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Showing posts from August, 2005

katrina: what the meaning of we is

It's the most basic thing: Us. We . It has manifested itself in thousands of ways over the last few days, including untold tales of sacrifice and courage, of despair and loss, and it will manifest itself in thousands of ways in the days and weeks to come. When push comes to shove, the most basic question you ask yourself when faced with another person in need....are they a part of my "we"...are they included in the scope of my compassion...will I extend myself, will I risk myself, for them? In the aftermath of Katrina , it's clear that we are in this together. One look at the Gulf Coast, at the message boards searching for the missing, at the footage of children STILL being rescued from rooftops in New Orleans...and all of us can see the our 'we' is going to be tested and stretched in the days and months to come. A time will come when the enormity of what's been lost will be clear. All that talk about no one ever asking us to sacrifice after 9/11, we

information and analysis

Dancing Larry has a sobering report up speculating on the fate of Plaquemines Parish at the very end of Louisiana DHinMI leads a good discussion at the Next Hurrah that includes Meteor Blades; don't miss this post either. PBS News Hour was excellent today. Watch it on TV if at all possible, (I don't think it's availible online.) The British reporter's work from Gulfport and Biloxi is the best on-the-ground coverage of this I've seen The Weather Channel has a comprehensive set of photos Billmon finally sources the Led Zeppelin song everyone's been quoting (not me, though....let's leave it at that) and writes a brilliant forward-thinking, well-researched post. There is something deeply amiss in this story from the Mississippi Sun Herald. (thanks to colinb at dailykos.com) BBC reporter Alistair Leithead in New Orleans, BBC TV (generic link, but has good stuff), reports that there are many dead bodies floating in the city of New Orleans, and that the

update from New Orleans

Word from friends in NYC is that our friend Kiersta is indeed among the physicians caring for patients at the flooded Charity Hospital in New Orleans right now. There's no power (ventilators are being operated by hand pump) no food and little water. Their job is simply keeping their patients alive until they can be evacuated. Word is that the full evacuation of the hospital will take days. Kier, our thoughts are with you and your patients right now. Be safe.

pressure on

I agree with the basic premise that the best thing that us non-specialist citizens in other parts of the country can do is give money and support to organizations that have the training and resources to help. That being said, part of our advocacy for the victims of Katrina has got to be putting pressure on our leaders and the media, has got to be pushing for accountability. We need to hold the President's feet to the fire right now. Doing political photo ops while a major U.S. city floods is despicable. Doing photo ops while the destruction and loss of life in Mississippi and Louisiana was still unkown is simply unforgiveable. (And now he's got a fake relief photo on the White House web site banner.) If, as initial reports have it, FEMA has been weakened and rolled into Homeland Security...we need to demand accountability. FEMA is a good program. It works. The citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi need FEMA right now, and will need the kind of support FEMA provides

the news and the heartbreak

My friends Justin and Kiersta are physicians in New Orleans...I have no idea if they stayed, or left...my emails have been bounced back, and I'm not about to call, knowing the futility of that. My friends Marc and Katie and their children Hazel and Isaac....I am most certain are not in NO, but they have a home there, they live there and work there...I can't help but think of them tonight. I've met so many good people in New Orleans. Had so many truly special experiences there. I feel such a debt of love and gratitude to that city. And I feel tonight, reading the news that the levees are breaking and the situation is growing worse...like I have a pit in my stomach. As if...like someone else pointed out elsewhere today...we are watching the World Trade Centers fall in slow motion, again, for a second time. That young girl, in the basket, getting lifted up to the helicopter. The dad carrying his child out onto the roof top. Those are powerful images to me. I want ever

the enormity of it

The enormity of it is just coming clear. Hurricane Katrina visited a devastation upon Louisiana and Mississippi..and the cities of New Orleans, Biloxi and Gulfport...a devastation whose breadth and scope we are just beginning to understand. With news of people being emergency-evacuated from the rooftops of flooded homes in the city of New Orleans as we speak, and startling death tolls emerging from Biloxi and Gulfport, we can only be grateful that so many heeded the warnings of local officials and evacuated the Gulf Coast. We must remain apprehensive about what will be the ultimate loss of life, and immediately concerned about those left in the city, its hospitals and hotels, and the thousands now effectively trapped in the Super Dome. As it stands, an entire American city has been evacuated...and hundreds of thousands of its citizens are unsure about when, and if, they will be able to return to their homes, or the health and safety of their friends and loved ones who stayed behi

