From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
How To Put Your Stamp on History
Twenty-one weeks from today, the annual Netroots Nation convention kicks off in San Jose, California. As I write this, the organizers are inking sponsor deals, taste-testing box-lunch samples, and spending time at local animal shelters sharpening their cat-herding skills.
Meanwhile your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to sketch out the kind of panel you'd like to introduce and moderate at NN13.
"Your submissions will help us create an inclusive and engaging agenda for our 2013 conference, while also helping shape the national dialog for progressives in the coming months," says Executive Director Raven Brooks. "This coming year will help shape our nation's future, and you can help ensure sure it's a progressive one."
The NN entrance archway
also blow-dries your hair.
I'll tickle your brain stem (platonically!) with some ideas: grassroots organizing…civil rights…voting and election reform…climate change and green energy…recruiting progressive candidates and helping them win…protecting the social safety net…immigration…hunger…gun-violence control…and etcetera. What's near and dear to your progressive heart that you want the netroots to discuss, debate and orgganize around?
It's easy to submit an idea. Click here for the guidelines and submission form. The deadline for entries is only 15 days away---February 8th.
One other note, via Kossack navajo. If you're in Los Angeles this evening:
Netroots Nation Reception in Los Angeles
TONIGHT---January 24, 7-9PM
Baldwin Hills (east of Culver City)---RSVP for address to private residence
"L.A. is...right here!"
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Each year, we ask the Netroots for help in developing and organizing the sessions and the speakers at Netroots Nation. Netroots Nation Executive Director Raven Brooks and Communications Director Mary Rickles will be in Los Angeles to hear your thoughts and explain how you can create a panel or a workshop around your ideas.
Please join us for delicious food, convivial drinks and an opportunity to share your ideas. Click here to RSVP.
FREE Bonus Links:
NN13 Registration info
Official hotel info
Meanwhile Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 24, 2013
Note: Just a quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday. Back Tuesday. Hopefully with a few less icicles dangling off our toes.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Mardi Gras: 19
Days 'til the Chicago Bass Festival: 10
Percent of Americans who believe abortion should be legal: 54%
Percent who oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade: 70%
(Source: NBC News/WSJ poll)
Increase in existing-home sales between 2011 and 2012: 9.2%
The last time existing-home sales were as high as they were in 2012: 2007
(Source: National Association of Realtors)
Percent chance that the internet rumor about Maine having a law that says you have to take all your Christmas decorations down by January 14 or face a fine is true: 0%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
During the campaign, Bush urged his $1.3 trillion tax cut on us because we were going to have this enormous surplus. Now the economy is tanking, the surplus is disappearing, and Bush insists that we still have an enormous tax cut because the economy is tanking and the surplus is disappearing. He says the money belongs to us. So does the national debt.
Angry Democrats have been vowing, "No honeymoon, no honeymoon." At this rate, the D's won't need to do a thing. Bush is ending his honeymoon himself before it even has a chance to get started.
---January, 2001
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Jovie, by Jove!
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CHEERS to the Secretary of Whupass. I don’t know what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had for breakfast yesterday, but I do know this: she ate the egomaniacal Republican chest-thumpers on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees for lunch. Yes, there were legitimate and important questions about Benghazi that were asked and answered. But the verbal jousting that Hillary dominated so thoroughly---particularly between her and a certain
junior senator from Kentucky who drew upon his deep foreign policy background as an ophthalmologist---might as well have been followed by a series of mic drops. (The money quote:
"To Turkey??!!!") I know she's leaving the State department once John Kerry gets confirmed, but her conduct yesterday makes me want to shout, "Four More Years!" Like, say, starting in 2017. On a certain set of Capitol steps.
P.S. Clinton-Takei. Just throwin' it out there.
JEERS to the Republican't party. Yesterday House Republicans, riding on the crest of their 27%-approval wave, broke their blood oaths to never (ever!) raise the debt ceiling ever (ever!) again without cuts in spending by effectively raising the debt ceiling without any cuts in spending. The extension lasts only until May 1, so I wasn't sure how to feel about it. Then Lawrence O'Donnell told me last night that Rush Limbaugh called the deal a "puke fest." So I'm good.
CHEERS to G.I. Jane: freedom fighter against evildoers. Here comes that pesky equality thing again, as we try to mold ourselves into a more perfect union:
Equality in the field also
means more and faster
promotions for women.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta…will announce on Thursday that he is eliminating the direct ground combat exclusion---the Department of Defense policy that excluded women from assignment to units below the brigade level if the unit would be engaged in direct combat.
This will allow women to be assigned to select positions in ground combat units at the battalion level, opening approximately 237,000 individual jobs to women across service branches, including 5,000 positions for female Marines in ground combat elements.
I'm behind you all the way, front-line women! Like, as far behind the front line as I can possibly get. Just stayin' true to my own personal motto:
An Army Of One---Cowering Under the Bed.
CHEERS to great moments in traction. On January 24, 1899, Humphrey O’Sullivan patented the rubber heel. That’s nice, but we’re partial to the steel-tipped toe (and the exposed Republican shin).
The U.S. says "Thanko"
to Mainer Richard Blanco.
CHEERS to the planning-board poet. Yes, inaugural poet Richard Blanco, who wowed the crowd Monday, is indeed on the
planning board in the tiny western Maine town of Bethel. He's also an openly-gay engineer, has published three books of his poems, and is now riding a wave of fame. Monday he spoke with both Soledad O'Brien and Anderson Cooper on what it was like to scrounge up enough words that rhyme with "Nantucket" to create and deliver on the Capitol steps his nine-stanza masterpiece entitled,
Hey, Before You Put Up That Shed You'll Need A Permit, America. You can
watch the interviews here. By the way, I'm angling to be the Viceroy of Verse in 2017. My poem will be the first one delivered in iambic FUNtameter. It's just like iambic pentameter except with laughing gas.
CHEERS to good eatin’. On this date in 1922, Christian Nelson of Iowa patented Eskimo Pie. But not before first cracking open a nice chianti and some fava beans. [Thupthupthup!!!]
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Five years ago in C&J: January 24, 2008
CHEERS to brilliant deduction. Experts have finished their investigation into what caused the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis to collapse last August. Their conclusion: there was something wrong with it. It's like they have a sixth sense for these things.
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And just one more…
Not exactly Duff,
but not bad.
CHEERS to the suds of our lives. On January 24, 1935, canned beer
made its debut in Richmond, Virginia:
In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.
Which reminds me: I just finished reading
Atlas Chugged, and I've taken its message to heart. Tonight I'm ditching the cabernet and "going malt."
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If you missed commonmass's update on GreenMountainBoy02, you can read it here and offer your words of comfort. To Bill and GMB02's family members we offer our thoughts along with four words: we're here for you.
Floor's open. What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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