I thought there was some sort of bike protest in Portland tonight--tons of brightly lit bikes, locking up multiple blocks downtown, with police cruisers escorting them through the center of the city. I took this picture on Broadway looking toward Portland's Pioneer Square. The streets were dark and wet, but there were lots of parents with very young kids on the backs of their bikes--so not a "protest" crowd. Still, I thought it might be response to the recent deaths of two cyclists here. No, as it turns out, that protest is tomorrow, and it's sponsored by the activist group Bike Portland. Tonight's event was the Bike Light Parade, part of the Portland Department of Transportation's "see and be seen campaign," which encourages cyclists to light up their bikes for safety.

Anyway, it was an inspiring sight. Between Portland's kick-ass light rail system and a city hall that actually listens and responds to the concerns of cyclists, well, Seattle's got a lot of catching up to do.

...but I'd say the "holiday" displays at Sea-Tac Airport look a lot like a clump of dammed Christmas trees.

The Port of Seattle announced back in October that they were getting out of the Christmas tree bidness. No Christmas trees at Sea-Tac this year. But while the display above may feature the wrong kind of tree--it's birch, not evergreen, and I'm totally racist when it comes Christmas trees--the branches have been trimmed into a suspiciously conical shape, which is very Christmas-tree-ish. And the icicles hanging from the branches look like the kind of icicle decorations often found on Christmas trees.

Oh, and there are now advertisements on the bottoms of the plastic bins you have to put your laptop computers, shoes, and other crap in at the security checkpoint. For an online shoe company. I was going to write, "that didn't take long," but it actually did--it took six years. Still, it seems like the space could be better used. Perhaps a message that says, "Hey, dumbfuck, take the change out of your pocket and put in here, along with your cell phone and fountain pens and belt buckles and anything else that might set off a the metal detector you're about to walk through. Christ."

I tried to make up for my ridiculous limo ride yesterday by taking the Boston T to Logan Airport this morning. It took 40 minutes to get across Boston and to the Logan International Airport during the tail end of rush hour here. Best of all it was, er, free. I couldn't figure out where to buy a ticket and no one asked me for one when I boarded the train. The T's underground stations are pretty grimy, but the aboveground parts of the system are beautiful.

But Logan? What a shithole. It's like the Greyhound Terminal in downtown Chicago in the early 1980s. Ugly like Logan doesn't happen by accident. Someone did this on purpose.

My hometown makes news:

Smoking is now off limits at beaches, parks and playground in Chicago.

The park district board voted unanimously Wednesday to pass the ban. It takes effect immediately. The penalty for violating the ban is a $500 fine....

"I have a lot of sympathy for smokers, but not when second-hand smoke affects the health of other people," Park District Superintendent Tim Mitchell said. Proponents also say cigarette butts and filters damage the environment. During a three hour cleanup of city beaches last month, they say they found some 35,000 butts in the sand.

Second hand smoke at beaches seems like a reach, but... uh... all the butts in the sand is kind of gross. But even this non-smoking fascist wonders where the anti-smoking bans stop. Cities are banning smoking in cars with children, on beaches, in bars and clubs, and there's talk of banning smoke in apartments (it creeps under doors and down halls). But, you know, all those butts in the sand is gross.

And this is going to lead to some interesting 911 calls and a few shootings:

Enforcement relies on citizens to turn smokers in to police.

That sounds like a good plan.

And it's amazing that this ban takes effect immediately while the state of Illinois' long overdue ban on smoking bars and clubs doesn't go into effect until January 1, 2008.

Traffic crawling along. Thank God--or thank Chicago's taxpayers and competent-if-corrupt leaders--for extending the El's Blue Line to O'Hare fifteen or twenty years ago. A cab to O'Hare is $40ish bucks. The El is $2. So why would anyone cab it?

Oh, and it's going to be 80 fucking degrees here today--in Chicago, in late October. Something's not right. And, yes, I realize that I'm making climate change worse by flying from Chicago to Boston and not biking or skating. I did stay in Chicago for two extra days this week to avoid flying all the way back to Seattle from Chicago before flying to Boston. But, yeah, I fly too much, I'm part of the problem, I'm the reason it's going to be 80 degrees in Chicago today. But it still freaks me out.

And here's a comforting headline--courtesy of Matt Drudge--to read right before you step on an airplane at O'Hare International Airport...

