Yesterday I finally went door to door for Obama in Pittsburgh, canvassing for a few hours before noon in the neighborhood between East Liberty and Garfield.  

I wasn't able to do a full shift, so I split a canvassing packet with another volunteer.  I took about 45 names spread over a half dozen streets in a borderland area only about 10 blocks from my own neighborhood, but miles away economically.  

There was one page of addresses on a street not identified on my canvas map: Columbo St.  After one of the other volunteers assured me it was near the others, "on the Garfield end of Negley," I just figured I'd stumble across it like a good canvassing detective.  
   
         

We all know Obama has his work cut out for him in PA, but I think there's one thing that could truly endear him to a key voting constituency.

It's something more powerful than any economic plan or strategy for exiting Iraq, something that cuts across age, racial and gender divides.  It's more compelling than any plan for energy savings or lower prescription drug prices, more critical to the wellbeing of certain Pennsylvanians than affordable college or better schools.

What is it?

There was a big "Kick-Off Canvas" for Obama in Pittsburgh today.  Around 250 volunteers showed up at the new Pittsburgh field office in East Liberty to help out the campaign's one hard working field coordinator for Western PA.  The volunteers canvassed across the East End of Pittsburgh with a goal of registering 2000 independent voters as Democrats and getting the word out about Barack Obama.

I took some photos and edited them into a short 1 minute clip, with a borrowed soundtrack from the Yes We Can video.  It was truly inspiring to see so many people from all walks of life come out on a cold, icy Saturday morning to build community and organize for Obama.  

I'm not sure if Pennsylvania will still be in play after Tuesday, but we will be ready in the 'Burgh...

Video after the jump.

I was in Washington this past Thursday for a meeting, and bad weather up over the Allegheny Mountains prevented me from getting home that night.  I stayed on until Friday morning, and was tempted to remain through today to march, but I had been on the road most of the week and missed my family.  

So I am unable to be in Washington today, but like some of you I was there on January 18, 2003 on another bitter cold day.  I remember getting there early on an overnight bus from Providence, and seeking refuge from the cold at the train station.  I remember leading a call and response at the top of my lungs, "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE" just as we marchers passed the Capitol Building.  I remember searching in the fading winter light for over an hour for my bus that took me back to Providence.  

On Thursday I went back and looked at some photos from that march, back before hundreds of thousands of lives were so tragically lost.  I cried and cried.

Two hundred and fifty-three years ago today a 21 yr old George Washington nearly perished while crossing the icy Allegheny River on a raft near Pittsburgh.  I run across the Washington Crossing Bridge a few times every week, built in 1923 near the spot where Washington and his guide, Christopher Gist, made the crossing.  This evening I walked out to the middle of it with my camera and thought of young George spending the night freezing on an island long since vanished...

             
            (painting by John Buxton)

By now you should have heard about the Use It or Lose It campaign that Chris Bowers has launched and that Kos front-paged.

The Democratic Party and DFA have built tools to facilitate exactly this kind of direct action.  I just used those tools to take three simple action steps to help pull it off, and I urge you to do the same.

                           

This action item is for Pittsburghers and it's in honor of the late Mayor Bob O'Connor.

                       

Kos will be in town on Saturday evening signing books at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. As bad luck would have it, I'm likely to be out of town then, but I just got an e-mail from Howard Dean alerting me to a cool new tool that the Democratic Party has created -- the Party Builder.

After looking at the tool's capabilities, I've decided to reach out to my fellow Pittsburghers (and others from Southwestern PA) and put the tool to use -- both to plan for the visit by Kos and to do some organizing in honor of our late Mayor, a guy who in his brief tenure began to create a sense of urgency to make the 'Burgh into something really special.

Details after the jump....

Reading this action diary by DemHillStaffer brought to mind Walt Whitman's writings from Washington during the Civil War.  He was kind of like a blogger, writing dispatches to the Brooklyn Eagle and New York Times and spending long hours comforting the wounded in military hospitals (writing letters, bringing candy) and observing debate in Congress.

So in the spirit of engagement with the day-to-day goings on in the People's House:

Dear Senator Chafee:

A friend of mine has taken it upon herself to go out and speak with a group of elders in Rhode Island about the Alito matter.  They remain hopeful that you will be on the right side of history.  These elders are very influential in the community.  They are individuals who have supported you in recent years out of deference to your father's legacy.  

The elders are saying the Alito matter is different.  They ask that you do everything in your power to stop the confirmation.  In the absence of such leadership, the elders have pledged their fortunes to establishing a lowly place for you in Rhode Island history.  They say they fought too long and too hard to see the fruits of their labors squandered away by fearful reactionaries.

