Tomorrow, DFA will be making decisions about the applicants for the Netroots Nation Scholarships. Friday, it was confirmed that we had raised enough money to cover 25. With what's come in since then, I think 30 scholarships might be within reach. That's a great improvement over the initial nine offered.
I've been looking at the applications, and one of the many things I've discovered is that the President of the College Democrats at Idaho State University is a Kossack. You ever wondered what's up in Pocatello? Check out dianamarie13's diaries. One is a report on making the arguments to her Republican father against voting for McCain.
You can still vote on the applications, but it probably won't change anything. The best way to effect the outcome it to toss in a few more bucks. And I'm offering match this evening, up to $100, towards that end.
Here's the deal: Last week, I ran into someone who owed me money from a few years ago. I'd given it up as long gone. And they gave me $200! Half of that goes for a rolfing session on my troublesome shoulder (very helpful!) to take care of myself. The other half of that out-of-the-blue windfall is offered as match. Plus, after a week of drama over whether my proposed panel was gonna fly, it finally got enough pieces together that it's now a green light. So I'm tossing a registration into the mix, too. Another $200 on top of that, and it's another scholarship.
This is the last night. So now is the time to donate (button on right side of page). No more putting it off.
Meet a Few Applicants
With the emergence of social networking, it sometimes feels as if blogs are becoming slow-motion, old-fashioned media. But I still appreciate good research and thoughtful writing, and some are that. They're less likely to be rounding up a bunch of friends to vote for them. So I thought I'd toss in links to a little of what I've found in reviewing the applications this weekend. Kevin Myles is active in the NAACP in Wichita, Kansas, where one of his blog posts starts like this:
Yesterday, President Bush reappointed attorney Peter Kirsanow to the US Commission on Civil Rights. This is tragic... But before I "go there", first some background...
The US Commission on Civil Rights was created in 1957 under President Eisenhower. It is a Federal investigative agency whose stated mission is:
Read the rest at the link. You'll learn things you didn't know before. Exme Arden (exmearden, and I never could figure out what a mearden was anyhow) does beautiful, powerful things when she crafts an essay. She writes (on Docudharma as well as Daily Kos) about the most commonplace of things with an elegance that borders on poetry:
Driving home from work overwhelms me if I let it. I see the hundreds of drivers in their solitary cars, some passengers, few passengers. I realize I, too, am alone in my car on a drive that could be achieved with far less stress and daily environmental angst if a decent light rail or a well-planned bus system existed in the Northwest metropolis I live in. It takes an hour and a half one way and three buses to attempt to public transit it to work from where I live, and a mere fifteen to twenty minutes by car. I have a car to drive, which is either a hybrid or a beater Nissan Sentra, both of which cost way too much of my income in insurance and gas costs with two teenagers at home.
Back in 2006, from a piece about The War, in the wake of Fallujah, with this:
I have a layman's experience of death. Family members, some friends, pets; I've seen death in several stages - sometimes as it enters and at the moment it closes the door on a soul. I've seen death hover in the room, quiet and present and waiting.
Another applicant is John Leek of Cottonmouth blog, out of Mississippi. This is one of the "crashing the gates" blogs passed over by the DNC for floor credential in Denver, despite being clearly better qualified than the blog which got approved.
We all benefit from the thoroughly researched work of Troutfishing (Bruce Wilson) on the scary fringe right dominionist crowd. I think he's one of the premiere researchers in our community, not unlike dengre. He's given John McCain quite a few headaches over extremist pastors Hagee, Parsley etc. whose endorsements he's pursued. Troutfishing knows his stuff. This from his application:
In terms of land, endowments, property and so on tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars in assets were at stake, and the US right has been very successfully destabilizing the big mainline Christian denominations, in some cases using covert social tactics developed by the CIA to take down 3rd World nations, for several decades now. The IRD's funding has never been at the most more than several million dollars a year but it's been gradually eroding the "Social Gospel" tradition that forms part of the core of the American liberal tradition.
Suga Matthews, a mother of six displaced by Hurricane Katrina, now lives near Atlanta and works for US Human Rights Network. She's also been doing all she can to raise hell with FEMA etc. over the woefully inadequate rebuilding efforts for her hometown of New Orleans.
Betsy Campisi, a graduate student, is also providing care for her mother, who is sick with cancer. In her "spare" time, she co-coordinated the effort to raise funds to get a new home for Pretty Bird Woman House, an abused women's shelter on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. If she end up in Austin, I expect her to be surrounded by hugs and tears of happiness and gratitude everywhere she goes.
Last (for this diary), but never least, is Carnacki. He's part of the glue that holds Daily Kos together as a functioning community. Amongst other things, he was originator of Happy Stories, and also of Top Comments. We haven't seen so much of him lately, because he's been busy building West Virginia Blue blog, and organizing on the ground in his home state.
My point isn't to tell you these are the best applicants. Instead, it's to point out what we'll be adding to the confab in Texas immeasurably by extending scholarships to a whole bunch of other applicants who are just as valuable. Toss in $10, or $5 or whatever you can. No contribution too big or too small. It could, quite literally, be the difference between one of these fine people being able to join us in Austin or not.
Again: Of course you are free to vote on the applicants overnight. But I don't think that's gonna change the outcome, because voting is only one of many factors being weighed in the decisions. The best way to help is to donate. Even if it's just $5 or $10, that's cool. If the Obama campaign has taught us anything, it's that power of a lot of small contributions is not a trivial thing. And if you are sitting on a registration you won't be able to use, please add to the fifteen that have already been donated to the program. Just send me an email about it to my gmail account (username: landenchantment). Even if it becomes available at the last minute, we'll match it up with a local activist in Austin, who won't need to worry about airplane or hotel arrangements and costs.
This has been a long couple of weeks for me, lining up all the diarists, and fielding lots of questions about the program. I'm glad it's winding to a close. Next week, we can look forward to the announcement of the awardees. But I'm glad I've done it, because it means a lot more people will be able to come.
Heartfelt thanks to the many, many people who have supported this effort.