Semi Truths

Semi Truths began with a single mission: to change the world.

No, obviously not, but I am afraid that too many of my fellow bloggers substitute their WRITTEN OUTRAGE for any actual action. It’s easy to sit in front of a computer and type “Bush Sucks!”. It’s more difficult to get up and actually go out into the world and start a dialogue.

A few months ago, I attended a Town Hall Forum on Iraq, sponsored by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice. There, I met David Swanson, a powerful man driven by great passions who has the ability to pull people into his own gravitational field. David invited me to join the CCPJ’s Speakers Committee, which is how I found myself helping to bring Cindy Sheehan to Charlottesville on May 17th and, improbably, why I will be up on stage M.C.ing the event…!

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Charlottesville’s Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership has announced the 2006 Summit on Blogging and Democracy in the Commonwealth, two half-days of workshops covering topics as diverse as Enhancing and Promoting Your Blog, Blogging 101, Building Online Community, and Blogging & Journalism. Additionaly, there will be sessions on how campaign finance laws could affect the future of political blogging and a discussion on the Ethics of Politics. Semi Truths could not be present last year, but you can sure that we’ll be there this time.

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer only a few days after CBS’s 60 Minutes dubbed him “half Renaissance man, half rodeo cowboy”. The governor came to Charlottesville in an appearance sponsored by the UVA Center for Politics  to talk about biodiesel and alternative energy. I liked him immediately.

He is a Democratic Governor in a Red state with less than one million residents, and with a Republican Lt. Governor. He is a rancher and an agricultural scientist. He has built roads in Africa and irrigated croplands in Saudi Arabia. He may be “the next best hope of the Democratic Party“, and now he has done something else great.

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