You can go debate it elsewhere if you like. There’s a ton of bloggers sure they have the answer and it’s whatever position they happen to hold on the matter. Do a quick Google and you’ll find a lively argument and people ready to verbally eviscerate each other over what you should or shouldn’t do.  Or skip it – it’s getting kind of old, honestly.

But lately, every time you read one of these, they bring up the fact that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering revising their guidelines (for the first time since 1980!) and that it’s looking at Bloggers and how Social Media is impacting marketing.

Unfortunately, this is usually being dragged out as some sort of threat to “Mommy Bloggers” and whomever dredges it up tries to use it to imply that moms who blog product reviews “better watch out!”

Okay, seriously people.  Let’s get to the real, shall we?

1) Moms (and Mommy Bloggers) aren’t the only ones out there doing product reviews. It’s just that they’re the latest group to get focused on by mainstream media and by marketing bloggers. But Tech Bloggers have been doing reviews for years. Magazine writers have been doing product reviews for years. Did you think that every one of those beauty & fashion magazines that tout the latest boots or makeup haven’t been sent samples? If so, you are living in fantasyland.

Companies have long been sending product samples to those who review – be they old-school magazines, bloggers, or even the currently-hot-but-totally-misunderstood-and-mislabeled “Mommy Bloggers.”

2) The FTC? They’re trying to revise their guidelines so that they have the power to go after criminals. That’s right, I said criminals. Those perpetrating fraud on consumers.  Those guys.  The bad guys.

Don’t know who they are? Here… let me show you.

Now, given that I don’t want to drive traffic to scammers, I’m not linking these websites, I’m just doing screenshots.  Each small image links only to a larger, more detailed capture of the sites.

Now, what’s the difference between these “blogs”? The names (Alexandra vs. Claudia) and the locations (Georgetown, TX vs. Aurora, CO) – but other than that? Not much.  Same pictures, same text, same everything.

As I said, I’m not about to drive traffic to these scammers – but you can see from the URL’s in the image above that they aren’t presented as marketing sites – they come across as blogs. Mommy Blogs.

I suspect that like many of these scams, these particular sites will disappear soon enough – to be replaced by the exact same everything but on new URLs.  So I deliberately linked the images above to a basic scroll capture.  For whatever reason, SnagIt couldn’t get the “comments” that are at the bottom of each page — if you’re really curious? They are simply text that is the exact same on both sites with the exception of the names, and are designed to imply that people have tried these and they work.

So why would the FTC want to be able to go after these guys?

Because if I’m a woman desperately trying to lose weight, and I come across one of these sites, I’m probably only getting in so far before I give up.  What $50? $100?  Then I’m certainly not going to tell anyone I got scammed.  But I’m also not going to take the time and money required to sue them.  Besides, how do you sue a con artist successfully?

This is where the FTC comes in.  If they have not only the ability but the mission to “get these guys”? Well it benefits us all.  Because “these guys” are going to keep suckering people in by pretending to be “moms who just stumbled on this amazing secret!” and it doesn’t do any of the real Mommy Bloggers and Product Reviewers any favors.

I’ve never known a real Mommy Blogger who claimed that she lost 25 pounds in 2 weeks using a miracle cure.  But these sites above? I’ve seen their ads on Facebook and on Google.  In fact, that’s where I first saw them.  I clicked through an ad because it said that someone “near me” had discovered this “free” miracle weight loss method.  I was curious what the scam was.

But I knew it was a scam before I clicked… My heart goes out to the overweight woman who gives it a try only to find out that she’s signed up for “autodelivery” and auto-billing… or given her credit card information to some guy in Malaysia.

So enough with the scare articles about the FTC coming to get us all, okay?  Honestly, they’re just trying to make the Internet less scummy… and Mommy Bloggers? Not scammers.  Not scummy.  Really.

A week long battle with the Flu in our house followed by 8 days on the road – oh yes, there are blogs coming from those 3 events as well!! – meant that the first time I could even think about blogging something coherently was this past weekend. Annnnd I didn’t.

