Friday, July 30, 2004

Final summary for today (DNC day 7.5)

For those of you reading this blog, please continue to check it out over the next few days, as I plan to add pictures to go with the stories. Also there have definitely been some spelling and grammatical errors that I may (or may not :-)) try to correct.

Feel free to send EMAIL to "kucinich@cyberchuck.org" for further discussions, whatever they may be. I look forward to continuing the journey I started back almost a year ago with the INCREDIBLE Houston Kucitzen group (we love you all!)

DNC Day 7.5

Back from the Kucinich party at a local rock club.

Good party. We had some speeches from various Kucinich folks, a *really excellent* poet (who happens to be a female steel worker, Rebecca Cooper), and a guitarist and singer from Santa Fe.

We watched the Kerry speech on a big screen; sorta hard to hear the audio in the noisy environment of the club. I'll reserve judgement on the content of the speech until I can hear it in it's entirety with no noise in the background.

General consensus with the Kucinich folks who listened to it said it was impressive, both in content and delivery. And when these folks say "impressive" I tend to respect their judgement. One of the great things about being here in person is that I got to really converse with some very savvy, smart, and pragmatic Progressives.

I've learned that this is a general characteristic of Kucinich supporters.

About 2 hours later, Dennis visited the party and delivered a rousing "thank you" speech to the crowd. Among other things he said that even though neither he nor we (his supporters) had any illusions about not being in total agreement with Kerry on all issues we were all (including him) to work *very* hard at getting Kerry elected.

He said that he'd been interviewed extensively by the media this week, and spoke with both foreign and domestic political people (officeholders and pundits) and that they *all* said that the depth, dedication, and principled discipline of Kucinich's supporters was evident to all.

He finshed with an admonition that "we are starting to change the world" and encouraged all of us to stay active as a group and dedicate our energies to continuing to build the Progressive Movement.

He then stepped off the stage after stating that he wanted to talk to each and every one of us in the room.

Since I was on the edge of the stage (by permssion) taking pictures I was one of the first to grab and hold his hand for a few minutes while stating my thanks for his work.

Whew!

An important (I think) footnote: I wrote up a page for Dot Maven about Democrat Richard Morrison's campaign about Tom Delay, and that we Houston folk may need help with Progressives everywhere to help defeat him (Delay) in November. I've met Mr Morrison personally both at the Texas State Convention and in a house party held a few weeks back at the home of a fellow Kucitizen (Dan) whose political opinion(s) i value highly.

My in-person impression of him is that he is a good and fair man, and that he speaks straight (I have asked him some very specific questions and got no-nonsense no-evasion answers).

Once I get back I really need to sit down and research Mr. Morrison more thoroughly so I can intelligently address his background, experience, and positions; I look forward to doing so and expect to come to similar conclusions as Dan's on him (i.e., it's not just an ABD (Anybody But Delay) type of thing).

Back to the DNC:

Earlier in the day at Roxbury College, the Progressive Democrats of America had an event that started with Howard Dean. I'll try to remember the specifics, but bottom line is that he made a great speech and implored everyone not to stop with "just voting: RUN FOR OFFICE!"

I was taking pictures from the floor (literally) about 8 feet or so from him. No teleprompter at this event :-)

And he introduced Dennis by saying " And Now for the Real Thing!"

I have shots of him and Dennis holding hands aloft togther, and Dennis was both gracious and effusive in his praise of what Dean accomplished: to wake up the Democratic Party and specifically to rally the Progressive Wing.

I should be able to get an audio (and probably video) of his speech, but IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) it was *much* better than the speech he gave on the DNC floor. Among a number of metaphors he used was that of a running track (the event was held in athletic facility with an indoor track round the outer perimeter).

His point: that we're running not just *one* race, but many, and that it will require persistence and "going around the track a few times".

He did his little "bounce routine" (he's done that at a number of speeches when he gets cranked up: it is simultaneously amusing and energy-generating at the same time :-) ).

The real surprise was hearing Granny D, the famous 93-year-old who walked across the US in a voting drive. She was barely able to see over the top of the podium but made a very impassioned speech about the political process.

Some highlights :

"Politics in the past was a banquet. Politics today is the fast food version".

She made the point that "in the old days" politics was something that *everyone* did , even between elections. Getting out to talk to your neighbors and friends, talking about the issues, and then voting were standard in many places in the US.

Now campaigns are all about "getting elected", not necessary "solving problems". She was very critical about the fact that the typical Democratic political strategy involved / involves going to the minority voters at the last minute in the campaign(s) and then expecting them to vote Democratic without any particular incentives. Once elected, most Dems then turn around and ignore the minoritites until the next election.

Her other food metaphor for this situation: "we give them the icing but no cake".

She was presented (somewhat at the last minute) a BackBone Trophy which I naturally took pictures of. Very appropriate use of the award (and it was a nice gold backbone mounted on wood).