Most fake bombs missed by screeners

75% not detected at LAX; 60% at O'Hare

Yesterday afternoon I needed to get from McHenry, Illinois, where my mother lives, to Midway Airport, where I'm beginning to think I live.

McHenry is deep in Chicago's northwest 'burbs, closer to Racine, Wisconsin, than downtown Chicago. Midway is on Chicago's near south side. Googlemaps says you can make the 57.9 mile journey in "about an hour and 29 minutes," which is a lie. It'll take you closer to two hours, particularly at rush hour. Hell, during rush hours--6-9 AM, 3-7 PM--it can take two and half hours or more. And they're miserable hours, stuck in traffic, crawling along Chicago's congested expressways.

Luckily for us, and luckily for my stepfather, we didn't have to drive to Midway. The Chicago area is served by a large commuter rail system--heavy rail, not light rail--and the city has elevated trains and a subway system downtown. So instead of driving all the way to Midway we caught the 2 PM Metra from Crystal Lake, which got us to downtown Chicago in an hour and twenty minutes. Then we walked three blocks to the Orange Line, and caught the elevated train to Midway Airport, about a twenty minute ride. Total cost? $7.15. It took a bit longer than driving--if you don't count my stepfather's two hour drive back to McHenry after dropping us off--but the small amount of added travel time was worth it. We weren't stuck in a car, crawling along the expressway, dodging psychos in Hummers. On Metra, we could spread out, read the papers, and, when we needed to, even use a bathroom if we needed to.

Here's the heavy rail we took to downtown Chicago...

Our journey to the aiport, needless to say, wouldn't have been possible on a bus, the mode of mass transit recommended by people that don't ride mass transit. Well, I guess it would have been possible, provided buses run from McHenry to Midway. I don't think any do--and I'm certain we wouldn't have taken one if they did. A 58 mile bus ride treats commuters to all of the aggravation and delays of driving without any of the, yes, aesthetic rewards of train travel. The experience of riding a train is, simply put, more pleasant than riding the bus or, in my opinion, driving. Just looking out the windows of a train is a pleasure--you see towns and businesses and backyards, not other cars and neighborhoods destroyed when the expressway came through.

And guess what else I saw when I looked out the windows of the 2 PM from Crystal Lake? Condos--lots of them. Dense, new developments crowded around the train stations in the 'burbs. Most of the stops along the route were in 'burbs that, once upon a time, were small towns in their own right, not just bedroom communities. And most had retail strips--stores, restaurants, and even old fashioned movie theaters--that were looking pretty derelict until the condos came in. Now instead of rail and auto commuters hunkering down in their split levels when they're not driving to the mall, these little 'burbs have lively downtowns of their own thanks to condo residents.

Yes, yes: condos are always and everywhere destructive, a plague upon the land, a force for evil, etc. But the large and, in most cases, tasteful condo developments I saw from the train are making it possible for people to live in the 'burbs--for the peace and quiet, for the schools, for the tedium or whatever--without having to rely on cars to get around or get groceries. The condos at the rail stations are also making it possible for people that might not otherwise be able to afford to live in the 'burbs, i.e. people that can't afford a detached house on a half acre, to live in a community that appeals to them.

Anyway, blah blah blah. We have a transit vote coming up ourselves, don't we? Fifty miles of light rail or something? Fifty miles seems like a lot, I've heard some people say. Shouldn't we go slower? Build a line here, a line there, see if we like it? Putting those fifty miles in perspective: Fifty miles is roughly the length of the commuter rail line that took me from McHenry to downtown Chicago yesterday--and that's just one of Chicago's eleven commuter rail lines, which serve 230 stations along 495 miles of track. And then there's the Chicago Transit Authority's eight rapid transit lines that serve 144 stations along 222 miles of track.

You don't need a car to get around in Chicago. You must have a car to get around Seattle. We bicker, other cities build.

Went down to the new Riverwalk by my mom's place in McHenry, Illinois, late last night with the boyfriend. Since we couldn't bike, board, blade or fish, we decided to straight-identify for a few minutes and have some of that public sex we've been reading about in the papers. It was furtive, stressful, and humiliating--just like I like it.

I'm still on vacation, but this note from the Prayer Warrior reached me in New York and seemed important...

10/16/2007

Dear Prayer Warrior,

Please pray for me as I speak at the Watchmen on the Wall Conference this weekend. There has been misinformation and lies told about the conference. Pray that there will be a good turnout and there will be a clear presentation about what God is and isn't pleased with.

