Mumble Herder

ITEM! Small Beer Press is having a sale, and they are giving 20% of the proceeds to Obama's campaign. Great books and good feelings! Maybe even tingly ones, depending upon what bits you read and what sort of a person you are! Like, maybe The Mount is actually really popular among certain segments of the BDSM community. Who knows? (If you do know, I suggest that you do not tell Carol Emshwiller.)

ITEM! In SBP-adjacent news, Kelly Link's new collection Pretty Monsters is out today! Ooh! I am Ooh!ing because Kelly is an amazing short story writer, perhaps the best we have. Not only are these great stories, but they are illustrated by none other than Shaun Tan. Have you read The Arrival yet? Ye gods, why not?

ITEM! Getting back to politics, here's a link you might want to show to your friends in the military who support McCain because they think he supports them. Notsomuch, as it turns out. I confess, though, that even with these figures this is a topic I am reluctant to broach with my brother-in-law, a vet who's served two tours in Iraq. It's important to him that his service has meant something, and I don't wish to devalue it. But damn it's frustrating to hear him say how good Bush has been for soldiers when benefits have been cut to the bone.

ITEM! I had forgotten all about this video, and I am pleased to be reminded:



ITEM! Speaking of videos, if you are at all a fan of zombie stuff, you need to watch this short film. It's called "I Love Sarah Jane," it's about ten minutes long, and it's amazing.

If Sarah Palin makes you excited about voting for McCain, you are not paying attention.

This reflects on McCain himself, on his judgment. Just like his "suspension" of the campaign this week, his choice of Palin (Based on what, exactly? Her choice in eyewear?) reveals him as erratic, impulsive and thoughtless. Whatever you may think of Obama, he has not shown himself to be those things.

Brave Alan calls our attention to the Palinomicon:

A couple of days ago I received a package from Juneau, Alaska--its ends taped over with duct tape several times over, my address written on a black magic marker, in a tight, clipped scrawl (without my name) and with no return address. The package smelled like bug spray.

So I went down to the Capitol because someone had said that Rage Against the Machine was going to play there; not that I'm a fan, particularly, but I wanted to see what would happen. What happened was that the police refused to let them play because they weren't included in the original permit. That was probably a bad idea, because what happened as a result was that the band and some other activists started leading the crowd down Cedar Avenue.

(You can read about what happened here or at the photo essay.)

I followed the crowd, sometimes riding and sometimes walking my bike, and taking pictures. There were no cops in the way that I could see, but I was afraid they'd show up at any moment to block the route. There were a few police vehicles in our path down Cedar, but instead of trying to stop the crowd they preceded it across the bridge into downtown. There were plenty of folks there like me who weren't exactly doing the chants ("Resist! Resist! Raise your fucking fist!" was a popular one, as was "Stop the war on the poor!") but were taking pictures or video. Lots of journalists of all sorts; citizen, independent, and Big Media.

Just like the demonstration on Monday, there were all sorts of people in the crowd. Law students in ACLU t-shirts who had volunteered to observe arrests and make sure anyone taken into custody had representation. "Peace" volunteers in yellow vests trying to keep the crowd orderly and calm. Folks with bandanas or masks, hippies, and hardcore Rage fans. Traffic was stopped all along the route, but at first there were just police vehicles blocking the streets.

Crossing the Cedar Street Bridge was the most exciting and frightening part of the experience. The chants got very loud, and there was a feeling of power in that, but also danger. At that point I was really hoping the police wouldn't do anything stupid, because although there were a lot of people trying to keep the peace in the crowd there was also a lot of anger in the air. There were other people on the edges of the crowd who had the same worried expression that I was wearing. Others seemed to feel like it was a party.

The leaders of the march stopped in the intersection at Cedar and 11th, perhaps to let the rest of the crowd catch up. There were buses and cars stopped, stuck, waiting for the crowd to pass through. I took the opportunity to bike ahead of the crowd a little bit, in hopes of getting some better shots.

At Cedar and Exchange I saw the first squad of cops lining the route again. They were very tense. You can't see it too well in this shot but those are gas launchers. The officer in charge of this squad instructed the others to get up above, and I heard him say "We're not taking any" something "period."

If something bad had been going to happen I think it would have happened at Cedar and 7th, where the police steered the group on 7th. I don't believe any of this was planned, by either side, and there were so many cops and so many marchers, and the crowd was very loud at this point.

There were some Republican observers along the route saying stupid shit. One of them, spotting a couple of National Guard soldiers, said "Here comes the guard! Yeah!" I think he thought he was watching Black Hawk Down. Another fine specimen of humanity, walking well ahead of the protestors with his straight man, said "I wish I had my pump-action shotgun with me."

On the other hand, there were some stupid things being said by the marchers as well. I heard one guy wearing all black, including a bandana over his face, say "There are a lot of poseurs here."

