I am excited to announce the official formation of my new consulting firm, Good Will Hinton Consulting, a turnkey consultancy for culture creating projects.

Ever since I started blogging, I have had increasing requests and opportunities to apply my skills at using online tools to facilitate community and conversation. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to work on many great projects on the side including being part of the founding team of Paste Magazine, web consulting for Innocence Atlanta, and fund-raising consulting for FRINGE.

This past Tuesday I resigned my full-time job with CoStar as a commercial real estate consultant to form this business to work with people, organizations, and companies that are doing works of significance. This could include non-profit organizations wanting to better understand how to do fund-raising with a younger generation, for-profit corporations wanting to better understand how to use capitalism for good in their communities, politicians wanting to harness the power of the Web, or artists needing a business-minded person to assist them.

The consulting services I am providing include the following:

• Strategic planning/Brainstorming/Visioneering
• Web 2.0/Blogging (including website creation, content creation, SEO, copywriting, podcasting/vidcasting)
• Online marketing
• Networking (access to my community of culture changer and influencers)
• Fund-raising/Donor Development

I greatly appreciate the prayers and support of all of my readers here.

For more information, contact me here.

I'm speechless. Though I was hoping he would say "All Your Bases Belong To Us"!!!

Sorry for the lack of posting lately friends. I have never been busier in my entire life than I have been the past six months. Here is quick bullet-point list of things I am working on or people/organizations I am partnering with:

• Innocence Atlanta
• Meet Justice
• Essential2Life
• FRINGE
• The Market Traders
• Fermi Project
• Friends of Eric Volz

Time for a reboot of GWH!

My friend Gabe Lyons has just co-authored a fantastic new book, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters. In it he and David Kinnaman explore many of the negative opinions that people have about Christians. Not surprisingly they learned that many people think of Christians as being judgmental, hypocritical, anti-homosexual, too political, and sheltered. (Here is an interview I conducted with Gabe)

I'm curious as to what other impressions people have about Christians.

I'm going to tag five of my friends to write their four things about Christians: three negative perceptions and one thing that Christians should be known for. So here is my list:

1. Christians don't create anything original. They only mimic the world around them.
Just go in any Christian bookstore. You will see "sanctified" Christian books that are almost identical to books in B&N or Borders. You will see t-shirts that are rip offs of "secular" apparel, yet with Bible verses. There are even Christian workout clubs. Yet why is it that the Christian version of so many "secular" (I hate the word secular) items are so often totally lame?

2. Christians get offended at everything.
It seems like every day Christians are getting riled up about something - be it DisneyWorld, supposed persecution of Christians in America (puh-leeze!), or even cursing in the work place. Sometimes it feels like Christians disagree with the first part of the bumper-sticker that says "Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven".

3. Christians are just waiting to be "raptured up" and couldn’t care less about this world.
What with books like the Left Behind series telling Christians that this world is all going to burn and many Christians’ visible revulsion at being good stewards of the Earth, it is hard to think otherwise.

4. Christians should be known for their unfailing love for others.
By others, I don't mean other Christians. I mean all other people. Especially those that are hard to love. The poor. The sick. The widowed. The outcasts. The oppressed.

A few of my friends are doing this. My friend Chris Heurtz of Word Made Flesh helps the poorest of the poor around the world. My friend Jamie Tworkowski of To Write Love On Her Arms helps people suffering with depression and suicidal tendencies. And my friend Daniel of Meet Justice is working to stop child sex trafficking in Atlanta.

I'm tagging the following five people to answer "UnChristian: 4 Things About Christians" and link to the book to read more about this topic:
Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost
David Wayne of Jollyblogger
Brother Maynard of Subversive Influence
Daniel Larison
Michael Spencer of InternetMonk

You don't have to be tagged to answer these questions. read more »

Please excuse the maintenance on this site over the weekend. We are upgrading to the newest version of Drupal, our back-end software.

Last week a friend of mine sent me a link to this New York Times review of Andrew Keen's new book "The Cult of the Amateur". Keen is often referred to as the leading contrarian and critic of Web 2.0. and ironically has his own Typepad hosted blog to discuss his disdain for blogs, social media, etc. (I wrestled with linking to his blog or not.)

This from the NYT review:

"Mr. Keen argues that what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment. In his view Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better. By undermining mainstream media and intellectual property rights, he says, it is creating a world in which we will live to see the bulk of our music coming from amateur garage bands, our movies and television from glorified YouTubes, and our news made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip, served up as mere dressing for advertising. This is what happens, he suggests, when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.

I couldn't disagree more with Keen. Not because I blog. But because Keen is wrong. read more »

I know some of you who are not registered users have had problems with your comments disappearing. I won't get into the gory technical details, but I believe that this problem has been fixed for good. In order to keep comment spam off the site, I will be moderating comments. But legitimate anonymous comments should now be working. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I was going to make a comment to Will’s piece, “Beyond Partisanship,” but it has become long and I decided to make it a blog. It will be easier for everyone to tell me I am wrong if I do it this way.

This is what I see as the lowest common denominator between those on the right and on the left. We are all too regrettably human. It is a flaw easier to see in others than in ourselves, where we develop a god-like sense of self by being the center of our own universes. Taking a stand, being partisan, is merely human. Forgiving one another an opposing position, might require being God-like. That is a lot to ask. read more »

Is Moulitsas a realist?

No matter how much I care about progressive politics, at the end of the day, it's my family and their well-being that's going to come first.

Tim Worstall has this to say:

Quite Markos, that's the way the rest of us feel too, why we're against many of the things you hold dear, like that aforementioned redistributive taxation. We'll do what we think is in the best interests of our families, you do what you think is in the best interest of yours and we'll also agree not to use each other's money to do so, eh?

