Sorry for the short diary...
Early this morning I found an unusual email from Medea Benjamin waiting for me in my inbox. It seems that last week when she was arrested in Florida, they confiscated her Global Exchange press pass, and could I make her another one?
Ever since I figured out how to duplicate Medea's press pass for other members of CodePink, I have been doing so with her blessing. Since Medea is the founding director and CEO of Global Exchange as well as one of the founders of CodePink, how I implemented it may be a bit of a hack; but it is quite legitimate insofar that yes, these are valid press passes for a news organization, created with the full knowledge and permission of the company director.
Now, ironically, I was going to have to whip out a copy of the document that served as the original.
Last summer, using photos of her own press pass and head shots of the various members, I created a template in Avery Designpro's free edition, with a bit more assistance from a handy bit of freeware called Gadwin Printscreen.
I had a little fun with it, as you might imagine.
There was a bit of a delay producing the 2008 versions of the passes when the primary system I had the templates stored on crashed.
However, I had found a backup of the original template a few weeks ago and so this morning I was able to email her a copy within seconds.
A few minutes ago I found out why she needed it...
UPDATE: There are now several videos available on YouTube that have been mentioned in the comments, and MSNBC and CBS have picked up the story as well.
YouTube version of the CNN footage:
Audience sourced YouTube video:
MSNBC footage (no embedding).
Now this is MY kind of fireworks! My July 4th just improved a thousandfold.
Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU CodePink, for refusing to allow that traitorous, fascist, murdering CREATURE occupying the White House a moment of the peace that he consistently denies to others!