Pastor Hutch

I didn't realize my post about that woman blathering on her cell phone at Sea-Tac--yes, people have a right to blather away on their cell phones; it was her volume that was making everyone around her crazy--had kicked up such a ruckus until I got to Chicago this morning. That's when I read my big brother's post about this woman's real sin:

Almost every behavior that drives the Brother or the rest of us up a wall is a violation of semi-private space by someone who turns that space into their own private space. Remember when Slog featured Hot Tips about people flossing their teeth or cutting their nails on the bus? Why would that bother anyone?

Because it transforms the semi-private public space of the bus into the private bathroom of the nail-clipper or teeth-flosser....

But annoyance at this sort of behavior is perfectly rational, since people who transform the semi-private spaces of our shared public realm into their own little private worlds are petty tyrants who must be resisted.

I agree--but I have to confess that, er, I flossed my teeth at LaGuardia airport this morning. I wanted to floss in the one men's toilet, but it was too small and too filthy. There was just one toilet (occupied by someone taking a very noisy shit), one urinal (with four people lined up to use it), and one extremely filthy sink that I feared I would have to share with the noisy shitter. I'm sorry, but the toilets at LaGuardia are unfit for routine dental hygiene. So I slunk off to a waiting area were there weren't that many people waiting. And I faced the wall. And I flossed as quickly as I could. And I felt terrible about it. But I did floss in public this morning.

You know, full disclosure and like that.

I’m in L.A. for the annual NORML conference. Hundreds of pot activists from around the country are jammed into the Universal City Sheraton, which has a stack of these notices at the front desk.

Welcome to the Sheraton Universal Hotel and the 36th Annual NORML Conference!

Please recognize that the Sheraton Universal Hotel is a 95% non-smoking environment... Should your accommodations be non-smoking and feedback is received that smoking is taking place in the room, we will be obliged to bring the complaint to your attention and charge the standard $250 cleaning fee.

We have been asked to make special arrangements for delegates with medical conditions that need to be addressed, and we ask that you contact out on-duty front desk manager for information in this regard.

Which means: Smoke all the pot you want in the smoking rooms. And if you’re sick, we’ll look the other way.

It smells like a Foghat concert.

We’re in Southern California because this is ground zero for marijuana. Over the past year, the DEA has repeatedly raided the area’s 250 medical-marijuana dispensaries, which are allowed under state law and enjoy popular support but are loathed by the feds. The clash became a spectacle last night. Activists and sick folks held a rally in front of Schwarzenegger’s office, pressuring him to rebuff the raids. But then a SWAT team of LAPD officers and DEA agents, carrying automatic weapons, stormed a post-rally party in a Downtown LA pot dispensary. Agents didn’t arrest anyone, but they seized all the dope and cash.

Anyway, despite popular support, a lot of folks at this conference feel pretty strongly that the wheelchair weed is a political box canyon. The big question on folks’ minds is, how to change the law for the 50 million healthy pot smokers? I'll try to answer that question tomorrow night when I give the conference’s closing address. Obviously, they could begin by immolating their tie-dyes.

I'm on vacation (Mark Penn not withstanding). And this morning, while I was jogging around Prospect Park, I thought to myself: Hey, if it works for The HuffingPost, maybe it will work for Slog.

So now's your chance, all you people who keep telling me in the comments that you could do my job better than me. Links, analysis, news flashes—you can do almost everything in a comment thread that we do up here.

Below is a pristine, unsullied comment thread. What do Slog readers need to know about what's happening with the presidential race today? Go crazy.

(If this works. I'll give you all an open thread every day while I'm gone to talk about the presidential race. If not, see you when I'm back.)

Both are in Kalama, Washington, that two-square-mile town near the Washington border where people stop for gas on the way to Portland.

The pie was the stuff of melancholy: canned fruit glop scooped into an individual pie shell and barely microwaved. But the October 3 issue of The Reflector ("the newspaper with integrity") was the stuff of suicide.

There was the lead story about the volunteer fireman who got fired from his volunteer job and is threatening to sue the city to get his volunteer job back. There was the story about the little girl with the horse named Lisa's Breeze. There was the police blotter item about Kyle J. Gorman, 21, who was "booked into Cowlitz Co. jail for theft of a donation jar."

Then there was the obituary for a certain Mr. Root that contained this two-sentence paragraph:

Root loved Jesus, basketball, and music. He was disabled.

Wait a minute--what have they done to JFK, America's ugliest airport after LAX? A brand new, beautiful terminal? Still no fucking outlets anywhere, of course, but what a difference.

