I'm just sayin'

Mourning Michael Jackson

2009-07-02T08:20:00.014-04:00

For one whole week now Michael Jackson’s music has been playing in my head. My own personal, intimate, inner cranium iPod. You might have seen me, bobbing down the street, “rock with you” playing in my inner ear, no headphones in sight. Mainly it’s songs like that – Rock with You, Billie Jean, Bad (who’s bad?!), The doggawn girl is mine, and off the wall, (oh tonight, we're gonna put the 9 to 5 up on the shelf ... life ain't so bad at all"), all songs I remember from my early teenage years, crowded in to the tv room at the all girls’ boarding school I was subjected to, watching MTV, the meaning of the lyrics going completely over my innocent catholic school girl head, but the rhythm of the music and the dance and the beauty that was Michael Jackson taking me in completely.

I have been mourning Michael Jackson’s passing … selectively.

I turned on AC 360 the other night only to hear Anderson (who I like actually, an awful lot) say something a long the lines of “nothing but the facts here,” as he led straight in to an interview with the wonderful Sanjay Gupta in which they did nothing but speculate about the types of drug concoctions that might have killed Michael Jackson.

I've steered clear of the television machine ever since. Truth be told it's hard to watch the same people who preyed on his vulnerabilities now laud him in his death.

Instead I've been drawing on friends, primarily, believe it or not, through that other news aggregator: facebook.

Friends linked to videos, like this one which I watched on the night of his death and it just blew me away. Bloody hell. So young, so talented.

Another, a booker for WNYC’s The Takeaway forwarded on an interview with Chuck D. You can check that out here. A beautiful tribute from the brilliant poet, writer, Carl Hancock Rux, which you can read* here absolutely nailed the way I felt, and this, I thought was lovely from the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America’s Don Gomez.

There is also this lovely piece from Kelefa Sannah in the New Yorker.

I loved Michael Jackson. I loved the way he danced, the way he turned, the way he looked. I thought he was beautiful. I choose to remember him that way.

NOTE: you have to be on Facebook to read Carl Hancock Rux' tribute, so just in case you are not, here it is:

For MJ

It wasn't
a man who died
It was
a room

of twirling disks
and posters
of oily palms
shaping hair
into a black sun

a first love
we learned
and lost

a dance we
tried to do
so many
summers
ago

a new leather
jacket
set aside
and covered

that surge of light
from a TV screen

a boy's
soft soprano pitch
and
perfect pirouette

a regret
for everything
that distorted
a face
God made
so perfectly
the first time...

Crucial reading ...

2009-05-31T21:28:00.001-04:00

from Frank Rich in today's New York Times.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T09:35:00.004-04:00

I guess...

2009-02-12T17:29:00.002-05:00

reaching across the aisle just isn't in the Republican Party's DNA.

I love the description ...

2009-02-05T09:37:00.005-05:00

"The writer is president of the United States."

You can read President Barack Obama's op-ed, here.

Just don't talk to me about purple

2009-01-25T18:26:00.006-05:00

Yes. I was one of the thousands who was stuck outside, purple ticket in hand, unable to attend the swearing-in. What a disappointment. I wrote about it, showed some photos over on Facebook, which you can see, here.
And that as they say is all I'm going to say about it because I don't want it to be the thing I remember about this brilliant day.

We're out of Milk!

2009-01-19T10:29:00.009-05:00

You can also read this post on the Huffington Post, here.

I missed the concert! Boy was I just a little bit bummed about that. I had thought it would go 'til 7 and got into town, all pleased and cocky-like, at 4:30p, sure that even though they said the concert would start at 2:30p they didn't really mean it. I got out of the metro and started walking towards the Mall as a sea of people began to come my way. I asked the obvious question of one couple in that throng. "Is the concert over?!" They were like yeah... obviously.

So, instead of heading to the Mall, I wandered over towards the White House. (So easy!) I strolled through Lafayette Square and just soaked up the atmosphere, which was ... splendid. The energy was wonderful. People strolling, smiling, relaxed, pleased, taking photos of the White House, taking photos of the place where Barack Obama will watch the parade on Tuesday. Folks posing under the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue signs.

The only ones who seemed out of sorts were the traffic cops. One of them to a driver trying to make a left turn and looking for directions:

"Lady, I'll talk to you when you get out of my crosswalk." She had to reverse back.

Another, ferocious, to another driver sitting out in the middle of the crosswalk.

"Get back! Get Back!" She strode up to the car with such menace I thought oh, jeez she's going to climb up on to the hood.

The guy reversed.

Them, and one of the girls at Starbucks. (There are at least five starbucks within spitting distance of each other in this part of DC -- I went to three of them, the first two at which I mistook the long lines as lines for the baristas, they were in fact lines for the bathrooms). At the third one, I got served in no time but while I was there, mellow and enjoying the scene, one of the baristas was on the phone. "We're out of Milk!" she cried. "We're out of milk!" Code Red!

I had thought I wasn't going to come to Washington to witness Barack Obama's swearing in. I had convinced myself that it would be too crazy, that there would be too many people, that the lines would drive me nuts (and in fact I can't say that none of that is true -- just getting on the Metro yesterday in Vienna -- the last stop in Northern Virginia -- I had to wait about 40 minutes before I could even buy a ticket) but I am glad I am here.

Looking down the elegant avenue towards the White House, and knowing that, on Tuesday, Barack Obama will be the one driving through these gates, is moving. The old lump in the throat, pride, relief, swelling in the chest.

Yes We Did. Yes We Can. Yes We Will.

these guys will take you there ...

2009-01-19T10:03:00.008-05:00

You can also read this post, on the Huffington Post, here.

My Fellow Americans. If you are in DC for the inauguration and are bracing yourselves for the logistical nightmares involved in getting around -- you are hearing stories about roads and bridges being shut down; you’re hearing predictions about a metro system in meltdown, and you know that DC taxis who will rip you off on a regular day are going to have a field day with your vulnerability this time around. (“What else can you do lady, you’re wearing stilettos, it’s cold out there, I’m willing to drive you three blocks for three times the fare,” for some reason this guy sounds like he’s got a Brooklyn accent in my mind). You do have an alternative: Pedicabs. Rickshaws. You know, the small little cabs, room enough for two, pulled by a bicycle, something that maybe, just maybe you associate with hot and exotic places like Vietnam or Thailand.

Well. They too have come to Washington to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama.

I know. I rode down from New York City with two of them.

Dennis and John. We met on Craigs List. They will give you a ride.

They gave me one. Just to see what it’s like.

My observations, below:

It was cold, but you knew that already. This is January in DC, the temperature is 17 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest day. They do have blankets though which you can wrap around yourself. And if you’re lucky, there will be two of you snuggled into that carriage in which case, well, you probably won’t feel the cold all that much.

It was a little bumpy.

“Gotta love Washington DC roads,” Dennis says. “Ka-doink, Ka-doink!”
There are plenty of potholes in Washington, DC.
“We’re the best road state,” Dennis says, nodding proudly, “North Carolina.”

First in Flight and the best roads in the Union. Who knew?

It’s not going to break the bank.

“Some people charge $30 a head,” John says, “but I can’t do that, frankly because I don’t think it’s worth it… I can go about $15 a head.”

Usually these guys ride for tips. For longer journeys – something more than say, seven long DC blocks – they will agree on a fare with you before you take off.

They can get you there. John & Dennis took me past the White House, by the Jefferson Memorial and right underneath the Washington Monument. This city impresses me every time I come. The architecture, the monuments, the history breathing through every piece of it … to get to see if on a pedicab adds that little bit of something. Not quite a horse-drawn carriage, but not a taxi either. Certainly not a taxi stuck in traffic. There isn’t a lot that can stop these pedicabs, something that was evident last night in Downtown DC. Traffic, traffic everywhere, and the pedicabs sailing right on through.

These guys might look like gangsters … but they aren’t. They’ve got woolen caps on, the scarves wrapped around the face to minimize skin exposure. Maybe on a typical night you might say no to a guy dressed like this offering you a ride but this is Washington DC. Inauguration weekend. The whole world is here and there’s not a cab in sight. Jump in.

Their ambition for the weekend?

“I just want to make enough money to buy food,” Dennis says.

Methinks they’ll make enough to dine at Washington's finest restaurants … but only if they can get a reservation.

oh joy oh rapture ...

