December 22 , 2008

A new piece entitled "Hippie Baiting: The Republicans' Secret Weapon" traces some of the history of the GOP's ugly habit of trying to pin a hippie stereotype on the Democrats. Believe us, Bill Ayers aside, it would have been even worse had Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination. You may find the piece under "Articles," or click on the link in the title above. The new blog is on the way, promise.

*****

My how times flies, and we've been so busy that the site has been neglected mostly. In the next weeks, though, we will certainly have a functioning WordPress blog up. It may not look exactly as we want at first, but it will be functional. Probaby the blog will be renamed from Bloggèd Be at Happily Hippie to The Hippie Hammer (as in "If I had a hammer . . . "); then, we plan to begin posting weekly blogs and try to get integrated in the larger blogsphere.

In the meantime, while a bit late for 2008, perhaps, we've added some downloadable 4/20 art--nice for the refrigerator door. Links to each of the two small posters are at the bottom right of the home page or right here: 4/20 Poster One; 4/20 Poster Two. Remember to print in color. Eventually, we'd love to see these used poster size at legalizaton demonstrations and 4/20 celebrations. For now, stay strong; be happily hippie. Come back in a few weeks and participate in the new blog.

Newest items as of May 23, 2008

In honor of 4/20, a new blog is up: "Smokin' Somethin' Funny." It's the first blog in a while as for the past year, most new material on the site has been put under Happily Hippie: The Column. Clearly, Bloggèd Be at Happily Hippie has been neglected; soon, we'll have several reader-response boards in the site directly integrated into existing pages. Bloggèd Be will get one; the page will be reorganized into reverse chronological order, and then that page will probably get regular new posts as a true blog should--and readers will be able to quickly and easily respond.

We've recently added a bit more audio (you'll notice a voice greeting you after you download the homepege). And our Presidential endorsements are now up: Go through "The Presidential Race" on the homepage, or click here.

All four sections of this site containing articles--Articles; Book Excerpts; Happily Hippie, The Column and Bloggèd Be--have indexes. The first three indexes have brief article descriptions as well as titles, so you can see what interests you; the blog has article titles. All indexes link directly to related articles.

The homepage piece entitled "Coming Out of the Countercultural Closet; Reclaiming and Redefining Hippie" is new. This article contains the proposed re-definition of hippie; eventually the page may have a response board so that readers might give input on that definition.

Incidentally, the "Closet" piece resulted from, among other things, attempts to publish the column, Happily Hippie: having contacted editors of some alternative papers--many of which have documentable countercultural roots and certainly have a high percentage of countercultural readers--it seemed clear something was amiss. That something, we believe, is a discomfort with hippie identity--editors sometimes seemed anxious to distance their papers from the counterculture, terrified to claim hippie identity. Publicly, it sounds sort of like this: "Hippies? Us? Oh . . . no, I'm sure you're mistaken. You must be thinking of someone else. I mean, hippies were just a thing of the sixties; we wouldn't know anything about that, and we certainly wouldn't want to do anything reckless or irresponsible like promote drug use, for heaven's sake. We're serious media." Privately, it probably sounds more like this: "Oh my God, for thirty-five years, we've been trying to duck the 'hippie' thing--trying to get people to take us seriously!--and this guy wants us to publish a column called 'Happily Hippie'?! Saying you're hippie is a kiss of death! Are you crazy?!" One media person even opined that the word hippie was so offensive to many that the only way we could proceed was to change the column's name.

The Happily Hippie, The Column pieces are also newly posted and include a particularly strong piece on the case of convicted former-Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald who claims that in 1971 drug-crazed hippies murdered his family ("The Case of Jeffrey MacDonald: 'Helter Skelter' Meets 'The Ballad of the Green Berets'"). There also you'll find "The 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love--Celebrating Four Decades of Hippie Ethnicity," the same piece linked to the birthday cake on our homepage.

Media Hall of Shame at Happily Hippie is a new section of the site devoted to media analysis through the lens of ethnic-hippie theory. One of its purposes is to get people to see those offensive stereotypes of Hippie-Americans that permeate the media; another is to start holding those engaged in that stereotyping responsible.

The Presidential Race is also new; there, we'll be commenting on the ongoing Presidential campaign though the lens of ethnic-hippies theory, noting examples of hippie-baiting, discussing Hippie-American issues and eventually endorsing candidates.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Well, of course, as of January 1, 2008, the entire website had been rebuilt. The general aims have been to make visiting HappilyHippie.com a richer, more interactive experience. So, while the old site had only about half-a-dozen illustrations (not counting borders, buttons and cornices), the updated site is full of graphics, including our first picture galleries. Gallery One is photos of hippie families. Gallery Two is called "Joy of Poi" and contains a mere two photos of a hippie woman performing this Maori-based practice. Gallery Three isn't yet up; it will likely be called "Hippies at Work"--so many people have swallowed the stereotype that hippies are lazy parasites; it's time to show the world our industrious, accomplished and usually employed face. The text- based pages, on the other hand ("Book Excerpts," "Articles," and most others), now look more like pages from a nice magazine or a good textbook--regular illustration panels.

And of course, we are in the process of adding audio, a Read-To-Me function. Most of the site currently has it; probably the rest soon will though we reserve the right not to add audio to everything. Use your computer's volume control, please. Try clicking the play button twice, if needed, the first time you play an audio--the players seem to be opening on Pause, not Play. If the reading sounds, at times, a little wooden, let my remind you that the audio isn't just someone talking; it's not spontaneous speech. It is someone trying to very carefully and clearly read written text. In particular, some of the comic timing in asides and such falls a bit flat, we worry.

Left to do are many things: the values poll, the shopping cart, inserting discussion boards directly into pages, so that readers may more easily respond and that viewers may see those responses directly beside the original piece they respond to. Probably the current isolated bulletin board ("Research and Discussion Board") will go, replaced by other boards.

Soon, we may be looking for writers who would like to blog on HappilyHippie.com in regard to countercultural issues. Contact us if you're interested.

And oh, our apologies: this site's email has been neglected for many months. It was full of spam; the webmaster and others were overwhelmed with other site and book-related tasks; it has gotten neglected. Getting the "Contact Us" function working better is going to be a priority.