West Virginia Blue
The Best Blogging Community in West Virginia Democratic politics, progressive policies, the good life and free living in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
(I know this is election season, again, but some other things are still unfinished...)
You have heard of Netroots for the Troops, right? I was the sober one at karaoke in Las Vagas 2010. SanDiegoDem has promised to help me with the bar stools this year.
The oldest daughter's plans for the wedding with family became a quick trip to a Virginia courthouse. Army orders to report to a foreign post are on the Army's timetable. They have known each other since high school. One chose the Big East to get a degree; the other an SEC college. Two deployments to Iraq, conversations on the intertoobs, and ten years later they found each other again: the career Army career officer and our local newspaper copy editor.
Now the American-made bridesmaid dresses are being nipped, tucked and pressed. The historic house for the reception one block south of where they will celebrate a Nuptial Mass has the locavore menu. (I did not know Art Nouveau started as a Czech style!). What may still be up in the air is whether the wedding toast is with the pilsner from Pilsen or a premium Budweiser lager (no, not that Budweiser, the real one), and whether my spouse will dance at the wedding.
Now that I have you laughing and crying, jump over the fold for some reality about The Boxes.
I'm new here - in fact, I'm fairly new to blogging. Full disclosure: I've never even been to West Virginia, but I want to get to know you and your community.
I was recently hired as a Political Campaign Manager at Democracy for America (DFA), and in addition to getting involved in local issues, I am helping run the Netroots Nation Scholarship Competition, which just launched yesterday.
The kids who lived on the Navy base literally walked through the gate onto the high school campus. They had gone to different elementary schools and a different junior high than the townie kids. In high school we mingled and we raised the flag in the morning. When we lost one of our own during the Vietnam War we lowered the flag to half mast.
Those who join do the job asked of them, whether one agrees with that mission or not. The Army wears the flag on the right shoulder patch, and the left shoulder is left for unit patches. The canton is to the viewer's right, instead of the usual left, with the union closest to their heart. The highest position of honor is the front, so when displayed on a moving object like a person or vehicle, the field of blue is displayed to the front.
In town today we are flying the nation's flag, the state flag and the POW/MIA flag. Today is one of the six national observances for which Congress has ordered display of the POW/MIA flag. It has the motto: YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. What you can do here is let those now deployed know that we have not forgotten them.
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If Team Wild and Crazy Czech Girls meets its goal then CA Berkeley WV should dye the hair:
Okay, not really. It's tough to get noticed here at the Great Orange Satan these days. And I don't have a pootie pic nor a BREAKING headline to share.
What I do have:
An invitation to you to pour your favorite beverage and benefit from Netroots Nations Video Archive.
I attended this session in person in Pittsburgh, and it was one of the two most powerful sessions I witnessed. (the other is Afghanistan, separate diary).
So sit back, adjust your volume, and enjoy the show.
Here is Bob Kincaid's presentation from the panel on MTR at Netroots Nation. I believe it is appropriate that it follows Carnacki's post linking to Teacherken's remarks about the MTR Panel at Netroots Nation on Saturday.
Lorelei Scarbro ia the community organizer for the Coal River Wind Projects and has worked at Coal River Mountain Watch for two years. Lorelei comes from a coal mining family, and lives in the shadow of mountaintop removal. I cannot describe her story as well as she does in the video above from the panel on mountaintop removal at Netroots Nation last Saturday. Watch the video and pass it on.
To our friends in Pittsburgh and our speakers, sponsors and attendees, we can't thank you enough for helping make Netroots Nation 2009 a huge success. Whether you volunteered, organized a panel or submitted a question during a keynote, we truly couldn't have done this without your involvement.
We chose Pittsburgh for a lot of reasons. It's green, labor friendly and reflects our progressive values -- values that we will take with us to the Mountain West in 2010.
As we begin planning for our fifth convention next July 22-25, make plans to join us for the fifth annual Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas, the place where this gathering of progressive minds first began.
While symbolic, our choice of Las Vegas isn't just about our fifth anniversary. It's about taking the passion, activism and attention that we drum up each year during the convention to an area that will be a crucial region in upcoming progressive policy fights.
As progressives, our next big battles include insuring we have a strong 21st century economy, getting employee free choice passed and organizing around comprehensive immigration reform. So as we start planning for the next year, will you save the date for next July in Las Vegas?
Thanks to the generous support of CREDO Mobile, we'll also be giving away a BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 smartphone, plus one year's service to those that register by September 15, 2009. (No purchase necessary. To enter, send a postcard with your address to us.)