But on Friday May 8th I got the most unexpected and welcome surprise. I woke up to find I was on the Nielsen Top 50 Power Moms in Digital Media list. (page 5 under Tech Moms – it’s an MS PowerPoint presentation – if you need a free viewer go here)

What does that mean? Well, according to the report:

Nielsen Online’s Power Mom 50 is a collection of leading voices in the mom blogosphere based on a blend of blog posts, comments and link love developed through ongoing monitoring of more than 10,000 mom and parenting blogs as tracked by Nielsen Buzzmetrics. In addition to site engagement, number of Twitter followers, ratings and other metrics were included in the calibration to provide a comprehensive sphere of authority and influence.

I was a little stunned, truth be told.  Because I have been so absent from this space of late.  But then looking at the stats clearly shows that… In fact, it was just the push I needed to get blogging again.

Then while I was perusing the list of other Moms, two things occurred to me:

1. I know a lot of those women.  Most of them, in fact.  And I’m completely in agreement with Nielsen that they are amazing, influential, insightful Moms and social media voices.  It’s just an amazing honor to be listed amongst them.  Almost as much of an honor as it is to know them and to work with them in this space.
2. This isn’t really about me – it’s about you.  Without those connections I have through this blog, through Twitter, and through other Social Networking sites, I might as well be standing in an empty field shouting to myself.  This is really not just about me… it’s about US. You and me together, and all of the people we interact with all over the Internet.  I’m in awe of the power of technology to bring us all together and give us this voice.

So I want to take a minute right NOW (before writing another post or updating another status) to Thank You.  Whether you’re a reader, a fellow blogger, one of the companies I work with or even just someone who Googled your way here?  This would never have happened if it weren’t for you too.

You are amazing – and I aspire to live up to your faith in me.  Thank you.

Radio silence.

Yeah, I know.  I probably just forgot or got too busy again, right?

Nope.  I deliberately didn’t post because of the date.  Not because I was afraid that anything I said might be read through the filter of “hey, it’s April 1st – was this a joke?” But because I really, truly, honestly don’t like 99.9% of the stuff I’ve ever seen or heard when it comes to April Fools Day.

I’ve never quite liked it.  But this year I spent a lot of time thinking about why.  For a long time I thought it was because I just wasn’t clever enough to come up with a really good April Fools Day prank.  Then I realized that almost no one comes up with really good pranks.  Usually what they come up with is really mean, nasty pranks that play on the gullibility of others, or mock others, and then use the phrase “April Fools!” to excuse it away as if it were funny.

The butt of these “jokes” usually tries to laugh along with the perpetrator saying “oooh! Good one! Ya got me!” as if to deflect any criticism that s/he is somehow lacking in a sense of humor… but the truth is that no one likes to be played for a fool.

The best reaction I’ve ever seen to well done April Fools pranks or jokes was “Wow. That was amazing.  I totally didn’t even catch that…” and sort of an awestruck silence.  But usually that’s when the joke doesn’t really make anyone look that foolish because everyone missed it… or because there really wasn’t a victim.

This whole thing was brought home to me again when I picked up my daughter from school.  It seems that kindergartners truly get the sense of this tradition better than most.  They do mean spirited things to each other – then say “April Fools!” where they’d normally say “Just Kidding!“

And no, before you go there, my darling daughter wasn’t immune from either side – she ran afoul of her own gullibility and was also more than willing to exploit her classmates’ gullibity as well.  But she did at least ask me why I hated April Fools Day so much.  And she thought about it long and hard when I said “because I think it’s just kind of a way of being mean to each other while making it seem like it should be a lot of fun.”

I do love to look at sites like Google and Thinkgeek.com to see what they’re going to put up.  But part of the reason for that is that I’m trying to spot the joke.  Then I can laugh because I knew going in that there was a joke.  Most April Fools jokes aren’t quite so widely anticipated.  And I can’t help but believe there are a few folks who fall prey to the online pranks and “funny lies” who find themselves feeling embarrassed or stupid for not catching it in advance.  Hence the fool part.  No one likes to feel like a fool, do they?