open thread

Leave a comment, make my night. Oh, and ear fuzz is in fine form. Cool stuff for everyone. {Update: Hmmm. I dare you not to laugh. Check out this story in the Onion . thanks to Words have Power .}

puente

Puente , which means 'bridge' in Spanish, is the name of an innovative, successful, and award winning California program directed at getting kids from under-represented communities into college and making sure they succeed there by using mentoring, parental involvement, targeted skill-building and counseling that follows them from early high school into their college years. Puente serves as a powerful counter-example, a progressive model, that actually does what ' No Child Left Behind ' was meant to do. It's a program that succeeds because it uses an approach rooted in progressive values: it empowers young citizens and gives them tools and skills they need rather than simply using testing as a hurdle to that success, what I would call the "failure model" of the GOP. Puente takes kids where they are at, in community, and provides mentoring and teacher support that walks along side them and engages them every step of the way to become successful citizen

god save new orleans

Booman has it right . We're thinking of you, New Orleans....and I'm thinking of everyone I know down there right now, this is frightening and serious, I hope you all are safe....know that we're ready to help. {If you're still up and checking the news and need a distraction, there's an interesting multi-culti discussion at pop licks about "kill whitey" parties in Williamsburg, Brooklyn ie.white kids spoofing black culture / themselves. Worth a read.}

the FDA stonewalls

Robin, from Girl in the Locker Room , sends this NYT article on the FDA's footdragging on 'Plan B' or, 'the Morning After Pill.' This pill is a safe and effective way for women to prevent an unwanted pregnancy if conventional contraception has failed. The FDA is, by law, required to give a rationale for approving or dissapproving its "over-the-counter" availabilty at some point. GOP obstruction at the FDA sends a clear message: they're letting their right-wing religious base control and stall the approval of this pill. The abortion opponents in George Bush's base see this pill as tantamount to abortion. In their view, every woman should, by law, be required to take even a potential pregnancy to full term from the moment of conception. In this instance, they oppose the use of a pill that is medically nothing more than a concentrated dose of conventional birth control, and which would act in much the same way: a pill whose widespread availabil

saturday night with dj soulsister

Try this radio program from WWOZ in New Orleans for your musical link tonight: DJ Soulsister . {Update: when I wrote this piece I wasn't aware of the Hurricane bearing down on New Orleans right now. My thoughts go out to everyone on the Gulf Coast. Be safe.}

Proposition 73

Proposition 73 is a ballot initiative that would change the Constitution of the State of California making "Parental Notification" a requirement for young women seeking abortion from their health care providers. It will pass if it receives 50% 'plus one' of the vote on November 8th. Fellow Californian, Malacandra, in a comment responding to my "this blog is your blog" diary on dKos, used Proposition 73 to highlight the ways in which coalition is never perfect: "...[H]ere in California, we've got - in my opinion - 6 ballot initiatives that need to die a death. There's an alliance of unions that is well organized to combat... 5 of them. The one they aren't taking on is Prop 73, which requires parental consent for teens seeking an abortion. This proposition would amend the Constitution of California, which neatly skirts any constitutional challenges we might have tried in the courts if this passed. I think this is a serious erosion of wome

at work today

I stopped to ask the security guard about the book he was reading. It was a book about the history of Black soldiers in the U.S. military. I asked him if he had been in the service. He said, "Yes, 22 years, two wars...Korea....and Viet Nam." I asked him if he felt Korea was a "forgotten war." He frowned and replied, "You know, too many people died for it to be forgotten. But, yes, our country wasn't ready for it. We were just coming out of the last war. Folks weren't behind it...like today." At this, he paused and sized me up. "I don't like what's going on today. Too many good kids have died. Too many kids are amputees ." He motioned to both his arms and chopped them at the elbows. "Folks don't know what that's like. Most amputees never get a good job, never really recover. You can't know that if you haven't seen it." He paused again, and looked me in the eye. "I agree with this woman d

sonny rollins

I like Way Out West. Stanley Crouch said live was Rollins best. He was great with Monk on Brilliant Corners or playing with the Max Roach Quintet Of course, maybe this 6th grader said it better than the rest.

