Comrades in Blogs
WASHINGTON, D.C.--Having spent the last five days angling for ways to get into the Fleet Center in Boston while getting lost in the amusement park inside her brain, your blogstress is only now catching up with the brilliant work done by her fellow bloggers during the Democratic National Convention.
For unabashed fun, you'll need to visit Tom Burka's Opinions You Should Have , where a raft of laugh-out-loud satirical news items reside. My favorite? "Hope Delayed At Security Kiosk Outside Fleet Center" (July 28).
Our favorite librarian , Jessamyn Charity West, informs us that, yes, Virgina, there are real roots on that grass. Check out her item, "Who Says There's No Grass Roots?" (July 29), and note the listing for the Democratic Swingers. (Smoking jackets, anyone?)
Nathan Paxon is a brainy, and for the most part, sober fellow, but he had the good sense to post on his blog, NateKnowsNada , this delightful item from a ...
Posts
Lockdown BOSTON--Your blogstress should have known better. She had, after all, just gotten a call from her colleague, Lou Chibbaro, Jr. , staff reporter for the Washington Blade , from the convention floor, who said, "We're in some kind of lockdown here. They won't let me off the floor." She figured he just meant the convention floor, closed for the customary sweep. But no. Being bad girls, blogstresses occassionally need a smoke, and yours made the fatal error of stepping outside the building to inhale. Delegates were being held back by barriers at the foot of the stairways and escalators, but no cue was taken. It's just crowd control, n'est-ce pas ? It was still early, and the candidate wasn't scheduled to begin droning until 10:00. Upon returning to the building, your intrepid muse was met by phalanxes of police officers or some sort of law enforcement in black hats, as well as regular Boston cops, everywhere, and nobody, not even your blogstr...
Post-toastie BOSTON--This could well be the last AddieStan post of the evening. Though your blogstress did manage to get herself into the Fleet Center tonight in an extralegal manner (which involved, literally, a credential being passed through a fence), it seems that a good chunk of the press filing center is being turned over to the press corps that travels with Kerry. This is my fourth national political convention, and I've never seen this done. The candidate's traveling press corps is composed of reporters who work for the well-heeled outfits that have their own workrooms here. But considering the fact that, at least according to the DNC, your blogstress has no business being here at all, one supposes she should be grateful for the printed texts of speeches, the internet access enjoyed thus far, and the company of journalists.
Kerry's speech BOSTON--Well, they've just passed out excerpts from the text of Kerry's acceptance speech. I wish I could say that it looks like a knock-out, but if these are any indication, we can expect the same sort of buzz-word loaded stuff we hear on the campaign trail. Here's the acceptance part: So tonight, in the city where America's freedom began, only a few blocks from where the sons and daughters of liberty gave birth to our nation--here tonight, on behalf of a new birth of freedom--on behalf of the middle class who deserve a champion, and those struggling to join it who deserve a fair shot --for the brave mmen and women in uniform who risk their lives every day and the families who pray for their return--for all those who believe that our best days are ahead of us--for all of you--with great faith in the American people, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.
More than out BOSTON--After a week of nary a queer word from the convention podium, tonight is sounding like gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered night, at least until the networks tune in during primetime. Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank just gave a real rip-roaring speech, in which he took to task his colleagues in the House who set aside the nation's business--funding homeland security and countless other vital national programs--to take up the unconscionable federal marriage amendment to the Constitution. The GOP amendemtn effort becomes especially cynical when you add in the fact that the Republicans knew they couldn't win the three-quarters victory they needed in the Senate, but they wasted the people's time on it anyway in order to have a flag to wave before their charming base. Buzz is that Barney Frank may go for Kerry's vacated Senate seat should the latter Massachusettan (dig that word!) wind up in the White House. Said Frank to a gathering of gay Dem...
The tyranny of the post BOSTON--The swell thing about blogging is that you can do whatever you want, with no pesky editor telling you that your ideas are cockamamie. The frustrating thing about blogging is that all the decisions are up to you, and there's no pesky editor there to tell you when your ideas really are cockamamie, or when your prose has run off the rails. In an environment such as this convention, the pressure to post is extremely high. Blogs are, after all, said to be the running commentary on this event. Combine the tyranny of the post with the tedium of relentless self-promotion (tune up those violins) and what was always a narcissistic medium becomes a cult of one--one's own personality that is, or at the very least, of the persona in which one blogs. Exhausted from e-mailing each little gem from her blog to tout le monde , sick of her self-consciously arch blogstress persona, unsure that there was really anything left to say about this confab, Addie actually...
