Berlin is surely the coolest city on earth. Erika La Tour Eiffel (AKA Erika Mauer) was my next-door neighbor for a while in Berlin.  She is an Objectum Sexual and here is her story! (You can watch all of the episodes here):

Don’t let the unique nature of her sexual orientation to turn you off to her.  She’s a badass and have accomplished amazing things in her 37+ years. She is coo, she is creative, and she is unique, for sure! I like her, she’s cool and doing cool things and definitely living her life her way.

Erika “Aya” Eiffel is authentic, amazing, and a world-class Olympic archer and was trained in Japan in the art of the Samurai sword and was actually conferred a world title in Soga-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu, san-dan (3rd level black belt) in Toyama-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu, and san-dan in the Zen Nihon To-Do Renmei:

From Erika “Aya” La Tour Eiffel’s Bio

I always had a fascination for weapons. Strange you say? Strange enough, that it lead me to start martial arts. I wanted to learn to use the Japanese katana. My plight eventually took me to Japan to study with the true masters of Japanese sword fighting. A few years ago my back nearly won the battle but after seven months of rehab, I returned and won a World Title and became the youngest instructor in the art of Soga-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu. I continued my love of the Japanese sword and earned the rank of san-dan (3rd level black belt) in Toyama-Ryu iai-batto-jutsu and also achieved san-dan in the Zen Nihon To-Do Renmei. I know, I know, I need start a webpage just dedicated to my other life as a swordswoman in Japan!

How cool is that?  Amazing!  Well, it doesn’t stop there… Erika “Aya” Eiffel transitioned away from swordsmanship to becoming an Olympic archer using her beloved recurve bow, Lance:

Archer Spotlight on Aya La Brie By Steve Ross

Having only started her archery career four years ago in 1999, Erika “Aya” La Brie had a tremendous year competitively in 2004. She was part of the Women’s Compound Team that took home a gold medal and new world record at the World Target Championships in New York City this past July. At the NAA Nationals, she shot both recurve and compound taking 10th and third place respectively. Aya also shoots the modern Longbow, traditional Japanese bow and is skilled in martial arts. I managed to catch Aya during an archery “holiday” due to a mountain bike accident.

USAA: I heard you recently had a serious mountain bike accident. What happened and will it impact your archery plans for the rest of the outdoor season?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: Well, I prefer to commute on my mountain bike as a form of cross training for my archery and last Wed. was no different. I was crossing a street on the walk signal and a truck came from the outside lane and turned in front of me. He sent me sailing when I tried to veer and brake. I flipped twice and crashed in a heap in the middle of the street. He paused only long enough to see if I was alive and sped off once I sat up.

I ended up with three mashed ribs, elbows, knee and ankle and large scrapes on my back. Fortunately, I always wear a helmet, which cracked. Otherwise, I have no crippling injuries. However, it did put a damper on the IBO Worlds, which I had to fly to the next morning followed by a five-hour drive. I managed to shoot but was in a lot of pain the whole weekend. Since my return, my training has been put on hold for the next few weeks to let my ribs and knee heal. I have never taken more than two weeks off from training and will have to rely on mental imagery until I can shoot again. Mental training helped me earlier this year when I was hospitalized for two weeks. All the experience gained from this year will help put together a good regimen until I’m ready to hit the range again.

USAA: I’m glad you’re ok and will only need a short break. You have had a fantastic year; shooting on the women’s compound team that shot a new world record must have been great.

Erika “Aya” La Brie: “Fantastic year” is more of an understatement to describe the year I’ve had! I started archery with recurve in 1999 and shot for one year before an injury forced me to shoot with a release if I wanted to continue shooting. So I picked up compound and shot for a year until last year when my hand healed and I could shoot fingers again. I switched back to recurve and made the U.S. World Field Team and alternate for the World Indoor Team. However, after shooting the Vegas Shoot this year with compound and recurve I decided I wanted to shoot both bows for NAA ranking. I had already decided I would shoot both bows at the Target Nationals, so I needed to divvy out the USAT events between both to meet the requirements. Indoor Nationals was the first step for my compound and decided the AZ Cup would be the second. The rest of the season would be recurve. Famous last words…

USAA: Tell me about shooting at the World Target event; do you treat it any different than just a normal FITA event?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I was still in a dream-like state when I arrived in New York after making the U.S. Compound Team. I never ever imagined I would win the FITA and OR at the Arizona Cup, Texas Shootout and Gold Cup! Now I was standing on the shooting line at the World Target Championships!

All my FITA’s up to that point, I had trained myself not to fear the consequences of my shooting because I shot only for me. If I shot poorly, surely I would not shrivel up and die. Now for the first time I felt the weight of being on a team and representing the USA. My teammates were all experienced veterans and after having some difficulties on the first day of the FITA, I was afraid I would not be permitted to shoot the team round as the coach and other members questioned my experience. I pushed myself even harder and achieved several personal bests in the FITA and the matches. Now I felt that I had to prove myself to my team and to my country. To my greatest relief, the coach chose me to be the starting shooter in the team round. Since I was a rookie and had no expectations other than to shoot my best, I feel very blessed that I share a world record and have a gold medal.

USAA: Did you do any special training?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: Two weeks prior to the World Target, I moved to the Archery International Training Center in Carbondale, Ill. I worked on my backup bow and practiced shooting matches and having to deal with equipment failure etc. Good thing because I had to use my backup bow for one of the team matches. But not all my training was for the Worlds. I also had to train for the ESPN Great Outdoor Games, which was held just prior to the worlds. The Games required a speed setup and also a considerably faster shooting style than I use for target.

USAA: I don’t know of many archers who in the matter of just a few years are competing at the level you are. Do you credit some of this to your background in martial arts?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I have made two world teams in four years with two different bows. I guess it is not common, but I have always felt my archery was a continuation of the martial arts I started many years prior to picking up a bow and arrow.

USAA: From what I understand you were a serious student of Japanese swordsmanship and Kyudo (Japanese archery). Can you describe this training?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: When I started martial arts, I quickly realized that contact martial arts was not a field I should explore if I wanted to preserve my kneecaps. So it seemed reasonable that I should fall in love with weapon’s work. The Japanese sword became my top choice from an arsenal of amazing traditional weapons. Along with training to draw, block and cut, I learned the value of becoming “one with your weapon.” This approach to fighting is where I found the most valuable tool for the mental game I currently use. Being so in tune with my katana definitely facilitated my way to winning the World Cup seven years ago. The katana was not a choice weapon for women. The training was rigorous and dangerous as we used live blades and actually cut in practice. Ask me how dangerous someday!

When I started Kyudo, I found myself getting very frustrated because of a handicap in my right shoulder. Regardless of how much I practiced, my shoulder refused to relinquish the flexibility I needed for certain motions in the shooting sequence. I shot four hours every day on a rooftop range at a Shinto shrine in Kamakura with my Japanese bow (yumi). Six months later I beat my entire school at a dojo tourney. I also was the first female non-Japanese to be inducted into the Ogasawara School of Mounted Archery. However, I knew that the beauty that made Kyudo an art would never be found with the imperfections in my form. I never even cared if I hit the target. I only wanted to shoot with beautiful style and form. I most definitely credit my training in martial arts to my advancement in archery. My bow is NOT equipment but an extension of my own being, just as my katana and my yumi were. My form, also unorthodox in many ways, is a style of my own and one that I am committed to.

USAA: You shoot Olympic style recurve, FITA compound, and various traditional bows. As for tournaments, you participate in NAA, 3-D, FITA and NFAA. Am I missing anything?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I am still new to 3-D but have competed in a couple ASA and IBO tournaments each. I would like to shoot more 3-D but most are on the other side of the Mississippi. Since moving to Colorado, I have enjoyed shooting in CSAA (Colorado State Archery Association) tournaments and have broken nine state records since last December with all three bows. I am also new to the NFAA this year and was surprised to find a whole different organization with a different approach to target and field shooting as compared to the NAA.

USAA: Do you find it difficult switching between styles?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: This is the most frequently asked question. I learned recurve from a coach in Japan, but I taught myself to shoot compound and recently, modern longbow. Strange enough, my styles are so different from each other that I do not find it hard to switch, even in the same tournament and on occasion, the same shooting line. I find it a challenge to shoot all three bows at the same event, kind of like an archery triathlon.

