All right Bradbloggers, you asked for it (I think), so here it is: THE FIRST ANNUAL BRAD BLOG BLOGATHON & FUNDRAISER! This will be an event entirely conceived, planned and produced by at least “6 or 7” of us Bradbloggers. We're sending the ubiquitous Mr. Friedman on vacation during the event to keep him out of our hair.

WHY: To hear from and interact with some of the important people in the Progressive movement AND to raise as much hard cash as humanly possible for the dedicated and deserving proprietor of this blogsite (while embarrassing him just a little in the process)!

WHEN: Friday, July 8th through Monday, July 11th, as follows:

• Friday, 7/8/05, starting at 3pm PDT (6pm EDT) with featured activities lasting until 9pm PDT (12midnight EDT);
• Saturday, 7/9/05, with featured activities lasting from 8am PDT to 4pm PDT (11am EDT to 7pm EDT) (plan is to interrupt activities for The Brad Show);
• Sunday, 7/10/05, with featured activities lasting from 8am PDT to 8pmPDT (11am EDT to 11pm EDT);
• Monday, 7/11/05, with featured activities starting at 8am PDT (11am EDT) and Blogathon ending at 6pmPDT (9pm EDT).

WHERE: At www.BradBlog.com and moderated by that all around gentleman and bon vivant, Mr. Winter Patriot, who has expressed a willingness to reveal his secret identity to anybody who contributes $1,000 or more to the event!

GUEST BLOGGERS: We have commitments from Larisa Alexandrovna, David Cobb, Clint Curtis, Bob Koehler, Winter Patriot and Andy Stephenson for “live” guest blogging. We are also working on another potentially very exciting “live” guest blogger and expect to have at least one more “live” guest blogger in addition to those named or pending. We have 8 potential “live” guest blog time slots so we're asking for preferences for filling the remaining spot or spots from anyone who has an opinion.

Suggestions to date have included: Cliff Arnebeck, John Bonifaz, Bernie Ellis, Chris Floyd, Bob Fitrakis, Jim Lampley and Ralph Nader. There are obviously many others that you may wish to suggest. Whether to ask them will be determined by such things as popularity in this sampling, ability to bring guests to the site, appropriateness to the issues at hand and likely availability. (Unfortunately, Congressional Representatives have an Ethics Rule that limits participation in outside fundraising activities so they are unlikely to be able to participate in an event of this sort.) By “live blogging” we mean that the above guests will probably be available at a predetermined time, for 1 to 2 hours, to answer our questions about their guest blog or their activities. They would answer questions from the comment section of their blog thread by inputting answers into the same comment thread in a chatroom fashion. In addition to these “live” guest bloggers, we hope to have at least one or two traditional, non-“live” (but, hopefully, not dead) guest blogger posts during the event as well.

LIVE GUEST BLOG TIME SLOTS: Saturday and Sunday, from 8-10am PDT, 10am-12noon PDT, 12noon-2pm PDT and 2-4pm PDT (that's 11am-1pm EDT, 1pm-3pm EDT, 3pm-5pm EDT and 5pm-7pm EDT).

FUNDRAISING ACTIVITIES: There will be numerous activities, merchandise and incentives designed to extract large quantities of gold, greenbacks and gravy from you and everyone else in the blogosphere (and beyond) that we can lure to this event. We will do our best to at least post PayPal contributions during the event and at some point after the event we will let you know what the final totals were.

Some of the activities and incentives are State Secrets and we would have to kill you if you learned about them before the event. Activities, merchandise and donation incentives that we can name include: A contest to choose a name for a German Shepherd puppy to be donated to Clint Curtis by Tracy (a Bradblogger) to replace his dog that died under mysterious circumstances after Clint became a whistleblower. A thread will run throughout the event for posting of entries (probably at a $2.00-$5.00 per entry, but exact amount and
mechanism are still to be decided) and Clint will announce the winner (of a semi-valuable prize) on the final day of the event.

We are also anticipating some silent auctions of artwork and other items THAT WE HOPE SOME OF YOU WILL DONATE FOR THIS CAUSE! Pictures and descriptions of these items will be posted on a thread on the Brad Blog or linked to at another site. Depending on the success of getting donations of such silent raffle items, they will be posted at various times in the first 2 or 3 days of the event and winners will either be posted at times throughout the event or all on the final day of the event.

In addition, we expect to have 2 or 3 items of merchandise available for purchase with all profits going to fundraising totals. Currently planned items include BradBlog bumper stickers, BradBlog t-shirts, and BradBlog coffee mugs. It may still be possible to substitute such things as BradBlog baseball caps, visors, magnets, etc. for one or more of the currently planned items if there is a strong write-in campaign waged by any of you out there.

In regards to fundraising incentives, Robert Lockwood Mills, a regular Bradblogger and an author has offered to donate copies of his book titled "The Lindbergh Syndrome: Heroes and Celebrities in a New Gilded Age" for donations of $50 or more. Any amount of such donations beyond RLM's publisher costs will go to fundraising totals. We also have a very unique (and we anticipate very desirable) fundraising incentive gift in the works that is one of those State Secrets you don't want to know about yet.

Other ideas and activities may evolve in the weeks leading up to this event. We are all ears (actually eyes) waiting to hear (actually see) any brilliant suggestions from you Bradbloggers out there.

ADVERTISING THE EVENT: We hope to start advertising the event at other progressive websites in the coming days and weeks (any help from 6 or 7 of you on this issue would also be greatly appreciated). In addition, we are hoping that one of us (planners) OR one of you proud denizens of the BradBlog will produce a graphic advertising the event which would be downloadable and could then be printed for distribution as flyers or posted at other websites. Other suggested ideas for getting the word out there include: posting flyers in your community, posting word of the event on your personal web pages, using it as your tag line on your e-mail, posting on message boards, getting your older children to invite their friends to the event, e-mailing at least one person, talking with everyone and anyone you can, posting a free ad in your local paper, putting up a notice in public places such as your library, grocery stores, workplace, school, malls, etc. It would also be GREAT if anyone could try to get some of the more progressive media to mention the event on air, in print, in
their Blogs, etc. (e.g.- on Air America, on some of the radio stations Brad has been on recently, on the Brad Show, on Raw Story).

Please contact Steve at BradBlogathonFundraiser@yahoo.com regarding any donations of artwork or other items for the event. You can also contact him regarding your additional ideas, suggestions or questions regarding this event. As a final comment, many of you have expressed the desire to help Brad in his incredibly important efforts on behalf of our faltering democracy. Some of you have made contributions but others have not had the cash to do so. THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO PUT UP OR SHUT UP in both monetary and non-monetary ways. A lot of time and effort has already been dedicated to putting this event together. Now it's up to 6 or 7 of you to give it wings and make it fly!