This week's Virginia Blog Carnival

It is hard to believe that this week marks the 25th week of the Virginia Blog Carnival. I have not contributed much, but I have paid attention to it over the last few months. This week's marks some interesting developments. NoVA Democrat has taken the responsibility this week, but his methods in posting the carnival have been seen as less than appropriate.

Kilo, J. Sarge, I'm Not Emeril, and Doug all have their feelings about it. J. Sarge has this to say:

Although there is no partisan editorializing, there is some nose-rubbing regarding the 2005 elections.

This is what I'm Not Emeril said:

I will continue my permanent link near the top of my left sidebar, and will continue to submit articles from time to time, but I implore my fellow Virginia Bloggers to attempt to get this thing back on track. Let's highlight Virginia, Virginia History, and Virginia's peoples. Not play out partisan politics on a weekly display before our fellow bloggers.

In my prior two submissions, I commented on Cal Ripken as a role model, and the relatively unknown brown dwarf stars, both entirely unpolitical in nature (though the first one was arguably socially motivated). I tried to follow the initial request by Chad concerning the VBC:

Remember, this is a non-partisan Carnival.

Waldo concurred:

Virginia needs a carnival of its own. Though the well-known Virginia bloggers are all political, I'd like to see a round-up of blog entries on all kinds of topics, one that is decided non-partisan. It'd be a great way to get attention for lesser-known blogs, and for politically-minded people to discover the blog world outside of politics.

Apparently, this has skipped past many involved. From my count, I can see that there are more than twenty links that are political in nature in the current carnival, and that is considering that there are not even thirty links, including two each to Raising Kaine (two political links), Republitarian (one political link), and Commonwealth Conservative (it is good to see that Chad has not lost the spirit of non-partisan links). Tack on at least three partisan comments by NoVA Democrat, and it looks like the Carnival may have jumped the shark.

I will continue to peruse the Virginia Blog Carnivals, but I agree that I would like to see a change to these. We have plenty of time and server space to comment on politics, but an escape every once in a while should be relished. Remember the "Save the Rainforest" and "Save the Whales" campaigns? Though it seems like it has come far too soon, it may be time for a "Save the VBC" campaign.