USAA: Do you have a personal coach?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: When I started recurve archery in April of 1999, I had a wonderful coach for six months: Tastuo Nobori. He was my only coach and was very strict about mental and physical conditioning. But the foundations that he laid, I still use today. I’ve never had a compound coach. I just wanted to continue shooting so badly that I figured out how by applying what I learned with recurve to compound.

USAA:What is your training schedule like?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I try to shoot four hours every day with focus on repetition of my shot sequence. At the end of training I usually do stamina exercises with my bow followed by a short run. I also cross-train by riding 30-50 miles or more a week on my mountain bike. I also jog 5 miles/run, a couple times per week. Every night just before bed I take a hot shower and stretch for 20 min. NO exceptions! I also do a lot of visual training using former pressure situations as the model.

USAA: Would you like to mention anyone in particular for giving you support this year?

Erika “Aya” La Brie: I never dreamed I would have the support that I do in archery. My greatest being from the Lord above. My sponsors are TechnoHunt, Doinker, Sure-Loc, Golden Key Futura, Carter and Specialty Archery. I would like to thank Hoyt USA for making great compound and recurve bows.

USAA: What are your compound and recurve setups?

Compound: 60# Hoyt UltraTec XT3000 Cam 1½, Easton X-10 500 Spin Wings, SureLoc Supreme, Specialty Super Scope 6X, Doinker² Stabilizer,

Recurve: 44# Hoyt Avalon+ and FX Limbs, Easton ACE 570, SureLoc FITA Extreme

She is also on the 2009 National Team for Archery, Recurve Bow:

The 2009 Senior USAT Team includes:

Recurve

Men       Women

Dan Schuller – Mercer, PA   Karen Scavotto – Enfield, CT

Joe McGlyn – Floral Park, NY  Erin Mickelberry – Bothell, WA

Jason McKittrick – Holton, IN  Stephanie Miller – Naperville, IL

Dakota Sinclair – Ridgecrest, CA  Lori Cieslinski – Howell, MI

Ted Holland – Westminster, CO  Kendra Harvey – Rio Rancho, NM

Jake Kaminski – Edgewater, FL  Erika “Aya” Eiffel – Suisun, CA

Timm Hines – Kent, WA   Amanda Nichols – Cheyenne, WY

Tyler Domenech – Holtwood, PA  *Jennifer Nichols – Cheyenne, WY

*Vic Wunderle – Mason City, IL  *Khatuna Lorig – Los Angeles, CA

Here are some more newspaper articles you can check out:

Woman with objects fetish marries Eiffel Tower

Erika La Tour Eiffel, 37, a former soldier who lives in San Francisco, has been in love with objects before. Her first infatuation was with Lance, a bow that helped her to become a world-class archer, she is fond of the Berlin Wall and she claims to have a physical relationship with a piece of fence she keeps in her bedroom.

But it is the Eiffel Tower she has pledged to love, honour and obey in an intimate ceremony attended by a handful of friends.

She has changed her name legally to reflect the bond.

Before returning to Paris for her first wedding anniversary, Mrs La Tour Eiffel visits the Berlin Wall, where her affection for what many Germans see as a symbol of repression leads to an uncomfortable encounter with a member of the staff at the Checkpoint Charlie museum.

She explained that she feels an affinity with the wall: “I am the Berlin Wall. Hate me, try to break me apart, but I will still be here, standing.”

‘I married the Eiffel Tower’

Imagine a world in which people seem hostile while inanimate objects appear friendly – even affectionate. Imagine dreading the touch of another human but longing for a passionate encounter with a large public structure. This is the strange world of the “objectum sexual”– a group of people, mainly women, whose intimate lives revolve around objects with which they say they share romantic and sexual love.

As a documentary film-maker passionate about exploring psychological aspects of human nature, I have made films about bigamists, domestic violence and co-dependent anorexic twins. Modern society is a never-ending source of these stories. It is still exceptional for a father to lock up his daughter for 24 years in a cellar, but scratch the surface and it seems that good personal relationships are rare. To fill their emotional needs, people are increasingly turning to a variety of substitutes: from internet virtual reality and food to… well, objects.

On first meeting, Erika La Tour Eiffel appears extraordinarily ordinary. An ex-US Army soldier, the 36-year-old lives in San Francisco. She is also a former world champion in archery – propelled to success, she believes, by her love for Lance, a bow. She now claims to be married to the Eiffel Tower, following a ceremony with friends last year in Paris, at which she promised eternal love to the iron monument and changed her name legally to reflect the bond. “There is a huge problem with being in love with a public object,” she says sadly. “The issue of intimacy – or rather lack of it – is forever present.”

She is currently married to the Berlin Mauer, which is why her name has changed to Erika Mauer.

I posted version one of this article on my blog already. I showed it to Matt Creamer, my editor over at AdAge, and he told me he didn’t care if I had already posted it but that I would need to add a couple primer paragraphs to bring people into the history behind the Whopper Virgins controversy. I wrote a couple-few paragraphs and submitted and Matt posted it yesterday, One Whopper … and Hold the Ugly-American Sauce:

One Whopper … and Hold the Ugly-American Sauce

Burger King Campaign Shows Off American Provincialism at Its Worse

Burger King has brought the Whopper vs. Big Mac taste test to the farthest corners of the globe in search of Whopper Virgins. According to the site, there are still people in the world who have never been marketed to by either McDonald’s or Burger King, to say nothing of having tasted the two flagship burgers of each fast-food restaurant. For these people, Whoppers and Big Macs were either spirited to them from the closest restaurants–In the case of Bucharest, Romania, both were within 15 minutes–or the burgers were made by hand by a quality expert on a specially-designed propane travel flame broiler.

Whopper Virgins promised to be a proper documentary film, I was assured. The filmmakers would simply find people who have not been market-bombed by McDonald’s — a few of the uncorrupted — and allow them to taste both burgers et voila! Nothing could go wrong, surely, from such a noble aim, right? I mean, their goal was to simply escape the mediasphere and find some folks who have remained (until, of course, now) pure from the media machine (Schrodinger’s documentary!).

Of course, a lot of the buzz about this documentary happened on Twitter, especially in light of Motrin Moms and the Pepsi suicide ads. People have been very leery of the entire endeavor. And, of course, it has been called American imperialism.

The Whopper Virgins documentary reveals as much about the provincialism of Americans as it does possibly about the “primitives” they’re documenting. Besides, the American obsession with the “Noble Savage” is so 18th century. And this sort of untoward behavior is the furthest thing from noblesse oblige. They are neither being noble nor are they honoring any sort of moral obligation.

My one question is whether authentic cultural garb was procured for these taste-testers. I hate to burst your bubble but Bucharest is a proper city with a major university. I have a friend who has her Masters in genetics and her Ph.D. in immunology. She almost never dresses in these Romanian costumes. Wait, actually never. Not only that, but this McDocumentary (sorry McDonalds) should have been edited because the open and honest interviews with the ugly Americans is appallingly insensitive and disgusting.

So, tell me, are those traditional cultural costumes authentic or monkey suits? Was this the decision of the bonehead producer or the director, or did this crisp, minty-fresh garb just happen to be what these folks were wearing? Were they just aching to be used there in the back of everyones’ closet? Or, was this the regalia these test subject were wearing when and where they were discovered? I really want to know!

The most deplorable part of this documentary is the critique and unself-aware commentary of the way these test subjects took to the burger, along the lines of “These people are so authentic because they don’t even know how to eat a burger to say nothing of a sandwich.”

My one question is whether or not authentic cultural garb was procured for these taste-testers. I hate to burst your bubble but Bucharest, Romania, is a proper city with a major university. I have a friend who has her Masters in genetics and her Ph.D. in immunology. She almost never dresses in these Romanian costumes. Wait, actual never. Not only that but this McDocumentary (sorry McDonalds) should have been edited because the open and honest interviews with the ugly Americans is appallingly insensitive and disgusting.

This documentary reveals as much about the provincialism of Americans as it does possibly about the “primatives” they’re documenting. Besides, the American obsession with the Noble Savage is so eighteenth-century. And this sort of untoward behavior is the furthest thing from Noblesse Oblige. They are neither being noble nor are they honoring any sort of moral obligation.

So, tell me, are those traditional cultural costumes authentic or monkey suits? Was this the decision of the bonehead producer, the director, or did this crisp, minty fresh garb just happen to be what these folks were wearing? Were they just aching to be used there in the back of everyones’ closet? Or, was this the regalia these test subject were wearing when and where they were discovered? I really want to know!

