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Let the dialogue continue!

Christine Marie Davis has already posted a response to Michael Paglia's "Ridiculous Dialog: City" blog. But she expanded on that response in a letter that we're posting here -- in the spirit of a true and open Dialog dialogue:

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Is the winner from Tuesday’s pair of primaries Barack Obama, with his narrow defeat in Indiana and powerful showing in North Carolina? Or are the real winners the Denver waiters, valets, taxi drivers, doormen and hotel maids who look forward to seeing two entrenched delegations come to town, fighting for every vote with more tips to spread around?

If you looked at the headlines written that morning, penned desperately by exhausted reporters and pundits and suggesting that Indiana and North Carolina could provide actual closure to the Democratic race to the White House, you might have been fooled into thinking that politics is a) rational and b) predictable.

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So Tent State University is on the outs with their protest brethren at Re-create '68. What gives? Last Friday, when the ACLU held a press conference to declare it had filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Denver and the Secret Service, it seemed that all was well in the land of DNC protest. On hand at the confab were representatives of Re-create '68 – Glenn Spagnuolo and Mark and Barbara Cohen – as well as those of Tent State University, Code Pink and Escuela Tlatelolco and the American Indian Movement of Colorado. But more significant were the additional groups listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit: United for Peace and Justice, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, and the American Friends Service Committee.

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Tent State University has folded up its tent and moved on -- at least from Recreate '68's efforts to organize protests at the Democratic National Convention.

"Recreate '68 has demonstrated an inability to fulfill the needs of a growing list of individuals and organizations," said Adam Jung, the local representative of Tent State, a national student protest group planning to camp in Denver during the convention.

But according to Glenn Spagnuolo of Recreate '68, the local group profiled here last fall, the Tent State name was causing problems, since it conjures up images of Kent State, where four students were shot by National Guardsmen during a 1970 protest of the Vietnam War.

That from the main mouthpiece of a group whose name recalls the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, which erupted in violence as the whole world watched.-- Patricia Calhoun

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Pennsylvania

Total Number of Delegates: 187
Pledged: 158
Unpledged: 29

How to Recognize a Pennsylvania Delegate:
No state in the union suffers from poor self-esteem issues more than Pennsylvania. Quaker Staters have played pivotal roles in the history of religious freedom, civil rights and labor laws, and they have every right to be proud of their declarations of independence and their cracked liberty bells. Yet it is Pennsylvania residents who have given the state's two largest cities the nicknames of Filthadelphia and Shittsburgh, and they call the space in between them Pigsylvania. And it's not just the pot-holed roads and the slate-gray skies that make them so moody; it's the food. Pennsylvania is the snack-food capital of America. Besides being the home of Hershey's Chocolate, the state ranks as the nation's leading producer of potato chips. Pennsylvanians make enough potato chips in a year to ruin 80 million diets. It is also home to cheesesteaks, that damn cream cheese everyone loves, Tastykakes, marshmallow peeps and all the Heinz ketchup and relish needed for the mass consumption of hot dogs. This doesn't mean that Pennsylvania delegates will be obese. They get exercise by scraping the ice off their car windows in winter and running from muggers all year long. They're just a "cuppla tree" pounds overweight, so females will wear Studio 1940 Flyaway Layered dresses from Bensalem-based Fashion Bug, and male delegates will wear the Savane Total Comfort No-iron pleated twill pants over Consensus Button-down Chambray Shirts from York-based Bon-Ton Department Stores.

Famous Pennsylvanians:
American pioneer Daniel Boone; civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin; journalists Ed Bradley and Michelle Malkin; actors Nancy Kulp, Will Smith, Tina Fey, Sharon Stone, Richard Gere, Seth Green, Bill Cosby, Grace Kelly and Cheri Oteri; artists Thomas Eakins, Maxfield Parrish, Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Robert Crumb; writers Louisa May Alcott, Rita Mae Brown, Rachel Carson, Gertrude Stein and John Updike; musicians Ethyl Waters, Dean Martin, George Benson, Joan Jett, Teddy Prendergrass, Todd Rundgren, Robert Mothersbaugh and Trent Reznor; musical acts Boys II Men, CKY, the Dead Milkmen, Hall & Oates, the Julianna Theory and Ween; golfer Arnold Palmer; Republicans Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

Famous Pennsylvania Democrats:
15th president of the United States James Buchanan; 45th governor Ed Rendell; junior United States senator Bob Casey Jr.; U.S. representatives John Murtha, Chaka Fattah, Allyson Schwartz and Patrick Murphy.

