The Republic of T.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for August 29th from 15:42 to 15:48:

• Obama’s Soaring, Savaging Speech - "The idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation," Obama said, is "the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper." That promise, that mutual responsibility, anchored the alternative that Obama detailed on Thursday.
• Open Left:: Obama Challenges Conservative Economics, Compassion; A Narrative Opening - This is a narrative line I would like to see: John McCain doesn't care.
• Truthdig - Reports - A Moment in History - When Clinton came to the convention floor during Wednesday’s roll call and asked that Obama be nominated “by acclamation,” I got a lump in my throat. I knew that it wouldn’t be official until Obama had given his acceptance speech, according to party rules, but there was something about the word “acclamation” that hit me. It implied an acceptance of leadership, a recognition of merit. African-Americans have been an integral part of this nation since its birth and certainly don’t need anyone’s validation. Still, it feels as if this obvious historical fact has finally been acknowledged in a way that many of us felt we’d never witness in our lifetimes.
• Open Left:: Manhunt, LGBT Politics, and John McCain - President McCain isn't going to the House GOP Caucus and talking to them about the need for ending Don't Ask Don't Tell. He's not publicly advocating ENDA, ending abstience until marriage policies, supporting hate crimes laws, marriage equality, or same-sex adoption (which is my favorite of his LGBT positions, for both policy and political pandering reasons). He's not using his influence as President to raise money for LGBT civil rights organizations. I'm not even holding my breath for any calls for tolerance in Minneapolis, the most basic thing he could do.
• Fighting Jackie Robinson Syndrome | The American Prospect - Michelle Obama's convention speech was inspired, but it was also a testament to the extra burden she's asked to bear as a black woman in America.
• Marty Kaplan: Peggy Noonan and the Two-Headed Bowling Ball Child - I'm paraphrasing here, writing while she's still on the air, but this is the gist: At least the speech wasn't all about all those miserable unemployed people that Democrats always talk about. It wasn't full of whining about all those unhappy sick people they only seem to see. It wasn't about a woman who had a two-headed child who was used as a bowling ball. More like this, Peggy. Please.

It’s true, celebs abounded in Denver.

You can’t walk within shouting distance of the Pepsi Center here without sighting Ben Affleck, Eva Longoria, Stephen Spielberg or Melissa Etheridge.

After Hillary Clinton’s speech Tuesday, reporters lurched after passed canapés poolside at a posh Denver home where Sean Penn and directors J.J. Abrams and Cameron Crowe filled out a crowd that included Charlie Rose, Sony Pictures (SNE) Chairman Michael Lynton and Liberty Media chief executive Greg Maffei.

It’s no surprise that the mostly liberal cultural mavens of Hollywood cannot contain their enthusiasm for Barack Obama (if that looks like Oprah cheering tonight during his big moment, it probably is.) It’s also brilliantly perverse that while the Republican governor of California is an action movie star, John McCain’s campaign derisively labels Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world.”

But from a business perspective, it’s hard to explain why so many media folks are here. Rarely has so much firepower come together in one place with so little specific purpose.

I had psuedo-celebrity citings all week. Pseudo, because they always turned out to be wrong, except for one. On Monday, I thought I saw one of my favorite actors. But it was only some guy who looked like Joaquin Phoenix, if he’d put on a little weight between movies. Wednesday, I thought I saw some guy who looked like an unshaven David Spade. I thought I saw George Lucas walk past me as one point, but I decided that if he was at Invesco field, he’d have a private box.

But then I hit the jackpot with my number one bona fide celeb encounter in Denver. I was leaving the press box and leaving Invesco field (to beat the rush), riding the elevator down to the first floor, when the elevator stopped on the third floor, and on to the elevator stepped…

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I walked into the convention hall today, on my way to the LGBT Caucus (and on my way to pick up a credential to get me into the Pepsi Center today), when I saw San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome. After what he did in San Francisco, and what came of it on the California Supreme Court, I couldn’t just pass him by. (It didn’t hurt that he was taller and more handsome in person than he is in his pictures.) I had to stop and thank him.

I told him, I was just on my way to the LGBT caucus and that just wanted to stop and thank him. To which he responded “Thank you!” One of his aides overheard me say where I was going, and invited me to walk with them since they were going to the LGBT caucus too.

And then we stepped into the hall, and heard the announcement that Del Martin just passed away. She died quietly, surrounded by her family and friends. There was a gasp, and a moment of stunned silence.

And as I thought about Del, I realized that before she died she got to do something that perhaps she never thought she would: after 55 years together, she got to marry the woman she loved. Something Gavin Newsome helped happen, and something that some people with deep-pockets want to keep us from doing.

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I walked into the convention hall today, on my way to the LGBT Caucus (and on my way to pick up a credential to get me into the Pepsi Center today), when I saw San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome. After what he did in San Francisco, and what came of it on the California Supreme Court, I couldn’t just pass him by. (It didn’t hurt that he was taller and more handsome in person than he is in his pictures.) I had to stop and thank him.

