Hawaii Political Blogs

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Um. No thanks.

Just discovered, though, that Midweek columnists have individual blogs and feeds. Definitely must-reads if you want a broad, diverse overview of local political commentary.

• Rick Hamada (Feed)
• Bob Jones (Feed)
• Dan Boylan (Feed)
• Larry Price (Feed)

If only the Star-Bulletin would provide separate feeds (like for Richard Borreca).

Meanwhile, browsing Technorati for posts tagged 'earthquake' turned up another thoughtful local blog: Sustainability Hawaii (or SusHI) by Ken Stokes. "Blogging the latest science and best practices from an island perspective." Again, not particularly political (beyond environmental issues), nor always Hawaii focused, but definitely a local voice.

[scrivener]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

As long as the blog isn't entirely introspective and autobiographical ... I'll take it.

Um. No thanks.

So you're not really going for a comprehensive list as a resource for others. Just 'cause it's stupid doesn't mean someone might not find it useful or even enlightening, right? C'mon. Just add it to the list! If not yours, than how about the one you're sharing with the Bytemarks readers? >

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Mitchell, you're free to add that blog if you like. One post about HECO and pages and pages of family drama. But in my wholly subjective book, it don't make the cut.

Look. I've browsed through literally hundreds of blogs from folks in Hawaii this week, and by the bare qualifications I've posted here, heaps of them would technically qualify. We all read dozens of sites that we know are probably only interesting to us personally. It's those we think might be of interest to like-minded folks that we go out of our way to share.

I'm only posting, and adding to my own collection, those that I think would be an especially good addition to a "today in Hawaii" digest -- politics, current events, business, and the like. People who might post the occasional "I went to Zippy's" post, but are generally articulate, and take an interesting or critical approach to the things they write about. Good overall blogs that still have a Hawaii flavor.

Congratulations, you caught me applying some relative judgement. Just because a MySpacer mentioned the earthquake or Linda Lingle doesn't mean I'm interested in mixing him or her into my daily reads.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Pzarq sez:

you caught me applying some relative judgement

I'd call it editorial judgment, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[scrivener]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

For the record, I'm not telling anyone what to put on whose list, and I'm not accusing anyone of exercising any kind of judgment. I guess I misinterpreted the purpose of Ryan's list, which started out as something for his own reading but turned into (I thought) a shared resource for anyone who wants to import a list of politically-themed web-journals. Divermike's journal sucks and Steve's is good, but Divermike's claims to be a political blog and Steve's doesn't, so I was curious about what it is that disqualifies it from the list: its suckage, its political bent, or something else. If it were my list and I were sharing it with everyone, I wouldn't include it either, except maybe for laughs, but then I wouldn't be nice about it. I would say "here's my list of political web-journals that don't suck."

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Well, this thread was indeed to find new blogs, and you certainly have! I'm just saying, as you mentioned "my" list, that Link made the cut and that guy didn't.

You're right, though, I did post my aggregator-ready feed list to Bytemarks as a "shared" resource for folks wanting a quick-start batch of local commentary, and I suppose it's not indiscriminately inclusive... so I'll be sure to disclaim that.

I do think it's important to see what people of different orientations are saying. I'm definitely including local liberals as well as conservatives. I'd love to see more back-and-forth in the local blogosphere, but that would require bloggers and readers to read more than the authors they already agree with.

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Well, Ian Lind points the way to Kris DeRego's blog, "Hardball Hawaii," in his Oct. 29 entry. He quips, "It might be more appropriate to call it 'Foul ball Hawaii'... Strong words, but DeRego displays his ignorance about the structure of American government and casually misreads the law in order to conclude [Board of Education candidate John] Pennebacker was a lobbyist." He goes on to point out other finer points of politics on which he feels DeRego missed the mark.

Finally, he links to DeRego's Xanga blog, which lists his favorite stores (Armani Exchange! Salvatore Ferragamo! Louis Vuitton!), lists his "expertise" as "Political Communications & Campaign Management, Speechwriting" and his "occupation" as "government."

Ian goes on to concede he's probably being a bit too hard on the college undergrad. But, well, DeRego decided Ian's review was a call out to a throwdown, and posted the somewhat embarassing response, "So You Wanna Be Startin' Something?" He opens with a warm endorsement of Ian's blog... then attempts to refute each "claim" Ian made.

He tries to explain his way out of his comments on Pennebacker and Hirono, asserts that it should go without saying that he's running for office, and finally, says that Ian's mention of the items in his Xanga blog "maliciously attacks my character." He says that what people list as their expertise is not meant to be taken literally. And he says Ian, "an amateur blogger" who (he notes twice) was fired from the Star-Bulletin, engaged in a "pitiful personal attack."

Aiya. IMHO, Ian did the guy the biggest favor he could by linking his site. Though perhaps letting Kris speak for himself may be his biggest liability. As for pointing out some of the entertaining bits on his Xanga blog (a sure sign of a college undergrad)? First rule of blogging and the web: If you don't want it commented on, don't put it online.

Even though the BOE race hardly garners much attention, as I mentioned in the Primary Election Day live thread, there was only one name I knew to not vote for...

That said, I hope he keeps blogging. Either he eventually learns his way and adds to the chorus of articulate voices commenting on island issues, or he becomes unwitting entertainment of the "train wreck" variety.

[poinographer]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Oooh, fight, fight! haha

What's with DeRego's application of the "amateur blogger" label to Lind? Is there anyone (other than Malia Zimmerman) who blogs professionally about Hawaii politics?

However, to pick nits, Lind gets a trickle of revenue from Google Ads, Amazon, etc. So do lots of bloggers. Does that make them "professionals?" Whatever.

[Keoni Michaels]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Thanks a lot for the listing for Aloha Politics. Somehow in my changing software the rss feed got corrupted. Please change it when you have time. Instead of http://myyoungpacific.com/?feed=rss2, it should be http://myyoungpacific.com/alohapolitics/?feed=rss2 Thanks. I have also added google, yahoo, and bloglines, syndicated support also for other folks.
mahalo, Keoni

[Linkmeister]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

When does one get to be at least a semi-pro blogger? I'm coming up on a five-year anniversary -- do I qualify yet?

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaii Political Blogs

Hey, Keoni! Thanks for checking in. Hope you might consider joining the conversation here as well as doing the blog thing.

I'm actually now separately maintaining and making availble my Hawaii Politics & Issues site and blog feedset here, and will be sure to correct your feed URL there for anyone that might adopt it as a base for their own newsreaders.

Speaking of useful feedsets and blogrolls... Kris DeRego's list of links looks familiar. Either that, or, well... I had no idea he was also a fan of Monkeygirl (or primatology for that matter).