2009-01-12T14:44:00.001-05:00

Bush's last press conference, which you can watch here.

there's got to be a better way ...

2009-01-08T10:34:00.009-05:00

This from the New York Times last Thursday, January 1st, the first day of a new year, the day when you hope everything starts again, afresh, new chances, new hope, new president.

It damn near broke my heart:

"I prepared them breakfast that day in the garden," said their mother, Ayda, 36. "They had the tea, bread and thyme. Lama wanted a second pita, but we all teased her saying, 'keep it for lunch.' She told us, 'Don't worry, God will provide us with bread.'

"She made all of us laugh," the mother said. "I cleaned after them and collected the garbage. Ismael volunteered to dump the garbage, but Hayya and Lama joined him. The garbage can is in front of the house, a five-minute walk away. All of a sudden I heard the news from a neighbor, and I ran barefoot to the hospital. A relative collected the bodies of Lama and Hayya on a donkey cart.

"The neighbors ran trying to save Ismael, who was the only one breathing," she said. "They say my kids flew 40 meters before hitting the ground."

Lama was 5. Hayya was 12. Ismael was 8. He died later in the hospital.

What good can possibly come of this?

On Sunday's Meet the Press, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was asked about his writing on Hamas. Meet the Press Host, David Gregory, quoted from a blog posting Goldberg had written on January 2nd, 2009.

He is describing a meeting he had two years ago with Nizzar Rayyan, a Hamas leader killed earlier last week in Gaza.

The question I wrestle with constantly is whether Hamas is truly, theologically implacable. That is to say, whether the organization can remain true to its understanding of Islamic law and God's word and yet enter into a long-term non-aggression treaty with Israel. I tend to think not, though I've noticed over the years a certain plasticity of belief among some Hamas ideologues. Also, this is the Middle East, so anything is possible.

There was no flexibility with Rayyan. This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel." There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. "Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God."

... What are our crimes? I asked Rayyan. "You are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah," he said. "Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God."

If this is the case, if this is the common view within Hamas of Israel, then why is Israel working so hard to increase the ranks of Hamas?

Rabbi Michael Lerner of the Tikkun Center has a far more useful approach. In an interview on Air America last week he asked instead of bombs, why not food? Instead of death raining down around, why not humanitarian aid. Instead of blockades and restrictions and sanctions why not the opposite.

Israel is getting it wrong -- bombing schools, killing the innocent, begrudgingly providing three hours each day (starting yesterday after 12 days of bombardment), to allow humanitarian aid to get through and then killing Aid Workers working to get that aid through, not allowing journalists in to bear witness.

And now, someone is lobbing rockets from Lebanon.

The United States must take a far more vigorous position than they have taken to date. Tough love as Nick Kristof writes in the New York Times today.

It is not good enough to say that Israel has a right to defend itself and leave it at that. It's not good enough to make some strange nonsensical analogy about Mexicans and Canadians lobbing rockets at America. It's not good enough to say that Hamas broke the ceasefire when clearly there is some ambiguity here. Richard Falk, (UN Special Reporter on Human rights in the Palestinian Territories) writes on the Huffington Post:

As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom.

If ever there was a question about "why they hate us" in the Arab World, look no further than what is happening right now in Gaza. We have to change. If not, every new year will feel just like the last one.

There has to be a better way.

it's just a question ...

2009-01-05T20:15:00.004-05:00

but where are all of the young leaders in this Israel / Palestine conflict? It seems to me that every time there is a crisis, a stand off, a military manoeuvre, it is always the same old (and I mean the word "old") players. Bibi. Ehud. Hanan Ashrawi. All of whom have been involved for a long time now and none of whom seem able to bring this crisis closer to a resolution. Maybe now is the time for young minds, those not trapped in the mindset of 1967, to step up and get involved. It should not take a genius to know that what is happening now will only perpetuate the hate, nothing more.

It's a long way from Tipperary to Camp Obama ...

2009-01-02T21:37:00.002-05:00

is up on RTE's website. You can read it there here.

Caroline Kennedy

2008-12-16T16:44:00.006-05:00

It's hard to know what to say about Caroline Kennedy's quest for Hillary Clinton's Senate Seat. I have always had a great respect for her and her family. Their loss, her loss, I have felt deeply. I have always been impressed by her courage and her resilience. When she came out and endorsed Barack Obama it was a tremendous thing, made more significant by the fact that Caroline Kennedy is a woman who has never sought out the spotlight.

But. I am troubled by her decision to put her name in contention for Hillary Clinton's Senate Seat. It's not so much that she wants to be the Senator from New York, but the manner in which she has made her interest known.

She has hired an image maker to help her make her case. It's the same guy who helped Joe Lieberman win it in Connecticut last year. She has made calls to all the New York heavy hitters, stating her interest, and asking for their support and she certainly seems to have gotten it. It is as though she wants to steamroll the Governor into a position where he has no choice but to choose her.

And about that support. If you are a Democrat, how can you vote against a Kennedy?

It reminds me of conversations with friends back in early 2008 when Hillary Clinton was considered the shoe-in for the Democratic Nomination. "Why?" we asked ourselves, "were New York politicians so vocal in their support for her. Surely they didn't have to support her solely because she was the Senator from New York." We questioned African American politicians' allegiance to her and I remembered a conversation with an African friend who had decided to put his might behind Hillary only because he didn't think there was another choice, that Hillary was going to win, so for him, it was a no-brainer to put his money on the winning ticket even if, in his heart, he liked the African American with the funny name.

I have the greatest admiration for Caroline Kennedy. But for her to win this seat based purely on her last name is nothing more than nepotism. At a time when we all profess to be shocked shocked by the "pay to play" mentality of politicians, it would be nice if the person to take Hillary Clinton's seat in the Senate earned that seat on merit alone. That is the kind of change we need in Washington.

Chuck Schumer

2008-12-14T16:58:00.013-05:00

This one goes under the title, "be careful what you wish for." Chuck Schumer has always been known as a media hog. There's never been a live TV camera he hasn't been reluctant to step in front of. (Radio? Another thing altogether but TV cameras, on, rolling, "yes, please, absolutely.") He holds press conferences on Sundays, taking advantage of the knowledge that Sundays are slow news days. An idle media with nothing better to do will cover him.

I'm not quite sure where he is today, but I imagine that he's ducking every TV Camera in sight. He did get the front page story in The New York Times today but boy, it sure doesn't do him too many favours, highlighting instead how, time after time after time he promoted legislation to decrease regulation and oversight of the Wall Street community. It is well worth a read but here, a couple of excerpts:

‘Their Go-To Guy’

To Christopher Cox, the Republican chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the need for action was obvious in the spring of 2006.

His agency, which would later be criticized for a 2004 ruling that let banks pile up debt, had grown deeply concerned about lack of oversight of the nation’s largest credit-rating agencies, like Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service. Linchpins of the financial system, their ratings are vital to safeguarding investors by evaluating the risks of bonds and other debt. After the collapse of Enron and WorldCom, which had repeatedly been awarded favorable ratings, the agencies had agreed to meet voluntary standards.

But the S.E.C. concluded that those agreements were inadequate, so Mr. Cox urged Congress to give his agency oversight powers. “Without additional legislative authority, the S.E.C. will not be able to regulate in a thoroughgoing way,” he told the Senate banking committee at an April 2006 hearing.

The plan drew broad, bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. But executives at the credit-rating agencies soon began pressing Mr. Schumer and other allies in Congress to block the proposal or at least limit its reach, according to current and former employees.

“They knew Schumer would support them,” said one former Moody’s executive, who asked not to be named because he still works in the industry. “He was their go-to guy,” the executive said.

While the Manhattan-based agencies were not significant campaign donors to Mr. Schumer or the Senate campaign committee, their lobbyists and many of their clients were.

At that time, revenues for the agencies were skyrocketing. The housing market was robust, and Wall Street investment firms were paying the agencies to rate various mortgage-backed securities after first advising the firms — and also collecting fees — on how to package them to get high credit ratings.

It was an obvious conflict of interest, financial experts now say. Despite their high ratings, many of those securities, based on risky loans, would prove worthless, roiling markets and threatening financial institutions worldwide.