The most deplorable part of this documentary is the critique and un-self-aware commentary of the way these test subjects took to the burger, along the lines of, “these people are so authentic because they don’t even know how to eat a burger to say nothing of a sandwich.”

I am actually deeply appalled and embarrassed to be an American at just about now.

Egad!

This morning I was listening to Tapestry from the CBC and they were talking about the Netherworlds, including stuff about Anne Rice. What interested me was a segment on elves and faeries. The segment focused on how folks from Iceland and Newfoundland truly believe in elves and faeries. It made me think about growing up in Hawaii and how everybody I knew believed in both the menehunes and the nightmarchers.

In fact, we really believed in menehunes and many of us residents saw examples of the sort of endless, ancient, black lava rock walls that cut the verdant countryside. The fish ponds of almost super-human proportions. Even viaducts that carry water And, even more, we were always wary about running around in the wilderness at night. The menehune were pranksters. They are sometimes called “little people” — the same word they use in Ireland — because they’re supposed to be small, strong, mischievous, and only come out at night. They, too, are supposed to by mystical, minor deities, and also capable of reproducing with people, resulting in very blessed children.

The nightmarchers are different. There is no doubt that these are ghosts who don’t really know they’re dead, per se. They’re still making marches through the forest, and heaven forbid if you build your new home in the path of their marches. Many people have head them and some have seen their flaming torches.

In fact, my dad, Bob Abraham, who spent many years digging deep into Hawaiian culture as a photographer, told me that he heard the nightmarchers one night. In fact, my dad had stories of many experiences with ghosts and spirits in Hawaii Nei.

Here are two good resources I have discovered about them both:

Hawaiian Legends – Nightmarchers, Menehune, and the Tiki Gods

By: Celeste “Sally” Cheeseman, Century 21 Liberty Homes, Mililani, HI 96789 (Localism.com Featured Article)

HAWAIIAN Spirits and Superstitions covered only a sliver of our Spirits and Superstions in Hawaii. Remember I mentioned that we had our home blessed because our home was in the path of the warriors marching? We will now embark on one Hawaiian legend, ….The Nightmarchers.

The Nightmarchers are the ghosts of ancient Hawaiian high ranking warriors. They say that they come forth during the night from their burial sites to march where they battled or march on to other sacred areas. It is said that if you live near their path of marching you will see their torches or hear the chanting, the marching and/or the drums beating faintly. Place ti plants or leaves around your house to keep away evil spirits and the “nightmarchers” to avoid the area as well. The most famous of these “marching” paths of the Nightmarcher’s is along the Pali where Kamehameha fought the last battle.

In Hawaii, the Menehune, are “little people” that stand two feet high. Similar to pixi’s or trolls the Menehune roam the deep forests at night. They are very strong and are master builders and said to accomplish many projects over night! There are many stories how they came to be in Hawaii. One version is that they were the first settlers in Hawaii that came from the descendants of the Marquesas Islanders and resided here between the years of 0-350 A.D. Supposedly, the “bigger people” from Tahiti came and the Menehune ran off into the caves in mountains and only came out at night for food.

My mother was born and raised on Kauai with her 7 sisters and 1 brother. Later on, one of my Auntie’s married and moved to Waimea Kauai. When my cousin and I were 10 and 11 our mom’s would let us go to Kauai to visit my Aunt and Uncle for the summer. She lived right on Menehune Road and at the end of the road was the “Menehune Ditch”. The high chief of Waimea, “Ola” received aid from the Menehune to divert water from the Waimea River to their taro patches and supposedly made this ancient acqueduct overnight!

Anyway, my cousin claimed she must be a Menehune as well because she was very short and tried to go in the passageway in the Menehune Ditch in the mountain……I ran away afraid that something might happen! (The opening is in the picture to the right)

Menehune by Hugh D. Mailly on Encyclopedia Mythica

The folklore of many nations around the world include stories of magical little people. The most famous of course, are the leprechauns of Ireland. In Hawaii, it is the mischievous Menehune who are said to haunt the deep forests or the mountains of Pu’ukapele (“Hills of Pele”). They come out mostly at night to play tricks on people, or to serve them if they feel that way inclined.

The mythology of the Menehune is as old as the beginnings of Polynesian history. Some say that the great god Maui himself, was one of the tiny creatures. When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, they found dams, fish-ponds, and even Heiaus (temples), all presumably built by the Menehune who were already there, living in caves.

The creatures are said to be about two feet high, although some have been seen as small as six inches, capable of fitting in the palm of someone’s hand. They are always naked, but the long straight hair that falls to their knees keeps them warm and discreet. Apparently no two of them are the same, and they can be so moody as to be malicious and dangerous one day, and simply harmless the next. But they are always tricky, and therefore should be avoided, unless a special favor is absolutely needed of them.

In the old times, some Hawaiians married Menehune girls, who were said to be quite fair, but needed to be shown how to make a fire and eat cooked food, because their own diet consisted only of starchy raw vegetables. The services of Menehune expert builders and craftsmen can be requested. This is especially so, if you can trace your family tree back to one of them. They then act like benevolent godparents. Many a major project, such as the preparation of a wedding feast, has been completed in a single night by the super strong little gods, while all humans slept.

Menehune are afraid of owls. On the island of Kauai, the Menehune sometimes sneak in among the people there and pull too many tricks. That is when the owl god of Paupueo (owl hill) summons all the owls of Kauai to chase the Menehune back into the forest.

The little ones are fond of dancing, and singing, and of sports, such as shooting arrows. Sometimes they use magic arrows, to pierce the heart of angry persons, and make them feel love instead. They also truly enjoy diving off cliffs into the surf. If you hear splashes in the night at Kaanapali, it is possibly a Menehune diving off Black Rock! But you would have to move impossibly quick to ever see one.

I would have never guessed that Camille Paglia would be in awe of Sara Palin or perceive her as follows, “Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.” Whoa. (Via Salon.com)

Fresh blood for the vampire

Rip tide! Is the Obama campaign shooting out to sea like a paper boat?

It’s heavy weather for Obama fans, as momentum has suddenly shifted to John McCain — that hoary, barnacle-encrusted tub that many Democrats like me had thought was full of holes and swirling to its doom in the inky depths of Republican incoherence and fratricide. Gee whilikers, the McCain vampire just won’t die! Hit him with a hammer, and he explodes like a jellyfish into a hundred hungry pieces.

Oh, the sadomasochistic tedium of McCain’s imprisonment in Hanoi being told over and over and over again at the Republican convention. Do McCain’s credentials for the White House really consist only of that horrific ordeal? Americans owe every heroic, wounded veteran an incalculable debt of gratitude, but how do McCain’s sufferings in a tiny, squalid cell 40 years ago logically translate into presidential aptitude in the 21st century? Cast him a statue or slap his name on a ship, and let’s turn the damned page.We need a new generation of leadership with fresh ideas and an expansive, cosmopolitan vision — which is why I support Barack Obama and have contributed to his campaign. My baby-boom generation — typified by the narcissistic Clintons — peaked in the 1960s and is seriously past it. But McCain, born before Pearl Harbor, is even older than we are! Why would anyone believe that he holds the key to the future? And why would anyone swallow that preening passel of high-flown rhetoric about “country above all” coming from a seething, short-fused character whose rampant egotism, zigzagging principles, and currying of the gullible press were the distinguishing marks of his senatorial career?

Having said that, I must admit that McCain is currently eating Obama’s lunch. McCain’s weirdly disconnected persona (beady glowers flashing to frozen grins and back again) has started to look more testosterone-rich than Obama’s easy, lanky, reflective candor. What in the world possessed the Obama campaign to let their guy wander like a dazed lamb into a snake pit of religious inquisition like Rick Warren’s public forum last month at his Saddleback Church in California? That shambles of a performance — where a surprisingly unprepared Obama met the inevitable question about abortion with shockingly curt glibness — began his alarming slide.

As I said in my last column, I have become increasingly uneasy about Obama’s efforts to sound folksy and approachable by reflexively using inner-city African-American tones and locutions, which as a native of Hawaii he acquired relatively late in his development and which are painfully wrong for the target audience of rural working-class whites that he has been trying to reach. Obama on the road and even in major interviews has been droppin’ his g’s like there’s no tomorrow. It’s analogous to the way stodgy, portly Al Gore (evidently misadvised by the women in his family and their feminist pals) tried to zap himself up on the campaign trail into the happening buff dude that he was not. Both Gore and Obama would have been better advised to pursue a calm, steady, authoritative persona. Forget the jokes — be boring! That, alas, is what reads as masculine in the U.S.

