Saturday, July 19, 2008
Al's a rock star, and why was Bob here?
It was a secret less well kept than Valerie Wilson’s occupation. Part way through Nancy Pelosi’s Ask The Speaker forum this morning, she was asked a question about an environmental issue. While starting to answer, she pulled out her cellphone, saying something about having just received an email from a good friend who could probably give a better answer. Whereupon the voice of one Albert A. Gore, Jr. blared from the exhibit hall’s speakers. In a few moments, the man himself strode onto the stage to join the Speaker.
There had been a few whispers that we might see Michelle Obama some time during the gathering, and we’d already had a semi-unexpected visit from Congressman Lloyd Doggett. But nearly all of the buzz for the last few days had been about a possible Gore appearance. And nearly all the buzz turned out to be correct.
The man who should have been President for the last seven and a half years was in fine fettle, speaking confidently and knowledgeably about numerous climate change topics—progress in photovoltaics, the backward-looking addictive behavior of the Bush malAdministration’s “energy” policy, the place of nuclear and coal and other sources in our energy future. But his principal drive, and his regular challenge to us all, was the newly formed We Can Solve The Climate Crisis project created by his Alliance for Climate Protection. Their goal is to make the energy sources of the American electrical power system 100% renewable within 10 years. That’s a challenging goal, but if we could redirect resources away from Bushian warmongering, it might be possible.
In any case, Al rocked the house, earning numerous standing ovations and wild cheers. While we, and the world, are far worse for the injustice of Bush v Gore, I fully understand and appreciate why he chose not to participate in this year’s Presidential derby, even if he might well have waltzed to the nomination (saving us months and months of campaign tzuris). Frankly, the Presidency of the United States would be a demotion when you’re the Oscar/Emmy/Grammy/Nobel Prize-winning international rock star of the world.
Oh, and speaking of POTUS, we had an actual presidential candidate with us for a while this afternoon. No, not Barack—he’s on the other side of the world at the moment. No, it was the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr. Here’s proof. He was in town for the “RightOnLine” conference, which just happened to be scheduled in the same city and at the same time as Netroots Nation. Fancy that. Maybe Bob got tired of hanging with the likes of Michelle Malkin, the rotting corpse of Robert Novak, Michael Steele, and the nutcases populating the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Apparently, though, Bob’s on their speaking schedule over there. I hope he really, really, really inspires those guys. Every vote for Barr is half a vote for us.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Meeting and greeting at NN
It would be absurd to try to list the Kossacks I’ve run into here in Austin. Some I’d had interactions with two years ago at YearlyKos 1 in Las Vegas, others I’d missed back then. As always in matters such as this, there’s sometimes a disconnect between one’s mental picture of the person behind the persona and the reality of that person. Some are older than you’d expected, some younger. On some occasions, even the gender is unexpected. On the other hand, there are those whose true identity matches what is displayed through the words and pixels are placed on a computer display.
It’s not really predictable which ones do jibe and which don’t, so I don’t think there’s much of a lesson to be drawn from this thought. In any case, match or not match, it’s fascinating to meet the people you’ve been communicating with over the years.
I do wonder, of course, how those Kossacks who recognize/acknowledge my username might compare their impressions of me to their prior pixel-based impressions. Not that I could actually ask them about that. Way back when, more than a few Kossacks assumed that I was female, probably because of my gender-free username.
Aside from the Kossacks, there are also candidates and (semi)celebrities all around us. I had coffee and danish this morning with Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley. Yesterday, while I was breakfasting and chatting with mcjoan, Idaho Senate contender Larry LaRocco stopped by to join us. I must note that Larry wasn’t coming in to talk to me; in addition to her connections as a dKos frontpager, Joan has deep, deep roots in Idaho and in its Democratic Party politics.
Last night, at the reception sponsored by the Texas Democrats, Burnt Orange Report, Texas Senatorial candidate Rick Noriega, and others, our neighbor in WA-08 Darcy Burner was pretty much a rock star. It certainly helped that she was wearing the same <⁄war> t-shirt she had on when the Burner’s house burned down a few weeks ago. She and NPI have been handing out cool little buttons displaying the same “code” on the same gray t-shirt-colored background. I’m wearing mine proudly.
