A heroes’ farewell: Joe Trippi, January 28, 2004, Rira, Burlington, Vermont
January 29th, 2004
Rira is the best Irish bar in Burlington. For all I know, it may
be the only Irish bar in Burlington. Earlier in the day word had
gone around that Joe would meet us at Rira at 10:00 PM. He showed
at 10:30, apologized for being late, and started thanking people.
The night crowd stayed for hours.
The day had been
difficult–filled with sadness, tension, and the struggle to stay
creative as the world rocked around us.
At Rira we took off our masks and costumes,
and hung out.
To me, it felt a bit like a
cast party after a very long play.
I happened to have my tough little Cannon Elph in the pocket of
my jeans. I took most of these pictures, but John Pettitt, our
friend and staff photographer, borrowed my camera to take this
classic shot of Paul, Matt, Joe, and Zephyr.
Crafting reality
January 28th, 2004
You can’t really spin the TV press. You may think so, because the TV
press sometimes wants to be spun by you. Oh, what a sweet feeling
of seeming power!
But the TV press gives, and the TV press taketh away.
And the TV press most taketh away if you start to seem like a threat to their power and influence.
The TV press respects good TV ads, by the way, like one craftsman
appreciating the work of another. Crafting reality–really crafty!
Organizational learning, good news and bad
January 28th, 2004
Back in the dotcom days, there was an awful lot of “momentum investing”
where a stock was seen as valuable because of its rate of gain in
value. Sort of like being famous for being well-known.
And yet there were some solid Internet companies, such as Ebay and
Amazon, with models that would prove lastingly valuable to our society.
The Dean campaign is no longer a momentum play. Momentum
investors are going to go toward Kerry, or stay with the ultimate
momentum stock, George W. Bush.
The Dean campaign, meanwhile, is now either going to become a solid
contributor to our political landscape and
society–bringing real value and a return to investors who want to make a difference,
or the campaign will wither away.
Momentum companies get into a trap. When they tell good news,
their momentum increases. So they tend to tell more and more good
news. And when momentum companies tell bad news, their momentum
declines. So they tend to tell less and less bad news.
The problem with telling only good news is that it severs your
connection with your true investors–those who believe that your
underlying model adds value to society, and is worth investing in for
the long term. Worse, it tends to sever your connection with
yourself. Momentum companies start to believe their own hype,
avoid bad news–and as a result, their organizational learning is
impaired.
And companies with impaired organizational learning don’t last long in fast-changing markets.
The marketplace of political ideas is the fastest moving marketplace in
which I have ever personally participated. This week, this day,
feels different from last week, and from yesterday.
Organizational learning is paramount.
So what does this mean for the Dean campaign? We have been criticised
of late by our supporters for not telling the news, bad as well as
good. Supporters feel betrayed when they are told things are
fine, and then find out otherwise when the votes come in. “We
could have helped” they say in distress, “but you didn’t really ask us!”
Truth and learning is vital–as an organization and as an extended
community. Learning must be built into our
values, our practices, and our information and Internet systems.
We need to get the feedback going with our marketplace–a marketplace
that truly wants us to exist, and has many many ways to help.
New Hampshire bummer
January 28th, 2004
Metalhead Howard
January 28th, 2004
Creating ladders of support: Why you should vote today if your are a citizen of New Hampshire
January 27th, 2004
http://blog.deanforamerica.com/archives/003398.html#more
The following story by Laurie Hammond illustrates the role that intelligently planned, caring public
services can play in renewing our families and our society. It was posted on the DFA blog
yesterday.
Guest Blogger: Laurie Hammond
I should probably start by just saying who I am.
My name is Laurie Hammond. I own a small business in Colchester, VT.
It’s a retail store selling figure skating and dance wear.
Last Thursday I traveled to New Hampshire to attend Howard Dean
rallies in Lebanon and Claremont. I was especially moved when he spoke
about the woman with bone cancer he met eight years ago in Brandon, VT.
He helped enable the surgery she needed to survive her disease.
I, too, met Howard Dean eight years ago in Brandon. We were at the
Fourth of July parade. What he didn’t know was I was a victim of
domestic abuse. In 1996, when I finally found the courage to change the
lives of myself and my three daughters, I did not expect what happened
next.
At a time when my self-esteem was at an all-time low, and I was numb
to emotion, I was enveloped by Vermont agencies that joined to form a
step-ladder I could climb.
The first step on the ladder was the Vermont state police. Under the
Dean administration, the Vermont state police had been carefully
trained in the area of domestic abuse.
The state police had been trained to take you seriously, to educate
you. They give you information on what the possibilities are to get
away from the situation.
Then, after I followed through and pressed charges, I got a letter
in the mail that I totally didn’t expect. The Vermont Center for Crime
Victim Services — an agency I had no idea even existed — not only
apologized to me because I had been abused in the state of Vermont, but
gave my three daughters and me a ten thousand dollar grant for
counseling.
It not only what we needed most — counseling on how to climb
ourselves out of an abusive situation — and we’re still using that
grant today.
A few months later, I turned to the Vermont Department of Social
Welfare for assistance. They put me into the Reach Up Program, a
career-oriented agency. I said I wanted to start my own business.
My Reach Up counselor suggested the micro business entrepreneurial
training program, which I believe is federally and state funded.
(George Bush is trying to cut funds to this program.) It cost six or
seven hundred dollars that I didn’t have, but the Vermont Department of
Employment and Training gave me a full grant to take the course. You’re
forced to research your market, your demographic, everything you need
to know to really form a stable business plan with financial
projections, everything you need to start and maintain a successful
business. And that’s what I ended up doing.