But Mr. Schumer argued that the companies voluntarily met requirements to eliminate such possible conflicts. He suggested that regulators simply encourage competition and disclosure of agencies’ ratings methods. There was perhaps no need for an intrusive new law, he said in the spring of 2006. “They’ve implemented their codes of conduct,” Mr. Schumer told Mr. Cox at a Senate hearing. “They’re making good-faith efforts.”

Mr. Schumer could not stop the legislation from passing, but he managed to get the measure amended so that it explicitly prohibited the S.E.C. from regulating the procedures and methods the agencies use to determine ratings.

Richard Y. Roberts, a former S.E.C. commissioner, said the amendment Mr. Schumer won was troubling, adding that it could block the S.E.C. from punishing a credit-rating agency that consistently issued unreliable ratings.

Sean J. Egan, managing director of a small Pennsylvania agency, Egan-Jones Ratings, and a proponent of the tougher regulations, was more blunt. “The bill was eviscerated,” he said. “You have stripped away basic safeguards for the investors.”

And this one:

In 2001, Mr. Schumer and Mr. Gramm jointly proposed legislation that would cut fees paid by Wall Street firms and others to the S.E.C. in half, or by $14 billion, over the coming decade. Their proposal included some extra money for salaries of commission employees.

But with trading volumes high, Mr. Schumer argued, the government was collecting far too much money from those fees and using it to subsidize other government operations. “It is a tax, an unintended but very real tax, on all sorts of investors,” he said at the time.

But some Democrats, pointing to the recent corporate accounting scandals, argued that the S.E.C. budget should be doubled or tripled so it could more effectively combat fraud that could lead to a major economic collapse.

“We are making a tragic mistake,” Representative John J. LaFalce, Democrat of New York, warned in arguing for a much smaller reduction in S.E.C. fees.

“We give the industry what it asks for unwittingly.”

Mr. Schumer’s argument prevailed, and the fee cut passed overwhelmingly."

In the article Schumer defends himself, says that he's not omniscient and that he too was misled. He also argues that New York would not exist in the way that it does today without the financial community that comes here to do business. He's got that right. My friends are in a state of panic. One who owns a store on Atlantic Avenue, a lovely store full of beautiful furniture and gorgeous jewelry, all at extremely reasonable prices, is not making any sales. Another is losing business. Projects that were promised are now being pulled. I was at a party last night where the conversation was consumed with the talk of layoffs, both the misery of those who receive the news and those who dole it out. I myself am figuring out how the bloody hell I'm going to make a living. Possibly in the food and wine business. I figure that folks aren't going to stop eating, and they certainly aren't going to stop drinking, through all of this.

Now I recognise that, as Schumer puts it in this article, you have to figure out a way to entice people to do business in a place. But if the things you entice them with (decreased regulation, decreased oversight), put the lives and livelihoods of your constituents in jeopardy then there should be no deal. Time after time after time industry has dishonored the trust given to them to regulate themselves or to do the right thing voluntarily. As someone I met long ago said, it's like asking a crack dealer to police himself. He's not going to do it. Not when the bottom line is profit above all else.

When, I wonder, will our politicians figure this out?

New Rules!

2008-12-05T08:42:00.005-05:00

(This blog first appeared on the Huffington Post. You can read it there, here.)

I was on the subway heading in to town when I read the headline.

"I don't bloody well believe it," I muttered to myself and anyone who could hear me. "The #$%^%^ Bush Administration." (Yes it's true. I swear. I'm Irish. Comes with the territory).

The headline, tucked nicely away on page A21 of Wednesday's New York Times read as follows: "Coal Mining Debris Rule is Approved: Late Change Eases Restrictions on Dumping in Streams and Valleys."

For those of you who maybe don't pay attention to this kind of thing (and I know it's hard given that there is so much out there to distract: Campbell Brown's ridiculous I-wanna-be-Keith-Olbermann tirade against Barack Obama for one, or Sarah Palin's if-you-could-put-it-in-a-bottle-you-could-sell-it extraordinary wit and charisma for another) what this means is that from here on out, the Coal Industry - King Coal - will not only be able to carry out the practice called "Mountain-top Removal," (whereby they literally rip the tops off mountains in order to get to the coal beneath), but will now be able to dump the debris torn from those mountains into the surrounding streams and valleys.

And apparently, at least according to the Bush Administration, this is a good thing. The Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, has the gall to say that the rules have been adjusted in order to protect the fish, the wildlife and the streams. Who does he think he's kidding? Not the Sierra Club. Not the National Resources Defense Council. Not the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee both of whom advised against this rule, and not Appalachian Voices, an environmental organization based in North Carolina which, on Wednesday, launched an online campaign urging President-elect Obama to overturn this ruling (and end Mountain Top Removal), when he gets in to office.

This is not the first time the Bush Administration has tried to pull one over on the rest of us in the last days of his administration. Actor & Environmentalist, Robert Redford has already outlined on these pages how the Bush Administration, on the very day we voted him out of power, announced plans to lease, as Redford puts it, "huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction."

There are other rules that are being rushed through as well, rules that although they might not have anything to do with the environment, all have one thing in common. Industry first. People and country be damned. And let's be clear. Once these rules are enacted, they are difficult to overturn. Each rule that is in place before the new Administration takes office has to be replaced by another rule before it can be taken off the books, which starts off a whole new process, and which can take years to be determined. So. Many more years of damage and destruction, courtesy of the Bush Administration. As if they haven't done enough.

While we are all congratulating ourselves for the tremendous victory that is Barack Obama as our next President, breathing sighs of relief, exhaling, hugging, making Obama babies, The Bush Administration is doing what it does best. Screwing us.

Maybe, Campbell Brown, this is something to which you can devote one of your commentaries?

"Vote for Change!"

2008-11-21T18:59:00.002-05:00

We were told it would be a non-partisan event, and that we shouldn’t wear anything that indicated who we were voting for. But when we got there, our hair covered, all signs of our allegiance hidden, and walked up the pathway to the mosque it was obvious that this congregation was voting for Obama. The registration tables, the railings were all festooned with banners reading “vote for change!” And then the Iman: “I am not telling you how to vote (pause), I am not telling you who to vote for, (pause) I am not telling you how to vote (pause). If you are happy with the way things have gone in the last eight years, if you are happy with the status quo … vote for the status quo. If you are not happy with the way things have gone in the last eight years vote for change.”

"It IS a problem!"

2008-11-21T18:48:00.003-05:00

Registering voters at a Kroger Shopping Centre in Columbus on October 2nd, 2008
A lady, white, older, with the over treated hair.
Me. “Ma’am, are you registered to vote?”
Her. “Yes I am.”
Me. Smile.
Her. “Who are you supporting anyway?”
Me. “Well, I’m supporting Obama … “
Her. “Well I’m NOT!”
Me. “Okay, no problem …”
Her (by this point she had walked past me on her way in to the supermarket.) She stopped turned to me, literally stamped her foot and goes, “it IS a problem.” And stalks off.

"Your voice is changing the world ... "

2008-11-21T18:23:00.004-05:00

Barack Obama during a surprise visit to our GOTV training in Columbus, Ohio on Friday, October 10th, 2008. He called us the “shock troops.”

Then he told the story of the woman who started the “fired up” chant and he told it well, telling us about a time when he agreed to go to the boonies of the boonies, a town called Greenwood in South Carolina, early on in the primary season. He remembered arriving into South Carolina, bone tired, dragging his suitcase, “dreaming” about the pillow, and being met by a staffer who reminded him that they had to be up and ready to go at 6am. He described getting up in the morning, longing for at least some blue sky when he opened the curtain, but no, the opposite, grey skies and pouring rain, getting in to the car, driving out into the middle of nowhere’s nowhere, to this place called Greenwood. When they arrived, there were about 20 people there to meet him, no more, all of them damp and wet. He said it was not a good time in the campaign. The press was giving him a hard time about something, and here he was, in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain, with barely anyone there to meet him, not feeling too good … when from behind him a voice calls out “fired up (pause)” to which the few people there respond, “fired up!” and the voice calls out again, “ready to go (pause)” to which the crowd respond once again. “Barack Obama!” the voice cries out, “our next president.” Barack looked around and sees this “little lady” behind him, calling out these chants. He was very funny in imitating this woman, he did the little dance that she had apparently done, her body moving to the rhythm of the words, and she repeated these chants, and the group joined in and Barack looked at his staff and realized that he was being upstaged by this woman, so sort of stood back and let her have it… and he said, what happened was, that he became fired up… this woman was firing him up, and changing the whole atmosphere in the room. So he used her refrain with his staff. “Are you fired up?!” and they would say, “yes, we’re fired up!” and so it became what it is now. And then Barack got the way he gets when he’s moving a crowd and which I always love to see. The sort of hunched over body, shoulders forward, fist moving almost as if he’s boxing. “Your voice can change a world,” he cries, “Your voice can change a nation … when you are out there knocking on doors, when you are talking to people, just know that your voice is changing the world … if we win Ohio, we win the Election, if we win the Election we can change the country, if we change the country, we can change the world …”

So yes, what a day. He finished up and started to shake hands. I was right there so I stuck my hand out. He missed it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I thought, “I’m all right …” but then I thought, “hell try one more time.” This time, we connected. He’s got a good firm grip does out next president. Always a good sign!

