Ruby Sinreich's blog

I thought some of y'all would be interested in this revival of the Tarheel Tavern:

My good friend Mark Kleinschmidt is an anti-death penalty attorney and a twice-elected member of the Chapel Hill Town Council. He is also gay. This last fact qualified him for membership on a list that is making the rounds on hate sites called the "National List Of Openly-Homosexual Public Officials."

At Yearly Kos I kept hearing that local blogging is where it's at. There were two panels and a caucus on "state-local blogging." The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "Local blogs are key to future of politics." People are learning that the smaller the area represented, the more impact each constituent has

And yet, there was hardly a mention of county or municipal politics at Yearly Kos, other than how to work with local Democratic Parties. I'm certainly not opposed to advocacy targeting state and federal reps - in fact BlueNC.com does a great job of this and more power to you - but I think that truly local politics transcends party and hinges much more on individual relationships and reputations in a way that even state house races really don't.

Following on the success of BarCamps around the world, where geeks get together to share information and build community in a collaborative “unconference” format, folks are organizing RootsCamps for progressive organizers to debrief the 2006 election and talk about next steps.

I really wanted there to be a RootsCamp in North Carolina (and there still could be) but I just didn't have the energy to make it happen on my own. But I did hook up with a west coast colleague (Andrew Hoppin of CivicSpace, Clark campaign, etc.) and we are taking it to the new(ish) frontier of Second Life!

I just got this important message from Bob Hall, long-standing freedom fighter for democracy in North Carolina:

Good people,

White Southern Members of Congress are again embarrassing the region and nation by opposing civil rights legislation that has bipartisan support.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was scheduled for a vote for renewal this week, until a group of Southern Republicans, including Rep. Virginia Foxx and Rep. Patrick McHenry from NC, convinced the House Speaker to stop the vote.

Please make a quick telephone call to US House Speaker Dennis Hastert and urge him to RENEW THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT NOW. Call toll-free 866-808-0065.

I got an e-mail from someone who is producing The State of Things on WUNC 91.5 FM tomorrow (5/9/06) with Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong on their Crashing the Gate book tour. She wasn't sure if she wanted to talk to me about some local context for blogging or to have me on the show.

Everyone, including national bloggers like Markos, talks about the importance of local politics, but not a lot of folks are doing anything about it. I suggested to the producer that she contact Lance from Blue NC as well, since that's more relevant than dailyKOS. At this point, she hasn't even called me. So don't look for a lot of local relevance on the radio tomorrow, I guess.