                             

Who are these elders?

Some work I was involved with made it to the front-page of the New York Times today, so I thought I should finally use that diary title.  (I'm assuming everyone here knows the story of Chance the gardener.)

Two weeks ago I wrote a wee-hours-of-the-morning diary here with satellite images of flooded nursing homes which somehow got recommended and remained so well into Sunday afternoon.

I wrote two updates on the situation that didn't get much attention (here and here), but now the New York Times has written a story on the topic and I feel compelled to follow it up with some substance.  

                                 

Click on over and watch a little more.

To anyone who was moved by the photos of flooded nursing homes in this diary over the weekend, please read and recommend this update so other folks can do two simple things to help the elders who were displaced.

           

As I wrote in this update on Monday, most of the nursing homes pictured in that diary were evacuated, but the relocation process has been extremely difficult for both the elders and the organizations that have taken them in.

There's a massive need right now to assist those places caring for displaced elders (including many elders who didn't live in nursing homes prior to the hurricane).  As this New York Times story from yesterday points out:

So, what can you do to help?

more after the jump

On Sunday I posted a diary with some very sad satellite images of flooded nursing homes in New Orleans.  Nursing homes are required to have evacuation plans, but at the time it was unclear if all the nursing homes were able to evacuate their residents.  Later in the day it was clear that some were not, as we learned from the Meet the Press interview with Aaron Broussard.

This diary is an update on some of those nursing homes, and I provide information on what you can do to assist nursing homes that have taken in those residents who were evacuated.

According to the Louisiana Nursing Home Association (LNHA), FEMA rescued many of New Orleans' nursing home residents and brought them to the New Orleans Airport. LNHA is trying to determine where these residents have been moved. It has started a database by which family members can search for information on loved ones evacuated from New Orleans nursing homes - it can be accessed here.

More after the jump...

This image from an earlier diary got me thinking about how we haven't heard much about all the nursing homes in the New Orleans area.

       

So I collected addresses and other info from Nursing Home Compare, did Google map satellite searches for some and then found them on the NOAA satellite aftermath shots.  

More after the jump...

Two years is a long time in today's world.  Two years ago Howard Dean had just kicked off his campaign with an amazing community rally in downtown Burlington.  He was energizing us with something new and exciting in American politics.  It was right around that time that I started visiting this site, started hearing the voices of so many thoughtful and passionate Americans.

Governor Dean's "something" sort of flamed out in Iowa, but not really.  Dean now leads our Party and there are healthy signs of rejuvination in towns large and small.  There is much hard work to be done, but on this Independence Day I would like to share a story from two years ago, one that involves speaking to the past and connecting with history.  There's an inscription on the old John Carter Brown library at Brown that reads, "Speak to the past and it shall teach thee."

                               
                         

Richard Ghormley Eberhart, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Dartmouth College Class of 1925 Professor of English, Emeritus, died June 9, 2005 at age 101.

From The Groundhog

                                             

I'm inspired by lorraine's Return of Poetry Saturday to share an encounter I had with the old poet Richard Eberhart.

He wrote a famous article in 1956 called "West Coast Rhythms" for the New York Times Review of Books. Eberhardt had traveled to San Francisco and met the Beats and attended an early reading of Allen Ginsberg's Howl.  Having heard that Eberhart was preparing an article and fearing he might miss the point based on his comments to him while in San Francisco, Ginsberg wrote him a long letter, published later as its own monograph:

Effective government usually involves demonstration programs.  Some work better than others, but they can work.  The same principle could be incorporated into the DNC's operations in terms of state infrastructure building efforts.  After I read about the DNC giving 500,000 to those 4 states, I got to thinking...

Where is the biggest opportunity to test methods of reaching and supporting Dems in "Red State" areas in '06?

Why Pennsylvania of course.

Shiney happy color box on the flip...

I don't compose many diaries, but being a gerontologist I thought I'd share a story on Granny D's 95th birthday as a way to humanize the raging aging policy debate a little. It's a story about a friend of mine from Granny D's generation who died one year ago today, a woman 64 years my senior who was written into the historical record by David McCullough on the occasion of her 75th college reunion.

But before I get to my story, not being a regular diarist I guess I should probably establish a little street cred and briefly describe a direct action event I did last week, a real live get out and spread the good Social Security word in the community kind of thing.  I expressed an intention to do it in Bob Brigham's BLOGPAC diary last week.  A handful of good souls gave me some 4's just for saying I would, so here's a follow-up to share some of the things I learned.