Love fest BOSTON--After last night's levitational address by Barack Obama, John Edwards' performance tonight seemed merely able. That said, Edwards' "able" is better than what most politicians deliver in the guise of their strongest speeches. The most effective part of his speech was when he had us conjuring the image of a loney wife, scraping together the money to support her family while her husband, in the National Guard, serves in Iraq. Edwards seemed to go out of his way to cast most of his imaginary Americans as women; it's nice to see he's paying attention to demographics. The "hope is on the way" line was a fun bit of political jabbing, co-opting Cheney's 2000 line, "help is on the way." It's an insider punch; it's doubtful that viewers at home have much memory of Cheney's speech at the last Republican National Convention. The Edwards family is certainly impressive: A handsome wife, fellow attorney Elizabeth, w...
One more thing about Dukakis & Kerry BOSTON--Speaking of lessons from '88, I hope the Kerry campaign remembers not how great Dukakis did in the polls after the convention, but how absolutely wonderful he looked in the final days of the campaign, when he started rolling up his shirtsleeves and really mixing with people--unfortunately, after all was lost. He looked so good, in fact, that even as every poll spelled doom for the Democrats, I was half believing that another feat of metaphysics from Miracle Mike would make itself apparent.
src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/188/1361/640/Dukakis.7.28.jpg'> Mike & Kitty at Friends of Dukakis gathering. photo © 2004 Adele M. Stan Snoopy-in-a-Tank on the Big, Blue Teletubbie BOSTON--So I’m walking by this Greek restaurant near the dock where the water taxi dumps you off, and I hear, amplified, a familiar voice, but one I can’t immediately place. Then it all comes into focus. “I’m happy to see that the Democrats have learned some lessons from 1988,” he says. It’s a good voice, with a bit of a sardonic edge, and that swell Massachusetts accent. “I know you’ve all seen that boy-in-the-bubble picture ,” he goes on, referring to Kerry’s fabulous photo flub. Why, it’s former Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis, whose failed presidential bid in 1988 is often summed up visually in a goofy-looking picture of him sitting in a tank wearing a too-big helmet with built-in-ear muffs. Given the candidate’s small build and not-so-small nose, the effect was said to resemble...
White, black or whatever??
A reader e-mails:
Obama was amazing. It's interesting that he's seen by all as a black man who has a shot at being the first black pres., but his mother was white and his father black. Why is he not a white man? or ??? Anyway, he's the most refreshing person I've heard in years.
I have my own thoughts on the question the writer asks (legacy of racial categories from the old days; America's unspoken obsession with skin color), but would rather hear from you, dear reader. E-mail me , and I'll post your comments.
A good night BOSTON--There’s no getting around the fact that last night was a very good one for the Dems at their convention. With Howard Dean and Barack Obama, they got a good tap into the mojo. Dean delivers The reception that Dean continues to get from Democrats calls a question: why was this guy deemed “not electable”? I saw the same thing happen at the aforementioned fundraising dinner in Washington--on a night that was to be Kerry’s, the very mention of Dean’s name from the main stage evoked a prolonged ovation. (At that event, Dean was relegated to the small stage from the side of the room, speaking during the cocktail hour with the other also-rans.) Conventional wisdom conspires to tell us that a firebrand is a danger in an election year where the future of the nation is at stake. I say that a tepid candidate is every bit as much of a danger. Obama lives up to hype And it was quite a lot of hype to live up to. The youngster from Illinois--and the Land of Lincoln's next new ...
This blog s#cks!* (Just ask the DNC) NOTE: Brackets [such as these] denote words that were not actually spoken, but perhaps should have been. BOSTON--As promised, your intrepid blogger paid a little visit on the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) Press Gallery on the matter of her revoked blogger credentials. You’ll recall that a very small handful of bloggers who received letters granting them credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention experienced the misfortune of having those credentials mysteriously revoked for reasons that seem dubious, at best. ( E.g. , the convention folks suddenly realized that they didn’t have enough space for us.) The others I know of who were so disrespected are righties; what liberal, feminist moi did to be similarly decommissioned was a mystery to me. So I went to find out. The party giveth, and the party taketh away At the press gallery, I presented the letter I had initially received, the one I was to bring to the gallery...