Made a *lot* of contact with a *lot* people; shot > 300 pix today (mostly people) who will be contacting me for digital copies via EMAIL , so I'd better watch my EMAIL box closely over the next week or so. I expect (hope) to be inundated with contact info, and it'll really be fun to be able to match the people with the pictures in future blog entries.

Oh, and I forgot! I got to hear Amy Goodman speak at Border's Bookstore (how could I forget!) I missed her when she visitied Houston (Sarah, my sister, got to see her there and got her book signed for me).

As usual, Amy was both eloquent and moving, and made the point *again* that corporate media is just flat not doing their job in presenting important stories and asking tough questions on *all* sides of the political spectrum.

She told one story about her coverage in 1991 of the invasion of Timor by Indonesia. She said that the outright slaughter of Timorese by the Indonesians (armed by the US) were horrific.

One specific episode occurred when she and a male colleague were speaking to a large number of Timorese. All of a sudden, a squad of Indonesian soldiers appeared on the scene.

Afraid that the soldiers were there to kill the crowd (which was apparently peaceful) Amy and her companion went to the front of the crowd in an attempt to dissuade the soldiers from massacring the crowd.

Rather than stopping the soldiers, Amy and her companion were roughly thrown to the ground and beaten severely with US-supplied M16s. Her companion threw his body on top of hers to keep her from harm and had his skull fractured by the beating.

In the meanwhile, the soldiers opened fire and indiscriminately slaughtered the crowd as Amy & company were on the ground.

Once the soldiers realized that Amy & co were Americans, they allowed a Red Cross ambulance to take them to a nearby hospital. When the doctors and nurses realized what had happened they wept. Not for the massacre per se, but because they realized that even the presence of a US journalist couldn't stop the slaughter.

[ Note : this is my rendition of the story; Amy tells it much better in her book entitled "Exception to the Rulers" ]

Ten years later Amy revisited Timor on the day of their independence.

I quitely shed some tears during the story; I wasn't the only one in the room to do so.

On a more upbeat note, when I came back to the dorms some folks were singing another Beatles' song in the lobby complete with a guitar.

Wonderful way to end this particular day and, officially, the DNC for me. I'll be travelling on Friday and will probably visit some friends in Dallas on the way to Houston.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Humor: The Daily Show & Mark Fiore online

Funny bits on the net from the convention:

Mark Fiore /
Conventioneers: The Democratic Convention Game Show
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/convention.html


Daily Show / Indecision 2004
http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/indecision2004/dem/

See the Lewis Black pieces first !

More later in my daily entries (last day of the convention) including :

Dean and Kucinich together (I have pictures!) Also Granny D (she walked
the US doing voter registration and two weeks ago announced that she
is running for the Senate in Washington State!)

Also more from the Backbone Campaign, a talk with some real communists, and thoughts from the post-convention Kucinich party (which I'm going to in about 10 minutes!)


Harvey Kronberg's The Quorum Report

Harvey Kronberg's The Quorum Report: reporting Texas Politics since 1983.

Essentially a blog of Texas politics via many news sources (newspapers and articles) from around the country.

Fascinating source of information. Thanks to Fidel of Austin for pointing it out to me.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

DNC Day 7

Spent most of the day catching up on sleep and touring Boston.

Fun place to sightsee ... particularly with the "T" (train / subway) system. We've gotten pretty good at getting around the place, wish Texas could figure out how to build one (Dallas has a good start, will try to work towards a Houston light rail system that goes somewhere other than hotels & the Super Bowl :-( ).

Had a very sobering experience (with pictures) with / at the "Free Speech Zone". Even the police call it "The Pen".

Two fairly narrow entrances, twelve-foot fence, barbed wire and some sort of netting across the top. I have about 30 pictures, wish I had video.

It has the definite feel of a cage/jail. There's one tiny stage at one end of the area which I estimate *might* hold a few hundred people. At the time that we went there not too many people were around (roughly 4-5PM, well before the convention came in session).

The oppresiveness was palpable.

Apparently by design, one side of the fence faced the buses in which the delegaes arrived. Again, the
fence and the netting on top were to protect the delegates from any hurled material(s); protesters
were within about 20 feet of the bus area.

All I can write for now. I *do* have pix which I'll post after I get back if anyone is interested.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

DNC Day 6

I didn't get much sleep last nite (15 minutes of meditation) 'cuz I helped transcribe video for the multimedia folks, then at 6AM (NOT one of my favorite times) I went to the lobby to help with handing out the INSIDE/OUT publication (see previous blog posting) to the delegates.

I ended up not going out, but stayed up for awhile with some folks in the kitchen where I was making breakfast. I made some sort of joke about therapists, whereupon the lady in the room with me said that *she* was a therapist; who was *I* to make a commment about therapists (tongue in cheek). My answer, "a patient", got a smile and broke the ice.

