I'll soon be posting plenty of pictures from last Thursday night and I wanted to share this one first. As I listen to Fred Thompson harp and hawk POW porn to a nationwide audience, I keep thinking of this young girl I encountered on the field at Mile High. She is the daughter of someone in the New York delegation and she seemed to embody the very essence of the night. That night was about the way forward, about the future, about what we owe our children, about what those not yet born deserve from us.
Contrast that with what we are hearing right now from Grandpa Fred.
It's been an exhausting week and I've yet to post tons of stuff from Denver. That will change over the next day or so as I wind down from the experience back home in Brooklyn. That said, I thought I'd share this right away. This landed in my inbox recently.
To Whom It May Concern:
The United States Library of Congress has selected your Web site for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Election 2008. The Library's traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and to the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including Web sites. We request your permission to collect your web site and add it to the Library's research collections. We also ask that we be allowed to display the archived version(s) of your web site.
The following URL has been selected:
thealbanyproject.com
With your permission, the Library of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of content from your Web site at regular intervals over time. The Library will make this collection available to researchers onsite at Library facilities. The Library also wishes to make the collection available to offsite researchers by hosting the collection on the Library's public access Web site. The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving Internet materials and permitting researchers from across the world to access them...
For several years, the Library of Congress has collected Web sites within certain themes or topics, such as elections, for which we were required to seek permission for each new collection developed by the Library, even if permission had been granted in the past. As our collections have grown, we have had to contact some Web site producers repeatedly. To reduce this duplication and to save site owners from having to respond to multiple requests for information, we are now requesting permissions for the Library to collect, over time and in varying frequency, sites of research interest. Your site has been identified as a Web site of interest related to Election 2008. If you grant this permission, we will capture your site for inclusion in our Election 2008 Web Archive and may also include it in our future collections related to national elections. If you grant this permission, and in the future you no longer wish to be included in the Library's Web archives, please contact us and we will cease collection of your Web site.
Our Election Web archives are important because they contribute to the historical record of our national elections, capturing information that could otherwise be lost. With the growing role of the Web as an influential medium, records of historic events could be considered incomplete without materials that were "born digital" and never printed on paper. The Library has developed three previous Election Web Archives, in 2000, 2002 and 2004. These Election Archives are available along with our other Web Archive collections through the Library's Web site (http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/). For more information about these and other Web Archive collections please visit our Web site.
...
Thank You,
Web Capture Team
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
Our Senior Senator just visited the Big Tent here in Denver. Chuck Schumer just left after spending about half an hour mixing with the crowd. He took a number of questions, some friendly, some less so. Video later today.
The police police secured the street in front of the Big Tent about half an hour ago. It looked as if they were preparing for a motorcade. Now we know why. That motorcade just sped by us with a certain Senator from Illinois in tow.
I just got handed the text of the speech that John Kerry is about to deliver here in Denver. It's a devastating, take no prisoners take down of Bush and McSame. If you aren't tuned in to the convention right now, you might want to turn the TV on. This one should be good.
I'll admit it. I'm just a huge fan of Senator Jon Tester (D-MT). We don't agree on everything, but I just really, really like the guy. He just stopped by the Big tent to say hello and I'm proud to say I got to shake his hand again and share a minute with him.
Back in 2004, our good friends at the Tank had an idea. They wanted to offer a space to work for the bloggers who were coming from around the country to cover the Republican National Convention. At their old space up on 42nd street, they hosted a couple dozen bloggers with wi-fi and some pizza every few hours. Usually in the afternoon, a hat would be passed around and someone would fetch a case or two of beer. It was actually completely awesome and so many freindships were forged that week.
This year in Denver, the idea that was born in NYC four years ago has gone huge. The Big Tent is orders of magnitude larger than the effort at the Tank, but the idea has remained largely the same, namely to provide a welcoming space for bloggers to work, to socialize, to network and just generally have a good time. The Big Tent is exactly what it sounds like, a big, two story tent that offers wifi (there is none in the Pepsi Center) food and drink, and even some stuff like free massages (no, I'm not making that up) and a stage upstairs that hosts some great panels and discussions all day every day.
