 7:30.  Alas, I won't be there (unless the auditions I'm running end early) but I know that the rest of the group will carry on (in both senses) just fine without me.

Publicity

Lisa Renee Ward, Toledo's official chronicler of the local blogosphere, has a write-up about Framed in her latest column.  I appreciate it!

Book Salon Tomorrow

I'll be hosting my first live Firedoglake Book Salon tomorrow (Sunday) at 1:00 pm EDT.  I'll be presiding over a chat with Air America host Laura Flanders about her new book, Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians.  I've summarized her book here as follows:

Blue Grit is both a love letter and a wake-up call.  Like Diogenes in search of an honest man, Flanders travels the country looking for the soul of the Democratic Party.  She finds it not among the Sunday morning talking heads or the national party leaders, but in places like Utah, South Dakota, Mississippi and southern Ohio–places where liberal Democrats have grown victorious candidates in less-than-fertile soil. These are the Democrats with blue grit, the ones who understand that "to change people's minds, you have to stir things up.  You have to really pick a fight, not pick at it, squirm and flinch."

Throughout the book, Flanders points out that the success of candidates like Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is due less to the fine qualities of those candidates themselves than to the hours, days, months and years of work that other people put into energizing, organizing and uniting people. She draws an important distinction between mobilizing and organizing and leaves no doubt that the latter is a winning strategy.  I'll say this: anyone who can have her book blurbed by Fran Lebowitz, Chuck D and Richard Viguerie knows something about building a political party.

It's an inspiring and energizing read.  Please stop by the salon and say hi to Laura and me.

FDL Book Salon

My latest post for the Firedoglake Book Salon is up: announcements of book salons with Laura Flanders (author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians) and Ilona Meagher (author of Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops).

Tonight

It's Wednesday, hump day, the day we in Northwest Ohio hump ourselves down to Manhattan's (1516 Adams Street) at 7:30 for Drinking Liberally.  Rebecca is indisposed this week, and she left ME the keys to the clubhouse.  Woo-hoo! 

This post by Digby sums up why liberals need to get together from time to time to regroup and recharge:

Humans need to feel part of something, that they have a stake in the outcome. Emotion is what moves people, whether it is demagoguery, fear, anger or inspiration (and there's often tension and similarity among those things.) To get people engaged you have to give them something to care about, to feel connected with, to want to devote some of their precious time and resources to something for which there is no direct compensation except a feeling of doing the right thing or righting a great wrong. Change requires energy and energy is one thing that sophisticated intellectual salons and learned political journals, however important they may be, simply do not provide.

Sadly, liberals are far more difficult to draw in to that for the reasons that Hazlitt cited nearly 170 years ago. It's a temperament thing. We are just more dispassionate as a rule than the rowdy right because they feel they are protecting their prerogatives --- and they just get off on the fight. But from time to time liberals simply have to get religion or risk losing it all.

So come on down to Manhattan's tonight and get religion.

Salon Manager

No, I'm not quitting the blog and going into cosmetology (though that has been suggested more than once).  Rather, I'm announcing that I've been handed a wonderful opportunity to expand what I do online and to reach a larger audience.  Starting yesterday, I have taken over as editor of the Firedoglake Book Salon.  This is a weekly webchat session with an author that usually takes place on Sunday evenings at five EDT.  They've had some great people come by to talk about their books: John and Theresa Kerry, George Soros, John Dean, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Joe Conason, Andrew Cockburn, and Keith Olbermann, just to name a few.  The people who frequent the Book Salon are an alarmingly bright bunch, which makes the chats interesting and fun.

Firedoglake is the fourth-largest liberal blog in the world, getting anywhere between 75,000 and 125,000 hits a day. In its breadth, quality and conception, it has moved the benchmarks for what a political blog can and should be.  If you've never checked it out . . . well, you should.

I'll still be blogging at here at Framed as much as I can, though I may occasionally give the keys to the authorial car to others who want to use it as a forum for their ideas.  (If you're interested, give me a shout.)

One last thing: I am actively soliciting ideas for books and authors to feature on the FDL Book Salon.  We tend to favor recent nonfiction that appeals to a liberal audience, though it's possible that we will expand these parameters as time goes by.  If you have any ideas, let me know, either by posting a comment or e-mailing me at the contact address.  I'll certainly appreciate all the help I can get.

Tonight

Just to clear up any confusion that may have resulted from my previous post, Northwest Ohio Drinking Liberally will meet tonight as usual at Manhattan's, 1516 Adams Street, at 7:30. Dancers for Democracy members' drinks are on me.

Tonight

Hey, liberals of Northwest Ohio and Southeastern Michigan: unwind your minds and rethread your heads tonight at Drinking Liberally.  Come by Manhattan's, 1516 Adams Street, at 7:30 and commune with your political soul mates.

Tonight

Inspired by the other Drinking Liberally groups that are taking steps to advance progressive ideals, I will be at the Northwest Ohio Drinking Liberally tonight: 7:30 at Manhattan's, 1516 Adams Street, Toledo.  Hope to see you, too.