Nice way to start the morning conversationally :-)

I then ended up napping until around 2, at which point Jan Wheeler and I decided to go to see the Take Back America program which featured Dean and Michael Moore over near MIT. The hotel presentation room only accomodated 300 people which was of course filled very quickly.

And we were late to the event and missed Dean inside. We didn't realize that when he finished his presentation he ended up going "out back" to an area that was between the hotel and the waterfront.

We tried to go in to see Michael Moore but again were told that the venue was full. However, on the "off chance" that he would also go out back eventually we made our way to the rear of the hotel. After a few speeches by the head of the UAW (John ?Wheeler? I think), a congresswoman from Indiana (first name Jan), another guy took the stage. I didn't hear his name, but apparently he was an MC who spoke on a number of topics of general interest (one was the high percentage
of single women who don't vote). After a while, he identified some media folks in the audience and had them come up to speak while waiting for MM.

First was Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation magazine. I've seen her on a number of talk shows and have been meaning to subscribe based on her appearances. She's very eloquent and spoke on a number of topics, one of which was the lack of coverage by the "mainstream media", a topic obviously apropos to MM.

Next up was Amy Goodman of Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/). She's on NPR daily (including the Pacifica station in Houston) and now on satellite and cable stations.

She also spoke of the (lack of) media coverage of Iraq and in particular the "drumbeat for war".

She also mentioned a very moving story about a soldier who served honorably in Iraq but performed a number of missions that resulted in the deaths of a number of civilians. He surived Iraq and had an honorable discharge but after one year committed suicide due to depression over his actions.

She was going to continue to even more moving serious topics but graciously stepped aside when Michael Moore came out.

He acknowledged her courtesy in letting her have the stage and then began speaking.

He spoke about Fahrenheiit 911 (F911) (naturally), emphasizing that the #1 reaction he got from people who had seen it was "why didn't we see this before"? Examples: eggs thrown on the Presidential limousine during the inauguration, the aftermath of some of the battle scenes in Iraq, and the famous scene of President Bush simply staring and then continuing to read a children's story after he heard about the attacks (he was in a school at the time).

On this latter event, Michael Moore obtained the footage at the schoolroom by simply going to the school and asking if anyone had videotaped it. Apparently *no one* in "the media" had even bothered to ask, and that piece of home video was one of the major scenes of F911.

His point: with a crew of independent cameramen and very little effort he was able to obtain and/or shoot video that *NO* media outlet had produced. His conclusion: the media is either controlled or very lazy.

He then went on to ask : do you hold your neighbors in contempt for their supporting the war and then changing their minds later on? The answer was a resounding "NO".

So then how do we continue to criticize the congress(wo)men and senators who initially supported the war and now oppose it?

And why is it not publicisized that 60% (yes, he repeated this statistic) of Democrats voted against the authorization for war?

And why did senators and congress(wo)men alike vote in a majority? Because they trusted the President, as it should be.

He asked a rhetorical question: "If we can't trust our President then what are we left with?"

At this point he had a "pregnant pause" .. I shouted out "CHENEY!". He did a double-take, looked over and pointed at me, and said "hey I'm just the warmup act! You'll be on next!" :-) and then continued on with his talk.

So I actually had a interaction of sorts with MM!!!!! I'm thrilled ...

He then went on to say that he ran into Bill O'Reilly of Fox News (he of the "O'Reilly Report") at a theatre somewhere, and that Bill R. had left before the movie was over.

O'Reilly has been after MM for awhile to appear on his program; MM agreed to appear on the "O'Reilly Report" if Bill R. would watch to the end of the movie.

Yesterday (Monday) MM ran into O'Reilly and this time O'Reilly said that he had gone back and seen the movie in its entirety (according to MM, apparently O'Reilly's wife loved the film ). MM gave him quiz on the spot (3 questions) all of which O'Reilly did not answer correctly.

But O'Reilly had an hour or so to kill and so MM agreed to appear anyway, under three conditions:

1) O'Reilly would agree *not* to turn off MM's microphone at any point (this happened on an OR interview awhile back, with a fairly famous liberal guest who Bill O decided had to be shut down).
2) For every question O'Reilly asked, MM would be able to ask one in return. OR's initial response was: "No one *ever* interviews *me* on *my show*, and MM said "OK, too bad" and then started to walk away.

OR then capitulated.
3) For condition #3, understand that both OR and MM have daughters.
The condition: OR had to answer ON CAMERA the following question:

"Would you sacrifice your daughter to secure Fallujah (?sp?) Yes or no?"

The interview was taped last night (Monday) and was aired today (Tuesday) at 8PM EST. We got back to the dorm in time to catch the very tail end of the program (I had Karen & Elise both tape the show back in Texas). The last part of the interview was when MM posed question #3.

OR refused to answer. MM said without hesitation: "I would *not* sacrifice my daughter to secure Fallujah".

Of course, the point is that there is a disproportionate number of disadvantged and minorities in the population of the frontline military, and why is it that only those seem to go to war?