I told him, I was just on my way to the LGBT caucus and that just wanted to stop and thank him. To which he responded “Thank you!” One of his aides overheard me say where I was going, and invited me to walk with them since they were going to the LGBT caucus too.

And then we stepped into the hall, and heard the announcement that Del Martin just passed away. She died quietly, surrounded by her family and friends. There was a gasp, and a moment of stunned silence.

And as I thought about Del, I realized that before she died she got to do something that perhaps she never thought she would: after 55 years together, she got to marry the woman she loved. Something Gavin Newsome helped happen, and something that some people with deep-pockets want to keep us from doing.

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My reaction? “Goddamn and Holy Shit! She did it!” I’m (finally) sitting here in the bloggers’ lounge at the Pepsi Center, where I heard her speech, and from where I sit, she did what she needed to do.

In the first two sentences, she unequivocally supported Barrack Obama. Then she talked about her campaign — about the people she was in it for — and then she laid it on the line with one question: “Were you in it for me? Or were you in it for them?”

The answer was clear: You’ve got to be in it for them, and if you’re in it for them, you’ve got to elect Barrack Obama.

But you saw the same speech. What do you think?

So, I flew into Denver yesterday, after not bothering to go to bed Saturday night, because my flight was at 6:06 a.m. and the shuttle to Dulles picked me up at 3:29 a.m. Besides, I wasn’t able to pack until after the kids went to bed. But then I wanted to help the hubby fold the laundry, and wanted to load and run the dishwasher, since I was leaving him on his own with the kids to go off and witness history. Oh yeah, and blog about it.

The problem is, my first day at the convention, I didn’t really see much to blog about. Actually, I sat in on about 15 minutes of the LGBT caucus, and saw Michelle Obama’s speech on a television screen with closed captioning and the volume turned down, and from a distance at that. But, at least I got a pretty good story out of it. So, maybe the day wasn’t a total loss.

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Have you been watching the Democratic National Convention on television? If so, you’ve already seen more of it than I have, I’m in Denver for the supposed purpose of blogging about the convention. (More on that later.) So, what are your thoughts? Can you tell m what I missed. I’m hoping to have time to watch Edward Kennedy’s and Michelle Obama’s speeches via YouTube, if I can find (a) the time and (b) a reliable wifi connection.

But seriously, what did I miss yesterday?

You already know Michael Phelps is an Olympic hottie, and he’s a pretty good swimmer too. But what I didn’t know, and what kind of makes him even more of an Olympic hero to me, is that when he was younger it was predicted that he’d never be able to focus on anything, because Michael Phelps has ADHD.

Starting with preschool, teachers complained: Michael couldn’t stay quiet at quiet time, Michael wouldn’t sit at circle time, Michael didn’t keep his hands to himself, Michael was giggling and laughing and nudging kids for attention.

As he entered public school, he displayed what his teachers called “immature” behavior. “In kindergarten I was told by his teacher, ‘Michael can’t sit still, Michael can’t be quiet, Michael can’t focus,’ ” recalled Ms. Phelps, who was herself a teacher for 22 years. The family had recently moved, and she felt Michael might be frustrated because the kindergarten curriculum he was getting in the new district was similar to the pre-K curriculum in their old district.

…In the elementary grades at their suburban Baltimore school, Ms. Phelps said, Michael excelled in things he loved — gym and hands-on lessons, like science experiments. “He read on time, but didn’t like to read,” she said. “So I gave him the Baltimore Sun sports pages, even if he just read the pictures and captions.”

She will never forget one teacher’s comment: “This woman says to me, ‘Your son will never be able to focus on anything.’ ”

… When he was in fifth grade, during his annual check-up, Ms. Phelps and the family physician, Dr. Charles Wax, discussed whether Michael might have A.D.H.D. — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. By then, the Phelpses were a swimming family. (Michael’s older sister Whitney at 15 was ranked first in the country in the 200-meter butterfly, though her career would be cut short by a back injury.) Dr. Wax’s children also swam, and he’d noticed Michael at the Phelps sisters’ swim meets. “Michael used to run around like a little crazy person mooching food off people,” said Ms. Phelps.

The doctor suggested sending assessment forms to his teachers. Their consensus: Can’t sit still, can’t keep quiet, can’t focus.

Well, it looks like someone hadn’t heard of hyperfocus.

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Then I’m walking in Memphis

Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”

On my next-to-last day in Memphis, before flying home, I finally made my pilgrimage. No, not to Graceland. I never really had any desire to go there. Besides, I knew that when I got home, most of the people who knew me and knew about my trip wouldn’t ask if I went to Graceland. At least not first. If I was going to visit anywhere in Memphis, there was one place I had to visit first. So when I co-worker told me that several people were planning to visit the National Civil Rights Museum — which includes and incorporates the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated — I knew that was where I was going to go, if I went anywhere else in Memphis.

I remember walking through the exhibit, and finally making my way to the King Room, looking through the glass that protected and preserved it, and then walking through an adjacent room and stepping out onto the balcony next to where King was shot. I remember looking across the street and seeing the window of the boarding house where James Earl Ray made the fatal shot. I remember walking through a tunnel, across the street to that house, and looking into the room from which he made the shot. And I remember walking past James Earl Ray’s car when we finally left the museum.