put me down for a t-shirt

I laugh at people who don't realize they've jumped the shark.

dog eared books

I was walking down Valencia today and noticed these little cards in the window at dog eared books . They were like funeral cards I remember from growing up Catholic, except they were hand-drawn and featured the faces of people who've died in the last year or so...and a bit about their life, their birth and death dates, and some words. Thom Gunn, Susan Sontag, Edward Said, and many other folks whose names I didn't immediately recognize. Some political, some artistic...all believers in human liberation on some level. I stepped inside to ask who the artist was...what the project was...and the gal behind the counter told me that the artist's name was Veronica, that she was in New York now, that she just added them slowly as people died...and that I'd have to come back and ask Alvin for her last name and story.... scribble, scribble .... What struck me was the vision she managed to capture in the faces with her labored and careful ink work. Like these folks were all still

cracks in the walls of the citadel

The "hidden meaning" of the Pat Robertson comment has nothing to do with Hugo Chavez. It has everything to do with the war in Iraq, the price of gas , and the public mood of Bush's base. You see...by saying "it would be a heck of a lot cheaper" to assassinate Chavez than go to war with Venezuela, what Robertson was really admitting was: the cost of the war in Iraq, in terms of dollars and lives lost, has been too high. Even the most staunch members of Bush's base have doubts about the quagmire in Iraq swimming around in their brains...so much so, comments like Robertson's just slip out sometimes...especially when they get to thinking about our dependence on foreign oil and the price of gas. I guarantee you that is what BushCo. took from Robertson's words...what gave them pause. (You don't think they seriously care what Roberston's wacky opinions about foreign policy are, do you?) They do care how Robertson reflects the mood of their bas

labor letter

There's a major strike on right now. Management spent over a hundred million dollars training replacement workers...who may be hired permanently, and vetted it's union-breaking plan with the White House , whose approval of the work of the replacement workers is a cornerstone keeping operations running during the strike. Some folks are predicting that how this strike plays out will drastically affect the fate of labor in this country. Now, you don't hear much talk about this story on the blogs. (I guess that means it isn't really important news, huhn?) Too bad for those suckers who showed up to work for fifteen years. They helped repair thirty or so planes I've flown on. Maybe a few you did too. I guess if they were smart they would have taken their training, commitment and experience...and become "replacement workers." Hell, maybe we all should do just that. That would solve everything, and get rid of this stupid "union" issue for good...

letter from an urban democrat: a vote for dennis

When I walked into the ballot booth on Alcatraz Avenue on March 2nd, 2004 to cast my vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary, a vote that was, at the point, pretty moot, I stood as one vote among the 198,312 voters who cast ballots in the Democratic Presidential Primary that day. Home to Berkeley, Oakland and many other equally urban, but less well known cities, Alameda County is one of the most Democratic counties in the nation. When we do GOTV in Oakland, the percentage goals on the wall hover around 80%. In this, we are similar to the majority of ethnically diverse, urban locales in the United States. We vote overwhelmingly Democratic. I voted for Dennis Kucinich. It was an "anti-war, pro-Labor, don't-forget-the-little guy" vote on principle. And I was proud to share that vote with a good friend and cafe buddy of mine with whom I had at times bitterly disagreed over Ralph Nader in the past. We smiled over coffee that day at our newfound alliance, and the mess

california update

Arnold gets ready to rumble ...rrr... tumble ...??? CA Supreme Court decision defines equal rights / responsibilties for same sex couples in custody cases. This LA Times story on a governement investigation of prison gangs for terror links bears watching... Employment up. ... In memoriam .

thread of open mindedness

nanu nanu, earthlings: Where is Karl Rove and what was he thinking about this weekend? Murray Waas is always good for updates...will there be one soon? What's the news from Iraq today? Juan Cole and the war in context already have Monday posts up. John Roberts?.....check out this article in Monday's New York Times . Must read....with "infuriating story that makes Dems look bad" alert given. Idle open thread question: Why do we bloggers so often move in a pack? Is it because we're news junkies with typewriters? Dunno, you tell me.