He stated that he was not a Democrat, more of a "cousin", but that he felt it necessary to come to the DNC to try to get the Democrats to get a backbone and take a strong stand on civil rights, the war, and the controlled media. If the Democrats feel they need to move more to the right to win the election, then they're trying to become the party of the Right, and they already *have* a party! (Republicans!)

Finally, he said that the media definitely wasn't doing its job and that he had personally spoken to a number of news organizations who said (off camera) that certain stories were off-limits for coverage. He gave a specific example of a post-interview conversation with the crew of Matt Lauer's program on MSNBC.

After Matt L. had left the room and gone down the hall, the camera crew closed the door and told MM that they had personally seen memos stating that certain topics were not to be discussed and that producers who tried to cover "off-topic" stories were summarily moved to other parts of the organization.

He then started a chant of "DO YOUR JOB!" to the media and we all joined in.

In person he came across to me as being the same as on his TV appearances; a *bit* brash but one who is not afraid to ask hard questions nor afraid to answer them (this is a Good or Bad thing depending on your opinion of MM).

I have about 10 pictures (or so) of him not 10 feet from me. Wish I had a shot of him *with* me, but he had to rush off to another engagement.

On the way back we went to dinner at Cheesecake Factory and met some folks there who are working on the Electronic Voting Machines veriability issue. I got the card(s) of some of the ladies, one of whom said that an Amicus Brief has been filed in Ohio against Diebold. Since I have their contact info I'll probably be talking to them when I get back.

We all watched the convention on CSPAN in the lobby of the dorms. We got in after Dean had spoken but caught Barak Obama, the new up-and-coming senator from Indiana. He was quite charismatic and impressive; I can see why the Democrats featured him as a keynote speaker.

Next up was Teresa Heinz Kerry. I admit I haven't been following her much other than short bits on CNN, but a brief bio preceded her speech to the convention. Very impressive political resume, including a longtime activist in environmental and philanthropic areas. She was very eloquent in statements and even demonstrated (in passing) her command of five languages (English/French/Spanish/italian/ ???) And she stressed that she believed in John Kerry and made it very clear (by her presence, certainly) that she would definitely be highly active in a Kerry adminstration.

CSPAN did something somewhat amusing: after several key points were made the camera took a quick shot of Hillary Clinton. She appeared somewhat dour/sour and (perhaps) a bit envious.

For more details of today's event as recorded by the DNC see the DNC BLOG at:

http://www.democrats.org/blog/

Geez, if *I* had gotten a Convention Floor Pass for blogging I think I would have done a bit more ... hey, waitaminnut! Maybe I already have ! :-)

Last dorm event: a bunch of us watched the latest Daily Show in the lobby. They did their usual great job of absolutely skewering the Democratic Convention while showing *all* the high points (I know they did, I was there for 4 hours and they condensed the essentials into about a 3-4 minute segment). A lot of the Kucinich folks had never really paid attention to DS (some had), and I certainly was glad to see so many people be surprised as to how good DS (and Jon Stewart and crew) are at the "fake news".

CivicActions: Empowering Democracy from the edges

Wow. Another incredible find (for me) here at the DNC.

I met Henri Poole, a director (?) of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He introduced me to an FSF-sponsored project, Civic Actions (www.civicactions.com).

I spoke with Henri for about 15 minutes or so and got his card and the URL.

I only just now skimmed through the site but was very impressed with
what I saw. I have *not* looked at this in depth yet, but it certainly
seems appealing.

If this system does what I think it does (or will do eventually) we've just gotten a huge "gift from the sky" for political campaigners.

From their description:

Digital Democracy
  
Two of the three tools that Trippi identified as winners in Dean's run for President are edge tools.

CBS reports: You may know the winner of the Democratic presidential primary campaign. And you probably know the Republican candidate.But, as New York Times columnist David Pogue reports for CBS News Sunday Morning , behind the scenes, there's also a third key player. It's a campaign worker popular enough to reach millions of voters, inspiring enough to attract thousands of volunteers, and powerful enough to change the election process forever.And who is this great communicator? It's not a who, it's a what. It's the Internet.

First, the blog, which is short for the word "web log," made a huge impact with journals on the Web.

The second new Internet tool is also connecting voters with the campaigners, but offline. Every night, in hundreds of bars, restaurants and bowling alleys, Americans are meeting up to talk politics.

The third small idea that became very big in the election of 2004 are Web sites like MoveOn.org.

Friend to Friend Politics
  
Dan Robinson (E-Volve) recently turned me on to some very interesting work (background here) being done by Pat Dunlavey in Massachusetts. In short, Pat conducted a Voter ID/Get Out The Vote campaign utilizing a social network to identify warm-call lists. When compared to a similar campaign done by cold-calls, the metrics are quite impressive. Contact rates of 84% vs 45%; ID rates of 57% vs 31%. Dan has informed me that a technical specification for the system is soon to be released (under a free software / open source license). Anyone up for working on a project?