Dramaturgy (Enhancing the script)
Ron Reagan (r) on the MSNBC set outside Fanueil Hall for a live airing of "Hardball". photo © 2004 Adele M. Stan
BOSTON--As predictable as flung mud, every four years the grousing about the scriptedness of the conventions rains down upon us--so much so that it's become part of the metascript itself.
One recalls that in 1996, Ted Koppel packed up early at the Republican National Convention, leaving San Diego in a huff over the banal non-newsiness of it. (Yesterday, however, saw Mr. Koppel briskly walking the halls of the Fleet Center during the prime-time hours.)
But there's scripted, and there's scripted. On Sunday night, while foraging for food in the area of Quincy Market, I stumbled upon the outdoor set for Chris Matthews's MSNBC show "Hardball." Standing around the open-sided, tented set were a few hundred people, mostly young men, holding "Kerry/Edwards" signs. As I approached the gat...
Hope? BOSTON--Since he left office, when Bill Clinton speaks, I feel myself start to smile at the same time that I experience a profound sense of sadness. For after all that was the Clinton presidency, how did it come to this? (This being complete marginalization of the Democratic Party after yielding eight pretty prosperous during its last turn in the White House.) Clinton remains a maddening figure to me; much like a family member with a major character defect whom you just can't help loving too much. (Yeah, I'm already feeling the results of missing this week's therapy appointment.) Bill gave a good speech last night; he always does. (I had already seen the preview of the "Send me" riff in his post-primary address to a Democratic fundraising dinner in Washington last March.) His best line: "Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values..." He also did a great job explaining the US economic relationship with China and Japan, asking how can the ...
Grace FOR ARCHIVES ON POPE JOHN PAUL II, AMERICAN CATHOLICS AND RELIGION IN AMERICA, CLICK HERE. BOSTON--I sure hope that John Kerry understands that he owes Hillary Clinton big for the extraordinary grace with which she performed a task that rated as a diss* : the introduction of her husband, the keynote speaker. It's said there were worries that, given the full-fledged, prime-time speech she rightfully deserved, she would have, once again, proved too polarizing a figure. Yeah, right. Worries were that she might prove presidential. I don't mean to suggest that the junior senator from New York is not a controversial personality; indeed, women of her own generation are not always comfortable with all they see in her iconic qualities. She's made the compromises that so many brilliant women have had to make, only to come through with real power. But younger women are nuts about Hillary, perhaps because she offers a glimmer of hope for their own actualization. The Lifetime ...
Mr. Ex-President BOSTON--If I make it to 81, I should look so good--my first thought upon seeing the man who made the ex-presidency a career of on its own. We're talking Jimmy Carter, of course. Now, he may not be the most scintillating speaker, but he sure serves up a mighty platter of gravitas, and loveable gravitas, at that. (As opposed to, say, the f-u grumpiness of our current vice president, a trait too often mistaken for gravitas.) And Carter's speech had some dashes of poetry, even if they seemed a bit derivative of the Book of Revelations. The phrase I've been chewing on: "with...the Middle East ablaze..." Trouble is, this ain't hyperbole.
Thrown out of the best places
BOSTON--After all that, I cannot vouch for the accuracy upon delivery of Mr. Gore's quotes, since I missed his speech while busy being thrown out of the blogger stand in the convention hall. You see, your blogstress is here in what might be termed an "extralegal" manner, and her press tags are apparently the wrong color for entry into the elite, but otherwise delightful, group that occupies the stand.
So, like you, dear reader, I shall cool my heels in front of a television set, and report on Mr. Carter's speech shortly.
Gore to Nader Voters: Don't Do It! Asks crowd to remember anger & disappointment of 2000 outcome; patches up with Clinton BOSTON--We've just received the advance copies of Gore's imminent speech to the convention. In the running for the most interesting moment of the speech is his direct appeal to those who voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in the last presidential election--votes that were said to have cost Gore victory in the 2000 election. "I...ask tonight for the help of those who supported a third party candidate in 2000. I urge you to ask yourselves this question: do you still believe that there was no difference betweeen the candidates? Are you troubled by the erosion of some of America's most basic civil liberties? Are you worried that our environmental laws are being weakened and dismanteld to allow vast increases in pollution that are contributing to a global climate crisis? No matter how you voted in the last election, these are profou...