So why does the “holiday” persist?  It’s ritualized bullying in a sense – but where the victim can’t complain or s/he will be thought a poor sport or mocked worse for having ‘no sense of humor.’  And worse? It’s the bullying of the smarter, not the stronger.  A successful AFD prank indicates that the person who crafted it was more clever than his target – or it would’ve not needed the “April Fools!” reveal.  But what it also indicates is someone who is willing to abuse the trust that the other person has placed in him for the sake of “being witty.”

So I’ve opted out.  You might hear me opine sometimes “it would be funny if…” but I gave up pranking long ago.  Because even when it’s between 2 good friends? It starts being about one-upping the other guy pretty quickly and saying “but it’s all in good fun!” if anyone complains.

So no more April Fools Day participation from me.  Even in blog form.  I think it will be my one day off every year from here on out – no matter what other days I do or don’t post.  Or maybe I’ll just link this post every year right beforehand… who knows.  It’s another 364 days before I have to worry about it again.

That’s me though – what about you?

Do you think I’m over-reacting?  Did you pull the “World’s Best April Fools Day Joke” and want to tell me how wrong I am and why it was funny?  Or were you on the end of one and wished you could say all of this without looking like a stick in the mud?  What do you think about yesterday’s institutionalized “just kidding!” day?

When I was a kid my daughter’s age, it wasn’t a holiday.  We had President’s Day -  always the 3rd Monday in February, it took the place of the former federal holiday of George Washington’s birthday (February 22nd) and while there were attempts to get it to also celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (February 12th) the federal holiday apparently still just commemorates Washington.  Different states “do” it differently – but that’s kind of how states are.

Whatever the case, since it’s a Federal holiday, it meant that the post office didn’t deliver mail, the banks were all closed, the stores all ran sales, and school kids got an extra day off in the middle of the year.

Somewhere in the middle of the Reagan years (1983) the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day bill got signed into law by the president – setting aside the 3rd Monday in January as a Federal holiday (Dr. King’s actual birthday was January 15th.)   First celebrated officially in 1986, I was long out of public school and when it became a reality, all I was thinking about was that “there was no way that businesses, schools, and other organizations were going to go for one 3 day weekend in January and another one a month later in February after they’d already lost January 1st to the post-Amateur-Night-Out hangover holiday.”

I was right and here we are 23 years later with no consistent practice.  Some places give their employees MLK day off. Some give them Presidents Day.  Some give them neither.  A small percentage give them both, but mostly only banks and private schools.  There is still no mail delivery – unless you count Fed-Ex and UPS.

The thing is, I was so clueless back then.  This holiday? It’s more than a 3-day weekend-no-work-or-school-opportunity.  Not unlike every other Federal holiday that has been turned into an excuse to skip Monday at work, it was enacted for a reason.  The point is to take a day to think about why we honor the day… whether it’s because of our Presidents, or our War dead (Memorial Day) or any other reason – we’re supposed to think about it.

That MLK Day occurs the day before Inauguration Day this year (January 20th since 1933 and the passing of the XXth Amendment) seems a fortuitous happenstance.  Tomorrow, we in the U.S. are witnessing the swearing in of the first non-Caucasian President of the United States of America.  I’d like to think Dr. King would be smiling if he knew that.

I know. You noticed that I used the phrase “non-Caucasian” above…  Not because I’m trying to downplay the fact that he’s our ‘First African-American President’ but because our soon-to-be President Obama represents more than just the African-American citizens – he represents our European-American citizens (his mother was a Caucasian woman of Irish & English descent) – he represents ALL of our minorities, and our young, our old, our rich, our poor, our educated and our disadvantaged.  Even those who can’t stand the fact that he’s becoming our President? He represents you too.  Because he’s becoming the President of the United States of America.

I know that most of the world will spend the next 4 to 8 years and beyond calling him “our first black President” – but I also hope that someday, that adjective becomes less impressive than his other achievements.  I hope that he just becomes “one of our best Presidents ever” instead of people focusing so much on the color of his skin or his gender or something else that he never had any control over.

As Dr. King said so very many years ago “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” I think he would’ve been impressed by the content Obama’s character – I hope I’m right.

