Arte y Pico Award for The Zaftig Redhead

At the end of September, The Zaftig Redhead was honored, flattered, and thrilled to receive the Arte y Pico Award for my humble blogging efforts. The award was bestowed by my blogging mentor, Gunfighter -- he'll be surprised to hear me call him that, but it's true. GF, as he is affectionately referred to, is the brains behind the blog Gunfighter: A Modern Warrior's Life. He has been wonderfully encouraging to me in this blogging adventure, and I can't thank him enough -- not only for the personal support but also for his efforts to help me spread the word about The Zaftig Redhead. This award is just one example of that support.

What is the award about? It's perhaps best explained by looking at the meaning of the expression Arte y Pico. According to the Arte y Pico website, which started all the mutual blogger love through this award, "basically, ironically, it translates into a wonderful phrase in Mexico, 'lo maximo.' It will never find its counterpart in English, but if it HAD to, it would be something like, 'Wow. The Best Art. Over the top.'"

In passing the award along to me, which GF himself has received, Gunfighter wrote: "The Zaftig Redhead is a resident of our nation’s Capital and writes about politics and public policy. Although her blog is fairly new, ZR (as I call her) has jumped right into the fray with both barrels blazing. She is super busy because of the political campaigns, but she has promised that she will continue our interview when it is all said and done." Thanks, GF, and we will do that interview -- I promise!

The rules of the Arte y Pico Award are as follows:

1. You have to pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award in terms of creativity, design, interesting material, and general contributions to the blogger community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each winner has to show the award and give the name and link to the blog that has given him or her the award itself.

4. Each winner and each giver of the prize has to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. To show these rules.

Now, by the power vested in me, it is my turn to share the blog love. I hereby happily designate the following 5 blogs (in no particular order) as Arte y pico winners:

The Political Voices of Women, a great community of more than 500 women's political bloggers, organized by Catherine Morgan. According to Morgan, "This is a blog answering the question, 'Where are all the women political bloggers?' The answer is ... They are here. It began simply as my response to a New York Times article on the lack of women political bloggers. What started as a list of 100 women bloggers grew to 200 (and now over 500), and then I decided to take a leap of faith and start a blog as a spin-off to the list. Now the blog and the list have taken on a life of their own, and each day they are growing and changing, mostly due to contributions of other women bloggers." I'm proud to have my blog on this list.

Contrarienne, the blog by fellow Washingtonian and former reporter JulieMac, is always a fun read, with straight news and quirky tidbits too. The blog is a "diary of random thoughts about found, shiny objects from the intertubes." The Contrarienne herself is "A woman 'of a certain age' with a certain attitude [who] writes for others of similar persuasion. Men allowed."

The Feminist Law Professors blog is a great resource on legal issues affecting women and families. While the goal of the blog is to build a stronger feminist law professor community across scholarly subject areas, it's a great resource for anyone with a progressive bent -- lawyer or not. It's written by a professors from across the country, too, which means you never know what topic will be next. The blog also proves something I have know all along: feminists DO have a sense of humor, dammit!

The HeartFeldt Politics blog, written by noted feminist Gloria Feldt, is a great read and a great resource. An author, and also the former president of Planned Parenthood, Feldt is connected to the inner circles but makes the world accessible. She has a great love for grassroots, community organizing, and that in and of itself makes her worthy of the award.

And the fifth blog upon which I'm bestowing the Arte y Pico Award is... up to you, my readers. What blog do you love? Share them with me, either by email or by commenting below, and help me complete my list... I simply could not settle on my final entry. And thanks again, Gunfighter. You're the best.


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