20061106 Ranting and Raving in Maryland by Dan Gainor

Ranting and Raving in Maryland

Ranting & raving for the whole world to see

By Dan Gainer of The Examiner

November 6^th, 2006

Hat Tip: MY Mom, relayed to me by my wife – Mom saw the hard copy version off-line.

I see where Crablaw is aware of it… Mr. Godfrey, until you get to some connectivity later in the day, the hard copy article can be found on page 28 and 29.

Dan Gainor of The Examiner has penned a lengthy piece in the paper about blogging. He has been working on this piece for quite some time and many of us were looking forward to what he found out – and subsequently reported.

I have only sped-read it - - I’m on deadline for a column and won’t have time to post much about it until much later in the day. What I have read looks to me like a rather in depth look at the Maryland Blogosphere. It also looks like an incredible amount of work on the part of Mr. Gainor and it is appreciated. Yeah, from a quick glance- it is perhaps the most definitive work on blogging in Maryland that I have yet to see. A big thank you to Don Gainor.

I did a quick read looking for mentions of Maryland Blogger Alliance colleagues.

I also noticed that a colleague from the Howard County “Gang of Four” was mentioned: “Dave Wissing, a 31-year-old Columbia engineer who writes the Hedgehog Report…” For more info: See here and here.

** Maryland Blogger Alliance colleagues **

The Baltimore Examiner’s Dan Gainor’s

The Best Local Blogs

November 6^th, 2006

Looking for a hot local blog? Check out these:

» Maryland Politics NOW — www.mdpoliticsnow.com

**** » Kevin Dayhoff site — kevindayhoff.blogspot.com

» Blogtimore — blogtimore.com/

» Maryland Democrats Blog Network — www.mddems.org/ht/d/sp/i/583271/pid/583271

**** » Soccer Dad — soccerdad.baltiblogs.com

» Charm City Chronicle — charmcitychronicle.blogspot.com

» Baltimore Crime — baltimorecrime.blogspot.com

» Anger Hangover — angerhangover.livejournal.com

» The Hedgehog Report — www.davidwissing.com

» Your Neighborhood Librarian —

yourneighborhoodlibrarian.blogspot.com

****» Free State Politics — freestatepolitics.blogspot.com

****» Baltimore Reporter — baltimorereporter.com

» Alanlaz — www.alanlaz.blogspot.com

Clips from mentions of Maryland Blogger Alliance members, by Mr. Gainor include:

Local blogs don’t just lean right. Bruce Godfrey a 37-year-old Reisterstown attorney who posts on www.crablaw.com, said his favorite post was about his own political evolution. He called it “A Libertarian Limps Leftward,” and the writing detailed his political shift from right to left. The GOP, he now says, “ballooned the deficit through unfunded wild spending beyond the wildest drunken dreams of the last Texan president, Lyndon Johnson.”

And:

Resentment of traditional media is a driving force for many bloggers.

Robert Farrow, a 36-year-old nursing home director from Halethorpe, is one of several people who write for baltimorereporter.com. The blog comments on journalism including CNN, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun and The Baltimore Examiner. Farrow is critical of today’s news media. “Journalism is supposed to report the facts, editorials are supposed to give opinions, but this is no longer the case,” he stated.

And:

David Gerstman, a 45-year-old Baltimorean who blogs as “Soccer Dad,” said media bias was “what inspired me to get involved in blogging in the first place.”

And:

Owings Mills writer Stephanie Dray, a 35-year-old former attorney, said her “blogging is essentially publishing your own syndicated column on the Internet.”

And:

Former Westminster mayor Kevin Dayhoff’s blog mixes news and commentary and photos such as his Sept. 19 report of a fatal Westminster crash “involving a bicyclist and a Carroll County Sheriff’s deputy.”

And:

Former Westminster mayor Kevin Dayhoff, 53, is one of many bloggers who mixes politics with local news and items of interest — much like a newspaper. He says blogging is “an alternative electronic conversation about current events and issues. An electronic show and tell.”

That show and tell and can be a strange mix. Dayhoff’s posts tell of his trip to Ocean City, running into Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and struggling to make his mobile Internet connection work. “I felt like the computer-geek that I am,” he wrote, telling about moving the car back and forth to get a signal. “Pray for my wife,” he added.

Go to: “Ranting & raving for the whole world to see” to read the fruits of Mr. Gainor’s hard work.

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Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA. E-mail him at: kdayhoff@carr.org www.thetentacle.com Westminster Eagle Opinion and Winchester Report www.thewestminstereagle.com www.kevindayhoff.com has moved to http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/