Central Park--that's what I see when I look up from my keyboard. Most of it, anyway. It's nearly 80 degrees here in New York City. Muggy as hell, too. In other weather news, it looks like the snow is coming to the Cascades. Which is good news indeed.

It's true, there are no prohibitive fences at the Shake Shack, but there are 2 hour lines and huge rats running around between the tables and the ivy. Still, they make the best black and white milkshake I've ever had.

It's a beautiful, warm night in New York City; it feels like mid-July here, not early October. T-shirt weather, tons of people out walking, sidewalk cafes packed. I had dinner with a friend in Madison Square Park--that's the park between Union Square and Herald Square--then went for a stroll through the Chelsea and the Village, followed by a long walk back up to my hotel near Central Park.

Oh, and the cafe in Madison Square Park? It's called the Shake Shack. More of a burger stand than a cafe. They serve burgers, of course, and fries, Chicago-style hot dogs (close but no Wiener Circle char dog), and ice cream. Oh, and they also serve beer and wine. And guess what? Customers are free to carry their beers to cafe tables set out under the trees. And you can sit right there in Madison Square Park and eat your burgers and drink your beers--right out in the open, right there in front of God and everybody. There are no eight-foot high chain-link fences, a la Fremont Oktoberfest, no double lines of picket fences creating a moat around a designated alcoholic beverage consumption area, a la Bumbershoot. Just adults, sitting in a park, enjoying a beer and a burger.

Imagine that, Seattle.

Zuma Beach is the beach in Malibu with the softest sand and it's almost always packed. Like nowhere-to-lay-your-towel packed. Plus, big waves. To get to it from the house I grew up in you take a 20 minute drive on a twisting canyon highway with steep drop-offs and memorials to people who've gone over the edge. Last Thursday was hot and clear and Zuma Beach was empty.

Like, miraculously, unexplainably, post-apocalypse empty.

The Getty wasn't empty at all, but here's a pretty serene shot of part of a wall of the Getty, some lawn, and the view onto Los Angeles.

Of course, this is what most of the city looks like. Don't know why the camera in my cell phone went on "make this one look awful" mode--green sky!--but it probably has to do with that Christian bookstore right in the center of the shot. I realize you can't really see it, nor can you see that that arrow to the left of "Christian Bookstore," pointing up toward the sky, is shaped out of letters spelling "One Way." It's the One Way Christian Bookstore on Santa Monica Blvd. Which, business-name-wise, isn't as great as the crematory Hollywood Forever, but it's close. (I never got a chance to sit at a traffic light out in front of Hollywood Forever.)

LAX.

One distinguishing characteristic of LAX is this nefarious soda machine on the third floor of the parking garage across from the Alaska Airlines terminal. Personal story: I wanted some water. It would not take my dollar bills. Finally it took one of my bills. I hit the button for a Dasani water. The machine grumbled and thought about it and grumbled and thought about it and finally a drink tumbled down, but not all the way down; it was lodged up inside. So I reached my hand up into the--I dunno, the inside hole, the cervix--and pulled out... uh, a Sprite. And (go ahead, laugh) I thought: Too many calories. So I decided I'd pay another dollar and get a Coke Zero—cuz, since when do soda machines have Coke Zero? Pressed the button, it thought about it, it grumbled, and out came... a Sprite. I thought of the terrifying soda machine in Seattle that Schmader wrote about years ago. I took one Sprite and drank it, and left the other one standing on the ground, unopened, next to the caution cone.

But enough about California. Here is the coastline of Seattle, as seen from the window of an approaching plane. It's cold to be back.

I'm not exactly sure why today's Red Bull Soap Box Derby didn't get a single mention in the print or online versions of the rag this week--perhaps Dan Savage prefers his energy sipping in the form of Bawls?

In spite of annoying announcers who made Jamie Kennedy seem like James Bond, the show wasn't half-bad. Watching adults crash soap box carts down Fremont Avenue was better than sitting at a parade, at least. And how many parades has Sir Mix-A-Lot served as a judge? (The closest he got to a rhyme was while giving the Alaska Airlines cart the lowest score of the day--"Just like Alaska. Always leaving late and leaving my luggage at the gate." He didn't get to use the mic much more after that sponsor slam...shame.)

The Seattle-inspired cart designs happened to be the most amusing of the bunch, such as the product-whoring troll (above) and the freakish ferry-meets-Space-Needle (below).

