DNC Diary - Day 2

Is this really a knit blog? Yup, so I'll tell you about two great things that happened to me while in Denver. I met Wanda, of Wanda Woman Knits blog!


Wanda and I have been visiting each other's blogs now for a while so it was so cool to finally get to meet her in person! We spent the day at this very cool place just 5 minutes from downtown. Man, these places outside of the New York metro area have square footage! She did a few rows to my Unity scarf that will become my Inauguration scarf.

Oh, and I also met this cool lady (a washington exec) at a camera store in downtown Denver. I was buying a video camera and she saw my knitting bag, she struck up a conversation about her knitting exploits. She was so thrilled to meet a fellow knitter at the convention that she called over her two teenage children to meet me! I asked her to do a few rows to my scarf.

Anyway back to my diary. I really wanted to name this post, Lies for Free.

When I was in Denver, all the papers were for free at my hotel. I don't generally get my news from the print press anymore. I prefer the internets. Sometimes the same publication publishes different stories on the internets than in print. Why? Is better news available to people who can afford broadband? Anyway, on the internets I get to dissect rumor and innuendo from corporate and washington press releases by simply moving my mouse. A lot easier than plowing through reams of newsprint. It becomes a sporting event, I'm eager to see who wins in my mind...

But, last night I was smacked back to reality. McCain's wife's speech and his own was scary. So I've decided to interrupt my diary and lament. While I consider myself fortunate to have attended the DNC's convention and be a witness to history, I regret allowing myself to get pulled into a sort of naivete. True, the convention was indeed historic. Those 4 days were miraculous. How could a Sen. Obama, a black man who is the product of a formerly illegal miscengenated union, be in such position of possibility? His mother, the product of a working class white family, his father, an immigrant from a continent ravished by slavery, colonialism and war. How could they produce a constitutional attorney only decades after Jim Crow where it was practically illegal for black children to even learn to read?

Talking politics, I'm starting to get hung over. Last night after watching the RNC's nauseating proceedings I was reacquainted with why I was on a 12 step program to begin with. I have a problem. I know too much about politics while at the same time, I know little about politicians. They make stuff up, they talk about poverty while wearing diamond earrings, that could fund an entire village in India (see my side bar). They defy logic and lie in your face. They talk about the horrors of torture on one night and complain about Miranda rights on another. They talk about being victims of torture and be a part of an administration that builds secret torture prisons called black sites all across the world. They degrade community organizers which is probably one of the most thankless jobs (if you can call it a job because many do it as volunteers) while they hire lobbyist and travel to Washington begging for handouts. They tell you that family dramas are private while they constantly try to legislate what your's and mine family can and cannot do in the bedroom, in the classroom, in the doctors' office and what we can read in our libraries.

They lie to our faces with pomp and circumstance knowing that we want to be lied to, we want to delude ourselves, we demand more for others than we demand from ourselves.

My second day at the convention was filled with great hope. My naivete allowed me to ignore what was coming.

These are my children and I still maintain a glimmer of hope. Even though there are those who will try to confuse me, the issues and continue to plot to stay in power. I'll keep trying, for these guys...

...and the hope that this 78 year old woman maintained, who drove all the way from California to be witness to history at the DNC.