DNC Day 5

Spent most of the day going around the neighborhood (pix here as well). Walked
a few miles with Jan to find a TMobile phone card to get me up to 100 minutes
of air time.

After I got back I got a really pleasant surprise around 7PM or so: there was
an extra Delegate Pass to the convention floor (Fleet Center) : would I like
to go?

Are you KIDDING?

So I trucked down to the center with my Kucinich gear on (T-shirt and
cap) and various buttons.

Security was definitely tight. I didn't bring my camera 'cuz I was told it might
be taken at the door.

I got in just as Jimmy Carter was introduced. He was OK, said good things, endorsed
Kerry & Edwards, etc. [ my impressions only. High-quality speech methods, just
no particularly new message(s) or flashy delivery).

For JC and the other speakers (there were three as I recall: a Congresswoman
from Cleveland, a Reverend who served under Kerry in Vietnam) and a
Congresswoman from Minnesota (as I recall). These were all from memory
since I didn't bring anything to write with and had no recording devices).

The crowd clapped at all the right places and basically did the "rah-rah"
thing ... supportive and appreciative but not consistently or wildly
expressive.

On the flip side, at 10PM Hillary came on and the whole place went mildly
crazy. Not raise-the-roof stuff, but very well received. Again, she was an excellent
speaker, but no particular new insights that I could discern.

But when she introduced Bill the place went nutz.

I'm not a political speech expert, but I do pride myself in trying to absorb
many different information sources and have seen speeches before.

IMHO (in my humble opinion) this was an incredible piece of political
discourse. His delivery was flawless, and again while the message(s)
weren't particularly new, the nuances were incredible.

Two major examples:

1) He made a point of mentioning the tax cuts to the top 1% and
said he was grateful that he was now in that category and therefore
received a tax cut. He went to write a thank-you letter to Washington
but decided not to send it because he "knew that the rest of you had
to pay for it".
2) While talking about Edwards and Kerry, he praised Kerry's choice of VP
and said that this was evidence of good judgement. He then spoke
of Kerry's public service starting with Vietnam and his senatorial
stands.

The phrase he used with great effect was:
"Wisdom and Strength are not opposing values"

[ If you're interested you really should see the video ... very very powerful ]

So I got on the floor! Thanks to the Kucinich campaign for giving me the
opportunity. It was a one-day pass, but it would be hard to top the live
experience of the "Hillary and Bill Show".

All 4 tonite. The campaign desperately needs people to distribute flyers
in the morning to delegates, and those who know me know that I'm NOT
an early riser. But I will this time (I can sleep until noon after that and I don't
have to drive to my destination).

Ah well, that's what caffeine is for.

Monday, July 26, 2004

DNC Day 4

Got *some* sleep last nite.

Spent the first part of the day doing some small volunteer
work in places & then going to meet Jan's cousin in order to
recover our luggage (we had left some at his farm and didn't
expect to go back out there until later in the week).

Well after lunch (we're getting real familiar with travelling on "The T"
(Boston's rail system/subway) we got back late for a meeting at which
Dennis spoke to all the volunteers here (I think it is around 200+,
seems that way when we're all together in the "atrium" area).


Although we came in at the end of the meeting, I got to hear
some impassioned thanks from fellow Kucinich volunteers, and then
Dot Maven (main campaign coordinator) thanked all of us again
for all the hard work and reminded us again that this is a *movement*,
not just a political campaign.

At the end of the meeting a gal in the balcony (you'll have to see the
pix, I shot 140 today(!)) offered a song to Dennis via her guitar:
"Imagine" by John Lennon (I know you old-timers know what this
is, but some of the "younger readers" might not :-)).

All of us in the room started joining in, and at the end we had
linked arms (including Dennis) and shed more than a few tears.

Very moving.

I found out later that this was completely spontaneous (this from the
volunteers, staff, and even the lady who played the guitar).

That made the moment all that more special. I can't emphasize
enough how wonderful this group is. Just like our folks back home,
when things need to be done they just *get done* by whomever happens
to be around.

This is such a powerful feeling, to know that you're among others
who are passionately dedicated, deeply principled, and
completely committed to positive non-violent change.

A few hours later Dennis spoke to a crowd of ~200 or so at the
Jamaican People's Party (all Delegates had DNC-sponsored parties
today, so local Boston folk decided to sponsor one "for the people").

After Dennis' speech the BackBone Campaign came up (see
previous blog entry) and asked for volunteers for the "Backbone
Puppet".

A bunch of us climbed the hill (this was too good to pass up) and
there was a 200-foot "backbone" made of about 50 individual lumbar
pieces of cloth with poles beneath each.

Once all the lumbar poles were in place, we had a 100-foot
backbone in the air (I was lumbar #10, as I counted from the front).

One amusing (for me, anyway) feature of the pole support was
the use of a eceptacle that was secured to each
of us by means of a belt. The bamboo pole end was placed
in the receptacle hole and that helped distribute the weight
off of our arms.