When the latter vehicle crashed, the driver hopped out in his tighty-whities...I snapped a shot, only to notice one crowd member's look of glee/horror just as I was writing this. Enjoy the zoom below.

(more photos after the jump)

Continue reading "A Weekend on the Coast (Posted Without Comment)" »

Please rest your eyes on the Caribbean while we shake off our hangovers. Slog will return in just a few minutes.

Tonight I'm going to New York for the first time ever. I’ll be there for a whole week and I'm really, really excited.

Or I was excited, until I got off the plane for a two-hour layover in Phoenix. I walked into the airport, looked down, and saw this:

What the fuck is that!? Can you see that? Can you see all the little plane shapes flying erratically in the vertigo-cursed sky? Why the hell would you put this carpet everywhere in your airport!? I don’t want to see that! I don’t want to see hundreds of planes swirling around, mere seconds away from colliding into one another or being sucked into a whirlpool of death! That shit’s fucked up!

Fuck you, Phoenix. Fuck you and your nasty little mind tricks.

I can't wait to get to New York.

Still at the Surrey, BC/Blaine, WA border crossing, and have the time to share with you this startling passage from the book I'm currently reading---Philosophy of the Future by Ludwig Feuerbach:

I do need air in order to breath, water to drink, light to see, vegetable and animal materials to eat; but nothing, at least directly, in order to think. I cannot conceive of breathing without air, seeing without light, but I can conceive of a thinking that is isolated in itself.

Feuerbach is here attempting show that the Reason of philosophy is none other than the God of theology. Reason, thought, like God, is not limited by biology, by nature, by the world of things and living beings. That is Feuerbach's point. But there is also something else worth considering in the light of his insight: Spinoza's description of the mind. For Spinoza, the mind is "the idea of the body." It is for this reason his philosophy is not rational theology. Reason is never separated from life, from the passions, from feelings. I must now stop. The bus is moving again,

For some reason there is free Wi-Fi at the Surrey, BC/Blaine, WA border crossing. That is the good news. The bad news is I'm stuck here for an estimated four hours. I've never seen anything like it. At around 8:30 am, the line of cars was already exceptionally long. The only sane way to travel by ground between Seattle and Vancouver is the train. No other option offers a clear path through this maddening mess of cars and border officers.

Where they like Bush.

They don't like goddamned hippy liberal animal rights jerks (who does?).

And I have a feeling these rainbow flags don't mean what they mean where we live.

Oh, and it's fucking HOT. Sweet Jesus, it's hot.

Or as some people were calling it, "The Bresticle Festival". The 25th Anniversary. I don't even know where to begin. I really thought, in all my years of chasing-crazy for Drunk of the Week, that I'd almost seen it all. Nope. A new bar has been set. I really couldn't believe my own eyes most the time, so I videotaped it (that's coming soon). For now, check out some of my pictures...

The Eating Contest! These are deep-fried bull testicles...

I chickened out and never tried one (even though they allegedly 'taste like chicken.' But, uh, 'with veins').

This guy, Matt Powers, won the contest by eating 4 1/2 trays of said Rocky Mountain oysters in 4 minutes (approximately 10 ball slices of per plate). There was also an oil wrestling competition, a wet-tee, bullsh*t bingo (involving a giant bingo card and a bull, well, it's just like it sounds), a pig wrestling contest, a raffle for a 1980 truck, and a night called 'No Panty Wednesday' where you could trade your underwear for a free drink.

There were bikers, cowboys, gawkers, a big budget television film crew from Australia, and more public nudity (men AND women) than I've ever seen anywhere. Oh yeah, and FIRE. None of the locals even blinked an eye as a huge renegade wildfire kept shooting swirling mini-fire balls and swirling smoke bombs down the side of the mountain - in plain view of the festival and surrounding campgrounds. I think a little danger just adds to the excitement. At least that's what I tried to tell myself when I woke up in my sleeping bag on an abandoned pool table in the middle of a grassy field, instead of in my tent. But that's another story...

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE JUMP. NSFW - though I did add a bunch of little black bars for your convenience.

Continue reading "The Montana Testicle Festival" »

I just got back (this morning, 2 am) from a week in Albany, New York, which is a beautiful, crumbling town. It's not a big place, but it has a kind of density and substance that I never feel in the West.

