Thursday, May 08, 2008

Not quite answering (yet)

Well, at least somebody gave it a shot.  Thanks for trying, Linkmeister!

While replying to his surmise—Portland’s PGE Park—I realized that the photos in the previous post didn’t do a good job of displaying something that might help with identifying the location.  I hope the following shot, along with what I mentioned in the sixth comment to the prior diary

I realize that these two shots don’t have sufficient detail to let you see what’s not in the stands (aside from people, that is).

will be of some use to those who want to hazard a guess.

I might mention that the second picture in the prior post displays one of the distinctive features of this stadium.  Unfortunately, it displays that feature from a distance of about 340 feet, so you can’t really tell that said feature is there.  Having stood out in deep right field, though, I can confirm the existence of that feature.

Apparently, we took no pictures of another signature feature of this ballpark, the one that’s way out in deep center field.  Silly of us, I suppose.

Anyway, if no one has the right answer after another couple of days, I’ll post it for you here.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Worth 2000 words?

[UPDATE (May 2):  No correct guesses yet, so I’ve added another clue]

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth 1000 words.  Well, let’s test that.  And let’s test my (very, very few) readers as well, with a little quiz.

The question for you is this—where were the two pictures shown below taken?  I’ll give you two three (four, actually, as the new one includes two clues) pieces of information:

• they were taken last Friday, April 25
• I’m in both of them
• the ballpark had three different names during its 88 years as a major league field

I’ve been crazy-busy lately.  Not just work-work, but also politics-work and a huge amount of SABR-work.  Not that that excuses my lengthy between-posts time gap, but there it is.  In any case, I’ll provide my pair of pictures and sit back to see whether anyone notices.  Who knows, someone might even be able to answer the location-quiz as well.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

A Responsible Plan

Leading the “netroots” in a broad-based effort to take action toward extricating ourselves from the Bush fubar in Iraq, WA-08 Congressional candidate Darcy Burner began a dialogue with military, foreign policy, and energy policy experts at her Virtual Town Hall last summer.  At Monday’s Take Back America conference in Washington DC, Darcy unveiled the results of their group endeavor.

Some have compared the Responsible Plan To End the War in Iraq to the disastrous “Contract On For America” created by Newt Gingrich in the 1994 election campaign, in that it’s an outline of significant and comprehensive proposals for national action.  That comparison is completely wrong, and not only because this one is being proposed by progressive Democrats while Newt’s was a singularly odious attack on government and governance.

The “Contract On For America” was an authoritarian, top-down coup perpetrated by the Republican House leadership cabal.  Gingrich, Armey, DeLay, et al. strong-armed colleagues to sign on, demanded fealty to their radical plan, even chased off reasonable Republicans (yes, there used to be a few) who wouldn’t knuckle under.  In sharp contrast, the Responsible Plan was conceived by a lone Congressional candidate out here in far-off Washington state, gaining support from other candidates—no confirmed sitting legislators yet (but see below)—through word-of-mouth and face-to-face discussions.  Darcy’s workproduct exemplifies the burgeoning power of the netroots and grassroots in the Democratic Party.

At yesterday’s unveiling, the Responsible Plan had already been endorsed by nine additional progressive Democratic House candidates from across the country:

• Donna Edwards (MD-04), who defeated incumbent Al Wynn in the Democratic primary
• Eric Massa (NY-29), a “Fighting Dem” Navy veteran
• Chellie Pingree (ME-01), vying for Tom Allen’s seat
• Tom Perriello (VA-05)
• Jared Polis (CO-02)
• George Fearing (WA-04), trying to upset Doc Hastings
• Larry Byrnes (FL-14)
• Steve Harrison (NY-13), who hopes to remove Vito Fossella, New York City’s only remaining GOP Congressman
• Sam Bennett (PA-15)

In just a bit more than 24 hours, additional Democratic contenders have endorsed the Plan.  Off the top of my head, I can come up with such worthies as Larry Grant (ID-01) and both of the leading Democratic candidates for Gordon Smith’s Senate seat in Oregon—Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick.  I’ve also seen a report that a sitting House member, newly-elected IL-14 Congressman Bill Foster (in the House seat recently occupied by the ample butt of Dennis Hastert), is endorsing the Responsible Plan too, but I can’t find confirmation of that at the moment.

Many other bloggers, here in Washington and across the land, have written about this exciting development in the 2008 campaign season.  And, since this is a netroots-based project, put forth by perhaps the (neologism alert!!) netrootsiest candidate on the scene today, we regular Joes and Joans are invited to add our own names to the list of endorsers.  In fact, Darcy’s supplied a nice banner link to make it easy to add yourself to the list.  Just click on the red button in the image immediately below this paragraph!

Friday, February 08, 2008

Just before the caucus

Unless you’ve been mouldering under a rock recently, you must be aware that the precinct caucuses for Washington Democrats and Republicans will take place tomorrow afternoon.  It’s the first of several steps on the way to electing delegates to the parties’ respective national conventions—the Dems in Denver and the GOP in St. Paul.

