Zennie's Zeitgeist Blog is now "Zennie62" Blog

I made a decision to make a big change: "Zennie's Zeitgeist", the name I gave my blog in 2005 to explain that I was trying to chronicle the events of our time, is giving way to "Zennie62". The effort is to have one brand name for all of my social network platforms, and since all of them have Zennie62, changing the flagship blog in the SBS Media network just seemed to the logical thing to do.

Yes, the focus will remain the same, but what I want is to avoid confusing people with different "Zennie" names -- now there's just one. Yes, we will still have the 86 blogs, but Zennie62 is the main blog in the system and takes readers to the other blogs and to the SBS world of games and content.

Zennie62. On Twitter. YouTube. iReport. The upcoming BlogTalkRadio. And here.

Tips And Media Contact Information

If you have a tip or want to blog with us, send an email to zennie@sportsbusinesssims.com .  Press interviews?  Call 510-387-9809

JOHN EDWARDS CONFIRMS RUMORS OF RIELLE HUNTER AFFAIR TO ABC - EDWARDS STATEMENT

Finally, former Senator and Presidential candidate John Edwards has just admitted to ABC News that he did indeed have an affair with Rielle Hunter -- a story covered here since last fall. This was reported on CNN. You can read the whole rest of the story here at Zennie's Zeitgeist.

Edwards says that the affair started after his wife's revalation of Cancer in 2006, but that he did not get her pregnant. He's not taken a test to confirm this.

EDWARDS STATEMENT:

In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough.

I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then. I am and have been willing to take any test necessary to establish the fact that I am not the father of any baby, and I am truly hopeful that a test will be done so this fact can be definitively established. I only know that the apparent father has said publicly that he is the father of the baby. I also have not been engaged in any activity of any description that requested, agreed to or supported payments of any kind to the woman or to the apparent father of the baby.

It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up - feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work
with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.

I have given a complete interview on this matter and having done so, will have nothing more to say.

My take on this news:



The back story of the affair:

No, I Did Not Contribute $17,000 To The Obama Campaign

The current -- as of today -- Oakland Tribune article reads that I contributed $17,000 to the Obama for America campaign. I did not. What I told Barbara Grady, who's a great person, is that I raised that much, mostly from an event held at the Mark Hopkins last year on St. Patrick's Day 2007 and which I co-chaired (there were about 25 co-chairs) and created an online sign-up and website for. I managed to get 15 people to sign up online there at $1,000 each, so that's $15,000 alone.

But I wish I had $17,000 just laying around.

Zennie's Zeitgeist Covered By The Oakland Tribune

The Oakland Tribune's Barbara Grady penned this story below about this blogger and blog's being credentialed for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. But to be fair, the blog is more than me, its the other writers on it, like Tom Hayes and Dave Kaye and Ashley Long, all of whom are credentialed to go to the convention. It's readers like you and of course the overall SBS website system.

Also, it must be reported that the YouTube channel zennie62 is "attached" to this blog and also I said to Barbara that the overall SBS website gets 65,000 unique visitors a month, with Zennie's Zeitgeist a part of that, about between 30 percent and 50 percent of that per month. But yes, this blog did command 44,000 page views and 24,000 visitors on the day after the New Hampshire Primary. That was due to one post on reported election machine voter fraud problems in that state.

Also, I did not contribute $17,000 to the campaign, I raised it over time via the Internet and mostly from a fundraiser at the Mark Hopkins I co-sponsored. But I do not have that kind of money and could not do that anyway as the limit is $2,500. It was an error on her part.

Whatever the details, it was great to have our people recognized. Here's the article:

Oakland blogger to cover Democratic National Convention

By Barbara Grady
Oakland Tribune
Article Created: 06/02/2008 09:05:32 PM PDT

OAKLAND — As the Democratic National Convention gets under way in August, Oakland blogger Zennie Abraham will be on the convention floor with a microphone poised to pick up discussions of race, predatory lending, infrastructure improvement and other issues of concern to Oakland.

Abraham and his Zennie's Zeitgeist blog at zennie2005.blogspot.com have won a coveted credential from the Democratic National Committee to cover the convention as a blogger journalist. He was selected late last week as one of 124 bloggers to receive credentials from an applicant pool of more than 400.

Zennie's Zeitgeist is usually about Abraham's take on political issues of the day — often the Democratic presidential contest — with a smattering of posts about pop culture and sports.

The Democratic National Committee said its criteria in choosing which bloggers to let into what no doubt will be a crowded and history-making Denver convention are that they cover state and local politics and have a high daily audience based on statistics from Technorati, a Web site that tracks blogs. Among applicants whose sites met those criteria, the committee looked for blogs that "stand out as an effective online organizing tool and/or agent of change."

Abraham has not been shy to take on controversial issues. He has written about predatory lending, accusing check cashing centers of exploiting the poor, and crime
and criminals.

He already has specific plans for what topics he'll focus on at the convention.
"I'm concerned about (Hillary) Clinton and (Barack) Obama, and the race issue. I really want to see if Democrats are going to rally around Obama unanimously," Abraham said Monday. "I want to know specifically if people who are Clinton supporters, if they are really going to rally behind Obama. If not, I want to know if it is because of race."

And he will report on any discussions of race, whether polite or not.
He also plans to report in detail on the development of a Democratic platform, "with respect to what degree the platform represents domestic issues like predatory lending in credit card rates, our enormous infrastructure problems and what I call keeping jobs at home."

Abraham has been an outspoken supporter of Obama and contributed about $17,000 to his campaign. That partisanship did not seem to phase the DNC, even though many of the other blogs selected are less committed to one candidate.

Many of the blogs represent Democrats from particular states, such as the Blue Jersey, Blue Indiana and Blue Hampshire blogs.

Abraham, 45, is an entrepreneurial businessman, having founded Sports Business Simulations of Oakland five years ago, but he put in his time in politics. He worked for former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown as an economic adviser and then as the Oakland Alameda Sports Commissioner.

Abraham started his blogging career in 2006 writing about sports. But then he couldn't resist talking about politics.

Over time, he separated his own political and cultural ramblings into Zennie's Zeitgeist, distinct from his larger SBS Voices sports blog, and wrote increasingly about politics, following the Democratic campaign as it progressed tooth and nail.
The day after the New Hampshire primary, his blog posting received 44,000 hits. Since then, his audience has steadily grown. He was invited by CNN to post a video blog as a sample for its YouTube CNN Democratic Debate last year. Afterward, links to his blog started showing up elsewhere on other political sites. Now Zennie's Zeitgeist receives about 60,000 unique visitors a month on average.

A New Design For Zennie's Zeitgeist

"To Everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season.." A time to ..change blog designs. This is a new and evolving design that comes two years after Bloggers change to XML, and after our own -- and my own -- journey into rich media content. The increased use of video and special links gave such a weight to the original design that it was too slow to load. Finally push came to shove and here we have this new design.

Although it doesn't look like it, we are able to accomplish much of the same objectives with this cleaner look, from seeing our writer's names, to viewing the YouTube channel Zennie62, to buying tickets, to presenting our simulations. Plus, it's more in keeping with the fact that our blog network has taken on a life of its own and thus needed its own identity.

I also like the cool blue, but I'm now interested in XML, so future changes will reflect my increased knoweldge of how to code in it.

This design will evolve more, but the basic look is what you're going to see for awhile. Kudoes to Gekko and Fly for developing the look! Let me know what you think!