Desultory Thoughts

I upgraded my WordPress installation a few days ago. I noticed at least one side-effect of the upgrade was that a couple of my posts showed up in the feed as new. My wife brought it to my attention so I thought I’d quickly explain the phenomenon, in case you thought your RSS reader was on the fritz.

Another side effect was that at least one plug-in had to be fixed. If any other WordPress users have WP-Print installed, you’ll notice that when you upgrade to 2.7 it will break. Instructions on the fix can be found here. Actually, I just checked again and noticed that as of December 11 there is a 2.40 version of WP-Print for WordPress 2.7.  Unfortunately, it didn’t show up as an automatic upgrade in the Installed Plugins module.

For anyone contemplating a move to WordPress from Blogger or some other platform, now is the time.  WordPress 2.7 now offers automatic upgrades for the core install.  And just for clarification, WordPress has a standalone install which is what I recommend.  My wife is on WordPress.com (the equivalent of a Blogger.com free blog) and it’s not near as flexible as my standalone install, downloaded from WordPress.org.  The catch with the standalone install is that you have to host your own server or purchase third party hosting.  I use BlueHost and I’ve been extremely happy with them, one of the best prices around, plenty of included features and options, and great up-time.  They’re local, too, which makes it that much better.  I started with WordPress quite some time ago and upgrades were always met with mixed feelings.  I was excited for the new features, but I always dreaded the upgrade process.  Now, I will no longer dread upgrades because it will happen with a click of a button.  WordPress will no longer be for a niche market after 2.7, and I say that with mixed feelings, too.

One of the worst things in the world is the inability to sleep, especially when you know that the alarm clock is going to go off at 5:15 a.m.  This happens to me quite a bit on Sunday night when I know I should start off the week with a healthy 6-8 hours of sleep.  I’m usually getting an average of 4-5 a night, sometimes less, but that’s not to say I’d sleep for 10-12 if I had the time.  I don’t know why I can’t sleep tonight.  Wednesday nights usually treat me fair.

Tonight (or this morning, rather) in my attempts to get tired I finished reading my Google Reader posts (I’m currently subscribed to 287 rss feeds) and then I checked out my Google Health profile and updated it with my latest condition, “Difficulty Sleeping”.  I wandered over to my Google Web History and discovered that I’ve had that thing turned on recording all my google searches and all the pages and images I’ve viewed since June 28, 2005.  I’ve made 13,338 Google searches since then.  I wonder if that’s considered a lot of searches in just over 3 years?

My blogging frequency is back to where it started when I tried out the blogging thing on Blogger.com in 2002 (an entire two posts) and then on MySpace (which I cancelled when it was creepy for a 30 year old to have a profile on what was mostly for teenagers and musicians) and now I’m somewhat regretting my cancellation because my old MySpace page now has some other shirtless Tyler Slack on it.  I got on board the FaceBook craze a while back (after a bit of resistance…I was afraid it would be like MySpace) but I don’t do much on it.  I log in after I get an email or two telling me I have friend requests and I make a point to ignore all invitations to join a cause and I still don’t know what a poke is, nevermind a superpoke.  It doesn’t sound like something a married man should be doing.

I created my FaceBook profile after I read a CIO.com article that advised me not to choose just LinkedIn or just Facebook but create a profile on both.  So I did.  In the last few months I’ve really noticed an increase of activity on that site, my goodness!  So I went ahead and imported some feeds to give the appearance that I’m an active FaceBook user, but I haven’t caught onto the idea of updating my status.  I’ve been dabbling with Twitter for a while, but haven’t used it enough to consider it a very useful tool for me, but I’m sure I’ll keep it around.

Now, after all that useless information you’d think I’d be tired.  Nope!  I still can’t sleep!  Here’s to all-nighters!  (We’ll see how excited I am about it when I’m falling asleep at La Caille tonight.)

I’ve been planning a big Obama post now for a while, but haven’t yet found time to organize my thoughts into a thorough, coherent post. When I do it, I want to do it right. It’s no news to anybody at this point (well, except maybe Hillary) that Obama’s coronation as the Democrat nominee for president is inevitable, so sometime in the next few weeks I’ll have a lot to say about His Highness.

In the meantime, I thought I’d make one observation about the conservative vs. liberal personality- at least when it comes to Internet media.

I’ll be perfectly honest- when it comes to the blogosphere, the Left all but has the market cornered. For every decent conservative blog in cyberspace, there are several hard-hitting liberal blogs. Lately I’ve filled my spare time commenting on a host of them (because let’s face it, it’s much more convenient to react to somebody’s content than create your own- plus stirring up pots in the Left wing of the blogosphere fills my soul with delight).