"We can't have a Muslim running this country ... "

2008-11-21T18:07:00.002-05:00

Registering voters on Friday, October 3rd, 2008. Walked in to “Thrift Store” at Northern Lights Shopping Center to see if the manager would let me talk to the customers. While I was waiting, I approached an older woman, small, skinny, with that bleached blond hair that had turned yellow. Definitely worse for wear.
Me: “are you registered to vote ma’am?”
Her. “I am but I’m not voting for either of them. They are both … assholes.”
Me, with a bit of a smile, “well, I work for the Obama Campaign so I obviously disagree with you but …”
Her. “If he gets elected, he is going to destroy this country.”
Me. “Well, no … he’s not.”
Her. “We can’t have a Muslim running this country.”
Me. “Well, he’s not a Muslim.”
Her. “Yes he is.”
Me. “He’s not, not that there is anything wrong with being Muslim, but ma’am, thank you, take care …”

"You'll find out on Election Day. I already know."

2008-11-17T06:08:00.004-05:00

Canvassing of off East Long Street, a bleak apartment block where the doors open on the outside and the stairs to climb to the second floor are rusty and old.
I met an African American man, not on my list, throwing out some trash and told him that I was working for the Barack Obama Campaign. I asked him if had made a decision yet about for whom he was voting.
"I'm not voting," he said. "And, anyway, he’s not getting in,” nodding towards my t-shirt. “This country has come far, but not far enough to elect a black man as president.”
I said I disagreed with him, that times have changed, and that yes, it is possible for a black man to be elected president in this country, to which he replied, "You’ll see. You’ll find out on Election Day. I already know.”
I will never forget the way he said it. “You’ll see.” Knowingly. Emphatically. “I already know.”

" ... and you can kiss my ass!"

2008-11-14T09:37:00.002-05:00

On the phones this evening a call to a guy, 19 years old, and apparently on a list of supporters we are calling at the moment to encourage to get involved in GOTV. I started the conversation with a line something along the lines of, “I understand you are a supporter of Barack Obama and so I’m calling you to find out if you would have time to volunteer during our GOTV,” to which he says, “let me tell you something about myself before we continue this conversation…”
I said, “sure.”
He goes, “I’m a military brat … what does a military brat mean to you?”
Although I knew where he was going I said that it didn’t mean anything in particular.
He goes, “it doesn’t, no … well it means I’m a republican and I would never support a democrat. My brother and my father are over in Iraq and your candidate wants to cut their funding, and I would like for you never to call my cell phone again and you can kiss my ass!”
I said that I appreciated the sacrifice his family was making, their service to this country, but that it is not true that Barack Obama wants to cut funding. He wants to end the war in Iraq. Withdraw our troops, fight the war where it needs to be fought.
But he was shouting at me from the other end of the line.
I said that I was sorry we were obviously not going to agree, I wished him all the best and said goodnight.
As I hung up the phone, I heard him go, “Oh I’m not finished … “
But I was. I had heard enough.

"Palin is killing it for him ..."

2008-11-14T09:07:00.004-05:00

I am talking to a woman in a dank apartment building. She tells me that she is undecided.
I ask her if there is anything in particular holding her back, one way or the other.
She says no. She just needs to think about it.
And then she says, "Palin is killing it for him, if you know what I mean." A bit of a grin plays on her lips. Mischievous. Shy. An admission. We shake hands, I thank her and am on my way.

"No Vote is a Vote for John McCain ..."

2008-11-13T11:03:00.005-05:00

The apartment complex on Wedgewood Road, the smell of Cat Urine, the smells of unpleasant things, the kinds of smells that should not surround you in the place where you call home.
A.J. the guy, lying on the coach playing video games, who told me that he was not going to vote for either.
A vote for neither is a vote for John McCain, you know that, I said
Then he says that his “sources” have told him that there have already been attempts on Barack Obama’s life. "I won’t vote for him," he says.
“I’ll only vote for Barack Obama if he says he will eliminate all credit owed by everyone across the country,” he continues, “all of the debt … and then we can start borrowing again.”
“Barack Obama will help you find the tools to acquire the skills to acquire the jobs that will allow you to live the lifestyle that you want,” I said.
“No, no No,” he says, “I’ve been looking for a job now – a decent well paying job – since ’04.” Sprawled out on the sofa.
“Really?” I asked, “what is your profession?”
“I’m a re-modeler, housing, anything …”
I’m thinking to myself, this guy needs a good shake. He needs to find another way to make a living. He is young, he is healthy, he is living for handouts. He’s lying on the sofa playing video games and saying he won’t vote for Barack Obama, the best chance this country has had in a long, long time because Barack Obama won’t eliminate his outstanding debts.
I am feeling hot, stifled, my scarf too tight around my neck.
I tell him good luck. Read up on Barack Obama I tell him. Read about his plans for the economy, for health care, education.
No vote is a vote for John McCain.

"I ain't voting for that other jerk!"

2008-11-13T09:37:00.004-05:00

A woman at the end of the walkway … it was one of those grim apartment complexes, barren courtyards, worn grass, grey and crumbling, not a tree in sight.
I was knocking on her door, she calls down, “Can I help you?” She’s talking to another lady, Hispanic, and they are giving out about the amount of calls they are getting about the election. She is telling the woman that she doesn’t answer her phone anymore. And she sees me, knocking on her door.
“Can I help you,” she shouts from down the hallway
“Yes,” I say, “Are you … ?”
“I am,” she says, and I walk down towards her.
She looks not too pleased to see me and starts to give out about the calls, repeating what I just heard her say to her friend.
Her friend starts giving out to me as well.
“Don’t come knocking on my door,” she warns me, “don’t bother.”
“I don’t think you are on my list,” I say, “… but you are,” and I turn to the lady.
“In two weeks it will all be over,” I tell her, “I promise.”
“What do you want now?” she asks, and I tell her that I’m with the Barack Obama Campaign and we just want to check in with her to see how she’s fixed for the election, whether or not she’s decided who she is voting for.
“Isn’t that a personal decision,” the other woman goes.
“Yes,” I say, “it is,” but again I turn to the lady I actually want to talk to and ask her if she’s leaning towards one (and I point to Barack Obama’s name,) or the other…
She – I’m not quite sure how to describe it – a nudge, a hunch, a movement of the eyes, “I’m voting for him,” and she points to Obama. I try to suppress my gratitude, not wanting to give the game away.
I tell her about the Early Vote, and the importance of going down and voting early if she can.
She takes the information, glad to have it, and says she’ll definitely try and get down to the Vets Memorial.
“I ain’t voting for that other jerk.”

"... he would have put you off the porch."

2008-11-12T23:42:00.003-05:00

A lady, with hair bleached beyond recognition, long, dry, possibly a wig but I’m not sure. She comes to the door, this a suburban neighbourhood, kids playing on the street in the last light of the day. She’s white, looks like she’s had it tough, smokes a lot and would not be the one to vote for Obama.
I ask her if she’s decided who she’s voting for and she points towards my t-shirt.
“I’m voting for him,” she says, and she laughs.
“Good thing my husband weren’t here, he would have you put off the porch.”
She points across the road.
“That’s his mother’s house, she’s votin’ for Obama too,” her voice sounds like gravel. “He calls us stupid, and I say “allright, we’ll be stupid, but we ain’t voting for McCain.”