The over-the-top publicity stunt of a mega-stadium for Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention two weeks ago was a huge risk that worried me sick — there were too many things that could go wrong, from bad weather to crowd control to technical glitches on the overblown set. But everything went swimmingly. Obama delivered the speech nearly flawlessly — though I was shocked and disappointed by how little there was about foreign policy, a major area where wavering voters have grave doubts about him. Nevertheless, it was an extraordinary event with an overlong but strangely contemplative and spiritually uplifting finale. The music, amid the needlessly extravagant fireworks, morphed into “Star Wars” — a New Age hymn to cosmic reconciliation and peace.

After that extravaganza, marking the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s epochal civil rights speech on the Washington Mall, I felt calmly confident that the Obama campaign was going to roll like a gorgeous juggernaut right over the puny, fossilized McCain. The next morning, it was as if the election were already over. No need to fret about American politics anymore this year. I had already turned with relief to other matters.

Pow! Wham! The Republicans unleashed a doozy — one of the most stunning surprises that I have ever witnessed in my adult life. By lunchtime, Obama’s triumph of the night before had been wiped right off the national radar screen. In a bold move I would never have thought him capable of, McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his pick for vice president. I had heard vaguely about Palin but had never heard her speak. I nearly fell out of my chair. It was like watching a boxing match or a quarter of hard-hitting football — or one of the great light-saber duels in “Star Wars.” (Here are the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, going at it with Darth Maul in “The Phantom Menace.”) This woman turned out to be a tough, scrappy fighter with a mischievous sense of humor.

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.

In the U.S., the ultimate glass ceiling has been fiendishly complicated for women by the unique peculiarity that our president must also serve as commander in chief of the armed forces. Women have risen to the top in other countries by securing the leadership of their parties and then being routinely promoted to prime minister when that party won at the polls. But a woman candidate for president of the U.S. must show a potential capacity for military affairs and decision-making. Our president also symbolically represents the entire history of the nation — a half-mystical role often filled elsewhere by a revered if politically powerless monarch.

As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago that young American women aspiring to political power should be studying military history rather than taking women’s studies courses, with their rote agenda of never-ending grievances. I have repeatedly said that the politician who came closest in my view to the persona of the first woman president was Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose steady nerves in crisis were demonstrated when she came to national attention after the mayor and a gay supervisor were murdered in their City Hall offices in San Francisco. Hillary Clinton, with her schizophrenic alteration of personae, has never seemed presidential to me — and certainly not in her bland and overpraised farewell speech at the Democratic convention (which skittered from slow, pompous condescension to trademark stridency to unseemly haste).

Feinstein, with her deep knowledge of military matters, has true gravitas and knows how to shrewdly thrust and parry with pesky TV interviewers. But her style is reserved, discreet, mandarin. The gun-toting Sarah Palin is like Annie Oakley, a brash ambassador from America’s pioneer past. She immediately reminded me of the frontier women of the Western states, which first granted women the right to vote after the Civil War — long before the federal amendment guaranteeing universal woman suffrage was passed in 1919. Frontier women faced the same harsh challenges and had to tackle the same chores as men did — which is why men could regard them as equals, unlike the genteel, corseted ladies of the Eastern seaboard, which fought granting women the vote right to the bitter end.

Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics — which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama’s campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don’t see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it.

One reason I live in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia and have never moved to New York or Washington is that, as a cultural analyst, I want to remain in touch with the mainstream of American life. I frequent fast-food restaurants, shop at the mall, and periodically visit Wal-Mart (its bird-seed section is nonpareil). Like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Manhattan and Washington occupy their own mental zones — nice to visit but not a place to stay if you value independent thought these days. Ambitious professionals in those cities, if they want to preserve their social networks, are very vulnerable to received opinion. At receptions and parties (which I hate), they’re sitting ducks. They have to go along to get along — poor dears!

It is certainly premature to predict how the Palin saga will go. I may not agree a jot with her about basic principles, but I have immensely enjoyed Palin’s boffo performances at her debut and at the Republican convention, where she astonishingly dealt with multiple technical malfunctions without missing a beat. A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn’t worth a warm bucket of spit.

Perhaps Palin seemed perfectly normal to me because she resembles so many women I grew up around in the snow belt of upstate New York. For example, there were the robust and hearty farm women of Oxford, a charming village where my father taught high school when I was a child. We first lived in an apartment on the top floor of a farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Our landlady, who was as physically imposing as her husband, was an all-American version of the Italian immigrant women of my grandmother’s generation — agrarian powerhouses who could do anything and whose trumpetlike voices could pierce stone walls.

Here’s one episode. My father and his visiting brother, a dapper barber by trade, were standing outside having a smoke when a great noise came from the nearby barn. A calf had escaped. Our landlady yelled, “Stop her!” as the calf came careening at full speed toward my father and uncle, who both instinctively stepped back as the calf galloped through the mud between them. Irate, our landlady trudged past them to the upper pasture, cornered the calf, and carried that massive animal back to the barn in her arms. As she walked by my father and uncle, she exclaimed in amused disgust, “Men!”

Now that’s the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism — a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.

Here’s another example of the physical fortitude and indomitable spirit that Palin as an Alaskan sportswoman seems to represent right now. Last year, Toronto’s Globe and Mail reprinted this remarkable obituary from 1905:

Abigail Becker Farmer and homemaker born in Frontenac County, Upper Canada, on March 14, 1830

A tall, handsome woman “who feared God greatly and the living or dead not at all,” she married a widower with six children and settled in a trapper’s cabin on Long Point, Lake Erie. On Nov. 23, 1854, with her husband away, she single-handedly rescued the crew of the schooner Conductor of Buffalo, which had run aground in a storm. The crew had clung to the frozen rigging all night, not daring to enter the raging surf. In the early morning, she waded chin-high into the water (she could not swim) and helped seven men reach shore. She was awarded medals for heroism and received $350 collected by the people of Buffalo, plus a handwritten letter from Queen Victoria that was accompanied by £50, all of which went toward buying a farm. She lost her husband to a storm, raised 17 children alone and died at Walsingham Centre, Ont.

Frontier women were far bolder and hardier than today’s pampered, petulant bourgeois feminists, always looking to blame their complaints about life on someone else.

But what of Palin’s pro-life stand? Creationism taught in schools? Book banning? Gay conversions? The Iraq war as God’s plan? Zionism as a prelude to the apocalypse? We’ll see how these big issues shake out. Right now, I don’t believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media. To automatically assume that she is a religious fanatic who has embraced the most extreme ideas of her local church is exactly the kind of careless reasoning that has been unjustly applied to Barack Obama, whom the right wing is still trying to tar with the fulminating anti-American sermons of his longtime preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

Let’s take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body. (Hence I favor the legalization of drugs, though I do not take them.) Nevertheless, I have criticized the way that abortion became the obsessive idée fixe of the post-1960s women’s movement — leading to feminists’ McCarthyite tactics in pitting Anita Hill with her flimsy charges against conservative Clarence Thomas (admittedly not the most qualified candidate possible) during his nomination hearings for the Supreme Court. Similarly, Bill Clinton’s support for abortion rights gave him a free pass among leading feminists for his serial exploitation of women — an abusive pattern that would scream misogyny to any neutral observer.

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, “Sexual Personae,”) has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature’s fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman’s body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman’s entrance into society and citizenship.

On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty. Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution?

What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and rhetorical formulas will it be able to deal effectively with the enduring and now escalating challenge from the pro-life right wing. Because pro-choice Democrats have been arguing from cold expedience, they have thus far been unable to make an effective ethical case for the right to abortion.

The gigantic, instantaneous coast-to-coast rage directed at Sarah Palin when she was identified as pro-life was, I submit, a psychological response by loyal liberals who on some level do not want to open themselves to deep questioning about abortion and its human consequences. I have written about the eerie silence that fell over campus audiences in the early 1990s when I raised this issue on my book tours. At such moments, everyone in the hall seemed to feel the uneasy conscience of feminism. Naomi Wolf later bravely tried to address this same subject but seems to have given up in the face of the resistance she encountered.

If Sarah Palin tries to intrude her conservative Christian values into secular government, then she must be opposed and stopped. But she has every right to express her views and to argue for society’s acceptance of the high principle of the sanctity of human life. If McCain wins the White House and then drops dead, a President Palin would have the power to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court, but she could not control their rulings.