Famous Pennsylvanians With Denver Connections:
LoDo street namesake William Larimer Jr.; State Capitol architect Elijah E. Myers; legendary Denver mayors Richard Sopris and Robert W. Speer; wannabe legendary mayor John W. Hickenlooper; wannabe state governor Marc Holtzman; Broadmoor founder Spencer Penrose; Centennial author James A. Michener; Broncos wide receiver Ed McCaffrey; Nuggets head coach George Karl; CBS4 News special projects correspondent Molly Hughes; Castle Rock municipal judge Lou Gersh.

State Nickname: The Keystone State, The Quaker State, The Steel State (official); The Steal State, Shoofly Pieland, Snacker's Paradise (unofficial)
Population: 12,440,621
Racial Distribution: 83% white, 11% black, 2% Asian, 4% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $32,044
Unemployment: 6.3%

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Gosh, wouldn’t it have been smart to come up with a visual art event that would promote Denver’s burgeoning culture and higher national profile in the arts during the Democratic National Convention? Doesn’t that make it dumb to instead bring in a bunch of second-tier art stars from around the world who mostly don’t have anything to do with Denver?

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The ACLU announced today it had filed a lawsuit in hopes of compelling the Secret Service to release security perimeter plans for Democratic National Convention in August. At a press conference this morning, ACLU of Colorado Director Mark Silverstein, pictured, said that the Secret Service’s delay in announcing how close citizens will be able to get to the Pepsi Center has prevented the city from issuing parade permits to protest groups, some of whom submitted applications twelve months ago. The ongoing lack of details on allowable demonstration areas is also hindering civil rights advocates by providing less and less time to challenge efforts to keep protesters isolated in cage-like “free speech zones,” as was the case at the 2004 DNC in Boston.

“No one will tell us what these restrictions are,” said Silverstein. “There’s a very real risk that there won’t be enough time for the judicial review before the convention begins.”

Silverstein says the postponement in revealing the security perimeter amounts to a violation of the First Amendment rights of the thirteen activist groups named in the suit, which ranged from local outfits like Recreate 68 and the Escuela Tlatelolco to national organizations such as United for Peace and Justice.

“The public has a right to demonstrate their beliefs to the delegates,” Silverstein added.

The federal court lawsuit requests an expedited hearing schedule for the security perimeter that would give all parties sufficient time to challenge unfair restrictions. While the city has yet to issue parade permits, it used a lottery to award park permits for protest groups wishing to hold events. – Jared Jacang Maher

The ever-popular bar/bat mitzvah location for my friends of middle school days, the Jewish Community Center on Dahlia St. takes a break from such festivities to host John McCain today starting at 10 am.

McCain is in town holding a town hall meeting to discuss his health care plan. McCain’s position on the issue contrasts sharply with his Democratic rivals who have both called for differing levels of universal health care coverage—Barack Obama advocating mandatory coverage for children while aiming for universal insurance, Hillary Clinton requiring insurance for everyone. Both would pay for their plans by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for households making over $250,000 a year. McCain believes in the competition of a free-market system and encourages tax credits for individuals to purchase their own plans. He insists that a tax increase will not be necessary.

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This is our past eight years in American political quotes. No commentary, no comedy, no frills. Just the statements themselves, the situation in which they were said, and the people who said them. Twenty-three lines that have come to shape America in the twenty-first century:

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On April 28, Roseanne joined the cast of characters dreaming about riots in Denver. Guest-hosting a show on Air America, she let loose with this:

..I mean I think somebody’s profiting by keeping us all divided and making us feel like oh my God we don’t even know what to believe what we’re reading what’s true. But you know, we have a lot of power and there is a Democratic Convention in Denver in just a short time and we should a bunch of us go there and repeat the Democratic Convention from Chicago. Like, let’s just cause a bunch of trouble. Let's wrest back our government from what, six or seven you know guys like McCain and Romney and Bush from the top. Let’s just go take it. It’s ours. Nobody gives it to you, you just go take it. Let’s meet in Denver and let’s do it.

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