Tomorrow, you can find me hanging out at TotallyHer.com – where I’ll be participating in a Community Service Project to in  honor of President Obama’s inauguration.  I’ll be spending my time learning from these amazing women:

Liz Strauss, Anita Campbell, Kelly Phillips Erb, Jessica Smith, Kelby Carr, Susan Payton, Miranda Marquit, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, Kelly McCausey, Char Polanosky, Barbara Jones & Wendy Piersall at:

That is when I’m not trying to help out a bit myself (3:30pm EST / 12:30pm PST) or watching the Inauguration ceremonies with my daughter (12:00pm EST / 9:00am PST).

Because I may not have grown up with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – but she will… and she’ll have grown up never knowing what it was like wondering when and if we would reach a day where Dr. King’s dream looked like it might come true.

See you tomorrow.  When we watch history being written once again… and if you happen to join me here too.

Barbara Jones, Zena Weist, Kit Seeborg

Thanks to the amazing Denise Smith [@deetells] and Gwen Bell [@gwenbell] and the folks at Metzger Associates, I was allowed not only to speak on a panel with some incredible Social Media folks (@tarable & @waynesutton as well as Gwen) but to spend the day hanging out with, collaborating with, and learning from some other amazing women.

I could start listing them all, but then we’d be here all day!  Seriously it was this incredible experience.  If I start naming any more names – I pretty much have to list them all, because every person who attended (there were 5 guys in that room of nearly 50 women!) added to the experience.  The only other name I will call out is Barbara Jones [@BarbaraJones] because she wins my award for “awesomest take-home schwag from any conference ever” for the medals and trophies.  I mean seriously – even though I only qualified for a medal as a judge – I totally love it!

As usual, the folks in Boulder who made it out to hang out at the pre-party and post-party were phenomenal and did Colorado proud in showing what an awesome place it is to be in Tech &/or Social Media – even if we had lost more than one important & familiar face to Las Vegas (yeah, so CES, WordCamp LV, and AS West were all kind of overlapping date-wise) we still had a fabulous contingent of the local community come out and hang with us!

What I learned was something I have been hearing for awhile from my friend Liz Strauss [@lizstrauss]- a small conference of really amazing people can do incredible work together and bond really well.  It’s made me even more determined to get to SOBCon 2009 this year.   Because I really loved that feeling of working in small groups with smart people to make our community a better place.

I hope to see you there – or next year at Chicks Who Click 2010 – or someplace down the road. Because while blogging and twittering and hanging with all of you online is good? Hanging out with you all in person would be even more fun!

I know – because I just spent my whole weekend with some really awesome folks – just go check the Flickr photos if you don’t believe me.  (But don’t be surprised if I often look like I’m spitting out marbles – I’m not terribly photogenic – really, just ask anyone who tried to take my picture this weekend!)

This seems to have started when Jeremiah Owyang [@jowyang] a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research tweeted: “Kmart paid Shoemoney $500 resulting in buzz from paid blog post 300+ comments http://snipurl.com/7yi5w “Buying” social media is effective”

From there, the discussion moved to the fact that Chris Brogan [@chrisbrogan] had also been involved in the project and had posted his Kmart contest over at Dadomatic. Then the twitterverse exploded and the blog posts started.

Apparently, when one of the most trusted guys in Social Media is involved, it becomes a big deal if you think that money might be involved in the equation.

Barbara Gibson from ABC wrote an interesting post here that Chris replied to in the comments.  Barbara’s post starts from the viewpoint that a blogger taking money is selling his or her integrity.  So her analysis from that starting point is inevitable.

Here’s the thing: You can’t sell your integrity.  I’ve worked with many people of high integrity. I say “worked with” because they were getting paid for what they did.  Integrity isn’t dependent on a vow of poverty.  What it really means is that your position can’t be bought.  That no amount of money is going to get you to do something that goes against your values, morals and beliefs.

So, with so many weighing in on this, why I am?  Because I’m anticipating the next phase of this discussion.

