Coyote Carnival - 1st Edition

A hearty Old Pueblo welcome to the members of the Arizona Blogger Network and its readership who have found their way to my humble blog via the First Edition of the Coyote Carnival.

...In the near future, these carnivals should be hosted at a local Arizona blog, to drive traffic to that site. If you are interested in hosting, please contact me. To ensure wide exposure, I am going to be cross-posting this first carnival to BlogForArizona. This first edition doesn't have a theme except that all the entries are from Arizona-based blogs. We got a few submissions that broke that rule, as well as a number that were essentially commercial advertising, but the great majority of the submissions were acceptable, and most were accepted.

I'm happy to support this initiative, and perhaps will volunteer to host one in the future. This is a great way to build traffic and awareness of the various voices in the Grand Canyon State.

Ironically, the highlighted entries for my blog were written by guest bloggers Duke1676 and DuctapeFatwa on their recent exchanges on immigration reform. They raised several important factors that affect not only the border region, but the entire country. A comprehensive plan for immigration overhaul must be inclusive of the human effects and safety that is often ignored in the debate.

So without further delay, here are the highlights of the first-ever Coyote Carnival

We start with a photographic trip down memory lane. Tortoise Trail has a post that takes us back a few years to those rare times when it snowed inside the city of Tucson, Arizona.

Next, Firefly Forest gives us a photo-documentary of natural history. The entry explores dead cacti of our desert home.

Graphic Politics brings us a photographic parody of recent events involving Dick Cheney.

For the most disturbing image, Stranger Fruit hits home with an image of an assassin spider.

It is rare for a politician to be honest, genuine, and personal with the electorate, but that is exactly where Jeff Latas dared to go in his Kos diary about a visit to Walter Reed.

Kieran Healy points out a little noted nuance in the absurdity that was Bush's 6th SOTU with biting wit.

Continuing in the theme of biting wit, few are better at it than Ted Prezelski at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion, as he amply demonstrates in his excoriation of a local politician for inconstant loyalty.

ManEegee gets plaudits for best series on a local topic with his three part series on Open Borders policy. His post is an excellent example of how bloggers can catalize an interesting discussion on a difficult issue. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Capturing the flag for best addition to the mainstream media's reporting of an issue is Kevin Spidel for his coverage of the DoD's bid for emergency control of Arizona elections through our Secretary of State.

For coverage of religion, Blog For Arizona gets a nod for coverage of the contemporary currents in biblical scholarship.

For best sports coverage, Temple Stark takes the trophy for his coverage of the Super Bowl.

For best coverage of a local issue, Kaibab Journal takes the prize with its chronology of the Canyon Forest Village development.

For best local business bloging and multimedia, Go Daddy takes the cake with it's documentation of the process of finalizing its Superbowl ads.

For best coverage of the upcoming Gubernatorial race, Wactivist gets kudos for his coverage of the Len Munsil trainwreck in waiting.

For best dissection of Right Wing propaganda, Stranger Fruit again takes a victory lap for his post on the Protect Marriage Arizona initiative.

For best defense of Right Wing propadanda, Arizona Watch takes the gold for "Napolitano Hates Children". (Hey, you don't like my editorial bias? Ask to host Coyote Carnival your own self, OK?)

For best media catch demonstrating that the operator is definitely awake at the switch, Arizona Congress Watch for catching Kyl proposing to violate the Constitution even better than the President in a Denver paper.

For best personal writing and nature writing in one package, Firefly Forest takes another laurel for her post on Black Phoebes at Sweetwater.

And finally, for best interview, Darksyde of Unscrewing the Inscrutable for his interview with science author Carl Zimmer.

That's it for this month. I hope you discover some writing here that inspires you, and some blogs that you didn't know where out there. Please leave comments and suggestions for improvements, and feedback on anything you especially liked.

Thanks for visiting and hope you'll stop in regularly and say hello.

Paz,
Man Eegee