Negotiating Our Website
On the back of my personal LCDEMS business card I invite people to, Come Visit Linn County’s Most Important and Amazing Web Site”. This is really true for those that know where and how to mine the rich information base in our site.
Let me guide you through a tour of our site. You are on the Home Page when you log into www.linncodems.net. First, notice the nine items on the menu bar (Home, Meetings, Calendar, Candidates, Participate, Discussion, Platform, Government, and Resources). Notice on the Home Page you can see a large “Contribute” button. Pressing onit allows one to make secure electronic contributions using a credit card. I sincerely hope that everyone takes agood look at this contribution method. If everyone gives just $5.00 per month via their credit card we will be able to give significant help to our candidates.
On the far upper right hand side you will observe a listing of “Upcoming Events”, including “Meaningful Movies” held a the Methodist Church in Lebanon (big thanks to Louise Owens for putting this together). Also, please notice that the Oregon Platform convention is coming up very soon on April 11-13, in Eugene. Senators Clinton and Obama have been invited and if this happens we are attempting to stage a rally for them here in Albany (the chances are looking better every day).
On the lower right hand side of the Home Page is a link that allow users to “Create an Account”. Once an account has been set up several user options are available. Users can create an interactive blog or add topics to a forum discussion.
Next notice the “Meeting” tab. Clicking on it one finds the time and date, the address and a map of our Central Committee meetings. If there are other meetings where the general public is invited this is where tofind the notice.
The “Calendar” tab opens up a monthly calendar view where the upcoming events are listed.
The “Candidates” tab is where to find information on our Oregon Senate and House candidates as well as our Linn County Commissioner candidates.
The “Participate” tab gives people the opportunity to help the Linn County Party and our candidates in a variety of different ways.
The “Discussion” tab is where users can find Notes from me, a listing of “Hot Issues” of concern to members, forum topics and blog discussions. I encourage everyone to participate inthe forums and blogs. This area provides a great venue to learn from each other and to exchange ideas.
The “Platform” tab is the place to find the By Laws of the Linn County Democrats and the State and National party’s platforms.
The “Government” tab is very useful. Here one can find information on all Federal Branches (Executive, Congress, and Judicial), all Federal Legislators, the Constitution, the Library of Congress, and even, “The Hill” (Congress’s Newspaper).
The last tab is labeled, “Resources”. Users may find this tab extremely useful once they understand the expanse of information that it covers. However this tab takes a little bit more of anexplanation. First, I would ask that before investigating the nine drop down sub-menu areas that you doubleclick on the “Resources” tab. You now will see another eight listings (School Districts, Activism, Commentary,Newspapers, Organizations, Policy/Research, and Political Parties). These are all packed full of useful information. For instance, clicking on School Districts allows you to view information on every School District (eg. Board members) in Linn County and clicking on Activism results in information on four active Democrat groups,including one whose purpose is to impeach George W. Bush. I invite our members to send us their favorite group to add to this list.
Clicking on the Commentary tab reveals a very rich informational field, covering some 27 sites, including Air America, The Nation magazine, and Anti-War.com.
The Headline/Sources tab is perhaps my favorite and includes twelve fact finding source links, including a link to c-span. One will not want to miss looking at snopes.com or factcheck.org. These sites are dedicated to fact checking for the spurious and erroneous messages (often called urban legions) that are continuously being sent out over the internet and even through major media outlets such as Fox News (err, rather un-news).
The Organization tab has 19 sub links. These include the ACLU, Blue Oregon, Common Cause, MoveOn.org, Oregonian’s for Health Security and many other useful sites.
The Policy/Research tab has 23 policy and research organizations, including OSPIRG, the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Economic Policy Institute, The Oregon Center for Public Policy, and the World Policy Institute.
Clicking the Political Party tab one finds a blog on the Oregon House Democrats, The Democratic National Party and the Democratic Party of Oregon.
One is now ready to investigate the nine sub-tabs under the main “Resources” tab (getting Involved, PCP elections, Precinct map, US Democrats, Issues, Letters to the editor, news, and meeting minutes). The precinct map is useful to find what precinct you live in.
After thoroughly reviewing our web site I believe that you will be as convinced as I am that it is “Linn County’s Most Important Web Site”. If you agree please let our hardworking web site and Hotlines manager, Bob Heald know and give him a well-deserved thanks.
Loyd Henion,
Chair, Linn County Democrats
