Greetings from the Yearly Kos....

Disgusted that I lost a pretty big post last night, and tired from the up all night getting things ready, stress, and travel itself, I’ve arrived in this flat place, where I have a Hyatt room with a view (check out the ballpark,), a Westin-like bed, not so heavenly, and even fireworks that were just set off outside of my window at dusk last night, so close and at an angle that I’ve never seen before.

Of course that bomb sound makes me jump, and I’ve been looking at a bridge collapse on Keith Olbermann, and feeling spooky in general….tired and worried. Finally I guess I have to turn off the TV and try to move on to the issues at hand.

This bridge thing is not about tragedy, folks…Its infrastructure! This is what happens when an administration puts all of its money into wars that feed their own cronies and pockets and….what happens when bids go out to the lowest bidder regardless of the quality of the work…with no oversight….no oversight…remember Reagan saying that there is no reason that big business cant oversee itself?...

It’s not like the Big Dig hasn’t been going on and on forever in Boston; and didn’t a huge slab of concrete fall from the ceiling of that onto some cars?

New York, and apparently Chicago are in constant construction, but it all seems to be scrambling to keep up, when general upkeep is defunded more and more.

Is this the fault of the unions? Large corporations that use shoddy materials meant to need replacement sooner than you would’ve thought? Human error and lack of inspectors to even do the job of looking at everything from our food to the bridge we’re crossing?

Call this a metaphor for what’s wrong with how we’re doing things and our seeming inability to change course effectively.

This isn’t just some tragedy…its what happens when you have 6 years of the defunding of social programs and infrastructure, undercutting in bidding, and cronyism….and this bridge is not just some bridge, it’s the Bush Administration, Iraq, Halliburton and its subsidiaries, melamine and poison in our food, and the fucking computer that doesn’t really work and keeps needing tech support.

Apple is to PC as socialism is to capitalism. (Go figure that one out…and I’m a PC person who just wants a fucking PC that works for longer than a month at a time!!…so…?)

It’s hot here and the convention center is HUGE. It’s the biggest convention center in North America and there are all sorts of things going on…The people who work here seem to not care what any of the conventions are and the guy at the desk was quite surprised that the bloggers were coming here. What happened to the youth of America just being interested in their surroundings? The pizza girl in the Panini shop was musing that perhaps Barak Obama would stroll in there and order a pizza from her…like a star! I was telling her that maybe you can get a band at the booth and go and see him; security is no doubt tight, but they are having some forums with the candidate of your choice, and so…why not? I picked Edwards anyway, but when I think of what I want to talk to him about should I ever get the chance it all rolls together into me dissolving into tears while trying to explain how screwed up the system is and how I’m struggling so hard to get just one family on some health plan and to have heat this winter. Next thing I know, a friend of mine who is in the system is telling me that the same place where they are holding summer camp for the inner city kids and then the after school program is where some mentally ill patients are being “mainstreamed,” which is consisting of the patients sitting in chairs around the edges of the place where the kids are. And this began with the information that the kids need more counselors and supplies. The minute you scratch the surface of any of this, the whole bridge comes down. That’s what I want to tell Edwards. Not that he needs to come to my little city and fix the problems there, but that the whole system needs to be changed in a way that is not even possible for one president over 8 years…even one party 16 years! And this is what leads to people feeling like its all just too upsetting to even do some little part of helping in society, or to at least KNOW what’s going on. I suppose that if you live in my area, it makes it a little hard to drive around in that Hummer and plan your ski vacation if you have any idea of what your downtown neighbors are going through. But for society to work properly, we all should know, even if it’s a safety issue or for your property values; keep them in OK circumstances and give them a chance, so they won’t come to your neighborhood and rob you!

I’m fascinated by a Shriners convention that is going on here. There are Queens of the Golden Sphinx and Grand Ruler of all Oblivion and all that; completely African American, men and women and families, all dressed nicely….then walking by was a natty older man carrying a very tall stack of white straw hats…and a woman in the elevator had a great red tote bad that had golden sphinxes on it and gold lettering that I was trying to take in...The Queens of the Order of the Golden Sphinx, or some such….And the great big Shriner’s hats with the gold lettering….Juxtaposed with the slacker gen x,y,z goateed bloggers….every time the elevator opens I wish I was ready with my camera because the mix is fantastic!

I was following a group of black women in matching white dress suits with golden necklaces, sashes, and huge hats like crowns, each saying something or other, and there was a sign saying The Court of the Grand Messianic…whatever…and I was SO there, man!...but a kid in a suit at a desk stopped me….and I was trying to make my way down to the Starbucks where a huge mix of people were standing on line in the understaffed place, and chatting along: lurker here, blogger there...poobah and queen this way…

Here I am... back to this post and need to rest a bit before I figure out what’s going on, and get some food…just sit in the lobby and watch the comings and goings…but I was asking a bellman if the Shriners had any problem with having their pictures taken because I really want to photograph the thing…

Mom just told me, along with stories about the boys and birds and little chickens and did Wayne show up with the bucket truck yesterday, that when she worked at Storyville during college that the Shriners were THE wildest party that would book the place. That after the food service they would bring out the booze and lock out the help till morning. Morning brought a giant cleanup job beyond anything she had ever seen….But these Shriners are like a Baptist Sunday church group…during the daytime hours anyway!! We will have to see!!

Meanwhile in the south building of the largest convention hall in North America (and I am trying hard not to walk a million miles, lest I end up renting a scooter and really having some fun!) the empty shell of the Yearly Kos registration booth was abuzz last nite with volunteers running round, and here and there were signs that that the hipster youth was taking over from the Queen Sphinxes. I just want to check out the store…I’m all about shopping for swag…Shriners swag!! Ill do my best to at least get pictures.

Anyway, the booth was running late for the early arrival registration, and I went over to sit on a couch and watch the goings on while blogging (which I lost in that the file exists but it has no text in it. I was using a program called Jarte, and saved to a word format….the file is there but has nothing in it…oh well…) outside the bar where the organizers and known blogger guys were talking seriously on their phones and moving and shaking the blogosphere, or at east the YK….and after getting my bag and Edwards wristband for Saturday, I got all caught up in photographing the art and decoration here and in the center.

There is a wall o’ bones and ancient tools that repeat and repeat, and there is a tapestry/rug thing that I could swear looks like 9-11 and the fall of the World Trade Center, but is actually the Chicago skyline. The architecture of the place is so huge and it brings to mind…um…fear of the marketplace. Anyone would get agoraphobia here. It’s actually like a huge World Trade Center in that its got is own airflow and is like a world unto itself. I have to explore a bit more to find the mall and shops and food court, but really I’m pretty happy right here between the edge where the Kos is, and the lobby of the hotel with panini like fancy pizza, Starbucks, and the comfy couches full of people with laptops on one side and groups of bejeweled Shriners on the other.

More later from fantabulous YK2, where I am hard pressed to even leave my room but every time I do I get so many ideas…few of them having to do with progressive politics;-)

OK....Here are the girls....@ 1 day old! (Ive got Will on photo duty while Im away, so there will be more to come!!)

and, Im expecting some Serama eggs to incubate any day. Seramas are tiny chickens who, if they are bred right, are small enough to sit in your hand, with the girls being under a pound...go figure that I want the strangest breed who will likely end up int he basement for the winter...mud room at least...