Here is a picture of old Albany:

Here is a picture of new Albany:

The weekend's highlights included a wake, a funeral, and an awkward conversation with a priest who wanted to know why I was on crutches. ("Well, you see Father, a couple months ago, I jumped out of a window onto the roof of a school bus. No, no, it was parked—I'm not crazy.")

The day after the funeral (for the family matriarch—she was buried on her and my dead granddad's wedding anniversary, which has a nice symmetry), us aunts and uncles and cousins were in confusing cloud of mourning and recklessness and celebration. So what'd we do? We went gambling, playing the ponies up at Saratoga Springs, the country's oldest sporting venue, and the place where Matt Graves, a sportswriter for the Albany Times-Union and father to one Jen Graves, works as a handicapper.

The track was a mix of elegance and effluvia—women with white dresses and elaborate violet hats elbow-to-elbow with drunk, desperate-looking men with bad dandruff. There was a surprising number of children and a surprisingly big bazaar devoted to crappy horse-racing art.

How many paintings does the world need that look like this?

Apparently a whole fuck of a lot.

(And is it possible that the proliferation of bad horse art influenced the career of one Jen Graves? That, at an early age, she saw the gap between the beauty of a horse and the ugliness of an unskilled rendering of a horse? That her child mind decided to explore that gap, turn spelunker, and become an art critic?)

Anyway, I loved it. Gambling is beautiful—a little bit math, a little bit magic. I spent the afternoon sitting with my uncles, learning all the different ways to bet:

• Bet on the horses: Get a racing sheet, see which horses have been winning, bet on them. (Didn't work.)

• Bet with the crowd: Watch the big reader board on the field, showing the odds and how much people are betting on each horse to win, place, or show. Bet accordingly. (Worked sometimes.)

• Bet with the experts: Tear the racing page out of the Albany Times-Union and pick the ponies Matt Graves likes. (Worked sometimes.)

• Bet your whims: Do you like Truman Capote? Do you like Southern writers? Bet on the horse who parents were "Capote" and "Southern Letters." (Didn't work.)

• Bet your gut: Visit the paddock. Find a horse or jockey you like the looks of. Bet accordingly. (It worked!)

• Bet over your head: Walk up to the bet-window and repeat one of the exotic betting systems you've read about in the racing form: "Gimmie a four-dollar exacta box on two and eight in the fifth." After the race, show your ticket to an uncle and ask if you've won. (He will laugh.)

• Court bad luck: My younger brother kept saying he should stay away from us, insisting he was a "cooler." It was true, we kept losing when he was around. Then I asked him to pick a horse. It won. My aunt asked him to blow on her ticket. She won. Then my mom asked him to blow on her ticket. And she won.

And then the day was over. We went to an Italian restaurant, talked about death and health care and estates and wills. The next morning, we scattered back across the country, back to our homes—some to Rhode Island, some to Vermont, some to Seattle.

So. Which way to Emerald Downs?

Sorry, but The Stranger's digital camera is no more (hopefully just because of dead batteries). So, sadly, no pictures of Clinton's meeting with DailyKos users and bloggers this morning.

But I'll tell you a little about it: There was some tension in the air because of Clinton's back-and-forth over whether she would actually meet one-on-one with attendees at YearlyKos. She began by emphasizing that she'd rearranged her schedule to make it possible for her to meet with conference attendees (she ultimately met one-on-one with them this morning, while the other candidates will do the same this afternoon).

Then she pivoted to a self-deprecating acknowledgment of the fact that she's not always the favored presidential candidate in the liberal blogosphere.

"I'm aware that not everyone says nice things about me," Clinton told the crowd. "Let me start by saying something unexpected and that is: "Thank you. Thank you for being so involved in helping create a modern progressive movement in America."

You could feel some of the tension beginning to drain out of the room, making space for the select crowd of about 300 to listen as she then answered their questions on health care, NAFTA, Welfare reform, DOMA, and telecommunications law. They were wonky questions, and Clinton gave wonky answers, obviously well aware that people who come to conferences of political bloggers tend to be... wonks.

Who knows how the appearance will ultimately play out. I'm sure DailyKos will run a poll on its blog soon after YearlyKos is over to see what people think of the candidates after their appearances today. But my sense was that Clinton charmed the Kossaks in much the same way she's said to have charmed other smallish rooms of people over the last few years—with self-deprecation, an ingratiating manner, and a clear command of just about any policy issue that gets thrown at her.

