Southwest Virginia Blogs

The Anchoress, as clever as ever, critiques of Katie Couric’s new blog.

Couric and Company - Reviewing the Blog

Hugh Hewitt looks at the new CBS Evening News blog - Couric and Company and pronounces it “perky” which makes one wince. He suggests that the blog editor, Greg Kandra, has a rather thankless job. (Well, Hugh actually calls it, “the most embarrassing gig in the entire blogosphere.” I completely disagree, there. That job has been taken up by whoever it is who runs about DU and Koz deleting comments by dissenters in order to maintain blog-purity and conformity, but I digress).

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I’d seen the blog already. Not bad actually. The Word of the day and Quote of the day posts are kind of interesting. It has several non-traditional blog features I’m somewhat annoyed by, mostly comment related. The comments are listed with the newest first, which makes any sort of attempt to read them difficult. (To read the in chronological order you’d have to go to the bottom and read them in reverse order.) There is also no URL for bloggers who comment (Just a pet peeve).

The other problem I saw was with her vlog posts. I only watched one , but it was too processed for me. It’s a completely scripted and professionally filmed news piece. Nothing really wrong with the piece, but I didn’t see the point. If I wanted to hear her read the news I’d watch the news. I was curious what she had to say, and this was just… more news.

All in all, not a bad attempt, and we’ll see where it goes from here. My guess is that it’s going to deteriorate into a fan site for Ms. Couric. A quick scan of the comments shows very little in the way of discussion, and a lot of random blathering by fans. I’d guess that will only get worse. I wish her luck.

Grim and Armed Liberal are having an fascinating discussion over at Winds of Change.

The Smell of Death

This is not a call to amoralism, but precisely the opposite. It is a call for true morality, which can only begin with awareness of sin. It can only come from a recognition of how deep-set, how permanent, how personal sin is in each of us.

It is only in that way that we can begin to put real chains on sin: by recognizing the truth about it. We must learn to face the truth about ourselves, so that we can better ourselves: we must learn to face the truth about others, so we will recognize when murder is in their hearts.

Clean And Dirty Hands

Part of political adulthood is the maturity to realize that we are none of us innocents. The clothes we wear, money we have, jobs we go to are a result of a long, bloody and messy history.

I see my job as a liberal as making the future less bloody than the past.

But I accept the blood on my hands. I can’t enjoy the freedom and wealth of this society and somehow claim to be innocent. I don’t get to lecture people from a position of moral purity. No one spending U.S. dollars, or speaking with the freedom protected by U.S. laws gets to. - Originally posted here

I thought Armed Liberal’s point “having hunted somehow solves this problem… I have taken the responsibility” was particularly good. I also have chosen to take responsibility for the animal blood spilled to feed myself and my family. I’ve hunted animals, and I’ve killed them. I’ve walked on the kill floors of meat processing plants. I may have illusions in my life, but it isn’t about where my food comes from.

Grim’s summation brought it all together though. In reference to the quote “Because I still have a murderous heart.” Grim wrote:

So do you. And so do I, and know it. For which cause I set guards on myself, chains of chivalry and courtesy, forgiveness in spite of anger. Our ancestors knew it, for which cause they learned to fight duels instead of wars, and make laws that legitimized violence in defense but not aggression.

“[G]uards on myself, chains of chivalry and courtesy” I wish I’d said that. A sentiment I truly share. I keep those same chains of “chivalry and courtesy” wrapped tightly. I’m quite sure people around me don’t think of me as a violent person, quite the contrary, but I understand that chained part of myself more than most. It’s in all of us, it’s human nature. I choose to keep that part of myself tightly controlled, but I know it’s there. Some of us admit it, while others, to their detriment, don’t.

An interesting post on increasing blog traffic. I wasn’t familiar with SEOmoz, but I’ll be following their blog in the future. Some interesting ideas.

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

Brian at mediabistro.com: TVNewser has a post about CBS’s apparent touchup of Katie Couric’s official “first-pic”. With all of the money they have to spend, this is the best they could do? It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. They actually improved the overall color of the shot, but they darkened the dress way too much. I sure that her apparent loss of about twenty pounds was purely a coincidence, just an accidental side effect of the color adjustment.

Allahpundit is on the case as well.
Hot Air - Fauxtography: The incredible disappearing Katie

She’s on the Adnan Hajj diet. Try it and watch the pounds melt away from your waist and neck.

The really good part is the e-mail he received after posting:

Be careful shouting “Wolf!” because Katie Couric’s true picture is likely the thin one — the fattening on the other is likely an anamorphic (uniform single direction) expansion ordinary page layout programs do to fill the picture frame on a page. It’s the sign of an amateur, not evil.

BS, BS, and more BS. What this commenter needs need to look at in the photos is what changed and what didn’t. They narrowed her neck and the necklace, but left the cleavage line the same. The points of her shoulders are almost exactly the same, but her elbows much narrower. Her waist has been narrowed, and the space between her arms and body has been expanded. Most significantly to me, her smile, her hands, and the envelope remain unchanged. The photo was definitely manipulated, and not just to improve the color.

There’s a great ad posted at Little Green Footballs. A fake movie poster mocking the Green Helmet Guy and the fauxtography scandal. A must see.

lgf: Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

A very nice post over at Mobcode about what to put on your website.

If you are looking for development work on the web then create a web site for yourself. Very few of the developers in the market have web sites to promote themselves. So (although it is hard to believe considering how many useless web sites there are) this is a way to differentiate yourself.

And here is what you need to put on it:

Derek Powazek has an interesting viepoint on firearms in a post today. Just a Thought: Booma

Guns are loud, instant, and mean. There’s a shockwave of sound that goes in all directions you can feel in your stomach. There’s a muzzle-flash and a powerful recoil that took me by surprise. And the bullet hitting the target is instant.

I’ve often thought that if everyone would take a few rudimentary lessons with firearms they’d have a different perspective on them. Not life altering changes maybe, but at least they’d have some understanding of what they were instead of the usual stereotypes. If you’re going to hate something, at least know enough about it to hate it for the right reasons. I learned to shoot at age five and that shaped my opinions of firearms. They’re a tool, nothing more. A firearm can be used well or poorly, but it’s just a tool. Go ahead, go take lessons, you might learns something.