frank rich: blogger

Dear New York Times: Please keep all of your content available to all of us here online in the week it comes out. (note: They're making editorial content paid subscription only in a few weeks.) You see, when we get op-ed pieces like Frank Rich's The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan , we bloggers want to share it, to link to it, to spread the word . That's the funny thing about the truth, it wants to be free. And, as you well know, we on the blogs like to give the truth a kick in the pants and get it out there. Frank Rich's words deserve the widest possible audience because they represent an opinion, a voice, and a consensus figure of opposition. And when we see that Rich's editorial itself is hyperlinking to other pieces, to other locations....just like every single one of us bloggers does...isn't that a candid admission....that if not an outright "blogger"...Frank Rich's words, his op-ed piece, is caught up, like all of the content on the blo

sunday coffee: late summer edition

Relentlessly uncovering the hidden history of our times....wendell gee and awol serve up a must-read political piece on the Roberts nomination today at Cartel of Defiance ...it may seem like a puzzle at first, but, dig in and follow the links, and you'll see, as always, it's relevant and spot on. Billmon is back at it with two posts on Iraq, both essential reading. Ellen Willis has a thoughtful, and personal, appreciation of Susan Sontag in New Politics Did I mention that Body and Soul is great today?...Well, now I did. Soul Strut is the new music link today...try Clutchin' Gems ...a Denver-based dj's hour-long mix on Real Player. Worth it. k/o now sports an Oakland-themed sidebar....I recommend checking out oaklandish and favianna to catch some small part of the flavor of my home town. {the blog network is still getting blogspot-related spam...as have the comments sections from time to time. argh. bear with me.}

minneapolis 1984: mcpunks

" They can raid this corner all they want, but we're here to stay. We are city kids and the city is where we want to be. " A. Slater, 19, Minneapolis, 1984 The McDonalds at Hennepin and Lagoon in Minneapolis was home...for a brief window of years in the 80's...to a tiny movement of kids who got called mcpunks . We might have even called ourselves that...though I wouldn't much know because I was younger and more of a hanger-on than anything else... What unified the mcpunks was the fact that we were too young to go most shows, we had time on our hands, we were into punk music and the rebellion it stood for...and not much else. You could get to Hennepin and Lagoon easily by bus...and the Uptown theater across the street showed double features like: Buckaroo Bonzai and Repo Man ..... Wizards and Lord of the Rings . There was a coffee shop that served espresso on the first floor...and hard-drinking rockers could be seen there in black leather and torn black hood

real compassion

Yesterday Terry Gross interviewed Dr. Jerald Winakur, a geriatric care physician specializing in the ethics of compassionate end-of-life care. Here's a man who deals with something that our society hides from: old age and death, every day...and has found ways to talk about these realities that are wise and inspiring. Listening to him describe the story of taking the car keys away from his father is poignant and, somehow, unexpectedly full of insight. You see, Dr. Winakur is able to contextualize...in a society riven by self-interest and "fake" compassion...the decision to stop driving (or in his father's case, the non-decision) within the idea of being an ethical member of society. He makes clear to his patients that the choice to do something that feels like "denial" and "retreating from the world"...is also a deeply compassionate act on the part of the older person making that choice...and act that actually binds them to that world and place

meta matters

Ok, I'm going to write about this blog a little bit. Forgive me. This new blog has a small / healthy / robust / devoted group of readers who come back and read on a regular basis. I am grateful for every last one one of you...and I understand that you read and participate, or not, at your own pleasure...and I wouldn't have it any other way. One salient result of the size and intimacy of this blog is that I don't feel like bullshitting, and I don't intend to. Starting k/o has been eye-opening. I launched not with any deliberate timing but because, literally, wendell gee, myshkin and awol (friends you may know from dKos) accosted me after a dinner party at awol's house and insisted that I start a blog now . That was four weeks ago. What you've seen here is the result of that prodding, and I owe a debt of gratitude to them for their continued help and support. (Now if I could only get them to comment here more often...) At any rate, up to that point, though I

environmentalist heroes

The folks behind our parks and greenways are often unsung. Here in the Bay Area, our seventy-year-old East Bay Regional Park system is the direct legacy of turn of the century environmentalists and activists who fought to preserve land for common use. It is also the largest, and one of the most beautiful, urban park systems in the nation. When we head up to the hills to hike at Redwood or Tilden or Sibley Park...we enjoy the legacy of this activism. It's a resource available to every single citizen in perpetuity. Lined with parks and greenland and nature reserves, you could also say that the entire Bay Area, with its initial investment in land reserved for nature and for public use....made a good investment. You won't hear current day conservatives talk like this though. Even if, in their communities, they too enjoy the legacy of those "muddy boot" nature-loving greens. Even if the "green" with the mud on his boots was a member of their party . You