I guess that's the end of progressive politics then.

Here is a great example of citizen advocacy journalism:

I just read an outstanding piece by James at GriftDrift about the decline of traditional media and the rise of new media in the form of blogs, vlogging, and podcasting.

In my city of Atlanta and in many other cities across the land, we are witnessing the pained throes of animals on the edge of extinction. Television stations pay huge sums of money to talking hair-dos and nobody tunes in. Print media continues to huddle in the smallest corner of the online world, wringing ink stained hands over staggering drops in circulation. Money pours forth from the wounds of a thousand cuts. Some self-inflicted. Some not.

I highly recommend reading the entire post.

I have been particularly amused by the mainstream media's attempt to co-opt blogging. I occasionally read the "blogs" at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. But it is so apparent that they don't "get it". Rarely are the blog posts timely and rarely do they link to other blogs. I'll give them credit for at least allowing commenting, but calling something a blog doesn't make it a blog.

One of the unintended consequences of the Edwards' blogger "scandal" is that bloggers now are less likely to be hired by campaigns if they've said anything inflammatory on their blogs. I'm not sure that is bad thing, but it does mean two things.

1. Intelligent, articulate folks with expertise will be less likely to blog if they believe someday they'll go into public service. This hurts the overall conversation in the blogosphere. Only those whose voices are shrillest and whose prejudices deepest will be willing to stick their heads out there, since they probably didn't plan on getting into politics anyway. The blogosphere is enriched when experts lend their knowledge to discussion and investigation (Dan Rather's use of incorrect documentation is a perfect example). However, daily individuals bring their inside knowledge to the blogosphere and all the readers are enriched.
2. It also means that folks like me, who understand that Google has a better memory than our own mother, are not going to use their own name. I've considered on several occasions to come clean on my identity, but each time I get nervous that 20 years hence, my future employer will find out that I once considered the flat tax a good idea or Bush a fascist. My identity could be figured out with some digging, but it would take more effort than it was worth at the moment. But let's be honest, a pseudonym is not the preferred method of communication. We all have real identities and real lives and pseudonyms obscure that.

So the Edwards-Blogger "scandal" has pushed me even further into my online presence. Expat Teacher I shall stay.

I generally avoid "meta-conversations" about things going on in the blogosphere. While blogs are gaining in influence, often the discussion is much-ado about nothing. However, this latest flap over the hiring of two bloggers by the campaign of John Edwards is worth mentioning.

I won't bother going into details on the story as many other blogs have covered this (non) story ad naseum. (I especially enjoyed Rod Dreher's Myrna Minkoff comparison. Spot on, my friend!)

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this story has been the almost complete silence from left-leaning Christians in the blogosphere on this topic. Most on the left have stood by Amanda Marcotte to the point of threatening to withold support of Edwards if his campaign fires Marcotte.

I do say "almost" as I discovered last night that my old friend Faithful Progressive has stepped up to the plate in condemning Marcotte and the Edward's campaign for such a bone-headed move. Big kudos to my friend for speaking the truth, even when it isn't convenient. read more »

I'll be in Washington DC this weekend and would like to invite any of my regular visitors to join me at The Brickskeller at 7PM this Saturday night. Expat Teacher will be joining me along with some other bloggers/journalists in DC. Hope to see some of you there!

Should Ford Have Pardoned Nixon? - Captain Ed says no and I agree with him.

"Ford had good and understandable reasons for his decision, but it did short-circuit the one quality about America that had always made us different from other nations: our leaders were not above the law. In an era where we started to discover the worst about leaders such as Nixon, LBJ, and even JFK, we lost that sense of ourselves as a nation bound by its dedication to the Constitution and the rule of law. At that time, we needed a way to bind ourselves back to that to restore a national identity in which all could share. read more »

Southern Catholic Federalist Steve Dillard has shut down Southern Appeal, a lively and stimulating group blog over which he presided. I’ll miss it. Here’s hoping that (he? and) his co-bloggers find other homes on the web.

The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2006 - John Hawkins of Right Wing News has a great list this morning that is both amusing and sickening at the same time.

The Old Blogosphere Vs. The New - Great thoughts from Dean Esmay today: "The magic of blogging, if it is real, is that you're dealing with a person sharing their honest thoughts. Love or hate that person, agree or disagree with their thoughts, you're dealing with a real person. Not a media figure, but a real flesh-and-blood person. If we lose that, we lose our soul." Read the entire post.

He May Also Be Against Crime And In Favour Of Freedom - Daniel Larison is not joining in the Obama-love-fest and explains why: "Oh, yes, and he wants to bring people together. No more divisive politics! He’s a uniter. He’s building a bridge, or filling a breach, or something. How’d that work the last several times people went for it? This shows that Obama the Idealist is mostly a lot of smoke and mirrors: his idealism is a belief in generic idealism, which will bring people together and “move our country forward.” Forward towards what? He replies: “Who cares, as long as we’re moving and I’m the one behind the wheel?”"

Sorry for the lateness of this post but better late than never. Big thanks to all who showed up last Thursday night to the 1st Annual Good Will Hinton Festivus Party. Considering that the local Democrats and Republicans held their holiday party that night, we had a pretty good turnout.

Among those in attendance were Independent candidate for Governor John Dashler, Libertarian Party chairman Jason Pye, Creative Loafing editor John Sugg, Atlanta writer Doug Monroe, and my friends Rusty and Amber of the Georgia Podcast Network.

I was also honored to have newly elected 4th District Congressman Hank Johnson make an appearance. Hank is an exceptionally nice man and I wish him the best in Washington D.C.

I'll probably do another one of these events in the spring so that all of you who couldn't make it out last week can meet some of your fellow bloggers and politicos here in Georgia.