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism — one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

But the one fundamental precept that Democrats must stand for is independent thought and speech. When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma, Democrats have committed political suicide.

Camille Paglia’s column appears on the second Wednesday of each month. Every third column is devoted to reader letters. Please send questions for her next letters column to this mailbox. Your name and town will be published unless you request anonymity.

Last week Thursday morning, I participated as a social media PR expert and panelist in a very cool Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference entitled Beyond Twitter PR. Here’s some information on the call-in audio conference:

8/28/08 – Beyond Twitter PR: The New Rules of Crafting a Powerful, Cost-Effective Social Media Strategy

New media communications, social media optimization, Web 2.0 marketing, Facebook publicity, even Twitter PR. No matter how you tag the movement—it’s clear today’s engagement media and online channels from blogs to online video to social networks and even virtual worlds are bonafide communication tools. Practitioners who can master these mediums and create PR-driven social media strategies that generate real results for clients and companies alike—are sure to rule the integrated and digital marketing mix (and budget). Join Bulldog Reporter’s exclusive panel of the nation’s foremost experts successfully practicing in the nexus between PR and exciting new technologies to learn how you can beat the competition and successfully incorporate Web 2.0 tools into traditional PR programs. If you’re new to the social media revolution and its impact on communications, this is one call that will bring your work (and career trajectory!) up to speed. If you’re already incorporating social media and Web 2.0 techniques into your PR programs, this 90-minute, intensive call is a sure way to take your online efforts to the next level and position your team, client or company well ahead of the competition, while engaging consumers, customers and public in exciting, productive and profitable new ways.

It was a very amazing speaker panel:

Kate Laufer, Senior Public Relations Manager, North America, Beam Global
Spirits & Wine
Paula Berg, Manager, Emerging Media, Southwest Airlines
Doug Hay, CEO, Co-Founder, Expansion Plus
Susan Getgood, Principal, GetGood Strategic Marketing
Chris Abraham, President/COO, Abraham Harrison

If you like what you read, you are welcome to listen to the event by either ordering the conference CD or by requesting it on demand.

Richard C. Levin, the President of Yale, just popped its alumni an email announcing the expansion of Yale College — growing the hallowed university by two residential colleges:

I am pleased to announce that the Yale Corporation has authorized increasing the enrollment of Yale College through the creation of two new residential colleges. This expansion will allow us to make an even greater contribution to society by preparing a larger number of talented and promising students of all backgrounds for leadership and service.

This is an excellent time for Yale to expand. Harvard and Yale had to reject most of all the applicants who applied to matriculate this Fall — many of whom were exceptional and some of whom were the sons and daughters of Harvard and Yale graduates — legacy applicants. The questions remains: will the increase of placement supply affect the brand integrity of this exclusive — and arguably finest — undergraduate education? What do you think?

You may not have heard but we’re entering what is called the “echo boom:”

The Echo Boom generation is an expansive term for children born between roughly 1988 and 1992 (though sources disagree on the exact years). In 1989 the number of live births exceeded four million for the first time since 1964, and the Echo Boom peaked in 1990 (33 years after the peak of the Baby Boom) with 4.16 million live births, the greatest number since 1962 in the United States.^[1] Children of this generation are called Echo Boomers, a reference to the fact that the generation falls between about 30 and 36 years after the Baby Boomer generation, and thus many Echo Boomers are the children of Baby Boomers.

While the lure of a larger incoming class of elite and monied incoming Freshmen into their undergraduate programs may be too attractive to resist, there is always the possibility that the quality and exclusiveness of Yale — its brand reputation — could well be eroded by this expansion. Also, since one of Yale College’s appeal is the tradition behind each of its residential college, I wonder how incoming Freshmen will take to becoming part of starting a new tradition?

There is a serious deficit of elite university inventory. We are going through a renaissance of academia and a national passion to be truly rewarded with a spot at a top-five undergraduate education where a second tier college won’t do. Many universities are desperately trying to expand not just their capacity but also their services, their resources. And, why not generate more income and also expand the ranks of a very devoted, generally well-healed alumni who will generally do whatever they can to give back on the investment that Yale made in them — and that devotion is palpable.

So, what to do, what to do?

What’s more, many of the children of baby boomer Yalies can’t get their children into Yale. So, many of these expansion are being made to be able to accept more legacy student as well as the growing tide of superboys and supergirls who have their hearts set on the Harvards, Yales, Princetons, Berkeleys, Stanfords, and the lesser Ivies.

Anyway, for you amusement, here’s the letter that President Richard C. Levin sent its alumni (also viewable via the web):

Dear Yale Alumni and Parents:

I am pleased to announce that the Yale Corporation has authorized increasing the enrollment of Yale College through the creation of two new residential colleges. This expansion will allow us to make an even greater contribution to society by preparing a larger number of talented and promising students of all backgrounds for leadership and service.

We will achieve this goal while ensuring that the quality of the Yale College educational and social experience will be as extraordinary as ever.

As I stated in February, when we shared the report of the Study Group to Consider New Residential Colleges, the last significant increase in the size of the Yale College student body came with the admission of women in 1969. By 1978, undergraduate enrollment first reached 5,200, and it has remained between 5,150 and 5,350 ever since. When women were first allowed to apply to Yale College, the number of applications soared immediately from 6,781 to 10,039, and the number fluctuated between 9,000 and 13,000 until 2001, when it began a steady rise to its current level of 22,500, spurred by dramatic improvements in financial aid, wider awareness of Yale’s accessibility, the extension of full need-based aid to international students, and a growing appreciation of the quality of a Yale College education. Along with the rise in applications has come an equally dramatic increase in the percentage of those admitted who accept Yale’s offer, from 53 percent when I became president, to over 70 percent in recent years.

The principal result of these changes in the admissions picture is that Yale College has become significantly more selective. From 1969 to 2000, the percentage of applicants admitted to Yale College ranged from 18 to 27 percent. It was above 20 percent as recently as 1999. Today, Yale College admits fewer than 10 percent of its applicants. Admissions officers agree that in each of the past several years we have denied admission to hundreds of applicants who would have been admitted ten years ago.

The mission of Yale College is to seek exceptionally promising students of all backgrounds from across the nation and around the world and to educate them, through mental discipline and social experience, to develop their intellectual, moral, civic and creative capacities. The aim of this education is the cultivation of citizens with a rich awareness of our heritage to lead and serve in every sphere of human activity. For three centuries, we have made this aspiration a reality, to the great benefit of the nation and, increasingly, the world. Today, we have a long queue of highly qualified applicants who collectively would allow Yale to make an even greater contribution to society if more could be educated here. In addition, since the late-1970s, when the undergraduate population ceased to grow, Yale is larger in virtually every dimension: faculty, staff, library and museum resources, and physical presence. We are well poised, therefore, to expand.

Our 12 existing residential colleges are admired because they create intimate communities and a superb environment for learning. The new colleges will emulate Yale’s proven model with a master, dean, fellows, and students forming a close-knit family, supported by the highest caliber public and private spaces for living and study. With an anticipated opening in 2013, these colleges will allow us not only to increase the undergraduate student body by about 15 percent, but also to alleviate crowding throughout the residential college system. We expect to reduce the population of the existing colleges by approximately 140 students and largely eliminate the need for annex housing.

Our goal is that students in every residential college, old and new, will have an even more robust and enlivening experience as a result of this expansion. Thus, we are adding facilities in the vicinity of the new colleges that support academics and student life, including classroom space, a student café, exercise facilities, a theater, and more. We are also expanding the faculty to sustain our favorable ratio of students to teachers, particularly in highly subscribed majors, and we are growing our system of academic advising. New resources will augment curricular development, student research, study abroad, and the whole range of extracurricular activities so important to a Yale education.

The new colleges will be built in a triangle just north of the Grove Street Cemetery bounded by Prospect, Canal, and Sachem Streets, creating a new sense of the geography of our campus by enlarging the footprint of Yale College. I believe that the presence of undergraduate residences north of Grove Street will alter the perception that Science Hill is “too far away” from the “center” of campus. In fact, the site proposed for the new colleges is only three blocks north of Elm Street, which divides the Old Campus and the Cross Campus. As the Study Group Report indicates, the new colleges have the potential of making the whole campus seem smaller, more effectively linking Science Hill with the historic “center” through the proper treatment of Prospect Street, the creation of appropriate “stepping stones” along the way, and the development of facilities for student activities at, near, and beyond the site of the new colleges.

