The first thing I heard from somebody I knew after Netroots Nation 2018 had actually started was that Joel Silberman had just passed. He died (of pancreatic cancer) sometime in the early hours of August 2, 2018. You may not understand what a big deal this is, though he made his living training progressives on how to present themselves in public and in front of cameras, and will be missed for that alone.
He was an absolute darling besides being a master of his craft. Elizabeth Warren almost broke down in front of us when she briefly mentioned him. Then she looked backstage and said she could hear Joel’s voice telling her to get on with it and gave the speech she had come to give.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
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Samsung sponsored this year’s Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim. Shipping traffic is shut down for the duration and there are lots of rescue boats around — but it’s about four miles and there were somewhere in the vicinity of 2400 swimmers this year.
They’re trying to come up with explanations for the eccentricities at the outer edges of our solar system. Here’s one.
The seal of one of the later Byzantine empresses has been found at a dig in Bulgaria.
Well, it’s not only in Egypt that grave robbers missed finding important burials. This one is from Greece.
Gambling apps. For real money. Whoopdedoo.
This one is truly a HOLY SHIT moment. Again, courtesy of a friend I only hear from through Facebook.
And here we have a hoot of an ad.
Who’s on first?
The next crew of US astronauts. These on commercially built rockets.
July 25th meteor strike in Greenland.
Check out the Golden Bridge.
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The staff of NN18 did a hurry-up-quick arrangement of a memorial for Joel Silberman. A show tune singalong. The show tunes I know are mostly older — there were a lot of songs from The Sound of Music and a couple from Cabaret, but most of them were much more recent and I didn’t know them. I ended up with a vaguely sore throat — it’s been a long time since I sang much.
Yes, I did actually attend several panels and a couple of other things.
One very impressive panel was on how safe affordable housing was the necessary basis for everything else that needs to be done for people. Another impressive one was on the savior complex that too many people trying to help have. It boiled down to: If you show up to help after a disaster, ask the affected people what they need, don’t tell them.
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I spent quite a bit of time at NN17 trying to get Eclectablog and TrueBlueMajority together because I knew they wanted to meet each other. It didn’t work. In New Orleans at the Cheers & Jeers dinner (local beer, check), TBM was one of the people handing out name badges to new arrivals; and when I had finished seeing the general set-up and was doing a wander to see who was there, second in line of the arrivals was Eclectablog and his wife (lovely woman; brilliant photographer). I asked them to not go to the bar quite yet, got TBM’s attention and waved her over — and somebody sitting next to her (I knew who it was at the time but my brain is still fried) told her who they were. She grabbed their badges and headed over and I introduced them.
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I got all the touristy stuff I had planned on ahead of time accomplished. I knew several people from the New Orleans area when I lived in Los Angeles and they all told me I would have more fun wandering the French Quarter mid-morning watching the tourist traps open for business than anything else except eating. They were right. Though finding food that involved vegetables was a bit iffy.
I did have to have a hitchhiker detached from my left leg before I could leave the butterfly garden (check) on Monday. You’re not supposed to take any of the inhabitants out with you.
Tuesday, ramara and I did some touristy stuff together. We didn’t get into the Touro Synagogue — they do tours, but they need 24 hours notice. We did wander a bit in the Garden District and had a very nice lunch, and a short walk through of some of the Lafayette Cemetery.
I went out to breakfast on Wednesday with ramara (to Mother’s) and we went our separate ways from there. She had signed up for a swamp tour and I wanted to go through the French Quarter. First music I heard was zydeco (check); I found where the mule-drawn carriages are based and scratched several sets of ears; then I sat in Jackson Square for a while and listened to the jazz band (check) playing at the original Cafe du Monde (the one I actually went to was the branch in the Riverwalk shopping area); next was a visit to the Presbytere museum (check), which has one floor devoted to Mardi Gras and one floor devoted to Hurricane Katrina. The cathedral (check) was right next door. It’s high (or low, depending on your taste) Victorian art, colorful and fabulous (for one of the less flattering values of fabulous). Then I walked up to Bourbon Street and across to Poydres and back toward the hotel. A block or two from the Hilton Riverside was a brewpub (different local beer, check). When I saw ramara, she showed me the picture of her holding the baby alligator — she said she had the picture taken so that when she got back home, she would believe she’d actually done that.
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I got drafted into the Rescue Rangers team for the pub quiz. I live in Portland, Oregon, and so does watercarrier4diogenes. We have gotten well enough acquainted that I’ve decided I like him and I think he’s figured out that I have a difficult time saying no to anyone I like that I’m not actually related to. I can do it, but there didn’t seem much point that evening. We didn’t win, but we didn’t lose either (yes, I was one of the people chanting “We’re not the worst!” when the scores were announced). The folks who came in last got some fairly nice T-shirts, actually — maybe we shouldn’t have tried so hard.
The Interfaith Service went as well as it usually does — the discussion of how the same words can mean different things to different people certainly fit with what had happened at the convention.
Later in the day, after checking out, I ran into watercarrier4diogenes getting ready to drag his weary butt to the airport to come home. He said that at one point, he’d been talking to somebody and the subject entailed him mentioning me. Whoever he had been talking to freaked over his knowing loggersbrat (“I want to meet her!”). He told the person (he was too tired to remember who) to look for the woman in the red felt fedora. Several people introduced themselves to me over the course of the convention, but not a one of them mentioned him by either his user name or his actual name.
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And for a final note: If you get to New Orleans, as far as the locals are concerned “It’s not very far” means anything within the immediate mile. Be prepared to walk. A lot.