Masonic...not, Shriners.....Day 2 at the Yearly Kos....

I wish I had more stamina....
Yesterday was a whirl and just plain fun! Jill got here as I was still gathering myself up from the exhaustion of home, travel, and all that...immediately went off for lunch with a friend, which included walking in the heat (no, I didnt go!) and stopped ot ge tme a long ethernet cable so I could stretch the computer to the bed. How does anyone sit at a desk all day anyway? It drives me crazy.
We walked around and hit the NY/NJ/CT caucus, which was nice in that people introduced themselves and some faces got placed with nicknames...but it turned out that it wasn't really CT., and I was the only CT there...in any case, we had to split pretty quickly to hit the Firedoglake caucus, which was sort of cancelled because of a room mixup, but outside we found Christie Harden Smith and a bunch of bloggers sitting around waiting for anyone who might show up to just say hi.
My experience with FDL, besides being a fan of their reporting, is through the Lamont campaign. There were some great people there, and the room opened up early so we could use it as a meet and greet...Bob Geiger was there with his friend John who is a Lawyer/Dr out of San Francisco, working on inner city health and nutrition issues, and we had some fun chatting and laughing with them...
I met Spazeboy and TBC from Myleftnutmeg
and they were talking to me about community blogging and how its great to contribute pieces...to which, I told them that they might want to take a look here before they go shooting off their mouths about all that, in that I tend to write LONG, and it may not be the right exact format for that sort of thing. I guess that there is alot of cross posting going on out there and I just dont know if I fit in that world. I am so much (too much?) more chatty and impressionistic than alot of what I see...and this was more a prelude to a book (not even about politics, but then isnt everything about politics?) than anything else....
But in any case, I like the people here and it feels great to be with so many like minded people who are so passionate and who touch so many other people....and many of whom have made a difference in the mess that this country is in and how we get our information...a huge difference.

On the other hand, there is a group of rock-star bloggers here who are a little too full of themselves and seem to think...as we used to say in Brooklyn...Who They Are!!
Its so clear to me that these people have a very important role in what has happened and in the evolution of information technology and writing. But the problem is that as they move along into the important work of TV punditry and book writing, they leave a gap if they arent able to recognize who else is out there. I often go on these big sites and see the "open thread," thing or a little blurb and then "comments," and, its not that I dont like comments...I love them...but there is a certain chat room quality to much of it, that is almost like SPAM that has to be sifted through. The social thing is fine, but I wonder where you draw the line in a gap filling medium that is so very important to the entire world at this point.
So, I would like to see more real writers being brought along, and recognition of that.
Since we are in a world where anyone can put material out there, it just seems like maybe some care should be taken to have real contributers from outside of the existing stale gene pool to bring in some fresh perspective.


Last night's keynote speech reminded me why I voted for Dean back then, and also how much I miss Sam Seder on the radio every day...not to mention that the comedians pretty much were just so-so, as opposed to Maron, who shoulda been here (were he not in Scotland at the Edinberg Comedy Festival for an entire month.) The food was great and most of the people were fun...and Howard spoke about how we have to make America great again in order to restore the global evolution that happens naturally when you have a force like America just being itself. Forcing your political system doesnt work, as if we needed that illustrated for us, and the best way to encourage democracy is to support other countries and show them what its like. It hardly makes sense to reverse our own constitution while trying to force some farcical democracy onto a country that has not gotten to the point where they want it so badly that they rise up themselves to get it.
I like to hear that kind of talk from our leaders. Its just too bad that the actions on the part of the party don't exactly represent what Dean is saying...so it all comes down to a very patriotic and stirring rah, rah speech...but what does it mean?



Air America Radio is represented by the "embedded" Sam Seder, who was featured in a smarmy email sent around to us ex-premium subscribers, as if they had sent a full crew with him to broadcast live from the Kos...no, no...Sam is taping interviews with his one producer, Lauren, in his hotel room with the likes of Joe Conazin...and what the fuck is Mark Green and his brother thingking with the new lineup announcement?...Oh forget it...Air America is dead to me...except for Sammy, Rachel, and Ring of Fire.
Cenk from Young Turks is here but its unclear what hes doing besides walking aorund being Cenk of Young Turks, and as if we didn't quite get it he came out in a change of wardrobe (again!...the guy has suits!) into a T-shirt that said Young Turks....


Tom Hayden is walking round, walking by, signing his book...and...oh there are so many, many things to do and people to see...but we have been so happy sitting in the lobby saying hi to everyone and blogging...
I guess we are now off to the What Happened to the Lamont Election...and then to one of Bob Geiger's talks about how to get your blog noticed, which Im less interested in the subject of than hanging with the fun people in the class.
I dont think Ive laughed this much in a long time or had more fun...
Maybe its a quirky and geeky kind of fun, but...I like it!