via Flickr’s saj_rind

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Happy New Year everyone! Perhaps I speak for many people when I say “thank goodness 2009 is over.”

For all the pundits trying to make good news out of the first decade of the 21st century, I say you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.

As challenging as this year has been for me, it’s also prompted me to take many new risks with this website. I’m happy to say they are paying off, with dramatic increases in traffic and reader support.

When I first began writing Anne of Carversville, it was a weekly self-indulgent journey into myself. Thirty months later, I’m a reborn activist and feminist — but still a lover of the good guys, as my regular readers know.

Anne of Carversville remains a work in process, but its voice and content strategy are coming together.

Rent Is Due

Having decided to invest a lot of myself to develop Anne of Carversville, I gotta pay the rent, as they say.  I’m a merchant by trade and nature, so hopefully I’ll think of clever ways to seduce your wallet.

We’re working now to commercialize the website, without destroying its soul. I don’t know about you, but I detest being chased around by ads on websites. Ads are fine, but my blood pressure rises when I’m reading an article and ads cover up an entire paragraph of text, forcing me to stop and move it out of my way.

I will not do that to you here at Anne of Carversvile. You will not be “chased” by advertisers, in aggressive ad moves that demand your attention or else … We have enough threats in today’s world. You don’t need ads hounding you, right before your eyes.

We will try to remain conscious of our consumption messages, choosing advertisers and products that reflect our values. Trust me, we will not be perfect in our execution.

from another Body Politics blog

Anne of Carversville Content

In 2010 each channel — Smart Sensuality, Cultural Creatives, Green Beings, etc — has a dropdown menu:

• feature stories

• daily news tracker

• key articles from across the website

• bookstore, blogs and great blogs, websites

• archives

The key articles page is very important because it pulls articles across the website into a topic. I’m against silo-thinking.

Reposted in Lubna, Amal & Women of Sudan

The decision of a Sudanese judge in charge of Lubna Ahmed Hussein’s trial has postponed his decision to the 4th of August. My sources say that Lubna refused to use her UN immunity in the trial, which she could have done, to save herself the lash.

A large crowd of reporters, journalists and correspondents of TV and Media both local and international convened at the court. There were also civil society organizations and women’s organizations and representatives of the United Nations and foreign consulates and embassies in the Sudan in attendance.

Ordinary Sundanese people who received invitations to the trial were also in attendance.

The start of the trial was delayed for about an hour, due to the pressure of the crowd of journalists who wanted to attend the trial. The authorities opened the doors, allowing people inside.

Many journalist colleagues were women. THEY WORE TROUSERS to court!!!

The cast of characters in my morning meltdown include: Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Thomas Jefferson, Marilyn Monroe, Monticello, vanilla, a Seder, Mr. S (for whom I was prepared to become a Jew) and Mother Nature.

I’m still reeling from this high-speed, psycho ride, but I want to get my thoughts down on in bytes at once, even though I’m still sorting things out.

This is what online journals are for, right? Sharing.

Here are the critical ingredients of my mental/emotional stew:

“Can you see it?”

“See what?”

“The US Air plane. They’ve towed it down the Hudson.”

“No way!”

“For sure. It’s all over television. The plane is tied to a pier, outside your window.”

“Near the marina? I see blue blinking lights on the waterboats. They are everywhere. “

President Elect Barack Obama is the backdrop, working diligently to write America’s best-ever Inaugural speech. He is not center stage, but above the foray, suspended on a platform, writing late into the night.

Calmar’s photo of Obama’s acceptance speech at Democratic conventionThere’s a white line down the center of the stage. On the left, white people come to a desk and write their own speeches about Obama and the Inaugural spectacle that’s coming. Of course they think out loud, and we are voyeurs into their thoughts and feelings.

On the right of center stage, we have blacks also expressing the most intimate thoughts of their hearts and minds, as the Inauguration approaches.

The actors read to us … for hours and hours and hours. Perhaps the play goes on all weekend, but hopefully not years.  At some point, even the writers understand that the words have become redundant and rather empty-headed.

If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us are glad that 2008 is over. But we got Obama.

I don’t need to itemize the list of what went wrong. People are truly hurting all over the world. The degrees and nature of the hurt varies from country to country, but billiions are lives are impacted by the events of 2008.

And the worse is yet to come, in my opinion. But we got Obama.

A Heavy Load

Our 2009 Anne of Carversville message of Hope is articulated via Flickr on my Private Eye Tumblr blog.  Reading and recent observations tell me that this message of Hope (or relief, depending on your point of view) is the primary 2009 message out there.

The global embrace of Hope rests on the shoulders of one guy named Barack Obama. This is too much pressure for one person to handle, but so far, he’s amazing everyone with his steeley nerves, calm demeanor and brain on steriods.

Even most Republicans are saying “wow”.

I admit that I was concerned about the “experience” issue during the campaign, but I’m wowed so far, by President-Elect Obama’s business-like, leadership-driven approach to governing.

Barack and Michelle Obama embrace the values and issues that are in my own heart, since I was a little girl. To gain my support, Hillary Clinton also shares those values.

Sharing the Limelight

Besides my good feelings Team Obama, I adore Americans for electing Barack Obama as President of the United States.

This are my real thoughts, seeing President-Elect Obama’s face on the cover of TIME Magazine. I adore YOU and me, as much as I adore our President-Elect and his fabulous First Lady to be, Michelle.

Now, my entire morning has gone downhill.

Diane Keaton reads her poem about beauty in “Sleeper”Finishing my winesappy reflection on an intense longing for old-fashioned Angels, or perhaps an ET Christmas robot to keep me safe, I Googled “ET robots” and arrived at the sex chamber scene from Wood Allen’s movie “Sleeper.”

Alas, I’ve been outdone by creating an Obama-Mania news page, and you all love it! Wow! What a response!

One of the beauties of digital publishing is that we can make decisions quickly. From inception to reality, the entire process of creating Obama-Mania took about five minutes. I grabbed a page I was no longer using, renamed it, reposted the existing news articles, and we’re off and running.

Like so many of you, I’m concerned that we really don’t understand the challenge ahead.

Responding to my own declaration that Anne of Carversville is a global community, we will install today many new links to the foreign press, redefining our Rhapsody and Plentiful Links … retaining style and design in one, and adding more news in the other. We will isolate the true ThinkTank links as well.

Cultural Creatives are informed people, and I have a lot to sort out here.