Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Welcome everyone to the First Anniversary Edition of Carnival of the Liberals! It's so hard to believe that it's been a whole year! The very first edition of Carnival of the Liberals was posted at Brainshrub on December 7th, 2005 and here we are at the 27th edition already.
I asked everyone to send in their best posts from the past year and that's exactly what you did. I can't tell you how difficult it was to narrow it down to just ten but I can assure you that the liberal blogosphere is not suffering from a dearth of great writing. So since the posts are the stars of Carnival of the Liberals and because no one wants to read my yammerings I'll just dive right in.
First up we have a tale of civil disobedience in defense of the Establishment Clause and one of my personal favorites of the past year from coturnix at A Blog Around The Clock. At coturnix's house they teach the kids right! I also want to take just a moment here to pause and let everyone know that this blog carnival would not be what it is today without coturnix. In fact, it might not even exist! It was coturnix's musings on blog carnivals and his personal encouragement that led me to start Carnival of the Liberals and throughout the past year coturnix has supported this blog carnival as he does many others by promoting them on his blog. Thanks a whole bunch and hopefully we'll see more of your posts in future editions of Carnival of the Liberals!
Next we have several perspectives on the culture wars. Starting with Shakespeare's Sister who looks at how the GOP abuses tradition for power, followed by Abstract Nonsense who ponders whether those values which are so often used against us are in fact our greatest strength. Meanwhile, Montag over at Stump Lane casts his eye on right wing media critiques and finds that their real beef with the movies is a lack of propaganda. Rounding out our review of the culture wars this past year, Blue Gal asks us to take a serious and brutally honest look at how we on the left exist in relation to the religious right. She frames her question from the perspective of a liberal theist, but I think it applies as much to liberal atheists. Are we letting the right tell us how to think?
Moving right along we come to three posts that defy categorization. Threading Water reminds us that things are not always as they seem, and just because something appears to be a socially responsible gesture on the surface it doesn't mean we aren't still being sold a bill of goods. And as long as we're looking at things in a skeptical light, let's hop on over to Liberal England who brings us a blog post that takes a critical look at the role of Scottish officials in the U.K.'s own version of the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria that we saw here in the U.S. And we conclude our collection of irregulars with Daily Sally's thoughtful and very personal blog post which illustrates how our political beliefs can so very easily come into conflict with our own emotional reactions. There are no easy answers here, there never are -- sometimes exploring our thoughts and feelings on a topic is all we can do.
And to conclude this retrospective sampling of the best of the liberal blogosphere we turn an eye to the future. In This Moment examines the nexus between science fiction and political policy and concludes that the facts alone are not enough; one needs imagination too. Both seem to be sorely lacking in government today. Finally, procrastinate later (who blogs right here at Neural Gourmet), takes stock of the failed Republican experiment in social engineering.
Thanks to everyone who sent in submissions for this special edition of Carnival of the Liberals. Carnival of the Liberals #28 will be hosted by GrrlScientist at Living The Scientific Life on December 20th. I'll send out my usual overly lengthy newsletter as soon as GrrlScientist posts her call for submissions and any thoughts on the direction she'd like CotL #28 to take. Last but not least, can I entice anyone into hosting Carnival of the Liberals in 2007? As of right now every single hosting slot in 2007 is wide open. Drop me a line if you're interested. Now go read these 10 great blog posts!
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
Congrats on the 1st Anniversary, but it looks like you've got one of those unfortunate goof-ups that always seems to plague these otherwise perfect events: Namely, that of all these fine selections you seem to have left-out CotL Blogger Numero Uno, Doctor Biobrain. I'm sure this is just one of those weird oversights that only seems to kick you in the groin after you've already put in all that hard work, but kick away it has. So why don't you just do us all a big favor and post the newly revised 1st Anniversary issue, with the obligatory Biobrain post; just like everyone wants. After all, this is a real nice blog you've got here, and it would sure be a shame if something happened to it. If you catch my drift.
Oh, and if this is about the Paypal thing. I swear, the funds are being transferred. It just takes a few days for those e-checks to clear. Trust me, this will be the best $1.75 you've ever earned.
Leo, I don't know how you did it, but you managed to offer a fascinating, cohesive package covering virtually every element of liberal thinking from truly diverse sources in this 1st Anniversary edition.
Even if you hadn't honored me I'd still call for THREE CHEERS for you and all who've worked so hard to make COTL a solid destination for liberal bloggers and--who knows, could happen--a potential bridge of knowledge and understanding for those on the fence.
Bravo!
Thanks everyone! As it turned out I had to be away from my computer all day long. What a lovely surprise to find all these well wishes when I returned.
Oh, and Biobrain, now that we've reached the 1 year mark for CotL the value of included posts has gone way up. I'll be expecting at least $4.95 per edition in the future. 
$4.95?!? Jesus, is this a carnival or a fricking massage parlor? I've bought human remains for less than $4.95, and they were even American! Ok, well I know what kind of racket you're running here. You get them hooked at a discount payola rate for the first year and then ZING 'EM with a price increase out of the blue. Looks like it's high time I started my OWN carnival. Payola only. I'll call it the Payola-Only Carnival of the Liberals. I'll totally put your butt out of business. I'll show you. I'll show you all.
Happy 1st Anniversary, CotL!
Was lucky enough to find you through Blue Gal!