My problem: the belt was pulling my shorts down :-( And there
was no way to hand off the pole to someone else wiithout
stopping the backbone.

I made it to the end ... but it was a funny sight and mildly
embarrassing to think what might have happened had my
shorts come off. No one commented and I'm pretty sure
my T-shirt covered my underwear but ...

Anyway ...

We proceeded to march about 10 blocks while singing slogans
like:

"John Kerry get tough/Bush-lite ain't good enough!"
"Dem bones dem bones dem BACK bones (repeat 3 times),
now here's how to change the world"

There was a crowd of about (again guesstimate) 300 people who
trailed behind the backbone with signs & slogans.

Very exhausting, but a huge amount of fun.

Some notes:

1) There were about 50-60 police on motorcycles who were
at the gathering; some number of them ran interference for us
as we wended our way through the streets.

Absolutely no incidents whatsoever (although we were told
to stay on the sidewalks, and sometimes the "backbone"
almost got stuck in some trees).

The police were very professional and courteous, and
we all tried to wave and yell our thanks for a peaceful
demonstration.

2) At one point of the march, there was concrete (the street) to the
right of the BB, and on the left were some little hilly fields
fileld with flowers). This prompted a chant of "flowers on the left"
by many of us manning the BB.

3) A helicopter was hovering just above us for about 4 blocks. We
couldn't tell if it was security or a news helicopter; we *hoped*
it was a news helicopter 'cuz they got great shots of us
weaving back and forth with the backbone.

Some security notes:

1) Emily, the 80+ mountaineer/environmentalist/journalist I
mentioned in previous postings accidentally dropped her
walking stick on the tracks after getting off a train.

We waited until the train had left and then decided (wisely) to
contact the MTA (Mass Transit Authority) police to help us
retrieve the cane.

Once we got the attention of the MTA (mostly by waving
our arms at guard down the tracks) both an MTA policeman
AND about 6 military-garbed MPs quickly converged on the
spot (at first they weren't sure what was happpening).

We quickly explained the situation and they calmed down
a bit and retrieved the cane.

They (the MPs) were carrying rifles.

Once the cane was recovered they left quickly to their
next post.

The speed and efficiency of the MTA + MP response was
very impressive. And they were completely professional
and courteous in the performance of their duties.

2) On a diffferent (sour) note, we saw some MTAs and MPs (again,
in military garb) do a quick arrest of a man in the tunnels between
the Red and Green lines of the subway.

He seemed to have unkempt long white hair and beard and, as
far as we could tell, was holding a soft drink in his hand.

He was surrounded by the MTA and MPs and was quickly
shuffled off out of view. I didn't see any particular evidence
of any wrongdoing on his part, but he did appear somewhat
scruffy (so did we after hiking around the non-A/C subway
stations).

Soooo is dress / haircut style a crime?

Trying to be fair, something may have happened before we got
there, but again it is chilling and reminder to be *very* careful
to be courteous and non-confrontive at all times in all venues.

We wrapped up the night with a visit to an outstanding Blues
bar in Cambridge recommended by Jan's cousin Steve. Turns out
he knows the musicians and the proprietors of the place; he
has a lot of them out to his farm on a regular basis to jam
in the barn (which will eventually have a recording studio
in it).

All 4 now. Still working on where to post my pix (about 300 so far).

Charlie

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Million Billionaires for Bush March

I'm going to try to attend, although I forgot to bring
my tux.

Million Billionaires for Bush March
http://billionairesforbush.com/index.php

"From July 26-29 John Kerry and thousands of
his proletarian-sympathisizing cohorts will
convene in Boston for the Democratic national Convention.

Billionaires, it is our sacred duty as guardians of privilege and
power to deffend the Bush administration from this
barbaric electoral challenge. We thus call upon all People
of Wealth to defy the DNC and converge on the streets of
Boston for a Million Billionaire March on July 27th.

Billionaires from Beverly Hills to Grosse Pointe to Wall
Street to Wall Strett will fire champagn corks (provided)
at the misguided simpletons nominating John Kerry."

Sounds like *fun* to me. It'll happen Tuesday nite.

Website for Eric Blumrich at the convention

Among the interesting people I've met so far on this trip, Eric
Blumrich is one of the most intriguiing.

Among other things, he's the graphic artist who's done
Dennis' national site, and he's also the author of
BUSHFLASH (www.bushflash.com).

An excerpt from his blog of last nite (I watched
while he composed it sitting on a laptop
outside the dorm):

By the time I got to Emanuel college, I was ready for a shower- in fact, I was afraid that if I didn't get one soon, I'd show up as a bioweapon of some sort on some hidden scanner. Fortunately, I was processed pretty quickly, and was able to dump my burden in my room, and retire to the shower- only to find- WHEE- NO HOT WATER!

