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Sunday, June 27
DFIA Merchandise Now Available!
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 27 Jun 2004 04:05 PM CDT
DFIA Merchandise Now Available!
DFIA
has turned in the final, approved version for our DFIA merchandise to
the Dean blogger extraordinaire and graphics artist known as “jc.”
Note: At the request of DFIA Environmentalist Molly Regan, wind
turbines have been added to the design. Can we BE too progressive? I
think not.
All
kinds of DFIA merchandise is available on a page that jc has created
expressly for Democracy for Iowa in her Cafe Press shop. Go here to view merchandise selection and to order.
Shirts
come in sizes from infant to kids to adult 4X, depending on the
style. There are several colors, including natural, grey, light
yellow, bright yellow, and white. You may also choose from Made
in USA and organic cotton. Something for everyone’s belief system!
Mugs, mousepads, caps, totes and lunchboxes are also available.
I’ve place a link in the top, left sidebar to the DFIA Merchandise page, for your convenience.
Thursday, June 24
DFIA Takes Pride In Gay Pride Celebrations
by
Linda Thieman
on Thu 24 Jun 2004 08:55 AM CDT
DFIA Takes Pride In Gay Pride Celebrations
Their
first meeting and already, they are like two peas in a pod: DFIA
Co-founder Dr. Alta Price, M.D. of Bettendorf (left) and DFIA Founding
Member Darrell Lewis of Clear Lake, at the Gay Pride Celebration in
Iowa City, June 19th.
[Can you tell Alta is wearing her Lyre, Liar, Pants on Fire shirt? And
right above the pants on fire, there is a small Blog for Iowa button.]
Over
recent weeks Gay Pride Celebrations have been held all across the
country. This coming weekend is the biggest weekend of all
commemorating the New York City Stonewall Riots that set in motion the modern day movement for non-discrimination of gays.
Democracy
for Iowa members (good Dean Democrats) have been volunteering with the
Democratic National Committee and the Kerry Campaign to help staff
booths at Gay Pride events in Iowa City, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids,
Kansas City and Omaha for the last three weekends. Helping in
Iowa City was co-founder of Democracy for Iowa, Dr. Alta Price,
M.D. Helping in Des Moines was Christina Butts.
Unfortunately, the names of some others who helped have been lost in
booth coordinator and DFIA Founding Member Darrell Lewis' boxes of
materials. Darrell will be helping again this weekend in
Minneapolis and over the 4th of July will be doing outreach in Michigan
to the gay community. The very large Kerry banner with the gay
rainbow symbol on it that the DNC loaned us to be used in Iowa has now
been donated to us to use permanently and Darrell says anyone who wants
to use it in the future should contact him.
Around
3,000 people were "stickered" with "out loud for Kerry" and standard
Kerry stickers. Over 500 signatures were secured on the Margaret
Cho petition opposing the federal gay marriage amendment.
Hundreds of Kerry v. Bush brochures were distributed. Hundreds of
Kerry signs were distributed. The Iowa Dean volunteers have
informed the DNC/Kerry Campaigns, "we have completely run out of
materials...HELP...send more." The DNC paid for the booths in
Iowa City and Cedar Rapids and provided materials for all the
events. Darrell provided booth space through his business in
Omaha and Kansas City. The Des Moines booth was provided by Polk
County Democrats.
In Iowa City, congressional candidate Dave Franker
spent time at the booth and DFIA members distributed literature for
Dave as well. Dave Leshtz, an Iowa Dean Delegate (although he is
not gay) stopped by the booth in Iowa City and chatted. Funny
thing, how all these Dean Democrats seem to show up where the action is
and the work needs to be done. Although Darrell and Alta have
been long acquainted online and through DFA and DFIA, they had not
previously met each other in person. Iowa City was their first
meeting. Those two "over 50" Dean Democrats chuckle when people
would talk about Dean supporters being so young, but then again, as
Darrell says, Alta doesn't look her age.
Darrell
reports that while the gay community is almost totally behind Kerry,
there still remains strong sentiments for Howard Dean. Dean was
the clear favorite of the Iowa Gay and Lesbian community.