Unless you’re really out of it, you’re also aware that this year’s Democratic caucuses have suddenly taken on real honest-to-god meaning in the party’s nominating process.  The two remaining candidates, Senators Clinton and Obama, are basically deadlocked in the delegate count after Super Tuesday, and Washington is one of the biggest prizes to be fought over between now and the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas.

The precinct caucuses are the first of three steps used by Washington Democrats to choose 78 of our 97 delegates to the DNC.  Delegates elected from precincts will gather on April 5 in Legislative District caucuses, and delegates from the LDs will meet on May 17 at their Congressional District caucuses.  Those CD caucuses will choose delegates who will represent us in Denver.

Right after the 2004 precinct caucuses, I wrote a rather lengthy blog post about the experience.  Tomorrow’s events will be generally quite similar.  This time, however, I’m running the show instead of working for a candidate.  I’ll be one of the site coordinators, as well as the PCO of my precinct.

Though I’m extremely involved in the presidential election season, I’m not particularly wedded to any of the candidates.  Whatever it was that Howard Dean stirred in me four years ago hasn’t been touched by any of the 2008 candidates.  I gave a few bucks to Chris Dodd awhile back, more for his stands on habeas corpus and FISA than due to any belief that he’d run successfully.  Had he stayed in the race, I would have caucused for John Edwards; his message of economic populism reasonated with me. 

Now, with just two candidates to choose from, I’m still undecided.  Not between Clinton and Obama ... between Uncommitted and Obama.  Anyone But Hillary is still my watchword, as it was from the start.  She is simply too much a creature of the “inside the Beltway” mentality for my taste.  Which is not to say that I’d vote for someone else if she ends up as the Democratic nominee, just that I’ll look elsewhere unless and until her name is the only one in the running.

Why not simply move to Obama?  Mainly because he doesn’t stir me.  His oratorical skills are extraordinary, but I’m not convinced that the substance is really there.  Since he’s the only remaining not-Clinton candidate, I’ll certainly switch to him if there are too few others in my precinct choosing Uncommitted to earn a delegate, but I’m sort of thinking I want to keep my options open as long as I can.  Or maybe I’ll just stop playing these games with myself and sign in for Obama.  I still haven’t figured it out.

Now I’m off to copy off more sign-up sheets, more maps of the precincts, and so forth.  We’re expecting a huge crowd tomorrow afternoon.  See you at the caucus!

Friday, January 25, 2008

The local Draft Board ... should I serve?

Those of us who are “of an age” remember the influence of the Draft Board on the lives (and deaths) of us and our brethren.  Even if the closest we ever actually came to experiencing that influence was listening to Arlo sing about the Group W bench.

Several years ago, when speculation about the possibility of an Iraq War draft was rampant, there was talk in liberal circles of applying to join Selective Service local boards so that a less militaristic viewpoint might be represented.  Just to see what would happen, I submitted such an application.

This week, I received a response.  Here, in part, is that message:

Hi [N in Seattle],

I also left you a voicemail, but about 3 years ago you sent an application to the Selective Service System to become a Seattle Local Board Member.  Since we had no vacancy at that time, your application was held in my files, until now when a retirement of an active member has created an opportunity.  If you are still interested in this position, I would be glad to provide more details. ...

I can certainly fulfill the qualifications for becoming a Draft Board member—I’m an American citizen, (well) over 18 years old, neither active in nor retired from the military, live in Seattle, not employed in law enforcement, no criminal offenses.  Though I don’t yet know what the time commitment would be, I’m sure I could arrange it so that I could participate if I wanted to.

But do I really want to?  The draft was a fearsome institution to those of us who grew up during the Vietnam era.  I was in high school and college as the war heated up, so when I registered my classification was 2-S (student deferment).  In the December 1969 draft lottery, my birthday came up as #149.  Thus, I retained my deferment in 1970, when the draft took those with numbers up to 195.  When the 1971 draft reached only to #125, I dropped the deferment, was briefly a non-draftable 1-A, and then became a 1-H ... no longer subject to the draft.  I was fortunate, but even that not-so-close brush with Selective Service left a bad taste.

On the other hand, I doubt that there were any people with a story even remotely similar to mine on the Local Board in my New Jersey hometown.  I assume, without evidence, that that Board consisted entirely of people who were gung-ho to get as many kids into the Army as was humanly possible.  I assume, without evidence, that they would have made it extremely difficult for anyone who appealed for a hardship deferment or Conscientious Objector status.  I strongly believe that if the draft is ever reinstituted, a Draft Board that is truly representative of Seattle must include members whose view of military adventurism is, shall we say, skeptical.

I should also mention that there’s something of a personal interest involved here—my nephew, who turned 14 earlier this week, lives here in Seattle.  He’ll register with Selective Service four years from now.

I haven’t yet replied to the message I received from the local Selective Service representative.  I’m leaning toward doing so, if only to obtain further information about the time and effort that would be required of a Board member.  And, perhaps, to see whether Selective Service would seriously consider putting someone like me on the Board.

Finally, for your listening and viewing pleasure, here are a YouTube link to Arlo performing Alice’s Restaurant Massacree (embedding is disabled, since it runs nearly 20 minutes) and the trailer for the 1969 movie Alice’s Restaurant:

[Also posted as a diary on DailyKos.]