"it will be the worst mistake you ever made ... "

2008-11-12T23:29:00.002-05:00

The man who greeted me at the door was grey-haired, older, wearing a hunting cap. I was looking for his son. "He’s not here," he said, as he came out on to the porch, shutting the door behind him. “He, my wife, myself, my entire family, we’re all voting for McCain.”
“Okay,” I said, as a turned to leave, “thank you anyway.”
“It will be the worst mistake you ever made,” he said, “if you elect Obama president. You think the jobless numbers are bad now, you’ll see how bad they can get with his tax plan.”
I smiled and gestured, starting to say, in as polite a way as possible, that we’d have to disagree.

“Never mind the guns,” he said, following me down the porch steps. “He’s going to take them all away from us.”

He spoke softly, politely, calmly.

I said that that wasn’t true. He just wants more controls on guns, he doesn’t want sawn off shotguns to get in to the hands of inner city kids.

“He’s lying through his teeth,” he said, getting a little bit more animated. And he started to talk about a time when you couldn’t move a gun from one room to another without breaking the law.

I said that Barack Obama had no intention of going back to a time like that.

He pulled out a photocopy of an article from his back pocket. It’s written by John Sigler, President of the NRA, in the magazine, “American Hunter,” from June 2008.

“Read this,” he said. “Read it carefully.”

We had been talking now for about 5 minutes, much longer than I should talk to someone who’s clearly not going to change his mind.

I said that I would have to go, but thank you for the conversation and made my way down the path.

He started to roll up the American Flag, which had been flying from a flagpole stuck in to the flowerbed outside his house.

“I’m going to keep flying this flag,” he called out after me. “He’ll take it down.”

“No he won’t,” I called back to him. “I promise you, he won’t.”

“Yes he will,” the man said. “You’ll see.”

"... what about the working poor?"

2008-11-12T23:15:00.002-05:00

Wednesday morning. Gorgeous. Crisp. Sunny Day. The first day of GOTV and I was out knocking on doors, once again. I met a lady on the canvass in a sweet neighborhood. No obvious abandoned buildings. Her house, modest, well kept and lived in, years of family life on the bookshelves and on the walls.
Voting for Barack. Absolutely. Early Voting? I can’t remember.
What I do remember is her predicament. She had to leave her job to take care of a member of her family who was ill. Two years ago. She said they had to get a second mortgage, and now, because the bottom has fallen out of the housing market they can’t afford to pay their mortgage. They are in foreclosure.
Hard to believe.
“He keeps talking about helping the middle class,” she said. “What about the working poor?”

it's your patriotic duty

2008-11-12T09:26:00.003-05:00

On the phone talking to a man, asking him if he's decided who he is voting for.
"I'm voting the democratic ticket," he says.
I say thank you. I get the sense that he would prefer to be voting for someone else at the top of that ticket. I appreciate that he is getting over any reservations he may have about this candidate.
I ask him if he would be able to go down and vote early. I tell him that we believe that this is the way we are going to win Ohio. The more people who vote early, the more people who will be able to vote on Election Day.
He goes off on me. Frankly he says, I don't approve of the early vote. I don't like. it. I'm going down to vote at the polls the way I normally do. And if you can't go down and stand in line and vote .. It's one day in four years ... well it's your patriotic duty.
He doesn't understand that the lines are different in different neighborhoods. Fifteen minutes to vote in a white suburban community. Eight hours in an inner city black one. Patriotic duty indeed.

gangsta

2008-11-11T23:25:00.010-05:00

I caught my first glimpse of the gangsta life on Maryland Ave in Columbus, Ohio on a sunny afternoon when we were canvassing the neighborhood. We had split the street. I was on my own. It was a low-income neighborhood, small houses and apartments separated by barren courtyards and alleys. Not a lot of hope here. A mother opened the door, three kids screaming on the floor inside, clothes strewn all over the place. She comes out, shuts the door behind her. She's holding a plastic glass in her hand. It looks like coke but she smells like whiskey. I think I would drink whiskey in the afternoon if I lived here with no relief. Going from door to door, one kid watching me, telling me who's home, who's not, walking between the allies, two guys come towards me. they are fooling with each other, the baggy trousers, the big coats, the one in front doesn't see me, he's looking back at his friend, and he's going, I'll give it to you, reaching for something in his trousers. His friend sees me, motions at him, he turns his head, sees me, and whatever it was he was reaching for, it's back in the trousers again. "how you doin?" he goes, a smile, gold plated teeth.

We worked some tough neighborhoods. Two of my friends had to to leave their turf because of a triple homicide right down the street, while they were there. The "birds" were out, (i.e. the helicopters), massive police activity and they were gone. Others heard gunshots on their turf in the daylight hours. I know I heard gunshots at night. Definitely a glimpse in to a life that I have no real experience with nor knowledge of. A life of complete injustice, and nope, not a lot of hope.

Barack Obama has his work cut out for him. For sure.

The Flag

2008-11-11T22:49:00.004-05:00

I love the American Flag. I hate the way it has been co-opted by the right. I love the way in which it has been reclaimed by the Barack Obama Campaign, not as a political tool, not as a proof of being more patriotic than someone else. But as being a symbol of America. Some day I swear I'm going to put together photos of the flag taken in the past year. This photo was taken at the Bruce Springsteen Rally in Columbus, Ohio on Sunday, October 5th.

Warning: Dogs Bite

2008-11-11T22:31:00.006-05:00

Pitbulls were the dog du jour in the neighborhoods we canvassed. And they had a fury on them for sure. The amount of days that started off, first door knock and a growling barking angry dog snarling on the other side of the door. It became habit to rattle the gate before entering a yard just in case there was a sleeping dog lying somewhere in wait. My good friend, Jimmy Brennan from Rhode Island, so funny, lived my moment of fear, entered a yard only to have a pitbull come flying around the corner. "fortunately," Jimmy said, "he was the friendly kind ... otherwise I would be dead." Apparently the trick is to show no fear. I don't think I know that trick.

Do not knock ...

2008-11-11T22:07:00.005-05:00

On Hudson Street in Columbus, Ohio. I knocked. Nobody home.

Got Hope?!

2008-11-08T21:29:00.008-05:00

Mural by Krystle Holland. You can see it in Columbus on the corner of 11th ave and 4th street.

Gone to Ohio!

2008-09-23T10:48:00.002-04:00

Won't be blogging 'til I'm back in Brooklyn, November 5th or 6th...
Get involved! http://my.barackobama.com

only because ..

2008-09-17T19:21:00.012-04:00

I like the picture. And although I'm watching the markets slide with just a little bit of horror (ride it out America doesn't ring so comforting a thing to do at this moment!) I don't know enough about the ways of the market, the ways of the economy, to expound with any real credibility except to say that boy this doesn't help the Republicans at all at all. and yes, the good ol' american taxpayer gets to bail out, yet again, the good ol' boys of wall street. And also to say that I can make no apology for not knowing enough about the economy. I'm okay with that. I'm not, after all, running for president.

Other Things ...

2008-09-15T16:22:00.013-04:00

"The reason I am here today," the man said, (and I am paraphrasing here), "is because when we were engaged to be married, my wife-to-be was raped and became pregnant as a result of that rape. This was before Roe. vs. Wade, in up-state New York, and in order for her to be allowed to have an abortion she had to go to court to prove that in fact the pregnancy was the result of a violent act. We are one supreme court judge away from forcing women in similar circumstances to go through the same ordeal my wife went through over 30 years ago."

Strong and real words borne from real experience. Everyone in the room took a breath.

It is hard to understand why women, (and in truth, the men who love them), would support any other candidate. Barack Obama does not promote abortion. He promotes abstinence, birth control, education and prevention. He however supports the right to choose. He does not see abortion as a form of birth control. He sees it as a last resort. If you the woman of America who right this moment is leaning towards the McCain / Palin ticket because of their stance on this issue, could find some ability to recognise that very few people who support a woman's right to choose support abortion as birth control, we could talk about other things. Like Healthcare. Pay Equity. Childcare. Taxes.

We could allow families across America the right to make their own decisions. We could honor that privacy. We could talk about other things. Like the Environment, the Iraq War. The Economy.

But see that's where we have a problem. The McCain / Palin ticket doesn't want you to look too closely at those issues because they know that if you look too closely at those issues -- the ones that directly affect your life -- you will realise that, actually, you would be better off with Obama / Biden. Deflect. And blame. Classic.