We were funneled into the tiny park up the block from the Dorothy Day Center, which was also surrounded by a cage. A woman (organizer Cheri Honkala, apparently) got up on someone's shoulders, and through a megaphone, warned everyone not to make trouble. "We have people in wheelchairs here," she made the crowd repeat. "We have kids in strollers." I had also seen a woman wearing a peace flag admonishing some of the "anarchists" not to start any shit, and a brief argument between them.

One angry young fellow decided to pace the length of the fence taunting the officers. "You're all a bunch of fucking cowards! You fucking faggots!" He was, happily, ignored.

Representatives from the march went up the the checkpoint to seek entrance, mainly as a symbolic action. They were of course not admitted.

Shortly after that the crowd began to scatter, some sitting down and some walking up the fences to take pictures and shout at the Republicans, who were all safely inside by that time. I decided to head home, relieved that nothing unpleasant seemed to be happening.

However, apparently just after I left, "police discharged a series of flash-bang grenades and smoke canisters at an intersection not far from a security fence surrounding Xcel. [Tom] Walsh [St. Paul police spokesman] said the tactic was aimed at protesters trying to breach the fence." More of that story here; for a less objective report check out the account of our local Fox affiliate.

As I said, I had left by then, but this sounds like bullshit to me. The crowd was very calm and I believe that the great majority of them had taken Honkala's words seriously. It seems far more likely to me that the cops were told to clear everyone out, so they started making a lot of noise and arrests. Despite missing the excitement at the end, the entire evening was a pretty tense and frightening experience, although in retrospect it was probably fairly controlled.

First, the good (or at least hopeful) news. The Christian Science Monitor is running a four-part series on the Kenyan election, compromise, and aftermath. From part one, yesterday:

In the next five weeks, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a team of African statesmen and women, known as The Panel of Eminent African Personalities, they achieve what few thought was possible: a cessation of fighting and a power-sharing deal to put Kenya back together again.

[Graça] Machel's presence, along with Mr. Annan, and former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa, would provide important ballast. Machel and Annan are part of The Elders, a dozen experienced leaders from around the world, set up in 2007 by Mr. Mandela and others to address global problems.

At a time when Kenya's angry "young turks" were whipping up the emotions that fed violence, these African elders had the calming influence of a stern grandparent, in front of whom one doesn't misbehave.

In news distressing enough that I've been putting off posting about it, elephant poaching in Africa is at a critical level, higher in fact than the rate before the ivory ban was put into effect:

Evidence gathered from recent major ivory seizures shows conclusively that the ivory is not coming from a broad geographic area but rather that hunters are targeting specific herds. With such information, [University of Washington biology professor Samuel] Wasser said, authorities can beef up enforcement efforts and focus them in specific areas where poaching is known to occur as a means of preventing elephants from being killed. But that will only happen if there is sufficient public pressure to marshal funding for a much larger international effort to halt the poaching.

. . .

"The situation is worse than ever before and the public is unaware," he said, "It's very serious because elephants are an incredibly important species. They keep habitats open so other species that depend on such ecosystems can use them. Without elephants, there will be major habitat changes, with negative effects on the many species that depend on the lost habitat.

"Elephants also are a major part of ecotourism, which is an important source of hard currency for many African countries."

Well . . . she didn't, exactly.

U.S. politics = teh crazy.

In Kenya, the death toll has passed 1,000, but negotiations are continuing. Kofi Annan was already my hero, but if he can pull this off I will love him forever.

To the northwest of Kenya, Chad is also in crisis; overwhelmed with refugees from the Darfur crisis and the Central African Republic, with a war raging between the government and rebel groups. The president there won his position by coup, just as his predecessor did, and in 2006 he abolished term limits.

In news closer to home, tonight I will caucus for the first time in my life. Being that this is (apparently) some kind of bizarre ritual in which people socialize while they vote, I am probably more terrified than excited. But I'm doing it anyway. I don't want to get into it in a big way, but I'm for Obama. There are many reasons why--this eloquently expresses one of them--but the main one comes from a different impulse entirely. I am 37 years old, I've voted in every presidential election in which I was eligible to do so, and this is the first time I've ever looked forward to voting for someone as opposed to against everyone else. It's not disgust motivating me this time, it's hope. It's kind of a good feeling.

[Poll #1133416]

Kenyan opposition politician slain. Fuck.

Greek Orthodox, Mormon religious leaders dead. Armageddon coming.

Mole rats are freakishly immune to pain, a fact apparently discovered by scientists trying to inflict pain.

[Poll #1129364]

MOOD: IN A RAGE DUE TO MISSPELLING "SEETHING"

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations finds that President Bush and top administration officials issued 935 false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Good morning! (Or afternoon, or evening, or dead of night depending upon where you are.)