Welcome to another edition of Crashing the States--featuring kos, Jane Hamsher, Joan Blades, and a bunch of SFKossacks!
I'm back home in Los Angeles today, but not for long--tomorrow night Gary and I are flying back out to Virginia to spend election day with Lowell Feld and the Jim Webb for Senate campaign. I may just have to write my final diary from Virginia--coming up is a report from CA-50, which is a race again, in case you weren't aware, and also a report from our time with Jack and Sarah Carter in Las Vegas.
This diary features something special for you all today: a special spider Friday--featuring...the spiders in kos' backyard!
So follow below the fold--because nothing fits together better than a blogger and his spiders. Or at least, I always thought so.
I hadn't been in the Bay Area in a little while. Normally I make a point of going up there pretty frequently, because compared to Los Angeles, I find it scenic as all get-out. And not to mention, I have some friends up there. Suffice it to say that I hope I left with more friends than I had when I started!
On Friday evening we left Jerry McNerney's field office in Dublin to head to Berkeley for a panel discussion with kos, Joan Blades, George Lakoff and Paul Pierson (co-athor of Off Center). As you can imagine, any panel discussion featuring such distinguished voices was bound to be extremely interesting and informative. But rather than have me write about it, I'll let the Berkeley Media department cover me in that regard. If you're interested, that link has further links to webcasts and mp3 audios of the event. Lots of the content may be familiar to those of us that keep up religiously with the Rockridge Institute, MoveOn and DailyKos--but even if you do, you might find something in there that you didn't know before. It does go for a couple of hours, though--so maybe do that after the election so as not to cut into your GOTV time. (you are doing GOTV, right? are you on the phone right now as you're reading this diary? perhaps you're out precinct-walking and reading this diary on your blackberry or something. if so, I commend you for your dedication.)
Regardless--the next day, we had interviews scheduled with Joan Blades, Jane Hamsher and kos.
Joan was our first victim--the film we're doing isn't just about the blogosphere and the candidates that have been helped by it, but also transcends to the larger subject of the impact of the internet on political discourse and how it has been able to influence activism, and I dare say that MoveOn is a worthwhile topic of dicussion. Which brings up a larger point: when random passers-by, or even the politically aware campaign volunteer, ask what the subjet of our documentary is about and we explain it to them (the blogosphere, netroots, etc.), one of the almost invariable responses is: "oh, you mean MoveOn and things like that?" We, of course, understand the difference, but not too many others out there really get it--so as a side note, I'm hoping that the documentary can help explain what the differences are between organizations like DFA, MoveOn, and the independent entities in the blogosphere.
There's also a new organization for mothers that Joan is working on, named Moms rising--something that all of you who are interested in feminist and motherhood issues here should want to take a look at.
And while I'm at it, let me add a plug for the new feminisms series on DailyKos, posted every Wednesday evening. Great discussion topics, and a place where everyone can say their piece without getting their heads bitten off like a praying mantis. Major kudos to MissLaura, tryptamine, Elise and the other writers for doing a great job with this series.
We were originally scheduled to meet with Jane at her home somewhere in Marin County, but it just so happened that she was going over to kos' house that day, so we knocked out two birds with one stone!
We had a great on-camera conversation with kos about his role in politics, the future of the site, and the future of the blogosphere in general. Off camera, I got to talk with kos for a bit about the whole concept of Libertarian Democracy. It wasn't until just recently that I found out that when kos wrote his lead essay for Cato on the subject of Libertarian Democracy, he excerpted from a diary I wrote on the subject back in June. I was excited about that--I just find it funny that I've been so busy on this trip that I had no idea until very recently. I'll be blogging more about the subject after the election--when we can start our discussion of ideas once again, as opposed to pure electioneering.
We also had a nice talk with Jane Hamsher. I finally understand why the site is called FireDogLake, and what the heck that phrase "bedlam is dreaming of rain" means. Maybe both of those things were well known to the FDL community, but they weren't known to me :-) We talked about the differences between the FDL community and the kos kommunity, and a wide variety of other things. It was fun.
Now, for the record, and for anyone who is wondering. Joan and kos do not live in mansions. Their houses look just like anyone else in the neighborhood, and you can kind of see that from the pictures.
Later that night, we had dinner with a group of San Francisco Kossacks, including SFJen, who I believe heads up the SFKossack Yahoo group and get the ball rolling on the whole get-together idea. And even better, my brother thereisnospoon (you did know he was my brother by now, right?) made the drive up from L.A. to join us!
AND NOW, THE SPIDERS OF KOS!
kos took me into his backyard to have me take a look at some spiders he had. I believe these guys are in the araneus genus, but I'll be damned if I know the species of every single orbweaving spider out there. Lots of them just look to similar.
He also had a bunch of other ones--agelenopsis spiders, grass spiders...you name it. Lots of spidery goodness! But anyway.
The next afternoon, we got out of down and drove down PCH on our way to San Diego--the source of my next report, which I'll post tomorrow before I head to Virginia. But I'll leave you with one last image I saw in San Fran:
Because truthiness rules.
I'll catch you around in Virginia...