What a hoot. Very bright guy, hope to stay in touch with him after
the convention.

Some new URLs

Some new URLs I've been sent recently:

Another Texas Delegate: Annalise Vogel of Houston

I think I met this lady yesterday ... pretty sure that some of our
folks have met her too. I'll haveta make sure I get her picture
and contact info before I get back to Houston.

An excerpt from the HC article on Annalise on July 24th (someone
PLEASE get a copy of the paper and article!) :

Excerpt:

Senate District 15's Anneliese Vogel is a budding star.  As one of the youngest delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Anneliese is already the object of media attention...so much so that the Houston Chronicle has her reporting on her activities at the convention throughout the week.....which we will repost here for all to see.....Here is her first article.

Inside/Out: daily briefing of convention activities

Be sure to visit

Inside/Out, a new publication which will be distributed by volunteers to all delegates at their hotels in the morning.

Besides listing progressive events (both nationally and locally-organized by Boston local groups), there will be daily
interpretations of the day's events.

As stated in the current issue (title: "Nothing Conventional
About It"), see the website for the United Progressive Alliance.

From their "Welcome" page:

The challenges that progressive activists face these days are daunting. In order to succeed in implementing change we must work together to bring the progressive vision to our local communities, our states, and to the nation. We need to capitalize - right now - on the ground-swell of disbelief, revulsion, and frustration that so many feel towards the direction this country has taken, and about the lack of cooperation we've gotten from those in Congress whom we would normally, naturally count on for help and leadership. 

DNC Day 3

Add to our group list (from the first posting): Fidel Acevedo, Sylvia (don't
know her last name, will fill in later), Stan Merriman, Mary Kay (again
not sure of her last name), and of course our own Anna DelPrado
(our group's official National Delegate to the convention).

Pretty busy day today. Helped the volunteers in the office by
running down the street (3 blocks) and buying groceries

Good news: the volunteer staff area was so busy they didn't
have time to go get food.

Bad news; the volunteer staff area was so busy they didn't
have time to go get food.

They felt *much* better when I brought them goodies; they put together a shopping
list which was so big I had to borrow a cart from the store and push it the three
blocks to our dorm.

Felt weird pushing a cart down a Boston street (got a few strange looks), and
the staff got a chuckle out of seeing me come through the door with
a cart .. but they were very happy to have sustenance and seemed to have
their spirits lifted by same :-)

Main point is: the spirits here are very high, and Dot Maven (head of the
Kucinich campaign nationally) gave a very inspiring speech to all of
us (to be passed on to all of you out there!) that we're a part of a group
that won't go away and will do *anything* reasonable to get work done.

And it doesn't hurt that we (the Texas Delegation) are making our presence
felt in many ways. One high point (of many) today is that we attended the
Boston Social Forum (see http://www.bostonsocialforum.org/news.php)
which was an incredible gathering of all sorts of folks.

Dennis gave two speeches there (unfortunately I missed both due to
my helping out "at home"), but most of the rest of our group heard
him live).

He was asked what he "got" from endorsing Kerry ... the answer
he gave (I'm told) is that Kerry told him that "The White House
will be a Department of Peace" (apologies in advance if I'm misquoting
Dennis here; others in our group will let me know if I'm
quoting inaccurately).

He explicitly acknowledged the efforts of the Kucnich Texas group (YAY!)
in getting the Department of Peace resolution passed on the floor
of the Texas Democratic Convention. Many people I spoke with made
a point of thanking us for our efforts (Texas).

Another interesting group that I hope to start coordinating with
is the "Backbone Campaign" (see http://www.backbonecampaign.org/).

Idea is to give awards ("backbone awards") for those politicians
who have shown a backbone (i.e., taken a risk) in supporting
Progressive stances. The "good" BackBone Award is a nicely-designed
plaque with an animal skeleton mounted on it.

On the flip side is a "BackBone Citation" which is given to
those politicians who have either backed down from committments
to Progressive Causes or have ignored same.

Apparently this campaign has been getting noticed and has actually
achieved some minor (at this point) successes by chiding
(mild term here) politicians in the Northeast via these
notices.

Along with the awards and citations, the group is keeping track
of "BackBone Quotient" for a (currently small) area of the
country, but wants to get other parts of the US to participate.

Lastly, the main spokesperson for the group (or at least a major
voice) is (I kid you not) a guy named "Bill Moyers" (yes, that's
his REAL name).

I got to speak with him for about half and hour this evening
and he admitted that leaving messages from Bill Moyers to
various groups usually gets a call back ASAP :0

Imagine getting this going tied to a KPFT program!

Boggles the mind, eh?

As expected, we're all having fun, working hard
at networking, and bragging on ALL of us back home
as to how wonderful it is to be part of such a
hardworking and caring group (yes, that is YOU
who are reading this).

And I'll say again how proud I am to be in the
company of the "Texas Contingent" from all over the state :0

On a much more somber note: the security here is *incredibly* tight.

