New Media

I’m honored to be profiled today on the Normblog (Norman Geras), who conducts a weekly profile feature on bloggers of note. Norman is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of Manchester and a founder of the Euston Manifesto Group and one of the principal authors of the manifesto.

There you go: I’m notable. Mom, it’s official!

For those interested in the influences and philosophy of the Currents author, feel free to visit the Normblog profile of Jonathon Narvey. Here’s a taste of my survey:

Who are your intellectual heroes? George Orwell, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, to name a few.

What is the best novel you’ve ever read? 1984. As relevant as ever.

It’s really cold out there, fellow west-coasters. Up for a little photo fun today? I took this picture of the super-tall totem pole near Kitsilano Beach. Can you think of a better caption for this photo? Glory is due the creative genius who can come up with a better caption. Have fun, y’all.

The newswire is buzzing in the final hours of the campaign to win Vancouver’s Best of 604 Blog Award for Best Politics Site or Blog. Here’s the latest reporting I’ve found:

Politics Bloggers in Race to the Finish

The Best of 604 Awards Reception happens in downtown Vancouver on Thursday, Dec. 11, hosted by 2008 Tech Woman to Watch Rebecca Bollwitt, better known under her famous blogging persona of Miss604. Voting at www.bestof604.com/category/best-political-site closes at midnight, Dec. 10

In the course of the campaign for Best Politics Site or Blog at the Metro Vancouver 604 Blog Awards, outrageous rants, scurrilous rumors and innuendo have put this Vancouver politics blog at ground zero of a hard battle for hearts and minds. Check these out:

DaveO (Choogle On With Uncle Weed) on Ephemeral Feasthouse mixes kind words like “he offers up the rightie punditry i require for expanding my mind” with surreptitious venom. We’re still friends, though.

Raul (Hummingbird604) sees controversy and shadowy no-goodness all around me. Yikes.

Ruth Seeley asks why boys must be boys (because they aren’t whales?) and takes issue with the mud-in-the-trenches monkey warfare of the campaign. Will it change? If not now, when?

Don’t forget to vote!

Many readers of Currents have been kind enough to compliment the overall design of the blog. The design does meld functionality with style nicely for the most part. But one thing that hasn’t transitioned well since the switch to WordPress is the title.

No, I don’t want to change the actual name of the blog (again). I like the name Currents.

But the title is small, around 16 pt, and not particularly noticeable. I’d like to change it to something like Arial Black, 24 pt, possibly in fire truck red (but more likely remaining black), adapting the text height to ensure it the top of the new bigger title doesn’t get cut off. While I’m at it, I will also need some advice on how to adapt my sub-head if necessary. I need to know how to change the WordPress theme code for my title so I can go in and make the changes.

The first WordPress guru who can give me a step-by-step code edit process that works for editing my blog title will win the Currents Title Change Contest (yeah, well, it is what it is). Leave your code-altering suggestion in the comment for this post. If you can instruct me in how to make this change, I will donate $10 to a charity of your choice through GiveMeaning.

So… win ten bucks in karma, be recognized as a WordPress guru who likes to help hapless un-techie people. Thanks in advance for your help, y’all.