The McCain / Palin ticket (and the Republican Party), doesn't want you to talk about other things.

wrapped in soft tissue paper but ...

2008-09-12T14:35:00.004-04:00

tough as steel.

The View ladies & gentlemen, The View, where John McCain found himself shifting in his seat like a man in need of some Preparation H. What? Did his campaign think that five pretty ladies couldn't ask the tough questions?

today should not be a day for politics ...

2008-09-11T09:49:00.007-04:00

it is a day I will never forget, the sound of a low flying plane flying over my apartment, the sound of a bang that I assured myself was just a container being dropped on a loading dock. The hangover. The call to the newsdesk when I walked out onto Seventh Avenue and saw that North Tower was on fire. "Go down there, go Down," the instruction from the assignment editor. The decision not to take the subway but to run, to hear my phone ring and it be my brother, Conor, calling from Ireland, to find out where I was and me trying to joke about yet another reason not to want to fly, and him saying, "lucy, it was not an accident, a second plane has hit the other twin tower," I remember it all as clear as day. The search for a way to make calls when I was there, running along sidestreets and into a bar where everyone was watching it all on CNN while everything was happening right outside. My phone ringing, answering it, and hearing a man's voice, full of tears, crying out the name of the one he loved, telling her how much he loved her, so relieved that she had answered the phone and that she was alive, except that she had not answered the phone, I had... he had come through to the wrong number. And I remember the people jumping and the faces of those around me as we watched them fall.

9/11 changed everything. My friends remember my birthday as the last night of a brighter, easier, happier world. Every year here in New York the families of those who were lost gather down on the site and read the names, write notes, drop beautiful roses in to a small weeping pool. And every year I watch just a little bit and every year I cry. I listen to mothers remember sons, sisters remember brothers, wives remember husbands and small children remember the parents they barely got a chance to know.

Today I know should not be a day for politics but it is hard for me to remember this day without remembering what has come since. The reckless decisions made by an administration bent on a war that never should have been fought. The lives lost there too all as a direct result of those reckless decisions, and not this day, 9/11. The way the world felt about us in the days immediately following this day, (nous sommes tous Americains), and the way they feel about us today.

Today I know should not be a day for politics but it is hard for me to remember this day without remembering what has come since. The abandonment of right, rights, and a regard for human dignity. The embrace of torture, the complete disregard for the Geneva Convention. The unfettered invasion of our privacy.

Today I know should not be a day for politics but it is hard for me not to remember. Homeless Veterans. Dismissed Veterans. Misdiagnosed Veterans. Maltreated Veterans. Forgotten Veterans. Of a war that should never have been fought. Of a war that has no direct correlation to the events of this day. Seven years ago.

Today I know should not be a day for politics. But it is.

Palin Parade

2008-09-09T23:41:00.003-04:00

There is something quite beguiling about the Sarah Palin story. Growing up in the wilds of Alaska, a former beauty queen turned sports reporter turned small town mayor and then governor; a member of the so-called “elite six” – six women of Wasilla, sharing the trials and the traumas, the ups and the downs of working and bringing up children in long dark winters of Alaska. The love story – she married her high school sweetheart, “quite a package,” her own words, (and my one track mind), the happy, successful, moose-hunting family, the beautiful children, the unexpected and unplanned pregnancy which she and her husband hid from everyone, including their own kids, until she was seven months pregnant because she was afraid of how it would be perceived by the people of Alaska. (She even succeeded in hiding it from the most (dare I say), elite of Fashion Police, Vogue Magazine, who photographed her when she was five months pregnant and (apparently) didn’t notice a thing. Quel Coup!). There’s also her extraordinary resilience – traveling to Texas to deliver a speech on energy when she was eight months pregnant, (no mention of how risky such a thing is for any mother so late in a pregnancy), and delivering that speech anyway despite the fact that her waters had broken that very morning, far, far away from her home in Alaska. (She in fact returned home and gave birth the following day.) And then of course there is the baby himself, Trig, born with Down Syndrome (she had known and chosen to give birth anyway, something that has been claimed by the pro-life constituency as credential enough to be vice president), and her extraordinary ability to juggle family and job, carrying Trig around in a sling for the first months of his life (who doesn’t love that image, a mother, young baby, doing it all?) There is, you know it, a movie in there somewhere.

But. Does this mean that she has what it takes to be the vice president, (a heart beat away, etc etc)? At the Republican National Convention last week in Minneapolis there was absolutely no hesitation. She certainly does. The reasons were varied – some attributed to her – “She’s a regular human being,” Kim Skipper, an Alaskan delegate said, “she’s like normal, average America,” or from Kailee Higgins, “being mayor of Wasilla, even though it’s a small city, it’s the practical experience that you need and she’s going to be great” – and some reasons attributed to the state itself – “When you have a state that is flanked by Russia, flanked by Canada,” Skipper says, “we have missile defense in our state, we are building a trans Canada pipeline …” And from Nick Stepovich, a delegate who had just gotten hold of a “drill baby drill” t-shirt and who worked “real hard” to get Sarah Palin elected Governor, “Alaska’s positioning is global. It’s the number one air route, heck Alaska was owned by Russia!” He adds, (just in case you are worried about Governor Palin’s foreign policy experience), “she’s met with Mongolian Leaders.” Somehow I feel so much better.

So yes. The delegates at the RNC Convention last week had their talking points down pat and they exuded confidence in and love for their gal. They heralded her “executive” experience in “small town” America and the “liberal elite’s” attempts to bash her. They disparaged Barack Obama’s community service, his stance on the war in Iraq, his support for Habeaus Corpus. They listened to messengers like the former Mayor of New York (who appeared on stage with a photo of the altered landscape that is now Downtown Manhattan in the background, a not so subtle reminder of what happens when we let the terrorists win) describe Sarah Palin as the most popular Governor in America and Obama as a “celebrity senator.” (One apparently is good, the other oh-so-bad). And they congratulated each other and celebrated with each other a mighty fine pick.

But to rain (just a little bit) on this Palin parade. Pride comes before a fall. Sarah Palin revealed earlier this week that she doesn’t get the details. And later this week she sits down with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, who, despite the fact that he lost his lustre during ABC’s hatchet job on Barack Obama back in April, will still, in order to retain any credibility as a journalist, have to ask her about that bridge to no-where, about the state trooper investigation, about her stance on evolution, her opinion on the separation of church and state, and whether she really, truly believes that the war in Iraq is God’s plan. Brilliant rhetoric written by Rovian scriptwriters won’t be able to help her here.

And one more thing: the other block on which this parade will surely stumble, the other bit of silver lining, a squeak of light at the end of the tunnel for anyone who is, right now, freaking out because they think, “ohmiGOD it’s happening again!” is the Palin Parade’s misguided belief that Sarah Palin for Vice President will woo over Hillary Clinton’s Supporters. At the Republican Convention, Kailee Higgins went so far as to describe Governor Palin as the “republican flip side of Hillary,” and when asked about the pro-life-pro-choice issue, dismissed it as nothing of real significance. “There are other aspects that surpass that,” she said, assuredly, “ and people can look past it.”

I don’t think so. And if this movie is to have a happy ending, most American People won’t think so either.

I'm calling it ...

2008-09-05T13:23:00.006-04:00

the last day of suffering ... and I'm not just talking about my feet.

A guy passes by our position on radio row, lugging a trolley stacked with boxes filled with copies of a book with the very original title, "The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values," written by another guy called Brad O'Leary. It is going great guns. Several well-heeled individuals pass by our table with the book tucked comfortably under their arms. A young 'un comes running up to me, frantic, looking for the person who was giving out these books because he missed him, and wants to get a copy.

"Did you see him, did you see him," he asks me.

I tell him he went that away pointing to the main entrance of the Xcel Center, and that he might as well take one of the four copies that is stacked up over on the Fox Radio booth right smack dap across from Air America.

"Do you think they'll mind," he asks nervously. "No, not at all," I said. "They won't mind at all."

Disseminating false information is nothing new to them.

"Hottest VP"

2008-09-04T20:20:00.003-04:00

Sold out ladies and gentlemen, sold out at the official GOP Convention Memorabilia Store right here in the Xcel Center. And those complaints about sexism are coming from where exactly ... ?!

