Killing Your Sacred Cows since 1992

This is mainly targeted at local-to-me folks, but I'm not filtering it in case some of my friends from afar want to read it as well.

I started a blog about going to some of those events you see listed on community calendars and finding out if they're really worth attending.

So far, I just have up an introductory post explaining the concept and parameters and one post reviewing the current "Bad Habits" exhibit at the Museum on Main.

I'll be reviewing exhibits, musical events, classes and workshops, etc. and providing insider tips to help you get full enjoyment from them. So far, all the posts I have planned are positive, but if something is really suck-tastic and not worth the trip, I'll be sure to document that as well.

Feel free to read, follow, and pass around the link to "I Did It So You Don't Have To"!

It's been a while since I did one of my mega link-filled posts about where I've been published lately.

This is, in large part, because I'm getting lots of juicy assignments for print publications (bucking a trend there, apparently) and am relying less on the sort of pay-per-page-view writing I did early on in my freelancing career. Still, I know some of you are interested in what I'm writing, so I thought I'd post a representative sample.

I'm being published regularly at AnnArbor.com, mainly business articles like these:

Executive Profile: Anya Dale, project manager, Washtenaw County Economic and Development Department

Building trades bringing multiple training programs to Washtenaw County this summer

I am also still writing for some on-line clients. I recently started writing occasional health-related articles for LiveStrong.com, for instance:

The Dangers of Colloidal Silver

Natural Ways to Help Maintain a Healthy Thyroid

Home Remedies for a Sluggish Thyroid

I'm still maintaining my education Examiner page, though posting to it somewhat infrequently as the pay there, frankly, is abysmal:

Washtenaw Education News Examiner

I had a fun feature article about healthy cooking classes in the area published in the Crazy Wisdom Journal:

Bringing Healthy Meals to Your Table

I'm also writing for the Heritage chain of papers, including the Ypsilanti Courier, the Ann Arbor Journal and the Belleville View:

McClanahan officially sworn in as public safety director

Ypsi's Community Records supports youth arts through music, to host booth at Roots Jamboree

And finally, I've kinda-sorta started a separate blog from here. I've felt for a while I need a good Web page to post my resumes, links to my published writing, etc. So, I built one, but haven't put the link out widely as I'm not 100 percent happy. Comcast hosts for free but I find the interface kind of clunky, as is the URL, unfortunately. But it's been good practice, hopefully training wheels for someday soon building a really slick professional site.

The main site is here: Sarah's Write Site

And the attached blog where I'm writing about the craft of writing and media in general, is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~sarahrigg/site/?/blog/

Example of the "clunkiness" of the site? The blog apparently lists your entries by whatever category you have them tagged by instead of chronologically. WTF?!

Found via popfiend , this video is pretty funny: what if Facebook interactions happened in real life?

Bonus: Captions for the hard of hearing

Normally, if you want to try netflix for free, you get a 2-week trial. I have an email coupon that allows you to try it free for one month. If you're interested, comment here or email me at my hotmail address and I'll forward the email to you.

I've moderated a few on-line groups, including a yahoo group and some low-traffic LJ communities. I'm writing an article about how to be a good moderator for an on-line group, and I have ideas, but I'd like feedback from my friends list. I know I have at least half a dozen people on my FL who have experience in this realm.

Some ideas I'm already working with:

-Have clear membership and posting rules.

-It's OK to have loose rules of moderation or strict ones, but just be clear about spelling out what they are.

-Enforce the rules evenly, no favoritism.

-Have a thick skin. It's likely you'll be criticized.

-It can be nice for moderators to introduce themselves, and tell a little about themselves.

-Have a clear policy about flame wars and how to report if you're being attacked or abused by another group member.
-Decide if you want to take a interventionist approach or a more hands-on approach and be ready to explain yourself and why you've chosen that approach.

-Consider finding a co-moderator or back-up moderator in case you want to take a vacation or get sick.

-Make clear, obvious announcements when there are changes, including changes in rules or changes in who is moderating/how to contact moderators.

Do you think I'm wrong on any particular point? What would you add?

I figured since I have a lot of repeated themes in my journal posts, I'd make icons to go with them. I have new icons now for:
-"What I've been Cooking/Baking"
-"What I've been Reading"
-Health & Fitness Update

And, a new, generic "Hi, it's just me" default icon, but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep that one or not.

I admit to not following the whole breast-feeding LJ icon debacle very closely, and not following the more recent one about incest/pedophilia related journals very closely, either. However, in both cases, it seems like a case of LJ administrators showing a lack of attention to nuance and context. There's a big difference between hosting a site for survivors of incest and having a blog where you chronicle your adventures in child molestation. Same with icons that show breasts being fondled sexually vs. one depicting a breast-feeding baby.

Humans like their absolutes and black-and-white thinking, so it's no surprise that LJ f*cks this up on occasion.