This is neat. Kuro5hin is a user driven news and discussion community, kind of like a more wide-ranging, more open Slashdot. Although there isn’t much useful “about” information on the site, unless my memory is misleading me it orginated as a blog for one of the programmers of the old Audiogalaxy file sharing app that was gutted by the RIAA because it was so good. Whatever it’s origins, it has evolved into something quite impressive. Kuro5hin users post very intelligent stories, often created by their own hand, from which a lot of reasonably thougtful discussion springs. To call the stories wide-ranging would be an understatement. The latest contributions include a long, scholarly summation of the findings of various historians working on the “who killed the Red Baron” question (spoiler: it wasn’t the Canadian ace), an overview of Russian winter holidays, a HOW-TO on using Mexican dentists, and a link and teaser for this year’s BBC Reith Lecture with groundbreaking nuerologist Vilayanur Ramachandran. And an interview with Democratic Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich.

Not a link to an interview with Kucinich mind you, but an exclusive Kuro5hin interview. What I think is neat about this is that the interviewer’s only credentials are that he has contibuted a few items to Kuro5hin before. One of which was a statement that, given how much he has enjoyed writing on his blog and on Kuro5hin and such, he’d like to try doing some real writing.

Apparently that’s good enough credentials to get you half an hour with Dennis. What a neat way to become a political reporter. Occasionally this whole “the internet will make individuals the new media” thing works. And the Kucinich campaign team doesn’t seem to be shy about it either, as of right now a quote from the interview and a link to it are near the top of the Kucinich campaign website.

The interview was a good one. The questions are many of the ones that I would ask a candidate myself, and I think much more relevant than the usual softballs and horse-race irrelevancies that the media usually seems to come up with. In response, I think Mr. Kucinich lived up to his mantle of Officially Endorsed Candidate of the Empty Room Blog. I like Kuro5shin, and I like Kucinich, and I like them just fine together.