Palin Power

2008-09-04T10:04:00.006-04:00

"Palin is awful!" my friend shouted out the window as we were driving through St. Paul. He was drunk, it was after midnight, and he was crying out to any one passing although no-one passing seemed to pay him much mind.

We were the lonely ones in this crowd. Sarah Palin was a storming success last night on the floor of the Xcel Center in St. Paul. She "hit all the right notes," as I'm sure some one is going to write in their review of her performance. She was sassy, she was smart, she was charming, and of course, she is cute ... if you like a girl with glasses and that strange bouffant hairdo. Most of all though, she showed us that she has no qualms with negativity and low road campaigning and that she is absolutely familiar with the Republican Talking Points. She's the hockey mom, who for years has been venting about those darned liberals and their celebrity cronies in the comfort of her own home who now, suddenly, finds herself center stage with a mic in her hand and an audience that absolutely adores her.

Hillary Clinton is going to have to take her down.

they love her here ...

2008-09-03T10:04:00.006-04:00

They do. They are ecstatic. Everywhere I go I hear women (and it is, mainly, women) either chatting on their cell phones, or doing the stall to stall banter in the ladies' room, talk with great excitement about Sarah Palin. They are discussing their pins, and their signs and the great anticipation they feel for tonight's speech. One lady I met yesterday said that she was so excited when she heard that John McCain had chosen Sarah Palin to be the Chosen One, that she went upstairs and she put on a dress. "I wore it all day, that's how excited I was," she said, as I struggled to empathize. But what about her experience, (or lack thereof), I asked her. She was the mayor of a small town in Alaska, she ran a small business with her husband, that's it, that's all ... she's hardly ever been abroad). She countered that Sarah Palin is incredibly accomplished, and that, comparatively speaking, "nobody could ever compare her modest experience to (Barack Obama's) complete lack of experience and say something like that." And she continued. All will be revealed tonight. Sarah Palin will get up there and list her accomplishments and people "will be able to understand, oh, she has accomplished a lot, and it won't be much of an issue anymore. "

We shall see.

... it is very different here

2008-09-01T20:20:00.008-04:00

and yes, I know, I'm not a Republican so maybe it is that I just don't get it... can't connect with it. (How anyone can connect with the t-shirt above I can't quite tell, on sale right outside the Xcel Center this afternoon). But. The vibe is different. Do you know it is $3 for a bottle of Dasani Water in the vending machine? And yes, the vending machine is cool ... very... but still. Three buckeroos. And nothing seems to be for free. Here at the Republican Convention you must pay for everything. No promotions. No parties in the workspace. No beer nor wine receptions. (har har I can hear the Republicans cry, "It's all about you democrats and your desire for a welfare state.") But no, it is very very staid. Not a lot of excitement in this crowd (not counting the lady sitting behind me during the pronouncement of the Republican Platform. Now she was a whooper and a holler-er, loordie!). The (other) ladies look at you and you can sense their disapproval. They walk along the aisles with this strange downward turn on their lips, as if they have lived a life of eternal disappointment. The girls dress with no flair. Their suits are conservative. No expression. Button down shirts and woolen (or cotton) vests. Neat. Tidy. Proper. As if to express yourself through your dress is a mortal, mortal sin. And as for the Republican Man. His trousers, neat, and high up to the waist. Shirt tucked in. Colorful tie, (which I like -- a bright orange one caught my eye this morning, very splashy). And then there are the hats. Cowboy hats mainly but a lot of hats. Not sure if the cowboy hat equates with the republican hat but all I know is that McCain is talking non-stop these days about taking off his Republican Hat and putting on his American Hat in an effort to relieve the victims of Hurricane Gustav. I'll let you know tomorrow if I notice a difference.

The Lion's Den ...

2008-09-01T10:00:00.007-04:00

... although ... not exactly.

A couple of points that need to be made about the Republican National Convention. Why on earth does it begin on Labor Day -- the holiday in honor of the working man and woman? Why on earth does it begin on the last holiday weekend of the Summer. The summer ender? The chance for families to get together one last time before the rigours of the fall? Family Values anyone? There's just a little bit of a paradox there, no?

And second. Gustav is the best thing that could possibly have happened to the RNC. The Best thing. Don't tell me that this has nothing to do with politics, that their concern for the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is what is propelling them to cancel all political business today, and maybe even tomorrow. Watch McCain's stilted press announcement yesterday, his desperate effort to show that he cares combined with his inability to read a studio teleprompter and you will realise that the last thing the Republicans want is to have their convention held up and compared to last week's slam dunk of a convention held by the democrats, to have their candidate's acceptance speech compared to that of Barack Obama. Hell there is talk right now of keeping McCain away from the convention entirely. Having him appear via live video uplink from an undisclosed location ... on the Gulf Coast, because he cares so deeply about the people there. Please.

They are looking for any excuse to avoid the comparisons. 85,000 people. 20,000 people. A speech that soars and demands and is full of hope and promise. A speech that is none of those things. A Television audience of 40 million people, (a bigger audience than that of the Olympics Opening Ceremony and American Idol (even I am amazed by that one). A TV Audience that is not even close.

Yes. McCain and his boys and girls would like Gustav to keep on blowing so that their paltry convention doesn't give the Democrats a chance to blow them right out of the water.

9/5/08: cor did I ever get that wrong. McCain's acceptance Speech beat out Barack Obama's acceptance speech on the tv machine (although the numbers who watched on the web / PBS are yet to come but still... impressive. What the bloody hell does that mean?!

What a night!

2008-08-30T18:42:00.004-04:00

Of course, John McCain's choice for V.P. has completely knocked the coverage of Barack Obama's night at Invesco off the front pages, just as was predicted. Although had McCain picked someone who wasn't Sarah Palin, maybe the coverage would have been less ... what's the word ... Incredulous. (I know the man is a maverick but come on!)

So, just to say, it was quite a night. And for the forty million who watched at home and the 85,000 who were there live, Barack Obama delivered the speech of his campaign. Full of substance, full of inspiration, and full of hope.

Putting a woman on the ticket is not going to win this for John McCain. Mark my words.

An Inane Choice

2008-08-30T18:01:00.003-04:00

John McCain has picked a woman as his running mate. woo-hoo. Just the excuse I needed to vote for a Republican. Is that what he's hoping the disaffected Hillary supporter will do? Vote for him because he picked "a woman" as his running mate. A young woman, forty four years old, who hasn't traveled much outside the United States, was the mayor of a small town in Alaska and (as Bay Buchanan earnestly said on CNN yesterday, ran a small business with her husband). Nevermind the fact that he's only met her once. I can't quite believe it. There has to be some other reason. Surely.

Yes she appeals to the Conservative Religious Right. She knew she was having a baby with Down Syndrome and chose to have it anyway earlier this year -- real bona fides right there (although how those who promote family values feel about her decision to essentially abandon that baby to hit the campaign trail remains to be seen). Yes she has fought corruption in her one and a half years as governor of Alaska. Well done to her for that. But really? Truly? You think that her lack of experience matches Barack Obama's so-called lack of experience?

As a good friend said last night, "if this wasn't America, McCain's just handed the election to Barack Obama." But this is America and in America, anything can happen.

It's going to be an interesting race.

This is our moment!

2008-08-28T11:30:00.003-04:00

It has been quite a week here in Denver, Colorado. Really, fantastic on so many levels, and I feel extraordinarily lucky to have been here to witness, soak it up, get swept away by the roar and the enthusiasm. Monday. Michelle. Tuesday. Hillary. Wednesday. Bill & Joe Biden. Tonight ... well tonight is the night as they say, and I for one am so, so glad that Barack Obama is giving his acceptance speech at Invesco. Seventy Five Thousand people, the majority of them not connected in any way with the Democratic Establishment. It is thrilling.

It has been interesting too to watch the way in which the media crafts the story. Being here and witnessing and watching and having my own perspective on what is going on and then listening (some, not a lot, as it has been absolute bedlam!) to the pundits tell the story the way in which they want to tell it. A case in point. Hillary I thought was tremendous on Tuesday night. Tremendous. But from the position where I was watching, way up in the rafters, looking out over this massive sea of people with Hillary / Unity signs, their roars soaring through the arena, there was a reporter, working on his script just in front of me. I couldn't help (unavoidable really!) reading over his shoulder as he wrote something along the lines of, "Hillary's speech was superb, strong, etc etc, so strong in fact that it will probably make her supporters wish that she was in fact the nominee instead of Barack Obama."