Other impressive candidates/electeds/luminaries we’ve been seeing here and there—TX-25 Congressman Lloyd Doggett, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, DLC chair Harold Ford, Jr., Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, New Mexico House candidates Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan, Connecticut House candidate Jim Himes (if he beats Chris Shays, New England could have an entirely Democratic House delegation). There are any number of others, at the federal level and in the states, but I don’t want to belabor the point.
As I finish this episode, Ford and Markos are on stage in a back-and-forth about the way to focus the Democratic Party into the future. There appears to actually be a modicum of agreement between them, at least until we coalesce to get Barack Obama into the White House. We’ll see what happens if (I want to say when, but such optimism scares me) we do win in November.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Is "Blogs United breakout" an oxymoron?
About three dozen of us are sitting in a big circle in a breakout room on the upper floor of the Austin Convention Center. It’s the “caucus” for Blogs United, a group created a couple of years ago by star Kossack kid oakland to encourage and support progressive bloggers on the local level.
I joined the Blogs United google group soon after it was formed, though I have to state for the record that I’ve been “nomail” on their emails for most of the time since joining. Sure, I’m interested in helping to build up progressive strength everywhere, but there’s just so much time.
Although there are quite a few Washington bloggers who’ve joined Blogs United, for most of the meeting I was the only representative of our state in this group; toward the end, Lynn Allen from the Institute for Washington’s Future popped in. There are other bloggers here from (at least) Florida, Missouri, Alabama, Texas, New Mexico, California, Vermont, Louisiana ... all extolling their local congressional or state races. Maybe it’s the flush of optimism, but it sure sounds like there are a whole bunch of great candidates to wrest legislative seats away from the other side.
There was much talk about building links across the states, of developing tools for common use and for common value. I’m not sure these “Twitter clouds” and other variations on building RSS feeds that will be meaningful and valuable for the great expanse of local blogs. Several of the participants described how they are actually reporting news instead of commentary and opinion (I’m not one of those who can describe any such activity). It does seem more and more that the “real” press have been abdicating their responsibility to actually cover stories. Sigh…
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Soon to be a Netroots Nation
As I sit here in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in Austin, Texas, participants in Netroots Nation are starting to stream past me. I arrived here very late last night—more on that in a moment—when nearly everyone in the hotel appeared to be members of the national Sigma Nu fraternity. Apparently, we progressives aren’t the only ones convening in the capital of the Lone Star State.
This morning, I ran into Dave Neiwert of Orcinus, so we strolled about looking for breakfast. And while writing this post, I chanced upon more Seattle area Kossacks, including rickeagle and ct (dKos’s resident system architect), as well as former Washingtonian natasha. I’m not sure how many others I’ll run into while writing, but they do seem to be appearing rapidly. Since I don’t really know very many Kossacks by face or real name, though, I’m sure that a lot of people I’d really like to meet have walked past me without even a sideward glance. Then again, I’m not flashing any sort of “N in Seattle” credentials myself.
My arrival in Austin was rather later last night than I’d expected it to be. I was scheduled on a flight that would get here at 7:20pm, but instead we didn’t touch down until a bit after 11pm. That’s not a complaint. In fact, it shows that there may still be a touch of customer service remaining in the airline industry.
Yesterday morning, as I was packing my stuff, I got a phone call from USAirways. The representative explained that the first leg of my trip would be delayed due to belated crew arrival, and that the layover between flights in Phoenix would be razor-thin (19 minutes at best). Would I care to rebook onto a later flight? After first contemplating pressing my luck, I instead chose to take them up on the offer. So instead of leaving at 11am, I was on a 2:40pm flight out of SeaTac. All went well on the trip after that initial setback; I even booked myself into an exit-row seat for the first leg of the trip. The Phoenix-Austin flight was only about half-full, so I suppose that even if I’d tried and failed to make the original connection I would have ended up taking the same second leg into Austin. If I’d only known, I could have “enjoyed” a long wait at SkyHarbor instead.
I’m still astonished that USAirways would actually call a passenger to inform him about this potential difficulty with his itinerary. It’s utterly unlike what one would expect from a bleeding corporate monstrosity like today’s airlines. Especially when you consider that I’m making this trip on a frequent flier miles award. For the record, my flights this week cost me $10 (well, 50,000 miles too). BTW, I didn’t check any bags, so I don’t know USAirways’s current policy on luggage. Their soft drinks are still free, however, and they actually gave each passenger an entire can of soda.