To support the expansion of Yale College, the Corporation has authorized an increase in the goal of the Yale Tomorrow fundraising campaign from $3 billion to $3.5 billion. I am delighted to announce that, thanks to generous commitments from a handful of leadership donors, we have already secured $140 million in gifts and pledges for this purpose.

Almost 80 years ago, Edward H. Harkness, B.A. 1897, gave the funds to create Yale’s residential college system. He saw the residential colleges as a way to sustain the collegiate spirit in a school that was fast becoming a university. Since then, Yale College has grown in ways that Harkness never predicted. The student body has doubled, women have been enrolled, and young people have been welcomed from more than 100 nations. Remarkably, the members of this vast and vibrant enterprise still consider themselves part of a family. This is Harkness’s great legacy, and one that we will preserve in a new era of expansion. I am grateful for the outstanding work of the Study Group for providing us with wise counsel on how to achieve this objective.

Sincerely yours,

Richard C. Levin

So, what do you think?

Abraham & Harrison offers its clients comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing campaigns based on the core fundamentals of effective Marketing Communication techniques. We integrate Online Publicity, Online Grassroots & New Media Marketing, Business Intelligence and Search Engine Services to ensure that our clients’ message, the right message, is being portrayed in every corner of the digital space. Additionally, we offer our expertise in the areas of profiling, intelligence, forensics and crisis management. Although Abraham & Harrison offers its clients the ability to cherry pick the services that best suit their needs, we strongly suggest customized, tailored packages of services for most clients, as our experience has proven the power of an integrated, comprehensive approach.

Please see our website for further information: http://www.abrahamharrison.com/

Abraham Harrison LLC Services

Online Publicity and Blogger Relations

Not unlike traditional public relations, the Abraham & Harrison Online Publicity and Blogger Relations strategy not only identifies the right people for you to be talking to, but also connects these people with your brand and your message. In targeting the true online opinion leaders, we are able to not only hone in on the demographic communities that matter most to your brand, but also promote your products and services in a favorable light. Online Public Relations is an ideal brand awareness and brand promotion solution for small to mid-sized businesses looking to increase their visibility online. In leveraging the constant flow of online chatter, the Abraham & Harrison team creates and fosters relationships based on like-mindedness, or the opinion leader’s likelihood to be receptive to your brand and messaging. It is the relationship building aspect of this program that makes Online Publicity an optimal solution for prospective clients that have the infrastructure to support and maintain relationships with interested parties.

Examples of typical Online Publicity campaigns include: Event Publicity, New Product Launches, Crisis Communication, Brand Re-Information Campaigns, Overall Brand Awareness/Promotional Efforts.

Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing

Also referred to as Online Advocacy or Online Guerilla Marketing, Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing is an integrated approach to identifying and reaching your targeted demographic from the bottom up. These programs are a quick and effect means of spreading news and information to a targeted network of online influencers within the blogosphere, message boards, video communities, social bookmarking sites, listservs, etc. This strategy involves the development of key creative and general messaging by the client and allowing our team of Online Grassroots experts to run with it, determining the best way to roll that up into what the demographic audience would be most receptive to. As opposed to the much targeted approach of Online Publicity, Online Grassroots Marketing allows us to capitalize on the “long tail,” or the complex nature of online chatter in which dialogue about our client’s brands isn’t always localized within its primary, secondary or tertiary demographic targets.

Examples of typical Online Grassroots Marketing campaigns include: Social Network Marketing, Asset Distribution, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing.

Business Intelligence

Collectively, the Abraham & Harrison Management Team has over 5 decades of global branding and marketing communication strategy experience. It is with these years of experience that we have learned that for some clients, their bottom line is most affected by having real-time, accurate business intelligence information about market landscape, trends in their overall brand perception and valuable online opinion about their competitors. The deliverable on these initiatives is a comprehensive, detailed report, evaluating and analyzing trends within the mediasphere; blogosphere; user generated content outlets, message boards and forums. The Online Business Intelligence service also gives the prospective client to determine which demographic communities about which they are most interested in gaining information. These reports can be delivered as a one-time State of the Union analysis or as an ongoing trend analysis, depending on the client’s needs.

Search Engine Services

Brand of the world, large and small, know that visibility of favorable content within key search engines can make or break your marketing and public relations initiatives. In addition to offering tailored marketing communication and business intelligence solutions to our clients, Abraham & Harrison is also a full-service Search Engine Marketing agency. Programs falling within this department include: Traditional Search Engine Optimization (Promotion), Defensive Search Engine Optimization (Protection), Domain Name Protection and Domain Name Services.

Online Reputation Clean-Up and Defense

Despite providing Internet users with a wealth of accurate information, some brands have faced the hard reality of the adverse affects that negative online chatter and mis-information can have. Fortunately, the majority of these trends can be reversed, if treated early and in the right way. By providing clients in need of Online Reputation Clean-Up and Defense services, the Abraham & Harrison team harnesses the power of an integrated approach to attach negative opinions and misinformation from all sides. In combining our Search Engine Services (including Domain Name and Defensive SEO), Online Public Relations, Business Intelligence and our Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing Programs, the Abraham & Harrison team is able to deliver quick results. In the past, we have proven effective in minimizing the visibility of unfavorable content online, countering misinformation with real information and creating valuable allies among online opinion leaders on behalf of our clients.

About the Founding Partners

Mark Harrison, Founding Partner and CEO

Mr. Harrison’s unique history of professional experience blends technology, education, business, and international affairs. Trained as a diplomat, Mr. Harrison has worked with UNHCR, the IMF, and the World Bank Group. He has served as a political functionary, technologist, and journalist in the US, Europe, Thailand, Israel, Tanzania, and Guatemala.

He has served as CTO and Technical Counsel to a companies ranging from Fortune 500′s to start-ups, and has guided projects across the globe. He served as a technology adviser to Primedia, the US media conglomerate, Channel One, the world’s largest in-school education and television news network, and largest minority-owned TV network in the US. He has built systems and infrastructures for the afore-mentioned organizations as well as a number of other major corporations including Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and Bell Atlantic/Verizon. Mr. Harrison currently acts as CTO and marketing adviser to Techcelerator, the Silicon Valley venture development firm headed by tomandandy.com’s Tom Hajdu. He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s New York based new media marketing company, crayon LLC.

Over the past 15 years, Mr. Harrison has taught at the secondary, university, and post-graduate levels in the US, Canada, Germany &Tanzania, and has developed curricula in business, academic methodology, languages, and technology. Mr. Harrison has lived and worked in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America and speaks English, German, French, Swahili, and Spanish.

Chris Abraham, President and Founding Partner

Chris Abraham is an Internet analyst, web strategy consultant, and adviser to the industries leading firms, specializing in web2.0 technologies, including content syndication, online collaboration, blogging, and consumer generated media. Chris is a leading expert on corporate and PR blogging with a focus on citizen journalism, new marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).

In addition to his roles as consultant and analyst, Mr. Abraham currently acts as Chief Marketing Officer and technology adviser to Techcelerator, the Silicon Valley venture development firm headed by tomandandy.com’s, Tom Hajdu. He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s New York based new media marketing company, crayon LLC.

Mr. Abraham is one of the internet’s social media pioneers, having entered the scene in the early 1980′s in the days of BBS’s via dial-up over 200 Baud acoustic modems. Throughout the 1990′s, he was a core member of the ground-breaking, Washington, DC-based Meta Network (TMN), and its parent company, Caucus Systems where in 1999 what is today known as “Web 2.0″ and “Enterprise 2.0″ was defined in colleague Tom Mandel’s whitepaper “How Companies Think – Creating Collaborative Intelligence Online” and executed on a daily basis for companies, universities, and organizations via the seminal social media platform, Caucus Software. For more than a decade, Mr. Abraham laid the groundwork for today’s modern social media as an online facilitator with Caucus Systems clients serving such clients as IBM and the US Government, and teaching with the University of Kalamazoo in the Education for the Arts project – the world’s first accredited online high school course in creative writing.

Before moving to his current position, Mr. Abraham was a Senior Account Supervisor and a member of the Interactive Team at Edelman in Washington, DC, doing online public affairs. Before joining Edelman, Chris was Technology Strategist for New Media Strategies, a pioneer and industry leader in online brand promotion and brand protection. At NMS, Chris directed the technology strategy for the firm, including the development, deployment, and launch of client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts.

