All Work & No Play ...

So you know there will be paneling at EschaCon '08, but there will also be a social component, specifically a Friday (March 28th) Drink Thing and a Saturday (March 29th) Dinner Thing.

I'll be scouting potential drinking and dining locales in City of Brotherly Love. In the interim, I'd love to hear any suggestions that you may have for specific spots I should check out. Post 'em in comments and when the time comes, I'll drop by and see if these establishments would be interested in hosting a meeting of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

Another Invite Goes Out

This time to new blogger Paul Krugman. (crosses fingers)

His bio reads:

Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page and continues as professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford. At MIT he became the Ford International Professor of Economics.

Mr. Krugman is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes. His professional reputation rests largely on work in international trade and finance; he is one of the founders of the "new trade theory," a major rethinking of the theory of international trade. In recognition of that work, in 1991 the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark medal, a prize given every two years to "that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge." Mr. Krugman's current academic research is focused on economic and currency crises.

At the same time, Mr. Krugman has written extensively for a broader public audience. Some of his recent articles on economic issues, originally published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American and other journals, are reprinted in Pop Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist.

And if that's not enough, he's also one of the few economists discussing the effects of income inequality in the US.

Taking Shape: Susie Madrak

I've asked Susie Madrak to chair a panel, and she has agreed. If you don't know Susie, she's the brilliant and delightful woman behind Suburban Guerrilla, one of th bright lights of the Philly blogosphere. She and i are still playing phone tag about what exactly her topic will be, but you can rest assured it will be something good. Click around her site to see what her interests are (and one of them is music, so you know I love that).

Susie's interests, like Atrios's, tend to circle around the media, so I expect that that's more or less what we'll be organizing.

I wanted to get back to this, since I think there are a couple of different ideas on the table here re: the media. QL justly pointed out that YKos took some heat for perceived kowtowing to the media, and that's not quite what we do. But Eschaton (the site) started as a critique of the media, and I think leaving them out would be short-sighted. Besides, I'm interested in what the media has to say about bloggers--Will Bunch, who also commented on that thread, is a good example of someone who spans the divide.

I'm not talking here about comping Joe Klein to come and abuse us (though I would love to let simels harangue him in person), but I'd be curious to hear the stories of progressive media people and how they see the shape of their profession. But David Corn? Paul Krugman? Barbara Ehrenreich? Why not?

Prior A's comment has more to do with media coverage of what we're doing, which we obviously can't control. The DFH meme will undoubtedly be as tenacious for them as the Hillary-Ballbuster meme: too much depends upon its continued health to let it rest.

UPDATE: Spocko swung by Eschaton and said he'd be interested in presenting. Few know more about doing battle with the right-wing talk-radio machine than Spocko, whose crusade against KSFO in San Francisco has had real, concrete results (to the tune of about a half million in ad revenues for shit-spewers like Melanie Morgan). I hope he can come!