If you take a look at the last post here, you’ll notice it’s a Walmart & Nickelodeon contest for a $500 Walmart gift card.  All of the ElevenMoms have a similar contest up.  It’s really not all that different than the K-mart contest is it? They have 5 bloggers posting contests for $500 K-mart cards, we have 20-some bloggers posting contests for $500 Walmart cards.

What’s the difference? Well, it does come down to that ’sponsored’ word. The Izea bloggers received a $500 gift card themselves.  We did not.  The Izea bloggers went to K-mart, bought things using those cards, blogged about it and then gave the chance to do the same to one of their readers. I didn’t go shopping at Walmart with a $500 gift card, blog about it, and then do the give away – I just posted the opportunity for one of my readers to win.

But in both cases, there’s a lot of work being done.  There’s the initial post. There’s sorting thru the hundreds of entries to make sure that invalid ones are thrown out, that there’s no duplicates, that people are following the rules.  Then having to choose the winner, get their information, get the card out to them.  All this administrative work? I’m doing out of the goodness of my heart so one of my readers will win something cool.  If the contest were being held on the companies’ sites? They’d have paid people doing it. I don’t have a staff here, so it’s just me and my time and effort.

Now let’s take the money out of the equation. Blogger X has a company send him/her 2 toasters – one to keep, one to give away to a reader. Or maybe it’s not toasters – maybe it’s a Wii, or an iPhone, or a MacBook Pro, or a fleece jacket (all promotions I’ve actually seen) – and the blogger says “wow! I just got to play with this new item… I love it, so here’s a chance to win it.”

That situation I just described happens every day on hundreds of blogs.  I’ve never heard anyone saying “OMG!! I totally don’t trust Blogger X’s opinions of electronics anymore because he had a contest giving away a laptop!”

But now that we’ve added money into the equation there’s a brouhaha.

So let’s add a new dimension to this, shall we? Am I “more trustworthy” because I put in all that work for free? Or are the Izea bloggers “less trustworthy” because they saw their time and effort as valuable and believed they should be compensated for it?

My answer is a resounding NO.

Let’s get down to brass tacks here, shall we? I participate in the Walmart ElevenMoms program because I actually believe in what we’re doing. I shop at Walmart *gasp* regularly.  I did before I got involved in the program.  I actually like saving money and getting good deals.  I love the thought of some reader of mine having an extra $500 to help out with the holidays this year.  I know that will go a really long way at Walmart.

Since I’ve gotten involved in the program, I’ve been accused of ‘getting paid as a Walmart shill‘ – and when I revealed that I was not paid accused of ‘setting MommyBloggers everywhere back by setting a poor example and letting companies think they can get free work out of us.‘  I’ve read that I must be getting ’secret kickbacks’ and that there’s ‘no way’ I ever shopped at Walmart. I’ve been called a lot of names. It’s been interesting, to say the least.

But I just keep doing what I’m doing.  Because if I didn’t believe in the program, I wouldn’t do it.

If K-mart had come to me and said “would you like to participate in this contest we’re doing with Izea?” I would’ve said yes. Why? Because I shop at K-mart too. *gasp* And again, I would love the idea of giving one of my readers $500 to help out with the holiday and it would go a long way there.

Would I have said “no! My time is worth nothing! Keep the $500 gift card for me, I’ll do it for free!” Hell no. If offered I would’ve said “thank you for recognizing that my time is worth something – please be aware that if you want me to actually review the store in the post, rather than just running a contest for a gift card, I will be giving my honest opinions in the review – positive & negative – and I will be making sure that my readers understand that this is a sponsored post.”

Do I think that the Izea bloggers did exactly that? Yes. I know most of those bloggers. I trust their integrity. They’re not going to be taking money from or running a contest for a company that they don’t believe will benefit their readers.  If “Pyramid Scams R Us” came calling, not one of them would’ve done it – no matter how much money or ’sponsorship’ was involved.

You can’t buy integrity.  You can’t sell integrity.  If you have integrity? Money isn’t relevant.  If you don’t? Money is the only relevancy.

