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 [1] 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 [2]. 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 [3] who looks at how the GOP abuses tradition for power, followed by Abstract Nonsense [4] who ponders whether those values which are so often used against us are in fact our greatest strength. Meanwhile, Montag over at Stump Lane [5] 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 [6] 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 [7] 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 [8] 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 [9]'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 [10] 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 [10] (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 [11] 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!
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