land o' links

Brad DeLong covers the crush of would-be employees at the soon to open....Oakland Wal-Mart. James B3 writing at My Left Wing covers the story of Georgia's impending restriction on gay adoptions...important story. NYBri continues his reporting from Camp Casey NL in St. Paul at BooMan Tribune points up a letter I hadn't seen yet...from Elizabeth Edwards to Cindy Sheehan Robin, at Girl in the Locker Room has a great post up about women car designers at Volvo. "When you meet the expectations of women, you exceed the expectations of men." Nuff said. And on the music front: MWAT points up some music from the Secret Machines, plus has a Jenna Bush encounter story to boot....scan down the page... At Soul Sides ...Josh Kun adds to DJ O-Dub's stellar Summer Songs series with some truly great music....really good stuff.....uh huhn.

face to face with Iraq

A CNN segment yesterday featured Cindy Sheehan, founder of Gold Star Mothers for Peace, followed by a debate between two mothers of sons killed in Iraq. It was startling. There was something about the 'realness' of the moms, Cindy included, versus the 'fakeness' of the morning show talking heads that was disturbing and sad. How, when the female moderator asked the mom who was supporting Sheehan to answer a question...the mom replied, faintly, that her son had died just two weeks ago . CNN attempted to turn the presence of these three moms who had lost children in Iraq into a morning show 'political debate'....a 'tennis match' with a split screen and 'tough questions.' But one byproduct of the the Cindy Sheehan story is that America is, for the first time, coming face to face with the very real grief and loss of so many families...grief that has been officially hidden by our government and neglected by our press. We see something in the faces of

what the meaning of we is

To be straight up, I was taken aback at the tone of the attacks on NARAL before their ad...and taken aback at the tone of attacks after they pulled it. Now, I've got no problem with folks being critical of any and all organizations within our coalition...or, for that matter, of me and what I write...that's part and parcel of politics, and healthy debate actually makes us a better and stronger party. But one thing I just don't get in all of this, is how a sense of solidarity seems to have left some folks' minds entirely. You see, solidarity is our start point , not some bonus value that we tack on if we're all feeling the rosy glow of victory. Speaking for myself, I've got more loyalty to women fighting for their essential rights than I do with the abstract notion of a Democratic victory that promises to protect women down the road but doesn't much act like it today. Some things are essential; control of one's own health and body is one of those t

herbie nichols: american enigma

One of the things about being a late night jazz dj in a big city...is this deeply rewarding feeling you get dropping a track at 2AM and knowing that it's going to hit the city's audio speakers in so many different ways: Cabs, restaurant kitchens, bedroom clock radios, hi-fi stereos in posh apartments...like an instant kaleidoscope...the sounds emanating from your humble turntable get refracted in so many different ways and settings...a portrait of a place and time you'll never see...but one you can imagine if you close your eyes. As a dj in New York City you also know that there's likely to be a jazz musician somewhere listening to what you're playing. Thinking about it. Hearing it. Thriving in Tempo... That's why I always played some Herbie Nichols. Herbie Nichols is an American secret, an enigma, a composer and pianist who worked in obscurity for two decades and died of leukemia at the age of 44 in 1963....by all accounts he was a nice guy. Forced to play

Sunday Morning with Bunnatine Greenhouse and Claudette Colvin

With Cindy Sheehan's protest in the air, it's important to take stock of just how male-dominated the public discussion in this country has become. Fact is, George Bush nominated a man to replace our nation's first female Supreme Court Justice , Sandra Day O'Connor and the press barely batted an eye, even though the effect of that nomination would leave our High Court with a lone woman. His recess appointment of testosterone-fueled über-male John Bolton to the UN only completes the picture. It's 2005, is this where anyone thought we would be forty years ago? Are women frozen at a 10-15% ratio in Washington? Is there a reason that, with a few exceptions that prove the rule, women have dissappeared from our public discourse? (link thanks to reader and blogger Olivia .) Given this state of affairs, is it any coincidence that figures like Cindy Sheehan and Bunnatine Greenhouse, lightning rods...whistle blowers both, represent a powerful force of common-sense wome

