First of all, Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner has turned 10 and is in fantastic shape.
On other fronts, a bunch of readers have been saying, “Where are you Steve?? Why is The Washington Note stuck on Paul Ryan stuff from weeks ago??”
The truth is that I’ve been uber-busy and basically building a new strategy around how I would manage the content on this blog balanced that which I have on my “Voices” page at The Atlantic. Some of the content will be the same — but the more fun, the more trivial, the more screed-ish, the stuff that hits the cutting room floor at the New America Foundation or The Atlantic will appear here.
OK — cool stuff that caught my eye today that you might want to take a look at:
1. I’ve been trying for days to reach Alexis Madrigal, our flamboyantly moustached senior technology editor — and have discovered that he is driving around the country as part of his new, perhaps annual “Start Up Nation” tour. Check it out.
2. I’ve been working on the idea of The Atlantic organizing a major “Gay Summit.” Of course, it will be a GLBT Summit — but then ran across Cason Crane’s “Rainbow Summits Project.”
I want to organize one of the first, large scale, 360 degree forums by a mainstream national publication on the emergence of gay issues in nearly every corner of society (360 degree means that, yes, we will invite the CEO of Chick-fil-A). And Cason Crane, a self-described “world traveler, passionate writer, voracious reader, avid runner, older brother, and student of anything and everything” studying at Princeton is hoping to raise money and awareness about The Trevor Project by being the world’s first openly gay person to climb the Seven Summits.
Cason has also been trying to contribute to Palestine-Israel peace efforts — which I admire; though it saddens me to think how unfortunate it is that climbing the world’s highest peaks and making a statement about human rights, gays, and tolerance is so much more doable than getting Israel and Palestine on a peace track. Note to Obama administration: Get back to work on peace process. If you don’t put Netanyahu to work, he will chase you Mr. President. Wait, that’s happening…
You may be wondering what the link is between The Atlantic‘s “Gay Summit” and Cason Crane’s Gay/Rainbow Summit? Well, none really — but it just seemed like another take on 360 degrees, the gay crowd, and summits. Big tent.
3. Some news in media, including my media mother ship… BRUCE GOTTLIEB, former Chief Counsel of the FCC and General Counsel of Atlantic Media has just been named President of the National Journal Group, succeeding ANDY SAREYAN. Bruce is pictured to the left. Unsure which one Bruce is.
Also at Atlantic Media, editor of the blog Ghosts of DC, TOM COCHRAN, has just been named Chief Technology Officer of Atlantic Media. Cochran most recently served as Director of New Media Technologies at the White House. Although Cochran says he doesn’t do paranormal stuff on his ‘ghosts blog’, I wonder if there are ghosts of new media technologies haunting 1600 Pennsylvania from the age of FDR or Kennedy — certainly Nixon (ah…those tapes).
4. And in other media news, DANIELLE CRITTENDEN, mother of MIRANDA FRUM who is now staffing RYAN LIZZA at The New Yorker and wife of DAVID FRUM who is determined to make the Republican Party smart again some time in the next decade or two — has ascended from Managing Editor of Blogs for Huffpost Canada to the new role of International Blog Editor for the Huffington Post Media Group.
Crittenden is also co-author with the Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Applebaum of From a Polish Country House Kitchen: 90 Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food. The book appears in November this year and can be pre-ordered at Amazon. I would like to acknowledge that I have been a dutiful “taster” for recipes that have gone into this book but I do not receive any residuals from sales.
Onward and upward.
— Steve Clemons