Prior to joining NMS, Chris was a Washington-based technologist for over a decade. As Managing Director for Berlin-based beehive North America, Chris focused on developing web applications and offering training for corporate clients such as Pfizer. As GNU/Linux SA and online facilitator for Caucus Systems, Chris hosted virtual online events and communities of practice for clients such as IBM and eForum 2000.

Chris Abraham maintains the PR and marketing blogs, Because the Medium is the Message and Marketing Conversation. The blogs were originally designed as a laboratories in which to explore the media, the mediasphere, the blogosphere, marketing, PR, and buzz marketing but has expanded to become a media filter, including technology, blogging, pop culture, memetics, news, and analysis; meaning just about anything. Chris recently spoke about the main stream media and citizen journalism on the BBC World Service radio program World Have Your Say during the We Media conference in London.

Mr. Abraham is an active member and attendee of former US Ambassador Phil Lader’s Renaissance Weekend conference where together with other industry leaders, US Senators and Congressmen, former US Presidents, renowned artists and writers, and other cultural, political, and business leaders he has spoken on topics ranging from new media to technology futurism to virtual company management. He is an experienced sailor with thousands of blue water miles to his credit, an impassioned rower with his own single shell housed on the Potomac River, an avid bicyclist, a trained and qualified dive master, and an accomplished photographer with over 20 years of professional experience and thousands of images with the world’s top stock photo agencies.

Abraham & Harrison Vision Statement

In the rapidly changing world of marketing and public relations, the lines between traditional strategies and new media strategies continue to shift as the line separating the two is constantly moving. What was once viewed as impossible, is now quickly transforming into more and more of a science, with the Internet emerging as a unique and remarkable platform for consumer and business communication. Faster now, more than ever, people around the world are able to communicate with rapid fire quickness. Formerly “untappable,” obscure word-of-mouth is now a medium that many brands are leveraging to disseminate information; promote their products and services; as well as protect their namesakes. In this day and age, we don’t need to remind you of the Internet’s effects (be it favorable or dismal) on many popular brands. It is this phenomenon that has made Online Conversation Marketing an ideal solution for a variety of notable brands, ranging from Internet start-ups to public interest groups to major consumer brands.

Abraham & Harrison is comprised of a trained team of media, marketing and public relations experts working together to drive positive online presence on behalf of our clients. Operating in a “virtual office,” the Abraham & Harrison team is spread across four continents, representing more than 10 time zones and almost a dozen languages. This dispersion has given us a notable competitive edge, allowing us to quickly and effectively employ comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing Campaigns within more than 50 countries. Despite its benefits, the “virtual office” does not provide for the ideal environment for rapid response communication, in a traditional sense. Though Abraham & Harrison has proven its ability to provide crisis communication and react to changes in campaign strategy and messaging, we do not operate in a newsroom and are unable to collectively stop on a dime and refocus in the same way that traditional PR houses are able.

Online Conversation Marketing grew out of the increasing importance of relationships as it relates to effective branding via the Internet. Despite the wealth of information and opinions “out there,” Abraham & Harrison understands that an elite few lead sweeping trends in Online Conversation tone, volume and reach. These Online Opinion Leaders or Influencers continue to break news and share opinions that reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions of consumers everyday. Thus, the overarching strategy of Online Conversation Marketing is influencing the influencers – much like securing online endorsements on behalf of our clients. Unlike the formalized world of traditional marketing and PR, an effective Online Conversation Marketing Program takes much longer to develop, as Abraham & Harrison is in the business of securing positive relationships with often busy Opinion Leaders. We have been able to complete campaigns on behalf our clients in as little as 6 weeks, however, the turn around for the majority of brands is generally several weeks, if not months, longer. The “public” that we relate to is not the mainstream media, whose relationships can often be bought and sold; the “public” that we do relate to are the online influencers, who oftentimes, are no more than regular Internet users with a well crafted, interested blog or website that has drawn in its own audience. Although Abraham & Harrison already has a sundry of these influencers in pocket, we often have to develop new relationships on behalf of our clients, given their diverse demographic targets and needs.

Abraham & Harrison leverages email to conduct the majority of relationship building with online influencers, however, we are not a direct or email marketing agency. Often times, the opinion leaders that we contact on behalf of our clients are being reached “blindly,” meaning that they have not opted into any particular program. In order to effectively carry out these campaigns and still remain CAN-SPAM compliant, we pick and choose our targets carefully, ensuring that we provide them with relevant messaging and “gifts” or promotions or information that would be of interest to them. At the end of the day, much like traditional PR, a poorly thought out Online Outreach campaign (the facet of Online Conversation Marketing most like traditional PR in which we build relationships with popular bloggers and influencers on behalf of our clients) can result in little to no positive outcome for the client. It is for this reason that the ramp up time on these programs typically runs anywhere from one to three weeks, as we prepare lists of appropriate, likeminded targets that will likely respond well to our clients’ brands as well as development of appropriate, effective “messaging.”

All things to considered, it is also worth highlighting that unlike other Online Marketing and Advertising agencies, Abraham & Harrison does not thoughtlessly disseminate links and off-topic messaging throughout the user generated corners of the Internet. We value relationships and act as persuaders, storytellers and attractors on behalf of our brands. In working individually with online influencers and Internet users as both a macro (Online Outreach) and micro (Online Engagement, Grassroots Marketing) level, Abraham & Harrison builds relationships and drives favorable, organic conversation in a compliant fashion. The Abraham & Harrison methods reflect the natural progress of organic word-of-mouth – starting small and progressively growing to reach a larger and larger audience. In respecting the online community, the Abraham & Harrison team stands firmly against online solicitation (SPAM) of any kind. Both in Online Outreach and Online Engagement, we are fully transparent, or “open kimono.” We have found these methods to be the most effective when working with the “online public.”

As common conceptions of marketing relate to Online Conversation Marketing, Abraham & Harrison does operate neatly into the bucket of branding, as our methods are a combination of Search Engine Optimization, Grassroots Marketing and Online Public Relations. Clients in the past have likened us to online brand ambassadors. Such being said, we do not fit any pay-per-performance or CPM model. Our metrics are based on conversation and relationships rather than conversions and impressions, much akin to tradition grassroots and brand ambassador strategies.

To conclude, Abraham & Harrison is pleased to offer its unique Online Conversation Marketing services to an array of brands and organizations. Our past clients have found the mix of SEO, Online PR and Grassroots Marketing to be exceptionally effective in achieving their overall marketing objectives. Millions of people are talking online everyday – are you listening?

Chris Abraham is a Founding Partner and the President of Abraham Harrison, LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. Abraham Harrison, LLC is based out of Washington, DC and Berlin and serves clients across the globe with associates spanning ten time zones. Via LinkedIn

Chris Abraham’s Specialties:

online business intelligence, corporate and pr blogging, online brand intelligence, online brand promotion and protection, online buzz and relationship marketing, online education, online messaging, online social networks, online technology strategy, rss syndication strategy, search engine optimization strategy, virtual community building

Chris Abraham’s Experience

• President and COO

  Abraham Harrison LLC

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — Present (1 year 6 months)

  Abraham Harrison, LLC, is an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. Abraham Harrison, LLC is based out of Washington, DC and Berlin and serves clients across the globe with associates spanning ten time zones.

• Blogging Instructor

  The Writer’s Center

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Professional Training & Coaching industry)

  February 2006 — June 2007 (1 year 5 months)

  •Instructional courses on blogging, from introduction to advanced techniques
  •Marketing, promotional, and SEO strategies for writers and business people
  •www.appliedblogging.org developed to support blogging students

• Sales Representative

  Visible Technologies

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  Sales representative for Visible Technologies’ TruView and TruCast software solutions. TruView is the most effective service for individuals and companies to manage their reputations via what appears in the top search engines. TruView is the first corporate solution that helps organizations manage and protect their brand in the Blogosphere and other “consumer-generated media” communities.

• Associate

  crayon LLC

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  crayon will help marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals better understand the tremendous changes, challenges and opportunities in today’s dynamic and complex world of fragmented attention, increasing consumer control and hardening attitudes towards marketing communication.

• Consultant

  Comteg

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Management Consulting industry)

  December 2006 — May 2007 (6 months)

  COMTEG.COM is a consultancy focused on Online Advertising, Media Measurement and Publishing. Our consulting services are Strategy Formulation, Market Entry and Industry Political Initiatives. We operate globally with offices in Europe, The Middle East & Asia.