Liberals pride themselves on their influence and organization when it comes to the Web. I’ll hand it to them, they’ve utilized the Web very wisely in recent years. But outside the arena of ideas (where we eat their lunch every day), the huge difference between liberals and conservatives on the Web is the former’s utter inability to laugh at themselves and the latter’s irreverent sense of humor (this is also true in the world of stand-up comedy. Other than Mark Marin, I can’t think of a single liberal comedian that’s ever truly made me laugh). The fact that we can laugh at both ourselves and them is a long-term advantage.

What sparked this post was a comment Obama made the other day at a speech in Beaverton, Oregon:

“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”

57 states, huh? Impressive indeed!

Now of course I give the guy a break. He’s got to be exhausted, and when all you do is talk all day you’re bound to say something dumb.

But don’t throw conservatives a softball and expect them not to hit it out of the park.

Suitably Flip has produced and is now selling the official Barack Obama 57 state lapel pin!

This pin is even funnier now that Barack has apparently started wearing a U.S. Flag lapel pin, after dismissing the practice earlier in the campaign as “a substitute for true patriotism.”

The more I learn about Barack Obama, the more I’m convinced that Hillary would make a much better president. But one thing’s for sure, conservatives in cyberspace will have just as much fun flaming him as we’ve had flaming her.

In 2007 a funny thing happened.  People began expressing their opinion on education issues like never before.  (I have no study to back that up, it’s just something I noticed and as I’ve talked to others they have noticed it too.)  It probably had a lot to do with the great voucher debate, but I saw more than just a discussion about vouchers.  I saw a lot of talk about making our public schools better.  I read many voucher debates, but I also read why public schools were good and how they could become better.  My kids attend public school so of course I want them to be the best they can be, we all want that. We all discussed that in 2007.  Somehow that discussion is no longer taking place; it died with the vouchers.  Or did it?  Has blogging about issues in education really gone out of style?  Is it no longer popular?

Yes, this year is an election year.  It would seem that many of the blogs have shifted gears and are talking about the candidates now, but isn’t there still room to talk about and put into action our plans to make education for children in Utah better?  Or did we all just blog about it back then because it was the latest craze?

I don’t think so!  I think that everyone that wrote about it last year can continue to write about it this year!  And they will write because they care!  And they care because they’re outstanding human beings that want to make a difference, not just hear themselves talk.

I was curious to see just how dead the subject had become so I went back to many of the blogs that I read during the voucher debate (not all of them because it took me several weeks just to get to where I am now)  to see how many of you have continued to keep education issues on your front page from time to time.  It would seem that my suspicions are correct because most blogs that wrote about vouchers in 2007 haven’t written one education-based post since last November.  The issues are still there, they’re just not being talked about in the blogosphere anymore.

Utah Educatiton Issues is a blog that, even in title, has determined to keep education on the front page.  It’s written by a teacher and recently has blogged quite a bit about candidates and parties, but continues to keep issues like class size reduction in the mix.  Many of you have participated in the comments there and if we’re serious about making education better the discussion (and more importantly the action) needs to continue.   Which brings up a possible answer to my question; perhaps we haven’t had time for blogging but we’ve been out there fighting hard to make education better.  Why don’t we take an hour and let others know what we’ve done to improve education this month?  By sharing these experiences we can inspire others to do the same.  We can continue to keep the debate alive!

I am not beyond reproach.  I could have posted my experience in participating in public comment at the State Board of Education in April, or attending a “What Counts?” meeting organized by the Tooele County School District Board and giving input as to how they can do better and what they should focus on.  I could (and should) blog more about my involvement with the PTA and our efforts to reduce class size and improve the education of all children in Utah.  Why aren’t we all doing this more?

In hopes that it will get people talking again, I’d like to call a few people out on this.  As bloggers we’re all quite aware of who is linking to us and why and I’m pretty sure that’s how you might have ended up reading this post, but that’s the idea.  Now that you’re here, defend yourself, won’t you?  Tell us all why you cared about education last year but this year you’ve fallen silent.  Express your awesome opinions once again!  Make a commitment today to keep education issues on your front page.  If you’re a political blog, talk about the candidates’ commitment to education.  Don’t permanently die and never post again when you did so much for us last year!  There are a few of you that continue to talk about education and we all thank you!

I hope 2008 will be another banner year for making a difference for our children.  We’d all give up our lives for our children if it ever came to that.  Let’s do them one better and give up our time and energy for them while they’re young and when it counts the most!  Commit today to write at least one post a month on an education related issue.  We can do this!  We have to do this!  If you don’t have a blog, participate in the comments!  We can all make a difference by working together!  I’ve overused exclamation points in this paragraph so it’s time to end!  NOW!