The 2005 Koufax Awards: New Open Thread
Now that I've had my daily dose of Abramoff-Indian Trust Fund obsessing, I'll get back to work compiling the next posts. I started Best Post and Most Humorous Post this morning, and will hopefully have one, if not both, up later tonight.
I did a quick estimation yesterday, and it looks as though we had somewhere around 10,000 individual nominations this year (about 1000 nominators, with an average of 10 nominations each.) That's about twice what we had last year. I was wondering why I felt like I was going blind these past few days
I'm passing the hat yet again, to cover the increasing costs of these awards. In addition to regular contributions, if you happen to know anyone who would like to purchase an ad on our sidebar, a la our wonderful Texas Senate candidate, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, please let us know. Over the next few weeks, a large percentage of the eyeballs which frequent the Lefty blogosphere will land on Wampum at one point or another, so it's a pretty good advertising investment , at a fraction of what the Big Dogs charge.
Okay, back to work. Will update below as needed.
[Update, Thursday 7:10 pm: I just remembered something I wanted to do. Earlier, I was on one of the larger blogs, when a commenter, half-jokingly, I'm sure, said something to the effect of "freeping" the Koufax for their favorite nominee. What I'd like to say for anyone who might take that idea serious, please check out this link, and see the many very committed bloggers for whom this is more than just a potential freeping event. These are the heart and soul of the Lefty Blogosphere, who toil in relative anonymity, in relation to those at the top of the food chain, yet take their work no less seriously. In fact, I was awed by the sense of camaraderie expressed in the "new" and "more deserving" tiers of the blogosphere, the generousity for their peers good fortune, even if they're in direct "competition" for our relatively inane awards.
In my mind, they've already won. I hope anyone who might think to use otherwise unethical means to forward their favorite party's case might step back and rethink their motivations.]
[Update 8:24 am, Friday: Deleted the last update, as Eric checked out PayPal and it's working fine.
I've come to the sad conclusion that this will be the last year for the Koufax Awards, at least here. I just can't afford to run them anymore, at least with some control and security, and the impact on our own bank account is too great. Fact is, I should be looking for a job right now, but am committed to seeing this through this year, so that will be put off for at least a month. Not feeling very chipper this morning, but back to work compiling.]
[Update Saturday 7:37pm: Life and politics have intervened a bit in the compilation of the next batch of Koufax nominees, and for that I apologize. 18,000 pounds of our household goods arrived by tractor-trailer from Maine today, and, to be honest, we were a bit distracted. Now we're just drowning in boxes. Of course, for anyone reading Wampum for more than just the Koufaxes, you might notice I've been perservating (good autism word) on the Indian Trust Fund issue, and will continue to do so as the spirit moves me - I think it's just too important to let slide. Now we've ordered Chinese take-out and will settle in for the night. Tomorrow, I'll get up at my usual 5 am and get a few hours in before the hoards awaken and Eric obsesses on unpacking every box and sticking things where I'll just end up moving them later on.]
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Comments
You're doing an amazing job so far, MB! I don't know how you find the time, I haven't even had the time this week to skim through the Best New Blog nominees yet... One favor: I saw that someone nominated me for the Wider Recognition thing, but you misspelled my first name so I was hoping you might correct it? If too much trouble, no big deal.
[MB here - sorry, Elayne. I asked Eric to fix it two days ago, but he must have missed in in the pile of other corrections we received.)
Posted by: Elayne Riggs | January 26, 2006 04:19 PM
I tossed another 25 bucks into the hat. And it occurred to me that yeah, times are tough for a lot of us, and cash is hard to come by and harder to keep, but hey, it works for public radio pledge week, so why not here:
I challlenge my fellow nominees to match my donation.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | January 26, 2006 10:45 PM
$20 via PayPal.
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger | January 27, 2006 12:34 AM
As you suggested, I have re-thought my motivations and found them lacking. The epiphany that followed has inspired me to eschew my worldly possessions, and maybe even toss a coin your way to further your noble cause.
That said, thanks for providing links to the worthy nominees. They're providing me with hours of the kind of reading material that, sadly, I can't take to the loo with me. Keep up the excellent work!
Posted by: Rex Kramer, Danger Seeker | January 27, 2006 12:35 AM
The Koufaxes are such an institution! There is got to be a way to do this in some kind of collective, distributed way. There's so many of us, and some with great technical skills - there must be a solution to keep this going for many years in the future.
Posted by: coturnix | January 27, 2006 08:48 AM
Coturnix, I know you're probably trying to make me feel better, but now I feel a whole lot worse, being so expendable and all.
Koufaxes can't be such an "institution" if, in the last four months, I've been unable to fundraise the amount that The General raised in just a few hours last night (and I too love the General.) And it's probably understandable - while they make people feel great and build community, they are luxury, and in a time of many worthy causes, are probably fairly low down on the food chain. If we were independently wealthy, or had a decent ad base, it wouldn't be a problem. But otherwise, the time and resources they eat up are too much for a few individuals to bear without bringing in some form of compensation.