Additionally, there are a significant number of persons in the gay
community who indicated their support for Ralph Nader, primarily
because of Kerry's support for the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment in Massachusetts.
Thanks to DFIA Founding Member Darrell Lewis for providing information for this report.
Friday, June 4
Vote On This DFIA T-Shirt Design
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 04 Jun 2004 03:29 PM CDT
Vote On This DFIA T-Shirt Design
It's been at least several days since we did something completely frivolous on Blog for Iowa, so I thought Friday evening would be a good time to discuss T-shirts. I hope you're down with that, Deansters.
JC, frequent blogger on Blog for America, worked up this design for us. If we like it, she will put up a page for us in her CafePress Shop, and we can order all sorts of DFIA merchandise online.
So, take a look and please leave your comments in the comments section. She is willing to make modifications if we request it.
Tuesday, June 1
Happy Anniversary! Blog for Iowa is Two Months Old!
by
Linda Thieman
on Tue 01 Jun 2004 06:33 AM CDT
Happy Anniversary!
Blog for Iowa is Two Months Old!
OK,
I promise I won't do this every month, but we're so new, I just had to
do it one more time. Pull out the bragging rights for all our
DFIA members who have been working so diligently to spread the word
about Blog for Iowa!
More Potentially Interesting Statistics
To recap from May 1st, our one-month anniversary:
Distinct Hosts Served:
This is a count of individual computers that accessed at least one page
of Blog for Iowa during any one day or month. By "distinct" they
mean that if the same computer accesses Blog for Iowa more than once,
it will still count as only one computer. This figure can be used
to estimate the number of readers, but it counts computers, not people.
Distinct Hosts Served in April, 2004: 2830
Distinct Hosts Served in May, 2004: 4314
Number of Page Views in April, 2004: 7362
Number of Page View in May, 2004: 13,425
Average Number of Hosts Served Per Day in April, 2004: 94
Average Number of Hosts Served Per Day in May, 2004: 139
Biggest Day: April 21, Hosts Served = 203,
Page Views = 411
Biggest Day: May 3, Hosts Served = 276,
Page Views = 463
Number of Articles Posted in April: 97
Number of Articles Posted in May: 103
Most Viewed Topic in April: Photos
Most Viewed Topic in May:
It was a tie! Far and away, these two topics led the pack:
Candidates and Iowa in the News. Well, I guess we know what
people are coming to Blog for Iowa for!
*
I was informed about a week ago by our host company, BlogHarbor.com,
that we were blowing our starter package out of the water because of
the amount of traffic. So, we've upgraded to the larger
package. BlogHarbor also told me that as far as traffic goes,
Blog for Iowa is near or at the top of the heap of all the blogs using
the blogware system. They informed me that the number of blogs on
the system is in the low thousands. You just can't keep those
Dean supporters down! Of course, we're nothing compared to the
blog of the mothership, Blog for America, but we're holding our own for a little blog. Now, if we could only get more people to post comments!
*
Just
a few other things to update you on. You may have noticed that I
finally figured out how to post a photo. The key was to use a
different browser. The photo post feature does not work for me
when I use Internet Explorer, so I switched to Mozilla. Far
superior. However, the remove a photo feature does not work on
Mozilla, so I have to use IE for that! It's always something, but
I am getting better at figuring out how to work around the little buggy
things like that.
And
Alison over at Blog for America finally has the State Group listserv up
and running, which means that the State Groups have a means of instant
communication. This has been very helpful as we are no longer
stuck in No Man's Land.
Lastly, just yesterday, Blog for America posted a photo of Howard Dean in a Hawaiian shirt. I kid you not. Go here to see it. Surely, you didn't expect me to stay on topic, did you? What kind of a blog would that be? LOL
Many
thanks to those of you who have turned in articles and suggestions for
Blog for Iowa. You make my job a whole lot easier and I
appreciate your help. Also, many thanks to all of you who have
been promoting Blog for Iowa with buttons, stickers, and flyers
(available on the right sidebar). Whatever you're doing, it's
sure working!
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