Finally, perhaps the most amazing part of the trip in. When I finally checked in and got up to my hotel room to unpack at a few minutes past midnight, I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. I stopped flipping when I saw baseball on the screen. Expecting it to be a wrapup of the All-Star Game, I was instead viewing the game still going on! It was just past 1am in The Bronx, and the AL and NL were tied 3-3 in the bottom of the 13th inning. I watched the remainder of the game, which finally ended at around 12:45am here in the Central Time Zone (1:45am Eastern). It would have been a happier ending if the National League had been victorious, but you can’t have everything.
Hmmm, I see that Markos and his entourage just walked into the lobby ... this baby must be about ready to get underway…
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tidbits from the road
As I look out on Lake Erie from my hotel room in Cleveland, the sun is shining and the weather is simply lovely. I’m here getting ready for SABR38, the annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research. Before coming here, though, I made a side trip to the Big Apple.
Why travel from Seattle to Cleveland via New York? It’s simple, really, if you’re a baseball fan. Although I’ve seen major league games in dozens of ballparks, my distaste for the damn Yankees is so immense that I had never set foot in The House That Ruth Built. However, upon realizing that 2008 is the final year for Yankee Stadium—both New York clubs will open new ballparks in 2009—I decided I had to get past my antipathy for pinstripes that aren’t red.
Through some SABR contacts (thanks, Paul and Bob!), I was fortunate to be offered a pair of very fine box seats for Sunday’s game—field level near thirdbase. My cousin Susan, a Mets season ticket holder and fan of the long-departed Brooklyn Dodgers, joined me at the Stadium. As a confirmed National League adherent, she confided that it was only the second game she’d ever attended at Yankee Stadium.
“The line for Monument Park is closed for the day.”
That, sadly, is pretty much the first thing I heard at Yankee Stadium. Although the D line subway got me to the ballpark two hours before gametime, the security line (TSA-like in its thoroughness) was so slow that I wasn’t able to get inside the park in time to visit the shrines. Maybe a good thing, though, as I might have been tempted toward vandalism on some of those self-righteous plaques. The game was interrupted by a rain delay of nearly an hour. We tried to get to the Stadium Club to escape the weather, but for some reason the security forces barred the way for most of the delay. We did eventually get in long enough to order a brew before the game restarted.
Adding Yankee Stadium to my MLB ballpark lifelist rounds out the count to a nice even 40. That number won’t be augmented here at the convention, as I’ve previously seen about three or four games at Progressive (nee Jacobs) Field.
Oh, I should also mention that when I walked into the Columbus Circle subway station to go to Yankee Stadium, I ran into two of my SABR pals! I already knew they were planning to go to that same game—one of the two was doing the same sort of first-and-last visit that I was—but it seems rather odd and amazing that we’d independently end up buying Metrocards in the very same line in the very same subway station at the very same time. Chaos theory, indeed!
Leaving Newark Airport yesterday afternoon, my plane sat at the gate for nearly an hour beyond its scheduled departure time. No particular explanation, of course. Then there was more delay in the takeoff line ... in this case, the captain informed us that a small plane that was supposed to be landing at another nearby airport was “wandering around lost” somewhere in Newark’s airspace. Hmmm, was anyone thinking about shooting it down?
This morning, I made my first trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Though I’ve visited Cleveland on several occasions in the past, I’d never before had an extra day available. Now that I’ve seen both the R&RHOF and Seattle’s Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project, I have to say that there’s no comparison between the two. EMP sucks, and not only because of its hideous building. The Hall of Fame was tasteful, thematically sound, and had very little of the silliness of EMP.
One exhibit took me aback just a little bit. Amidst the displays of soul music greats was a small section on Jackie Wilson. You may not know the name, but I suspect this will sound familiar:
On September 29, 1975, Wilson suffered a heart attack while performing at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill NJ. Although he was resuscitated, Jackie Wilson had suffered severe brain damage due to the extended time it took to do so. He remained in a vegetative state until his death nearly a decade later.
Among the items on Wilson were two “get well” telegrams (one from Redd Foxx, the other from Elvis) addressed to him at Cherry Hill Medical Center. What struck me about all this is that my father was a physician at that institution. He was on call that night, and participated in Jackie Wilson’s initial care. Seeing the phrase “Cherry Hill Medical Center”, then, brought out that memory from somewhere in the crevices of my mind.
I’ll be here in Cleveland through Sunday, so maybe it’ll seem like home soon.