See you in Las Vegas!
Karen, Mary, Nolan and Raven
(Promoted this so anyone that is going to Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh that missed it would have a chance to respond. - promoted by wvblueguy)
With Netroots Nation taking place so close to WV, I assume many of us that participate at wvablue.com will be attending next week. If you are planning on being there please indicate so in the comments. I think it would be fun to either meet as a caucus or set up a meetup in a local pub to drink liberally. Lets all put our thoughts together so we can plan ahead for a wvablue.com gathering.
I plan to drive up to Pittsburgh Thursday and get there in the afternoon. Hope to meet many of you there.
Congratulations to Bob Kincaid of Beckley, WV. Bob has received 1 of the first 10 DFA scholarships to the Netroots Nation Convention in Pittsburgh.
You can read more about Bob and the other first round winners by clicking here.
Here is what Arshad Hassan the Executive Director of DFA had tp say about Bob and the other winners...
Suffice it to say, the judging process was grueling. So many applicants made the extra effort to campaign for their scholarship and of course the quantity of applicants posed a daunting task. But I had lots of help from DFA members, who voiced their support and nominated some of the best of the best. Just by reading so much about each activist, I feel I've gotten to know everyone. I can't wait to learn more about them in Pittsburgh.
Since one scholarship from each round is granted to the applicant with the most community nominations, recommendations came from everywhere. Pam Pohly used social networking sites like Facebook to get the word out. While Bob Kincaid leveraged his radio following and friends to earn the top spot with the most community nominations for round one. Anyway you cut it, this year's applicants worked hard to get out their votes.
Aug 13-16, 2009, Netroots Nation in Pittsburg, PA.
Will you join me there?
UPDATE from Carnacki:
Just a reminder, registering early saves you money. The current registration price is $175. They're only going to sell so many at that tier and then it'll be up to the next tier. You can register here.
We had quite a session with Nancy Pelosi at Netroots Nation this morning as she answered questions from the gathered netroots about a number of important issues actually including impeachment. I will cover more of this later.
The surprise was the appearance of former Vice President Al Gore. Again, more on this later. The fun part was I got to ask a question from the floor regarding mountaintop removal and coal to liquid technology.
The two key things he said were.... "mountaintop removal is an atrocity". and that "coal to liquid technology is insane." He stated unequivocally that squeezing the liquid out of coal was way too expensive, and that the resultant issues of non captured CO2 a real detriment.
Another statement he made that was that mountaintop removal is part and parcel of the problems we face with our current energy system and that any have a moral blindness to the consequences.
I got to talk to him briefly in the "line" afterwards, and thanked him for his comments... he highly recommended that everyone see the movie "Mountaintop Removal" which received an award at the recent Nashville Film Festival. He asked me if I had seen it, which I haven't. He says it is a very important film that all need to see.
While it iwas a great experience to ask a question in front of 2000 people and the press that was answered very well by the Vice President, it was even more important to get more of the message out about the terrible consequences of mountaintop removal as well as the insanity of considering coal to liquidconversion as a solution to our gas crisis.
I will look for the video of the event and try to post his response later today.
THe action starts at Netroots Nation the minute you walk into the Hotel. I met Troutfishing last night... one of Carnacki's fellow scholarship winners and who undoubtedly is one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met on the subject of the religious right and politics. More on that later. What really surprised me is that he is Carnacki's roomate here at the convention and their room is right down the hall from me. Of course we are on the 13th floor which for some odd reason fits Carnacki to a tee.
The Howard Dean speech should be available on video later tonight. As soon as it comes up I will post a link. The Governor was in Crawford this morning as part of the Register for Change project that he has started. The bus is really cool and they had a crowd of qt least 100 in Crawford that are ready for change too.Of course the biggest change will occur when George and Laura move home and vacate the White House for Barack Obama and his wife.
As usual the Governor gave an inspirational speech and brought us all up to speed about the Register for Change campaign. You can learn all about that at the Register for Change website. In the meantime here is a slideshow with some of my pictures from the event. I will discuss the caucuses I attended today later tonight.
I arrived in Austin and took the public bus to the Netroots Nation event just as DNC Chairman Dr. Howard Dean was about to speak outside. As I listened, Booman of Booman Tribune was on my left and then Kos of Daily Kos walked up and was on my right. I introduced myself. I went up to the Democracy for America booth to check in and there was Jim Dean. I had lunch with wvblueguy, who seems to know everybody in Democracy for America, and JanetTinMD.
Navajo just came up and told me some people were looking for me. Gotta run.
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