an evening with Paul Wellstone

It was fall of 1996 and my friends David and Lisa invited me to the American Indian Center on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis for a fish fry campaign stop for Senator Paul Wellstone. It was late in the campaign, and Senator Wellstone was not guaranteed of defeating Rudy Boschwitz, his Republican opponent. He might have had people telling him that attending a moderately-attended fish fry in one our nation's poorest urban neighborhoods was not the most pragmatic move. But as the staff at the center laid out the steaming trays of lightly-breaded walleye and heaping piles of delicious Northern Minnesota wild rice, there in line with the rest of us, was Senator Wellstone and his wife, Sheila. They sat at the head table and enjoyed their meal...like the rest of the crowd of two hundred or so regular folks, largely of Native American descent, in the gymanasium. Paul and Sheila then listened to the speeches of the down-ticket candidates. They clearly listened to each speech and appreci

positive vibration: activism open thread

Oakland / Berkeley has a reputation as a "laboratory" for the left wing...try these links to some local activist sites with an East Bay theme: Alice Water's Edible Schoolyard project, based at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, is a tremendously hopeful urban experiment. Visit the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights to see how Books not Bars is using net activism to fight the good fight for all California's kids. Oakland-based Circle of Life foundation is an environmental activist ogranization best known for the participation of Julia Butterfly Hill. Sadly, they recently had their office broken in to...if you're in the mood to help, or just to check out a group focused on a holistic view of protecting our Earth...click the link. No matter where you live Idealist.org is a clearinghouse for non-profit activism around the world. Definintely worth a visit. Please feel free to add your own local or global activist links below, or tell your own story...I

plays

Random thoughts from an over-tired mind: I once did a monologue for acting class from Eric Overmyer's overlooked play Native Speech ...I played the Hungry Mother part...a kind of deranged dj obsessing on America. Hmmm... I'll never forget seeing an evening of one-act plays by Sam Shepard done by students at the Black Box Theater at Macalester College in St. Paul....that was probably 1984, and those plays felt like the most radical experiences I'd ever had ....here's Shepard's mis-en-scene for his play Cowboy Mouth ...it'll give you the raw flavor of his early stuff: "A fucked-up bed center stage...Scattered all around on the floor is miscellaneous debris: hubcaps, an old tire, raggedy costumes, a boxful of ribbons, lots of letters, a pink telephone, a bottle of Nescafé, a hot plate. Seedy wallpaper with pictures of cowboys peeling off the wall. Photographs of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rogers. Stuffed dolls, crucifixes...A funky set of drums to one side of t

late night links

It's an embarassment of riches: Words have Power , Cartel of Defiance , Digby , and Arthur Silber are all in fine form tonight. Jeanne D'Arc at Body and Soul has unleashed a flurry of posts now that her computer is back up....do read, it's worth it... Booman Tribune is covering the Cindy Sheehan story well...with "on the ground" coverage. And on the music front: Man Egee points up the SoCal sound artists Ozomatli Pyrrho gives the nod to DJ Cheb I Sabbah ....samples, but they're worth it....a must listen...and don't miss the Don Cherry remix further down. (thanks to both Pyrrho and Man Egee!!) Finally, I walked into Amoeba on Telegraph one night last year and they were playing this 1998 album ....by the Lounge Lizards. It's called Queen of All Ears ...the music is more intrigueing and full sounding than the tracks here...in fact it's oddly mysterious and appealing work. I've listened to the album over and over again...perfect rainy night

for a politics of coalition

One thing that gets me is how my political instincts just run counter to what most folks propose as the "magic bullet" for the Democratic Party. (In my view there isn't one.) As you may have guessed from the title, politically, my instincts always come back to coalition building. This essay is an attempt to analyse why and where I differ with what I see as the prevailing ideas...and to indicate why I am interested in 'coalition building' as the Democratic Party's best bet for winning back a legislative majority. It seems like there are two broad schools of thought currently proposing a 'model' for moving forward, those based on message and those based on process. Message: Lakoff and Frames Simply put, you'll never run out of people who'll tell you that "message" is the cure-all for the Democratic Party's needs. One has only to think of the Clinton, Gore and Kerry campaigns to realize that. Of course, we've been honing our