I'm sitting in the larger candidate forum right now, listening to Gravel, Richardson, Dodd, Edwards, Clinton, Obama, and Kucinich duke it out in front of all 1,400 of the conference attendees. Then I'll be trying to squeeze in to some of the one-on-one sessions with the other candidates afterward. Hope to be able to blog more later.

I heard this at a forum at YearlyKos yesterday, in which one of the panelists welcomed the writer for The New Yorker into the world of instant publishing. He stood up and took a sort-of bow. Here's the beginning of his first entry:

Wham.

August 02, 2007

Bam.

Here goes my blogging virginity. It isn’t so bad. The earth isn’t moving yet, but it seldom does the first time, does it?

Only on the Slog, Rick. Only on the Slog.

And then, about 200 words into the afterglow...

Jesus Christ. So that’s where the days go.

I'm two hours ahead, so it's cocktail hour here at YearlyKos in Chicago (as the man in the background of this photo clearly knows).

Foreground: Darcy Burner, who wasn't drinking (yet) when I ran into her. Why is she here? First answer: "This is a group of people who are working very hard to change the way politics works in this country."

Really? Isn't the potential for future netroots fund-raising a big draw?

"Certainly my presence isn't hurting in that regard," Burner told me.

Yesterday Hillary Clinton received boos-in-absentia when YearlyKos organizers announced that yes, she would show up for tomorrow's presidential candidate forum, but no, she would not attend a one-on-one session with Kos-types afterward.

Today, after being attacked by Obama over her reluctance to do what all the other candidates are doing, the buzz here at YearlyKos is that Clinton has changed her mind.

Who's here at YearlyKos with me?

Well, like I said, there's Burner.

Also: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connelly is on the schedule. He's set to speak on a panel on Saturday titled, interestingly: "Time for a New Kind of News Organization."

And Congressman Jay Inslee is also on the schedule. He'll be talking about global warming politics on Saturday.

Oh, and it almost goes without saying, but: The ever-present Andrew Villeneuve is typing away at a table not far from me.

I'm here at YearlyKos, which, in case you're curious, is just as white and middle aged as last year.

Popular imagination has cast online networking as the province of the under-30 MySpace generation, but the median age of a Daily Kos reader is 45. Lefty online political organizing is, in fact, a middle-aged game.

I'm sitting in a forum called "Future Leaders" right now. If you follow the local and national netroots, you won't be surprised that eastside Democrat Darcy Burner is here.

And so is Nebraska hottie Scott Kleeb:

(For one of the iconic Kleeb photos from the last election, click here.)

Both Kleeb and Burner are netroot darlings who made their first runs for Congress in 2006, generated a lot of excitement in the blogosphere, and then lost. Both are running again. (Burner is challenging Congressman Dave Reichert in Washington's 8th Congressional district after coming within 7,500 votes of beating him last year.) The discussion is just beginning. I'll let you know if anything interesting happens.

Right now I'm waiting for Kelly O, who is picking up a rental car, to call. Then we hit the road for Montana and the Testicle Festival. Then we eat balls.

Whee!

Okay. One way or another, I'm going out-of-town tomorrow. Sorry Blue Angels. You hurt my feelings. Problem is, I can't decide whether to go to THIS. Or THIS....

Hmm....

I'm about to leave for YearlyKos, the big liberal blogger convention in Chicago.

This is the second time the Kos community and the national bloggeratti have met in person to talk about the future of liberal politics online. The first time was last year in Las Vegas. I went and wrote a Stranger feature about the experience, blogged some interesting comments I heard from the mouth of Kos himself, and also took a few moments to hate on the awful Riviera Hotel.

I'm thrilled not to be going back to the wretched Riviera, and I'm curious to see how this year's convention is different, now that the blogosphere has gone all establishment. I'm also excited to see a bunch of the Democratic presidential candidates—Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Chris Dodd—all square off with each other, and with the lefty blogosphere, on Saturday.

I'll blog more from the conference, but for now, if you're interested in helping shape the discussion with the presidential candidates on Saturday, you can click here.

And, just like last year, I'll be taking photo requests. Put them in the comments and maybe I'll bring you something like this:

Slog tipper Andrew Cole writes:

Have you guys been following the Jena 6 story? Six black students in Jena, Louisiana charged with attempted second degree murder for an assault on a white student; the white student was so little injured that he went to a “social event” that same evening. Also, did I mention the three nooses hung from a ‘whites only’ shade tree to warn black students away from sitting there that the school district dismissed as a prank?

Here’s the link to the NPR story.

And here’s the link to the Friends of Justice page.

