Friday, September 22, 2006, 06:40 PM - Food
Here is how one of our staff described my tenacious efficiency today:
- I know Catherine is on it like pesticides on unorganic fruit. -
Should I be proud of this?
Tuesday, September 19, 2006, 01:17 AM
I'm not adding a link since I don't want them to have more visibility, but there's a new online campaign - www.stopmoveon.org - of course full of inaccurate information...but it's nice to know we're making people nervous.
Saturday, September 16, 2006, 03:36 PM - Art, Los Angeles
I think I've found my new local bar - it's called the Hyperion Tavern and it has pretty chandeliers, rough wood partitions, part of a law library, and beer in bottles. It's not open all the time, but I'm pretty excited about it.
Before that there was the Bubbles opening at Materials and Applications which had beer in cans and undulating inflated orbs. Kind of 'Prisoner goes to Burning Man'. I liked it.
Saturday, September 16, 2006, 03:30 PM - Politics
Michael and Becky from Working Assets along with James Rucker (MoveOn '04 and Color of Change) have set up a new fundraising/ information project for Secretary of State candidates across the country - Secretary of State Project. It's designed to funnel contributions to people who will work to make sure state elections are accurate and unbiased - who will support voting rights and resist technologies and legislative strategies that limit the precious franchise. (I'm not holding my breath for HAVA or anything else federal to make things right without responsible leadership at the state level.) Send in some cash, and you too can get a sweet little thank you note from Michael Mauro in Iowa. I've set up an Act Blue Fundraising Page here, so all you shadowy readers can have a chance to step up. Thank you!!Saturday, September 16, 2006, 03:11 PM - Los Angeles
OK, there have been far too many serious entries on this fundamentally fluffy outpouring recently. Perhaps you've seen the Shoes video? My Thursday night coup, at darling Chad's 27th birthday, was that I presciently arrived just in time to see Kelly perform 'Shoes' live. And my Silver Lake fact of the week is that El Cid was originally the studio where Birth of a Nation was filmed...
Thursday, September 14, 2006, 11:56 PM - Travels, George
Last weekend (after training new staff in Boston) I took my dad up to Maine to see his navy friend Mike (yes, from WWII). The Friedmans are some of Dad's oldest and closest friends - he was in their wedding in '48, and we would trek up to Maine periodically when I was growing up. My first seder was in their rambling old farmhouse in Bridgeton. It was an emotional weekend for everyone - Dad reacting to the undeniable change in his friend and himself and the realities of being in his mid-80s- Mickey dealing with the demands of an older partner, family drama, and a kitchen remodel - Dad and I appreciating being together on the anniversary of Mom's death, but that not meaning we were less affected by it. We had the best parts of Maine weather (summer Saturday, early fall Sunday). Both nights before dinner I circumnavigated the whole rocky perimeter on my sunset run... I can't tell if it's because I savor the isolation or the community of islands that I like them so much, but ferry rides and places you can't drive to always appeal to me.
BTW I turned off comments for a bit since I was tired of erasing spam - will put them back at some point - feel free to send me anything you'd like posted for now.
Friday, September 8, 2006, 11:50 PM - Politics
So, am I part of the canvass-driven octopus that is 'strangling' the lifeblood of progressive politics, or do I work for organizations that are the best hope for reinvigorating the Democratic party and creating a national network of engaged progressives? GCI (and more pointedly the Fund for Public Interest Research - whence all of the senior GCI staff other than myself have sprung) are called out in a new book - Activism, Inc. - it argues that paid canvass operations undermine true civic participation, chew relentlessly through young idealists, and result in a dearth of employment opportunities for young progressives. The book (which I read a couple of nights ago - read a review from the Chronicle of Higher Education here) ) has accurate descriptions of how canvass offices run, including the high turnover, 'sink or swim' attitude, and demanding hours of the positions, and raises some concerning points about labor practices and compensation structure. I've certainly seen some negative consequences (both organizationally and on the individual level) of the management principles that have built these organizations, but the policies and legislation enacted and the amount of money funnelled into progressive causes through the canvass programs is phenomenal (and not acknowledged in the book). GCI's work in 2004 for the DNC added hundreds of thousands of new small donors to the party base, allowing Howard Dean to implement his 50-state strategy- which would have been impossible in a DNC built around large donors' priorities. The lack of the '04 canvass' coordination with local and state party efforts (in my opinion, since I didn't work on that project at all) was as much a reflection of the internal disorganization of the party as it was the single-minded fundraising focus of the canvasses. The regimented, rote nature of PIRG-driven canvasses is not for everyone, and definitely does not gibe with many leftists' ideals of bottom-up shared decision-making - but the goal-oriented, outcome-driven, rigorous implementation of a model is something other parts of the progressive movement would do well to emulate (even if they'd prefer to implement something entirely different than a canvass).