Look, the only time I have problems with paying bloggers to post something is when it’s deceptive.  There are a number of models out there right now that are paying bloggers to post where the payment part is being glossed over. Sites with high profile bloggers who are definitely being compensated but where that part is as hidden as it can be. If you’re going to get all feisty about paying bloggers? Let’s point the spotlight at people who aren’t the ones saying “SPONSORED POST” all over it.

Now – tell me why I’m wrong.

If something happens in the offline world, odds are good I can find more information about it, faster, on Twitter than I can by searching other sources or turning on the television.   Whether it’s natural disasters or breaking news, somone on Twitter is posting about it.  The same goes for online events too.  No one who uses it regularly would dispute that.

So when something comes along to impact my Twitter village, be it positive or negative – or even as yet undetermined – I check it out as quickly as I can.

About a month ago, someone mentioned Magpie. So I did what you probably did if you haven’t checked it out already and followed the link to see what it was.

The short story is that Magpie is a 3rd party service, unaffiliated with Twitter, that pays people to allow them to insert advertising tweets into their twitterstream.  The user gets to determine frequency.  The default is 1 magpie ad for every 5 normal tweets.  This can be adjusted up as high as 1 for every 20, or as frequently as every other tweet.  The user gets paid based on 2 things – desirable keyword frequency and number of followers.  Because of that second one, Magpie cautions potential tweeters “So keep your followers happy and don’t risk annoying them with too many magpie-tweets.”

In today’s pressing economy, that probably sounds really appealing.  I mean, earn money just by doing what you do anyways? Cool!

But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

One of the things that sounds really appealing is the amount of money that Magpie promises if you sign up. You go to the signup page and it says to put in your Twitter ID to see how much you can earn.  I put in GeekMommy and wow!!  For those of you not used to thinking in Euros – I did the conversion. It says I can make up to $9,539.45 a month!! That’s up to $114,473 a year!  I should quit my day job and just be a magpie!

Yeah.  Right.

Still… even if I made a fraction of that, it might seem tempting.  I mean, I’m not independently wealthy and my 401k is just as unhealthy as everyone else’s.

The thing is, what I realized as soon as I saw it was the part of it where the user controls how frequently s/he lets Magpie put tweets in their timestream – but that there’s no way for me to turn the volume down as someone who follows these people.  I have only two settings – on or off.  I can follow or unfollow.  Those are my choices.

If hundreds of the Twitterpals I’m following are using Magpie, even if they only set it to one every 20, that doesn’t keep me from seeing hundreds in a row.  Potentially, thousands, since I currently follow 4,000+ people.

I find a picture is worth a thousand words in this case.

If logging in to twitter to see page after page of this in hopes of coming across a non-Magpie tweet were my fate, this would leave me with 2 options: quit following those people, or quit using Twitter and go to another microblogging platform.

I was trying to explain to someone else that it’s the metaphorical equivalent of being told that I might have to watch an hour’s worth of commercials on TV before I’m allowed to watch part of the show I want to see and even then, there’s nothing that says I won’t get 5 minutes into the show and be subjected to another 30 minutes worth of commercials.  I’d either switch networks or quit watching television.

So what am I seeing? My village is divided.  Some are taking Magpie for a ride – thinking “hey, it’s only once every few tweets” and some (like me) are unfollowing those who are using Magpie.  It reminds me of a small town council fighting over whether or not you should put advertising on your barn.

I’ve been rather a rather vocal opponent.  But that’s because I can only see that in the long-term, this monetization scheme will change how I use Twitter.  Because if I follow those using Magpie, I won’t be able to just sign on and find out more about those wildfires in California, or who Obama chose for Secretary of State – not without wading through the ads.  If I unfollow those using it, the benefit of twitter definitely decreases for me.

And you? What do you think? Is it a good thing and I’m just over-reacting? Or is it something you see as a negative trend?  Weigh in. I’m listening.

N.B. It has been pointed out to me more than once that I misspelled nightingale in the title – apparently, I tweet like Florence Nightengale, not a songbird! I’d change it, but that would break any links to it, so I’m afraid it stays a testament to mommy-brain! NEW: according to friends in my comments, the new WP plugin I added should fix that, so changing title to correct spelling.