I stepped out into the sunlight, at last, with the rest of the group —all of us blinking our eyes, trying to get used to the light, grateful for the awkward silence, yet feeling the need to fill it with something profound or moving, but coming up short. The thought I kept to myself was how strange it was that in Memphis people ended up visiting a monument to someone’s death, both named — at birth or at birth as a celebrity — “King.” I didn’t think about then, what comes to mind now: how many deaths will receive no monument in Memphis, or be remembered even a year later.

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I haven’t made a secret on this blog that I’m a recovering alcoholic. (In fact, last month I celebrated 16 years of sobriety.) So, I was intrigued when I found Kevin’s link to Addict’s Almanac — Tye Dowdy’s series of posts over at Street Roots. When I clicked through to the posts, I was glad I did.

Like Kevin, Dowdy’s experiences are very different from mine, but mostly on the surface. Reading it, I felt at first the familiar feeling I had in some of my first twelve step meetings, listening to people talk about the wreckage addiction had made of their lives.

As a 23-year-old whose drinking career had been relatively short, but who was fortunate enough to recognize a wake-up call when I got one, I couldn’t relate to the stories I sometimes hear about DUI arrests, lost jobs, lost marriages and relationships, lost health, lost fortunes, etc. I remember mentioning those feelings to my sponsor, who said to me, “Well, if you go back out and start drinking again, all that and more could be yours.”

Since then, I’ve always been drawn to the stories of other addicts, not just because I find them informative, but also because it’s a reminder that beyond the surface of age, location, economic class, drug of choice, etc., we’re pretty much the same underneath.

Dowdy’s piece should be required reading for anyone holding forth on the “drug war.” I could get into my thoughts about that, but that’s a much longer post.

For now, go read Addict’s Almanac.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for August 22nd from 13:00 to 13:18:

• ACLU Blog: Because Freedom Can’t Blog Itself: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union » Sex Change Causes Loss of Government Job - The Library of Congress is being sued because it offered a key job as terrorism research analyst to Diane Schroer, then rescinded the offer, because Schroer is transgender. On last night’s Countdown on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann exposed the high price of transgender discrimination.
• Jillian York: The Ignored Atheist Vote - As the presidential candidates come together to discuss faith and issues of morality — at Saddleback last week and at the Democratic National Convention this week, there's a large contingent feeling excluded. American atheist and agnostic voters are increasingly feeling left out of the debate or flat out ignored and taken for granted as politicians scramble to better woo the "faithful" .
• Op-Ed Columnist - Now That’s Rich - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com - Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which “you move from middle class to rich.” The trouble with Mr. Warren’s question was that it seemed to imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you’re clearly rich, or you’re an ordinary member of the middle class. And that’s just wrong.
• Kerry Trueman: The Fast Track To Slow Food - The Internet has proved to be extremely fertile ground for the good food movement, nurturing a virtual community of sustainably minded farmers, foodies, and activists. Websites championing the agrarian agenda are sprouting up everywhere, like Roundup-resistant super weeds, ready to take on the unsustainable status quo. The challenge, now, is how to keep track of them all. And that's where the Eat Well Guide's new booklet Cultivating The Web: High Tech Tools For The Sustainable Food Movement comes in handy.
• Our Toppling House of Cards — In These Times - Deregulation — and the shadow banking system it created — shredded the financial safety net that the Great Depression had produced.
• Black Republicans Jumping GOP Ship - NAM - High profile black Republicans like former congressman J.C. Watts said he might vote for Obama. Rumors flew last week that former Secretary of State Colin Powell would endorse Obama publicly. All across the country now, there are many black Republicans who may not be as well known as Watts or Powell but may indeed be supporting Obama.
• The underprivileged are united across racial boundaries - Don’t be alarmed that minorities in America will constitute a majority in less than two generations. Instead, follow the money. What should really concern us in this country is not how fair our complexion is but how fair our society is.
• Make houses of worship truly inclusive - The doors to our houses of worship ought to be open to all. That includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, who often feel that religion has been used to divide and conquer their families and their rights.

Saw the Ghost of Elvis

Down on Union Avenue

Followed him up the gates of Graceland

And I watched him walk right through.

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis

My one trip to Memphis didn’t include the expected pilgrimage to Graceland, and I never saw the ghost of Elvis (impersonators notwithstanding) even though I stayed on Union Avenue. Even if I had I’m not sure I’d have followed him to Graceland. I say expected, because almost everyone I met who wasn’t connected with the conference asked me if I was going to Graceland. I said no, but what I didn’t share was that I’d already made up my mind where I was going while in Memphis, and my itinerary didn’t include Graceland. Not even a walk down Elvis Presley Blvd.

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I thought of two things when I saw this poll.

The first was one of my favorite songs, from which I borrowed the title of this post. The second was a book I read a few years ago that actually makes it hard for me to answer “yes” to the question in the poll.

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