Anyway, I'm now spending time justifying this rather than getting the job done.
Posted by: MB | January 27, 2006 09:19 AM
Maybe some of the bigger bloggers can come together and sponsor it for next year.
What I'd hate to see is culling blog nominations so that only a few of the "usual" names get repeated over and over, and therefore we miss a lot of good, smaller blogs.
Posted by: Susan Nunes | January 27, 2006 10:43 AM
You all are missing the point. MB doesn't want to farm out 'her' awards to some bigger blog just so we can all continue to fuel our individual egoism. They are 'her' creation, and here is where they belong. I'm sorry MB - I don't have any money. Hubby and I are going through some difficult financial times at the moment. As a matter of fact ? I may have to alter things myself due to the high cost of blogging. Just the nature of the beast, I?m afraid. I did try contacting a couple of corporations that I felt were left-leaning in their ads and rhetoric (hoping to get them to donate the odd gift certificate or two for the awards) - and though I did hear back from them, they said no. I just can't think of anything else to help, at the moment. And that sucks ? because Wampum is really great ? and not just because of the Koufax hoopla. I only really discovered your blog - and it?s great ? the subjects you cover are not dealt with on any other blog I?ve found. I learn something by coming here. Right now there are thousands of us looking in to see if we?ve been nominated. If those bloggers really want these to continue, they will help if they can. If not ? then I for one will be sad to see The Koufax Awards go the way of the Dodo.
Posted by: The Fat Lady Sings | January 27, 2006 12:56 PM
Actually, they're Dwight's creation ;-). I just started doing the heavy lifting last year, when he and Eric were swamped with other obligations. (That continued this year, as I have a system down rather pat, so we'll have nominations up in a somewhat timely manner.) But, yes, they are very important to all of us here, and we see them as our baby now.
Posted by: MB | January 27, 2006 01:03 PM
Keep up the great work!
Posted by: Daniel | January 27, 2006 04:06 PM
I nominated DED Space and it appears to have been omitted. May I ask why?
Posted by: Bob Church | January 27, 2006 04:56 PM
DED Space is a very strong candidate for the Deserving Wider Recognition award. I understand that DED Space may have been accidentally (or deliberately?) omitted as a nominee in this category, and I would like to raise objection to this. I, for one, nominated her for this award. Please don't leave DED Space out of the loop. This blog, among other notable recognitions this past year, appeared on CNN and is a regularly featured blog on the online division of the national magazine 'Mother Jones'.
Posted by: Diana Souza | January 27, 2006 05:00 PM
DED Space? The first time I ran across it, it didn't have a URL attached, I couldn't find it googling and figured I'd investigate more later. Well, the second time I ran across it, it was familiar enough that I thought I'd already included it. So it was a simple oversite, and a simple, "did you forget us" by one person probably would honestly suffice, neh? (Of course, now with the long, somewhat accusatory post, I had to spend the last five minutes trying to backtrack my thought process, and this time writing it all out. What fun.)
Posted by: MB | January 27, 2006 05:39 PM
$20.00 via Paypal. Keep up the great work!
Now that the donation is out of the way, can anyone tell me where to send the bribe money? That of course would be a larger amount in unmarked bills.
Posted by: The Bastard | January 27, 2006 09:45 PM
Sorry link above was bad. I'm a link whore so here is the correct link.
www.teambio.org
Posted by: The Bastard | January 27, 2006 10:26 PM
$50 via PayPal, along with gratitude and sympathy. I'm sorry that this has gotten so overwhelming. I blame the liberal media.
[what liberal media? eric]
Posted by: Michael B�rub� | January 28, 2006 11:59 AM
I had also nominated DED Space for Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. I see that it still isn't on the list, though. The URL is dedspace.blogspot.com.
I saw it was nominated for Best State/Local Blog, too, but it isn't on that list either.
[Thanks for the reminder - like I don't have a zillion other people to fix who came first. Oh, and we're moving too. And there are some political stories which might just take precedence, neh? As far as best local, I didn't see how it qualified.]
Posted by: Norwegian Liberal | January 28, 2006 03:49 PM
I understand the overload the awards must place on you, MB. I appreciate what you've done in giving all of us a little exposure and the opportunity to find each other out there. The Koufaxes also give the progressive blog community a little something to shoot for recognition-wise (as Billy Wilder would have said).
Many thanks for all you've done. We'll all have to hope for a big donor coming your way. Meanwhile, I'll hit the Pay Pal jar to contribute a pittance, but it's all I can do at the moment.
Keep on keeping on.
Posted by: Bill | January 29, 2006 11:41 AM