Some points made at our Volunteer Coordination meeting tonite:

* Interstate 93 (about 10 miles' worth) will be completely
closed from Monday through Thursday (it runs within a very
short distance of the convention center).
* Manhole covers will be welded shut in some areas.
* Random searches will be conducted on all trains (statistically
every 8th passenger), and passengers with "large bags" (ill-defined)
will be asked to be searched. If a person refuses to be searched,
that person will be kicked off the train and arrested for trespassing
if he/she refuses to leave the train.
* We were strongly advised to stay away from the area titled the "Free Speech
Zone", a fairly small (25,000 sq. ft from one source) that has a 12-foot
wire fence with barbed wire at the top.

It also features two *very* small entrances (only two), and will have a
covering on the top (tarp or whatever) ostensibly for weather but
coincidentally completely opaque from any kind of surveillance
from the air.

Again, we were encouraged for safety reasons NOT to use this
area (only "free speech zone" anywhere near the convention center), but
of course we were not ORDERED not to use the space (yes, the campaign
is again showing its principles here).
* We were told that there definitely would be / are snipers posted on the roofs
of various buildings (no specifics, but I'm not sure we have any at this
point).

Sorta scary ... I'm definitely *not* planning to take any particular risks
while out and about.

I think we'd all appreciate a bit of communication to
whatever Higher Power you utilize to have us all return home safe
and sound.

The security atmosphere reminds me, though, of
the recent Mark Fiore FLASH animation entitled
"Remain Calm" (Minister of Fear)" at

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/fear.html

More later ... and I have about 150 pictures (digital) so far that
I'm trying to figure out how to post :-)

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Fun with Public Officials and Public Databases

Not directly related to the convention, but an interesting
article nonetheless on Voter Purge rolls in Florida (yes,
2000 fallout again):

Fun with Public Officials and Public Databases
Article in KURO5HIN on public databases and voter purge rolls

where the author says he can prove that at least some
voter rolls purged in Florida DID NOT INCLUDE HISPANICS,
who (apparently) usually vote Republican, at least in
Florida (? howcum ?).

Anyway, the guy proves his point by referring to publically-accessible
databases and doing cross-referencing with the voter
rolls (or so I understand the article on a quick read).

Interesting ...

End of the first full day

All:

Well, it's the end of a very long first day for the "Texas Contingent" which
includes (so far):

Fidel, Jan W, Carondelet, Stan Merriman & Mary Kay, Linda Foley and myself.

There may be others "lurking" that I haven't found yet :-)

I have taken > 100 digital photos so far, and was just too pooped out to post
them today. I tried to have most of them contain photos of people (ours
and others at the convention).

Main activity for tonite was the Veterans for Peace program that took place for
a few hours at the Feneuille (?spelling?) building downtown. We all went down
there but when we got to the event Jan, Emily (?last name?) and I decided
to just walk around the area and have a good sit-down dinner.

We ended up eating at Cheers (YES! That one! although not the original
location) ... we have pictures in front of the cutouts of the cast :-)

And we had some fascinating discussions with Emily, a totally
wonderful lady of (I'd estimate) > 80 years of age who has been
travelling with Dennis.

She was apparently a pretty high-end journalist on environmental
issues until the Reagan age at which time she says that the R administration
was able to undo all the environmental progress made in the state of
Washington over many years in a very short period of time (sound
familiar?)

She also said that "she'd waited 66 years for a candidate like Dennis
to come along" and that her explanation of why he hasn't
gotten media coverage is because the current media "establishment"
(including "liberal" like NY Times) prefers to run negative
stories on policitians and Dennis is absolutely clean ... no
weird skeletons in his closet (not withstanding Cleveland, which
from my readings were not really a slight on his character
at all).

Another interesting point: Dennis was going to speak at the
aforementioned Veterans' meeting but was called at the last
minute for a vote in Congress (sorta suspicious that a vote
was called this late when normally voting takes place
earlier in the week).

And whatever the opposition says about Dennis, as many of you
know he has the most consistent attendance record for voting
of any congressman, running for Prez or not :)

Anyhoo, fun times so far, although the lack of universal
air conditioning (even in cars!) makes me feel like a total
wimp :-)

Charlie

Friday, July 23, 2004

Take Back America: schedule for next week

All:

We're all going to try to get to these events as well
next week.

Take Back America: schedule for next week
http://www.ourfuture.org/

Look *closely* at the speakers and the topics.

Excerpt from the last day's agenda:

"This session will showcase the new progressive infrastructure — the groups waging the war on the ground, the air, and the web to Take Back America. The right-wing apparatus is finally being contested. Meet leaders who are making it happen."

First Entry : more to come

Well, we're here in Boston.

"We" is: Charlie, Jan Wheeler, Carondelet, Linda Foley at present.

We're on the way to pick up Carondelet and Linda at the airport and take them
to the Kucininch HQ at Emmanuel College.

Charlie