Region Blog Review

Matt Saliga at Hammond Ramblings declares the Hammond Republican party dead:

Evidently, some seem to think there is the Duane Dedelow/Wes Miller party and the Joe McCarthy party. I could change my thinking on this but I think the Hammond Republican Party really isn’t much of one right now.

The Dedelow/Miller/Janiec/Poland people seemingly control the party due to the fact that Duane Dedelow is a former mayor and that Kim Poland was elected 4th District Councilman. The supposed Joe McCarthy wing really controls nothing when it comes down to it.

However, the Dedelow/Miller/Janiec/Poland section of the party is nothing more than a group of people that cant believe Dedelow isn’t still the mayor and a group of people who are one issue based, no new idea people like Miller and Janiec.

Therefore the Hammond Republican Party is essentially dead - at least for now.

Region Broad weighs in over Rudy Clay’s remarks on Gary’s homicide rate.

I guess my first question here is, if Rudy’s so convinced that the murders are domestic in nature, why does he need to spend the money on a study?

My next question: What makes him think that these murders, domestic though they may be, aren’t related to “thugs and drugs?” Because really, just how many “non-thugs” are beating and killing people? Not that they don’t, but percentage-wise, what do you think is the spread?

Area 45 has made some predictions for Lake County in 2008.

Time now for the de rigueur predictions for the coming year.  Raw data from the crystal ball and the Ouija board has been refined, analyzed and interpreted via a fail-safe, quasi-scientific principle employed by yours truly, to-wit:  It is impossible to be too cynical about all things Lake County.

A new blog has appeared in the Northwest Indiana blogosphere — Joe Kaminiski, Jr.’s Region Rats.  The first post discusses the issue that has been on everyone’s mind lately — taxes.

Blogging is gaining a toehold in Northwest Indiana — check out Northwest Indiana Blogs for the ever growing list of bloggers from the area.

Northwest Indiana has traditionally been a “blue” area and Gary, Indiana has been called the second most liberal area in the country.

For a relatively highly populated area, there aren’t a lot of progressive or liberal bloggers in the mix.  The only blog that stands out at this time is South Shore Progressive and it hasn’t been updated since early in December 2007.

I’m surprised there aren’t more liberal bloggers in Northwest Indiana.

The year 2007 has come and gone — way too quickly it seems.

Looking back at last year and what I’ve learned about blogging during 2007, I have to say that the number one thing I’ve learned starting up a blog in 2005 is to never “delete” a blog on Blogger.  If you started a blog there, but don’t want to continue it, just let it sit fallow.  Deleting it guarantees that a splog will invade it once you leave.  If you don’t want any content on the blog, delete all of the previous content, but keep control of the subdomain.

The second lesson I’ve learned is how nice it is to use WordPress after using Blogger as my platform since May 2005.  I had dabbled with WordPress previously, but never took the plunge and seriously used it.  I wish I had started using WP as soon as I had discovered it.  Plug-ins make blogging easy by doing all sorts of things such as capturing spam and creating XML sitemaps that when done manually take up time and effort.  The chores of blogging are reduced so that bloggers can concentrate on the creation of content.

The third was learning about BlogNetNews and reconnecting with Indiana bloggers and subsequently connecting with Northwest Indiana bloggers.  I foresee great things for NWI’s bloggers and look forward to seeing all of the new content (and new bloggers) during 2008.

What are the lessons of blogging that you’ve learned — good or bad — that might enlighten the blogging community in general?

Northwest Indiana’s own — Blue County in a Red State — has rocketed up the influence chart over at Blog Net News’ Indiana blog section.

Congratulations on the honor!

This is another reason why Northwest Indiana bloggers should let BlogNetNews know about their blogs.

(My blog — Region Life — is number 13 on the list.)

Northwest Indiana’s bloggers aren’t taking time off on this last day of 2007.

Porter County Politics and Blue County in a Red State are on fire today with four posts each. That’s a lot of worthwhile content to check out this New Years Eve.

Matt Salaga at Hammond Ramblings also fired up the trusy old Blogger site and published a couple of posts over the weekend.

Keep up the great work!

Just a quick post to say Happy New Year a little early.

Best wishes to all of Northwest Indiana’s bloggers and continued growth for 2008.

Here’s a great blog tip from Problogger.net –  Network to improve your blog.

Responds David Peralty in response to a question from Problogger’s Darren Rowse on what improved ones blog the most in 2007:

With everything else I have done in my blogging, networking is really the only thing that has really given my blogs a huge push in 2007. Talking to people from different backgrounds, connecting with them and learning from them. It is really amazing what kind of effect it can have on your productivity, as well as traffic, resources, and even monetization, all from making a few friends.