The blogmaster of What the Helen sends me a message...

There are some important points he made about what he and IrishPirate did over there. The site is down, but I'll let him tell you why it was shut down. The site was cool because it was something interesting and it might have made Helen Shiller sweat even more this time around.

Here is a little of what he said...

Anyway, just a quick note of thanks for your support and avid readership. It really was and is appreciated. As you know, cranking out a blog is a difficult job. And what we did wasn't your typical blog. We were, to a great extent, investigative reporters digging up information and putting it into words and pictures that people could understand easily.

But we were also a bit crazy. The videos, some of them produced by me, some by my partner in crime, Irish Pirate, and others produced by people in the community that felt like they needed and outlet for their frustrations with the Alderbeast, were wonderful pieces of authentic, honest expressions of hope, anger, and a desire for real change. Some of the other craziness, like making up words for Urban Dictionary, were ways for us to entertain ourselves and our readers between furious fits of digging the dirt, answering email, and deciding what to post and what not to post.

Some bloggers - mostly those who did not agree with us, saw the craziness and made that their central focus, rather than looking at the issues we raised. Too bad for them. They missed the point by a mile. The point was the grass roots activism. The point was the authentic and honest feelings of disenfranchisement. The point was being able to communicate with people you've never met and develop the relationships that start chain reactions of events that will change the 46th ward forever. The point was being normal people not being afraid to be normal people and following our hearts and guts rather than falling into some mold that others thought we should fit into.

We took WhatTheHelen down because the election was over. It's behind us. Besides, the blog was taking over our lives and we needed to get those back as quickly as possible before another election is upon us and we have to go through the whole exercise again.

Hopefully this makes sense to you readers. It does to me. If you set up a blog because you opposed someone or some people you can take the What the Helen approach. If that's not you then that's OK. But what they did was entertaining and hopefully it made a point too.

Think about it part-satire but mostly serious. It'll be fun to see them come back in another election. Can't wait. Too bad the next city election won't be until 2011.

And again thanks WTH and Irish Pirate for a look at Uptown. You guys are welcome here anytime.