This just in: White people suck.

Hello, everyone. I am desperately sorry for the light slogging lately, but I've been quite gone on a wee little trip. I regret to have been away. And God forgive me, I don’t know why I agreed to go away, in the way I went away, in the first place. I can’t understand what the fuck came over me. I clearly wasn’t in my right mind. I’ll probably regret it forever. And ever. And ever.

My “boyfriend” who is supposed to "love me" or something (ha!) decided a few weeks ago that it would be a novel notion to pursue an adventurous excursion via (Shudder! Gasp!) the goddamnmotherfucking BUS. He thought a bus trip would be “fun”. Fun!

Indeed, I said the goddamnmotherfucking BUS, by which I mean GREYHOUND, by which I mean HELL on EARTH on WHEELS. I can barely bring myself to talk about it. My nervous system hasn't even begun to digest the experience, and frankly, it may never fully do so. And therefore, for the sake of the shreds of my remaining mental health and faith in mankind, I’m compelled to vomit some of the story up here for you. I’m sorry. I have no choice. It’s a compulsion. It’s necessary. I can’t stop myself. I have to heal, somehow.

Lucky, lucky you.

But (and you’ll thank me later!) I have kindly boiled the entire 14-hour-long-sitting-bolt-upright-in-a-rolling-metal-death-tube-full-of-convicts-methheads-and-sociopaths-that-smells-like-an-alcoholic-cat’s-ass experience down to a few simple bullet points, rather than provide the world with an exhaustive and detailed point-by-point report. This is for your own good. Trust me.

However! Please note! A quick little disclaimer, to avoid any confusion before we begin: I do not travel via Greyhound, damn you, I’ve never done so before, and you can bet your sweet fanny’s ass that the temporary lapse in judgment that compelled me to do so will never, by God, NEVER, happen again. It was a dreadful mistake. A one-time-thing. I may never be the same. Somebody hold me. I beg you.

Also! Before we go off to the simple bullet-pointed list of What I Learned on Sitting Up for 14 Hours on a Fucking Cat’s-Ass-Stanking Greyhound Bus, I have to get this off my chest, and I want to get it just right before my mind successfully represses it forever…

“I just want to say that it’s only by the grace of God Almighty that anyone gets anywhere, and it’s the men and women fighting for this country that’s the only thing holding this nation together.”

Yes, that’s how it went: a little rambling and disjoionted 3-AM public service announcement from our lunatic Greyhound driver forced upon his captive bus-bound audience. Amen and hallelujah!

Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.

Okay, here we go:

9 Terrible Things I Learned On a Goddamnmotherfucking Greyhound Bus

1) Everyone who has ever been to prison is compelled by forces beyond our understanding to tell everyone else all about it, all the time, at a volume of twenty million decibels.

2) Everyone on Greyhound has been to prison.

3) There is no such thing as quiet crazy.

4) It is completely appropriate, even expected, to scream things at the driver like, “It’s about fucking time!” and even more appropriate for the driver to respond, “Fuck you, too!” and then rant about Jesus.

5) The words “nigger” and “fag” are alive and well and thriving without a trace of irony.

6) You could be Osama Bin Laden, carrying a nuclear bomb up your ass and a dead hooker under each arm and nobody’s going to check your ID.

7) There is such a thing as The White Trash Gene.

8) For some, relish is a meal.

9) There is no hope for mankind. Not. A. Shred.

Well, whatever. It’s still marginally better than flying, I guess.

Regarding Frizzelle's post about the under-appreciated beauty of men's calves: You're living in the wrong century, Christopher. I ran across this in Eleanor Herman's Sex With Queens, my current beach reading:

When the German princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha found herself not queen of England, as she had imagined, but the widowed Princess of Wales, she lived a retired life at Kew Palace with her eight children. Family friend and advisor John Stuart, marquess of Bute, was in almost constant attendance, often in locked rooms with the princess dowager. A handsome man known for his shapely calves in white silk stockings--that benchmark of eighteenth-century male beauty--Lord Bute seemed to conduct his love affair openly, coming and going from Kew as he pleased.

And before anyone makes fun of my beach reading, please note that Eleanor Herman's last book--Sex With Kings--was a New York Times Bestseller, and that's pure class, that is. And I challenge anyone to read Herman's absolutely heartbreaking chapter about Marie Antoinette without stifling a sob or two.

Spotted this browsing the shelves at the Barnes & Noble in Holland, Michigan.