The numbers: Dems in mainstream on trade & health care, but fail to reach young women
AMTRAK 166 (SOMEWHERE AROUND MYSTIC, CONN)--Having spent the last nine hours on a train, I fear I am painfully unaware of what is going on in real time, and have been, sadly, unable to read my comrades in blogs. All of which conspired to soil my delicate hands with actual newsprint.
Trees ’n’ trade
Today’s New York Times is chock full of interesting factoids, the grey lady having apparenly gone on a polling bender in recent days. Robin Toner’s A1 piece on the “great political divide” offers interesting graphs on the hardening of ideology along party lines, though the text of the piece notes that common ground exists on the need for health care reform. Trade and environmental protection, surprisingly, show up as potentially winning issues for Democrats in a poll the Times did with CBS News that was really intended to compare the postions taken by delegates to the Democratic National Con...
Just got by...
AMTRAK 166 (AROUND EDISON, NJ)--Looks like we made it out of D.C. by a whisker. The conductor tells me that every other train scheduled after ours has been held up on account of the crime scene.
Only moments out of Union Station on the 5:25 AM Northeast Regional, our train petered to a halt. There was some excitement among the crew, who were galloping up the center aisle of the head car, where I was the only passenger. “Holy sh*t!” someone exclaimed. Transmitted over a conductor’s walkie-talkie came the words, “We haven’t found any identification.”
Too sleepy to do much worrying, I remained disinterested until the train started moving slowly, passing by a smashed-up car that had landed, improbably, by the side of the tracks, despite the lack of an intersecting road, or the fact that the tracks were lined by fences on either side. The vehicle had apparently gone airborne, tearing through a parking lot on the other side of the fence. Its doors were akimbo, its ...
Bean Town Bound
WASHINGTON, DC--The great thing about political conventions is that, however hyperscripted they are, if you're there to do your thing, you never know exactly they're going to turn out for you.
This time is particularly true for me. In past years, I've gone to conventions under the aegis of whatever print publication I was currently gigging for, but this time I applied for my tags as a blogger.
And I got a nice letter that said they were mine.
Then I got one saying it had all been a terrible mistake. (Scroll to page 2 of the "nice letter" PDF.)
The way I see it, I have two letters, both signed by the same person--one of which says I'm in, one of which says I'm not. So I'm choosing to believe the former, which I will present when I go to pick up my imaginary tags.
I mean, they really couldn't have wanted to shut out a liberal feminist who's been dogging the right for--let's not say how many years. Especially...
For today's posts, redirect to AddieStan's new URL: http://www.addiestan.com.
Casino to Ronstadt: Baby, you're no good...
When I was a little girl, my daddy taught me to shoot craps against the curb. Considering the fact that we had just moved to a tidy, suburban neighborhood, my mother was not amused. But, hey, you can take the paisano out of Jersey City, and you know the rest...
In the case of Linda Ronstadt, it seems you can take the lefty out of Sacramento (remember her Jerry Brown days?) and put her in Nevada, but it's a schtick that doesn't play well in Vegas. Ms. Ronstadt (whom I idolized during the short-shorts & roller-skate years) apparently got the boot at the Aladdin last night when she rolled off a riff of praise for Michael Moore, director, producer, etc., of the anti-Bush film, Farenheit 911 .
It was apparently quite a scene. According to the piece on Billboard 's Web site, audience members tossed cocktails and tore down ...
Free and fair?
How heartening to see that the Dems are gearing up to play hardball this year in order to see that everybody’s votes get counted.
On the smart side of things is the http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/19/politics/campaign/19VOTE.html" target="Resource Window">Kerry campaign’s legion of lawyers versed in election law
. On the silly side is the
call by some congressional Dems for U.N. monitoring . I’m all for international monitoring of this year’s U.S. presidential contest, but this is simply bad rhetorical strategy. Who on the right would ever accept the word of the United Nations?
Why not engage some neutral, U.S.-based, multi-lateral outfit, such as the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), to do the umping? It was founded by Republicans, after all—back in the days before party membership required that Republicans hate everybody who wasn’t born in the good ol’ U.S.A.