• Blogger

  Self-employed

  (Self-Employed; Myself Only; Publishing industry)

  January 1999 — March 2007 (8 years 3 months)

  Blogging strategist with a focus on PR blogs, corporate blogs, publicity blogs, grassroots blogs, SEO blogs, brand blogs, and media blogs. Current personal blog is Chris Abraham – Because the Medium is the Message (http://www.chrisabraham.com). Experienced blogging trainer and guest-blogger.

• Senior RSS Consultant

  Hinchcliffe & Company

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — February 2007 (2 months)

  Senior RSS Consultant at T. Rowe Price on behalf of Hinchcliffe & Company. Research, design, develop, and deploy T. Rowe Price’s client and prospect RSS syndication strategy.

• Consultant

  Abraham PR

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  October 2006 — January 2007 (4 months)

  Chris Abraham is a web strategist, focusing on search engine optimization (SEO), search engine markeing (SEM), online buzz marketing, online advocacy, blogger relations (BR), blogger outreach, and word-of-mouth marketing. Chris consults clients on new media public relations solutions, delivering strategy documents that include an analysis and audit of the current web strategy, recommendations, and next steps. Consulting, training, and client services are available and tailored to client needs, according to the next steps and client need.

• Consultant

  BoldMouth

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  August 2006 — September 2006 (2 months)

  •Blog strategy and planning for high-traffic, high-profile blog relaunch
  •Customized Moveable Type installation on CentOS dedicated server
  •Transition from TypePad to newest Movable Type 3.31 install
  •Monetization of blog, including BlogAds and Google AdSense placement
  •Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blog

• Senior Account Supervisor

  Edelman

  (Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  May 2006 — August 2006 (4 months)

  •Direct client contact for Wal-Mart’s innovative blog outreach campaign, including prospecting and messaging
  •Spearheaded Working Families for Wal-Mart blog, newsletter, and activation list
  •Developed online word of mouth outreach for Taylor Hicks webcast from Wal-Mart shareholder’s meeting
  •Co-produced “Exposing the Paid Critics” website for Working Families for Wal-Mart
  •Co-produced successful online advocacy proposals to GE, Nissan, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, and Wal-Mart Realty
  •Designed and developed opt-in membership Email and messaging campaigns

• Technology Strategist

  New Media Strategies, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  September 2003 — May 2006 (2 years 9 months)

  •Developed online word-of-mouth marketing strategy and tactics used on Usenet, message boards, social networks, and blogs
  •Developed online advocacy and outreach campaigns for clients’ products, services, and message
  •Produced internal and client protective and promotional SEO campaigns and search strategy to highlight positive online conversation and supress negative conversation on popular search engines
  •Developed in-house expertise on blogging, new media, podcasting, technology, citizen journalism, and CGM, including training, teaching, and the development of blogging and online marketing strategy
  •Developed, deployed, and launched client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts
  •Managed online advertising campaigns using Yahoo and Google contextual ads

• Guest Lecturer

  Columbia University

  (Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  October 2005 — October 2005 (1 month)

  Lectured on the topic of blogging and viral marketing strategies for the Executive Masters in Public Affairs Program, for Advanced Management concentrators, at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.

• Photographer

  Corbis

  (Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Photography industry)

  August 1990 — 2004 (14 years)

  Contracted stock photographer.

• Director of Sales

  eResources, LLC

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Networking industry)

  September 2002 — September 2003 (1 year 1 month)

  •Managed sales force and new business for the ITonDemand™ and the eResources Content Management System products

• Senior Web Developer

  National Legal Aid & Defender Association

  (Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Alternative Dispute Resolution industry)

  February 2002 — September 2002 (8 months)

  •Developed Web applications and content management system (CMS) developer using Zope, Python, and MySQL

• Managing Director

  beehive North America

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  July 2000 — February 2002 (1 year 8 months)

  •President, co-owner, and co-founder of beehive North America, the North American office of Berlin-based beehive elektronische medien GmbH
  •Sold and marketed software Zope application development training and services
  •Clients included College of Exploration, The Nature Conservancy, and Space Telescope Science, and Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD)

• Online Community Builder and Linux System Administrator

  Caucus Systems, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  July 1999 — June 2000 (1 year)

  Linux/Unix system administrator and online community and event facilitator for Internet company focused on developing enterprise-level virtual online events and conferences.

• Senior Information Engineer

  US Department of Treasury Chief Information Office (CIO)

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Executive Office industry)

  July 1997 — July 1999 (2 years 1 month)

  Senior application and web developer for the Office of the CIO for the Department of the Treasury. HTML, scripting, programming, graphic design, management, development, and deployment of the CIO intranet and public website.

• Online Creative Writing Instructor

  Online Creative Writing Course, EFA/Kalamazoo, MI, Public Schools

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Primary/Secondary Education industry)

  August 1996 — May 1997 (10 months)

  Co-teacher of the first fully accredited virtual online highschool creative writing course. Education for the Arts (EFA) was an magnet program for highschool kids in Kalamazoo, MI. The program supplied laptops and dial-up access to the students. Course did include face-to-face four times a year as well as several field trips to conferences.

• Software Engineer

  Proxicom

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

  May 1996 — August 1996 (4 months)

  Web developer for the seminal web application and development company formerly called Proxima, now Proxicom. Amongst other projects, worked on Owens Corner and Garfield official websites.

• Technical Customer Support

  Picture Network International

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Publishing industry)

  June 1993 — December 1995 (2 years 7 months)

  Industry’s first online stock photo agency with dedicated dial-up ISP-based client called “Seymour.” PNI was an online stock photography service with more than 30 stock houses supplying images. It had more than 250,000 images in its library.

• Vice President

  Pacific Rim Productions, Ltd.

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Photography industry)

  October 1994 — November 1995 (1 year 2 months)

  Vice President of multimedia production company. Primary role as producer, photographer and script writer. Clients included General Motors and Hawaii Visitors Bureau.

• Photographer

  Abraham & Dunn

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Photography industry)

  May 1983 — July 1988 (5 years 3 months)

  Family-owned photography company. Have been shooting corporate and travel photograhy since I was 13-years-old.

Chris Abraham’s Education

• George Washington University

  BA, American Literature, August 1988 — May 1993

  Activities and Societies:

  Phi Kappa Psi, Crew Team

• University of East Anglia

  American Studies September 1990 — June 1991

  Activities and Societies:

  Crew Team

Additional Information

Chris Abraham’s Websites:

• My Blog
• My RSS feed
• My Company

Chris Abraham’s Interests:

RSS, blogging, Blogosphere, emergent systems, emerging technology, futurism, buzz marketing, blog, blogs, content management, rowing, sculling, biking, running, blogging, nlp, writing, reading, lecturing, driving, new technology, emergent systems, emergent technology, new media, Internet, viral markeing, memetics, systems theory, emergence, politics, popular culture, culture, trends, programming, news

Chris Abraham’s Groups:

Renaissance Weekend, Viral and Buzz Marketing Association, VBMA, Howard Rheingold Associate, HHWinc, Haft, Harrison & Wolfson, Inc., Urban Institute Communications Advisory Board, DC Zope Python User Group, zpug, da Vinci Group

Chris Abraham’s Honors:

Most Likely to be Famous, Saint Louis School, Honolulu, HI, 1988

Well, I know that my last post was all about CC Chapman. Well, I went and actually looked at the lineup for the American Eagle New American Music Union music festival and guess what: Bob Dylan. The way I see it, no matter what you think about Dylan, he’s Dylan! Obviously, Bob Dylan is a genius and a majority-stakeholder in pop- and folk-music history. I was just on IM and I was talking about the gig and the guy I was talking to didn’t know much about Dylan and wasn’t really into his sound. I saw Dylan at the Meadowlands in NJ in the late 80s and I couldn’t understand a word he sang — no matter! Here’s my quote from the IM: “I mean, let’s say Jesus had a nasal whine, he is still Christ!” The same thing can be said about Bob Dylan. And, who else is visiting Pittsburgh in August? Bob Dylan and His Band, The Raconteurs, The Roots, Gnarls Barkley (of Crazy fame — and the man’s entire album is inspired), Spoon, The Black Keys, Tiny Masters of Today, NASA, Black Mountain, and The Duke Spirit. I will definitely make a detour en route to San Diego, that’s for sure.