I had to start over with nothing — I had this aging Buick Park
Avenue, and that’s all I had for collateral. I was turned to Vermont
Job Start, which became a program in 1993 as mandated in Governor
Howard Dean’s Economic Progress Act.
Where I am today: I’m running a successful retail and manufacturing
business. I have two full-time employees beside myself who are making a
livable wage. I also have two part-time people working for me. I am
contributing to supporting my family — I have a husband who has a job
as well. I’m on the Vermont Job Start board. I am an active Victim’s
Advocate. I’ve lobbied in Washington, DC for trying to help funding for
all these programs that I benefited from. I also volunteer in the
Burlington office for the Dean for America campaign, and I’ll do
anything I can to see him elected!
– Laurie Hammond
Posted by Guest Writer at 06:50 PM
Monday January 26, 2004
A poem from Hans Guggenheim, for New Hampshire day today
January 27th, 2004
The Dean campaign/ for Jim good luck
The Circus it is just beginning
here in the shooting gallery.
lets go and watch who will be winning,
Come join the fun,
The elephant is on the run.
Ah, here he comes, its Dr. Dean,
a better marksman was never seen,
He’ll shoot the beast right in the heart,
that’s what sets the guy apart.
He warned the beast would trick us into war,
and warned the nation long before,
all others did., did Dr. Dean,
a better marksman was never seen.
He argued evidence was ample,
on rural poor the beast would trample
he advocated Common Sense
to put the beast behind a fence
He hit the mark, did Dr. Dean
when he saw hiding those behind the bush
who claimed that Education was a push-
over with a trumped up soundbite
“Dirty pool,” he said, ” that isn’t right.”
And women’s rights, said Dr. Dean
this Elephant has never seen
to be of value to the nation,
let’s aim to change this aberration!.
He’s right on target, he is ,
Dr. Dean
A better shot can not be seen.
Lessig note on Dean on privacy
January 27th, 2004
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001696.shtml
What I found most interesting is to peruse the original CMU document on
the workshop on privacy, at which Governor Dean spoke. This
document in Acrobat format is linked to by Lessig at “what Dean said..”
what declan doesn’t get (how to read)
Free free to try this at home:
(1) Read what Dean said about privacy here.
(2) Read what Declan said Dean said about privacy here.
Andy O’s got a nice piece of reporting about this “reporting” at The Register.
Polls and declining concern with the war in Iraq. We need to deepen our “marketing” of the war issue
January 25th, 2004
The current polls suggest that the voters are no longer particularly concerned about the Iraq war.
One implication of this is that poll-driven candidates can focus on
other issues, and win. Two pro-war candidates won in Iowa.
The other way to see this is that we, in the second superpower, are not
doing our job these days. We had it easy at first, before the
war. Many folks came together in concern. Then we had it
hard, when it seemed to have been “won” in a few days. Then we
had it easy again, when the public tired of the topic, and chose to
“forgive” those who had brought the war on.
But our sons and daughters and friends and neighbors and parents are
still being maimed and killed, literally every day, in an unnecessary
war. We need to speak for them.
The other day I had some tree work done–and the person who did it had
just come back from a year in the Guard. He said he will always
be thankful he made it back alive.
We have work to do. We need to make the war back into a central
issue. The war and the militarism of our society is a root
problem.
When Coke
does a survey and finds that folks don’t like Coke, Coke doesn’t stop
making Coke. Coke cranks up the marketing effort–and maybe gets
a new ad agency.
We need to deepen and expand our “marketing” of the war issue.
By the way, thanks to Michael Moore for raising the “deserter” issue. Yup!
Let’s break out of the hypnosis and stop tacitly consenting to how the pundits are running/ruining this campaign
January 25th, 2004
http://davenet.scripting.com/2004/01/25/alicesRestaurant
Great new post from Dave Winer on Alice’s Restaurant and the current
campaign..When you read Dave’s suggested comments from Clark, you
realize how deeply hypnotized we’ve all become by the media pundits. We
are all hypnotized, starting from the candidates and working our way
down (or up) to ourselves.
To paraphrase Gandhi, the problem is not with people in government, it is with we who consent to what they do.
The problem is not with the pundits who are ruining this campaign, it is with we who consent to what they do.
Dave suggests that when a candidate is being interviewed, and the
interviewer tries one of these hypnotic moves, that the candidates just
start singing Alice’s Restaurant. BTW, Dave provides a link to
the lyrics.
Here is an excerpt from Dave’s post, but do read the whole thing:
Watching Tim Russert
interview Wesley Clark this morning, it occurred to me how
dysfunctional the system has become. I saw The Scream another dozen
times. I heard the chief of the Democratic Party asked if he thought it
was the end of the Dean campaign and he said the obvious — it wasn’t,
and it should’t be. Then they asked if Clark had screwed up by letting
Michael Moore call the President a deserter. Later Russert
repeatedly asked Clark to denounce Moore for saying that, but he
wouldn’t. The system is so perverse that Clark just danced instead of
coming out and saying the obvious, yes, he’s President, and yes, he got
elected without his character getting the kind of examination the
Democrats are getting.
“So Tim, let’s turn it around,” Clark
might have said, “Why didn’t you grill Bush on that during the 2000
election? How did he become President without that getting vetted?” I
might go further and wonder how he got the nomination without his military service being fully examined.
And then to nail it, ask Tim to play the Dean Scream
a few more times (we’re starting to like it). If the Republicans cry
bloody murder, let’s go back and figure out who painted Dean with
“angry” label. Yeah, it was the Republicans, in case you were wondering. 
Net-net, Clark could’ve scored a bunch of points by asking Tim to ease
up on his fellow candidate Dean, and go do his homework on Bush.