They just love to keep fanning the flames.

But yes Tonight. Invesco. I will be there with 75,000 people from all walks of life cheering on our candidate. I feel extraordinarily lucky to be there to witness.

This is the time for real change in America. This is the time to seize our moment... and run with it.

Fuck Bob Dylan

2008-08-26T06:53:00.009-04:00

All of the religious fanatics are out, bearing their signs full of foreboding, "Last Days, Last Chance, Escape Hell, Obey Jesus," and there there is this one. Funny, no?

Ahh Denver

2008-08-26T06:48:00.004-04:00

Far too early in the morning but yes, so many statements, so many protests, so many methods of expression. This of course caught my eye. Huge truck, gas guzzler, tricked out and yes, a McCain lover.

How many houses?

2008-08-22T08:25:00.006-04:00

First of all I can't quite believe the gaffe. And I can't believe that McCain hasn't been asked that question before. How many houses do you own sir, when people across the country are struggling to hold on to one. (The house above, one of many in a rundown, dilapidated neighbourhood of Cleveland, OH, on a street lined with homes, shuttered, foreclosed and abandoned, a street where you wouldn't think anyone could live but would come across a home, ramshackle, where someone did find a way to exist, the value of their commodity i.e their house -- their one house -- stripped of it's value and so without any means to move on they are forced to stay, abandoned in an abandoned part of town.)

Second of all I can't quite believe the cheek. McCain's counterattack is galling. Rezko is such a catchy name. Too bad Obama's associations with him don't quite add up to McCain's associations with the Keating Five.

And third, well, hell I'm quite delighted by the gaffe and can already see it being used in a montage along with Phil Gramm's diagnosis that we are a "nation of whiners" caught in the throes of a "mental" recession. Bring it!

Lieberman to speak @ Republican Convention...

2008-08-20T15:40:00.004-04:00

Let me try to be magnanimous about this: it's a free world. freedom of speech is what we hold dear. If Joe Lieberman dearly, truly, believes in his gut that John McCain is the man for the job well then of course, if he's invited, how can he possibly say no to a speech at the GOP Convention in Minneapolis. He has the right to choose. (He actually supports the right to choose).

But hell. Why do it as a democrat? Why not kick him out of the party now? Why wait 'til November? Do the democrats really need his one vote between now and then? Why the pretense? If anyone can enlighten me ... tell me why it is that we need to let him caucus with the Democrats now, I would love to know, because it absolutely beats me. And so, yet again, a link to Robert Greenwald's movement. Get on it! Sign it! Put Joe Lieberman in the back of the truck and drive him on out of here.

MobileMe ... continued

2008-08-19T09:33:00.008-04:00

As you may remember, I had a piece in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, "Woe is MobileMe," (which you can read -- again -- here). Last night, an email from the folks over at MobileMe which says the following:

"We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users' patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around."

Sweet! (I hope!).

We're planning on spending that much money

2008-08-15T21:25:00.009-04:00

There is an Irish joke that goes something like this. It's Christmas Time, a Dublin man, sprawled out on the sofa, watching the telly, when his wife comes home with the shopping. He looks up at her, and says, "so, wha' do y'want for Christmas?"

The wife, clearly exhausted, drops the shopping bags on the floor and says, "I want ... a divorce," (thick Dublin accent).

And the man goes, "ah now, I wasn't plannin on spendin' that much muney."

And so it goes that Hillary gets to have her name included in the roll call at the convention. She gets to speak -- last speech of the night on Tuesday, so the climax of the night if you will -- her husband gets to speak on Wednesday, and then either on Wednesday or Thursday, her delegates get to line up behind her and acknowledge their support. A good thing, everyone is saying. Cathartic. Healing. A way to bring the party together.

To me it seems like the final deal to end all deals (cut all ties?) between the Clintons and the Obamas.

We're planning on spending that much money.

this is serious ...

2008-08-14T08:43:00.004-04:00

The United States is providing Humanitarian Aid to Georgia and, although very quick to clarify that the aid is humanitarian in nature, and not, as Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili asserted, to protect Georgia's airports and ports, has also said that "we'll certainly protect our assets if we need to." Oh sweet jesus we are going to war. But we can't go to war because we don't have the troops, which is maybe one reason to be possibly grateful that we're already fighting two wars (one unnecessary, one almost forgotten but for the pesky little detail that it gets worse every day).

And now, McCain is sending his two surrogates to the region... Joe Lieberman (yes he must go!) and Lindsay Graham. Is it just me or is this kind of swash-buckling braggadocio just a little bit too much like overkill? Will I hear folks out on the campaign trail this fall saying, "well, I'd vote for Barack but McCain did send Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman to Georgia." Call me crazy, but I don't think so.

I'm listening to McCain say this is no time for partisanship and I'm watching him rubbing his hands with glee, stretching his muscle, determined to show us all how he would show the Russians if he was president. Sadly for him, he would do exactly what our current president is doing, and has done over the past seven years. Look Putin in the eye and see his soul. Look Putin in the eye and see the KGB.

Hopefully some time soon, someone will look Putin in the eye and actually see something useful.

We don't see it the same

2008-08-12T21:39:00.009-04:00

I have a Russian friend, a guy, let's call him Max. He's actually a friend of my brother's who I got to know in Ireland and is a complicated but lovely guy. Infuriating but absolutely in my heart. We fell out during the Bosnia / Herzegovina War in the mid-nineties. If my memory is correct, he supported Milosevic, and I certainly didn't. We were both so angry with each other that we didn't talk for a long time. I remember thinking that any thoughts I had of being a diplomat were shot right out the window for the fight we had. Dreadful.

Last night I got a text from him. It said, "I call it -- Operation "Georgia's Freedom." I shot him one back. "What do you really think?"

And then this, a barrage of messages arriving on my phone:

Lessons: don't overestimate ur so-called friends who put u to power (4. Georg. pres-t).

2. Good move Premier Putin

3. The bear is back.

4. Outstanding work by Russian intelligence to provoke

5. Don't get president supported by foreign govt.

6. Everything will be back to normal soon.

7. Saakashvili will not b there 4 long.

It is not that I disagree with him. On many levels I think he is right. Saakashvili is more than likely done. Everything I have read so far says that he did play in to Putin's hands, baited, provoked, (what was a Russian Peacekeeping force doing in South Ossetia anyway... craziness), and fortified by what he thought was Western support, in he goes, with disastrous consequences. And while yesterday I thought the coverage in the New York Times was totally pro-Georgia, today, the front page picture of Saakashvili cowering under his bodyguards as a fighter jet flew overhead, was a photo of a man who is finished. (Add to this the photo of Sarkozy biding him adieu that is, right now, on the New York Times website -- it's a photo, very dramatic, Sarkozy with his hand caressing Saakashvili's face and Saakashvili's face ... well, hopefully you can see the photo and describe it yourself).

But I guess that what I'm trying to say here -- stating the obvious but spurred on by Max -- is that this crisis is so nuanced and has so much history behind it -- on both sides -- that to listen to John McCain going on today about how We are all Georgians (please! don't do this to me!) and get all macho and aggressive with Russia ... well that's not going to solve any problems. It will make them worse. Whoopeedoo, isolate Russia and give them every reason to snuggle up closer and closer in the bed with Iran. Now that would be just terrific. That's a slogan to run on. Vote for me. John McCain. I'll bring Russia and Iran closer together. What a party!

Maybe another slogan should be: there is no nuance in the Republican Party. You're either with us or against us. We're fightin' 'em there so we don't have to fight 'em here, bring 'em on, axis of evil. If my foreign policy adviser is a lobbyist for your country then say no more. You are with us and we are against them.

Do we need four more years of that?

Unbelievable ...

2008-08-11T22:26:00.005-04:00

Tonight I interrupt Billy Holiday and turn on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN to see what the latest news is on the conflict between Georgia and Russia. What are they leading with? Bloody John Edwards and "the other woman," Reille Hunter. Good lord. It is not that I want to start of this new, adapted version of my "other blog" with outrage but what is going on? This is a major international crisis, and really? seriously? the news that is most important to most Americans at this moment in time is whether or not John Edward is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. (I donna think he is by the way ... it all looks very dodgy to me). Oh dear American News Service, wherefore art thou? Long gone it is sad to say but it is true.