Let’s get the dictionary definitions right out of the way, shall we?  I’m going to use Dictionary.com because I’ve always liked their service (and it compiles definitions from diverse sources.)  I’m also not going to cite the ‘full’ definitions, because it would take up too much space and you are perfectly capable of clicking through if you’re so inclined.

ob·li·ga·tion noun
1. something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc.

right noun
18. a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral: You have a right to say what you please.
19. Sometimes, rights. that which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc. (women’s rights; Freedom of speech is a right of all Americans)

priv·i·lege noun
1. A peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor; a right or immunity not enjoyed by others or by all; special enjoyment of a good, or exemption from an evil or burden; a prerogative; advantage; franchise.

Yes, I did pick specific definitions.  Every dictionary comes close – but they try to differentiate themselves from each other by using more lines or varying wording.  In the end, you have to choose a definition that works for you and go with it.

The emphasis on privilege? That’s mine.  I want to make sure that it’s highlighted.

This post is what I consider to be an obligatory post.  My moral compass tells me that on this day, of all days, I shouldn’t just be posting about random happenings, products, experiences or what-have-you.  I should be posting about today’s election in the U.S.A.  Because this is November 4th 2008 and the US presidential election will have an impact not just on Americans, but on everyone else worldwide.

I suppose you expect that this next paragraph will be about voting for a particular candidate.  Most blogs I read have endorsed one or the other of the 2 main party candidates.  A few have supported 3rd party candidates – and a couple even advocated writing in a candidate who didn’t make it past our semi-institutionalized primaries contest.

I’m not going to do that.

I can’t say that I don’t care who you vote for.  That would be lying.  But I’m not going to try and influence who you vote for. You’ve either decided long ago, or you are sick of reading all of the ‘vote for X!’ posts like I am. (Or given how late I’m posting this? You’ve already voted.)

But some people in the U.S. think that just because voting in our democracy is a right that it won’t go away.  Those people need to scroll back up and read the bolded part of the definition of privilege.

The ability to vote in open elections in the United States is a privilege we enjoy in this country because many more people that you can ever count have fought and sometimes died to maintain it.

If you don’t think it can go away? You are mistaken. Rights aren’t guaranteed to be enforceable, they are just based on principles.  In this country? You have the privilege to vote.  But more than that? You have an obligation to.

So if you’re reading this and you’re thinking that maybe you’ll just skip it because your candidate is probably already going to win/lose and there will be long lines at the polls and you’d have to leave work early or get home late? Don’t.

Go. Vote.

It’s your right, your privilege, and your obligation.  Because if you don’t use it? You could lose it.

He wanted to know if I was registered to vote!  What do you think? Am I registered to vote?  Of course I am.  I’ve been registered to vote since 1984.  I take my rights very seriously – because the right to vote isn’t just a right, it’s also a responsibility.  It’s a privilege and an honor to be a part of a country where I have a say – even if it’s just a small one – in what our government does.  I exercise that freedom, that right, that privilege, and that responsibility whenever I can.

But I do so responsibly.  I research the candidates, the issues, the positions, and try to vote based on both my values AND what I think is best for the country as a whole.

But here – tell you what, watch this – and you’ll see why I’m telling you DON’T VOTE!!

You know, in theory, I could make a list of folks to call out on this – but I’m just going to throw it at you – so, are YOU registered to vote? If so, link me to your post about this in the comments. If not, tell me why not in the comments, okay? Seriously, I’m interested.

I’ve been waiting for this to round out a little bit today before linking it… but I think it’s an important matter to bring up.

Aaron Brazell [@technosailor] at Technosailor.com has posted about an on-going issue with Congress and the current attempt to keep their members from using Social Media tools like Twitter and Qik.

Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) [@johnculberson] has weighed in on the issue making it as simple to understand as can be… something that he would not be allowed to do if the Democrat side of the house has their way on this one.  There are congressmen & senators using the internet right now just like you and I do.  That needs to continue without censorship in my book.

But rather than recreating the wheel – just go read Aaron’s amazing post on it.