Our work with MoveOn in '04 (which the author loves and apparently doesn't realize was also done by GCI) was the kind of citizen participation, volunteer-based electoral work she argues for - she doesn't get that a program on that scale and timeline would be challenging to run without a seasoned organizer staff to recruit, train, and manage volunteers. Our current "Call for Change" program is a more infrastructure-driven evolution of our 2004 project - involving a broader set of MoveOn members and developing a core of progressive leadership in communities across the country.
Many of the points made about the movement's failings are a stretch to pin on canvass operations - the alienation of the progressive base can be attributed as much to over-reliance on judicial strategies (in feminist and environmental movements), the move toward checkbook-based 'membership' organizations, and the fractures between single-issue organizations, labor, and other supposed allies. Canvasses that emphasized civic engagement over fundraising would be amazing tools for citizen outreach, but it seems highly unlikley that they'd be self-sustaining financially... and while reaching like-minded progressives through electronic communications is efficient, we're a ways off from technology that allows for the kind of intensity and engagement that in-person contact affords.
I canvassed for ConnPIRG one summer in college, and while I thought that the people running the office then (and some of the canvass directors I know now) were too blindly invested in canvassing as a model, I also know we did a significant amount of public education on critical environmental issues. I fully agree that Democratic field operations are pathetic and badly organized, and still am fuming about the lack of infrastructure that remained in the wake of all the money spend on paid GOTV workers by ACT. I think MoveOn and GCI together are learning and perfecting ways to motivate and develop leadership among a group of committed electoral volunteers - necessary conditions for an effective civic engagement strategy.
The researcher in me sees many holes in the logical structure of the book - she did a reasonable job at an ethnography of the canvass, and recontacted a decent percentage of her 115 interview subjects - but the conclusions she draws about the long-term impact of canvassing on individuals and on the progressive movement are just not well-substantiated. Without a larger survey or a longer follow-up timeframe, it seems impossible to conclude much about the impact on canvassers. Her strongest points are those drawn directly from participant-observation and from readily available facts. While she raises valid criticisms of the progressive movement, it's not the kind of deep evaluation we need to create positive and sustainable change and grow our institutions, nor are they correctly attributable to the canvass activities of the Fund or GCI.
Monday, September 4, 2006, 05:03 PM
I can't say it's my favorite week of the year. It kicked off in style on Saturday night - dinner with two other charter members of the DMC (sadly more and more of you will join, although I fervently hope you're late bloomers in this one sense). We sat on cardboard chairs at R23 and ate things our mothers would have been, at best, perplexed by: octopus carpaccio with caviar...cold japanese trout stuffed with sweet unidentifiable innardy things...toro like fish butter. Louise commemorated on Saturday with some retail therapy (finding some fabulously sparkly shoes for her wedding) but that just wasn't the right thing for me. I'll be working Thursday here in Boston and this coming weekend I'll see my dad; while that makes missing mom all the more intense, I'd be hard pressed to think of a better thing to do for her than to spend the weekend with him.Monday, August 28, 2006, 11:33 PM - Travels, Friends, Food
I was at a party in Boston Saturday night with 3 (!) other illustrious alums of the Ellsworth Field finishing school (Black Rock Little League). Three of the 4 of us have been social workers, we're all single (Tommy is gay), not a kid among us (although Erin wants one soon) - we're all urban and doing interesting things (Jessica works at New American Paintings and is starting to become a gallerist - Tommy has a brand-new philosophy professor gig, has done lots of radical media organizing, and wrote a dissertation on Foucault and friendship - Erin is a social worker in SF). Left to right we were a Raider, a Buccaneer, and a Yellow Jacket (Tommy?). Jessica still remembers us starting to be friends on third base. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who got out of Bridgeport alive - and apparently not the only one who got out with a serious social justice focus, either (interesting how devout parental catholicism plays out in the iconoclasts of this generation, no?). Additional highlights of the weekend included truly luscious bluefish - portuguese style with mussels and chorizo and greens and so delicious. Can't get this in LA:
Wednesday, August 23, 2006, 11:55 AM - Sex, Friends, Food, Los Angeles
The combination of 14-hour days and some (necessary and wrenching and resolving) emotional turmoil has left little time for writing lately, and I fear that it will only get harder to have the space and focus to be coherent as election madness descends. An old high school friend found his way here - so I got to see his new baby's pictures and find out another friend is on his THIRD baby; a reminder that it's worth it to maintain this. I wish I had more time to chronicle all my new favorite Los Angelesness - thai massage minutes away (it DID leave me in a state of indulgent!), squash blossoms at Grace, cinnamony (greek style?) al pastor at Midnight Tacos, the fact that there's a fig tree (with green but growing fruit) in my backyard (I guess a reminder that I'm not paying attention - at least in an arborial sense - as much as I think), outdoor yoga, sea salt caramels from the local cheese store, and how happy it makes me to swim in the ocean...
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