It's our office and our lounge and our meeting place and the folks who put it together have done an awesome job.
Yesterday, I and several other folks here were interviewed by MSNBC about the space, the convention and the work we are trying to do. Take a look. You can see it here.
After the fresh hell that is the DNCC's media credentialing office, something we get to do every day this week, I'm finally able to, ya know, work.
So, here's what's on tap from TAP today. Tonight, my congresswoman, the truly awesome Nydia Velazquez, will address the convention. I'm trying to line a up a brief interview with her before the speech. Look for that later this afternoon.
Also, look for a brief chat with Senator Craig Johnson.
There's a good chance you may know of other things happening here in Denver today. What else should I try to cover?
Tracey Brooks is in Denver today for a WomenCount event. WomenCount has endorsed Brooks and Brooks is in Denver today to speak alongside Sen. Hillary Clinton and former New Hampshire governor and current U.S. Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen. Here is her schedule for today in Denver. She will be back in NY-21 tomorrow.
9:25-10:00 AM- EMILY's List Reception
Korbell Ballroom 2C
Colorado Convention Center
700 14th Street
Denver
10-12:00 PM DNC Women's Caucus
Colorado Convention Center
5:00-9:00 PM Convention Proceedings, Pepsi Center
1000 Chopper Circle, Denver
Kudos to Brooks for this opportunity. She should make the most of it, especially when she is being highlighted by many women's political groups as a top candidate.
According to multiple sources, Aurora police made a routine traffic stop Sunday morning at 2:38 a.m. and arrested 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell. Sources say he was driving a rented pickup truck. The Secret Service says two rifles were found in his truck along with methamphetamine. Another law enforcement source says he was told at least one of the rifles was a "sniper rifle."
A second source told CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass authorities told officers they are concerned they may have come upon a possible "assassination plot."
That arrest then led authorities to a second man staying at the Cherry Creek Hotel at 600 South Colorado Blvd in Glendale. When authorities knocked on the man's door, they say he jumped out of his sixth floor window, landing on an awning and running from the scene. They say they soon found him with a broken ankle. He too was arrested.
Could be nothing. Could be something potentially significant.
My first impressions of Denver are that this city, during a major party convention at least, pack just as much weirdness per square mile as my own beloved NYC.
Today I ha to stroll from the Big Tent, where I'll most likely be spending most of my time for the week (you can actually work here), to the place where the DNCC is actually doling out media credentials, about a 20 minute hike. In the space of one block along downtown Denver's main drag, the 16th street mall, I ran into a group of PUMA types, I counted 13 of them followed by at least 50 media folks. Not 20 seconds later, I ran into our own Charlie Rangel strolling down the street and surrounded by mostly convention goers snapping pics. At the end of the block I ran into a group of folks holding signs reading "Homo Sex Is A Threat To NATIONAL SECURITY" and "Time Is Running Out: OBEY JESUS!" These folks were being protected by probably 30 Denver cops who were quite nonchalantly, yet dutifully defending their right to be ignored by the thousands strolling by.
On the next block I ran into a group of folks (left my camera at the Big Tent. Dammit!) carrying a banner that read "Clintons for McCain". I counted 9 of them. They were all wearing McCain gear and carrying McCain signs. They were surrounded by another 40 or so media folks and a couple dozen conventioneers. They were chanting "Biden supports McCain!" to which the converntioneers replied each time "Baloney!" It was quite the spectacle. The interesting thing, aside from their rather puny numbers versus the media throng around them was the fact that they appeared exclusively to be, to my trained eye, republicans. These weren't disgruntled Hillary supporters. They were GOP media bait and the media was biting in a major way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you may well see on TeeVee tonight angry "Hillary supporters" chanting for McCain on the streets of Denver. Don't buy it. It's total bullshit staged for the media types dying for it. To see it from across the street, as opposed to from the lens of a camera focused on the rather curiously phrased banner ("Clintons" for McCain?), was to see a rather sad spectacle, 9 folks total, that the assembled media couldn't seem to get enough of.
