On Boston.com tonight is the story "Two local AM stations turn to Latino music.":

Goodbye Air America, hello "Rumba." Thursday at noon, Clear Channel stations WKOX-AM (1200) and WXKS-AM (1430) will switch from "Boston's Progressive Talk" to "La Nueva Rumba," both simulcasting a "tropical" format of primarily Spanish-language announcers and music, ranging from salsa, merengue, and bachata to the contemporary sound of reggaeton

In the 10.6.06 Boston Globe, the reporter Charles Savage cuts loose with yet another Bush administration outrage, this one about his use and abuse of signing statements.  An earlier diary mentioned how Bush is pushing this practice to extend presidential power and to condition Congress to accept them as legitimate.  Today, however, the signing statement practice has just jumped the shark:

I'm in Detroit for the holidays.. when I picked up a copy of the Free Press the other day, I found this story on how federal agents are monitoring Muslim homes and mosques for evidence of bomb-making material.  Basically, the FBI has somehow been keeping tabs on private homes and places of worship, "monitoring the air for imminent threats to health and safety", without warrants or legal permissions.

One wonders how they did this monitoring.  Did they drive by with detection devices?  Why only Muslim homes and places of worship?  Or did they install small detectors in certain homes?  Did they pose as meter readers to gain access, or perhaps it was the fed government's chums at Comcast and other telecom giants -- you know, the ones helping them out with tapping our phone lines.  

happy holidays!  

On the heels of yesterday's victory for equal rights vis a vis gay marriage comes the Massachusetts' legislature's override of Mitt "Lurch" Romney's veto on a bill allowing access to the 'morning after pill':

Mass. lawmakers override contraception veto

OK, so I can't get away to head down south to help Katrina relief efforts, and I've already donated a chunk of money, so what else can a girl do other than PLAY WITH PHOTOSHOP to let out her anger over this administration and this unfathomable disaster? Please enjoy the fruits of my pissed-offness, and add your own doctored photos as bandwidth allows.

(forgive me...I usually don't write diaries but I'm all jazzed up and feeling valued now that I've regained my TU status)

So I'm reading George Lakoff's "Don't think of an elephant" last night and bemoaning the fact that the left has been an unwilling dupe in the right's plans for total world strangulation.  I was particularly impressed with his analysis of each party's structure and priorities:

-- The right puts substantial money behind thinktanks, and concentrates on establishing an infrastructure, big-picture thinking;
-- The left takes what money it has and distributes it to those in need, or agencies that service those in need. (I volunteer writing grants at a non-profit down the street and boy, if you're addressing the needs of an 'underserved' population, you've got it made.)

So, what can we do?  A kernel of an idea below the fold...

The good news is that Sproul and his jokers are not involved.  

The bad news is that Sproul and his jokers are not involved, the cancer of influencing the election for a Republican victory by any means necessary has spread to New Hampshire.  

A quick article summary:  NH is confusing the issue of 'primary domicile' for its college students, with threats of loss of financial aid and 'dire consequences'.  In addition to the crime of being young voters, many NH college students also hail from Massachusetts, that miserable liberal moral sinkhole.

The piece is in the October 15th Boston Phoenix, the local weekly alternative paper

From Salon.com.  Let's see how much Sinclair values that FCC license...

The filmmaker behind the new pro-John Kerry documentary plans to offer it to Sinclair Broadcasting-- free of charge -- to see if the company is interested in showing its viewers a balanced presentation of the candidate.

Below in the extended copy is the text of Garrison Keillor's "We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore", a sad yet humorous rant about how the Republican Party has morphed from the party of "pragmatic Main Street business" and of Ike, to the party of "undamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, [and] nihilists in golf pants."  

There's a line at the very end where he says "Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral."  So I mailed this piece to my friends who remain on the fence/resolutely apolitical, to good reviews.  One even mentioned this line in particular.

So enjoy, circulate, discuss.

Hey, is there going to be a gathering of dKos folk this coming week/end in Boston for the DNC?  I'm not invited to any bigwig parties, so I'm hoping that dKos will plump up my social calendar!

I wish I knew how to make one of those them pretty boxes around copy...

From the Austrailian online:
link

Call for UN observers in US poll
From correspondents in Washington
July 02, 2004

SEVERAL members of the US House of Representatives have requested the United Nations to send observers to monitor the November 2 US presidential election to avoid a contentious vote as in 2000, when the outcome was decided by Florida.
Recalling the long, drawn-out process in the southern state, nine lawmakers, including four blacks and one Hispanic, sent a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asking that the international body "ensure free and fair elections in America", according to a statement issued by Florida representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, who spearheaded the effort.

"As lawmakers, we must assure the people of America that our nation will not experience the nightmare of the 2000 presidential election," she said in the letter.

"This is the first step in making sure that history does not repeat itself," she added after requesting that the UN "deploy election observers across the US" to monitor the November, 2004 election.

The lawmakers said in the letter that in a report released in June, 2001, the US Commission on Civil Rights "found that the electoral process in Florida resulted in the denial of the right to vote for countless persons".

Eileen McNamara is a moderate columnist for the Boston Globe.  Her piece in Sunday's paper is the most clear-headed look at Boston's ramped-up security precautions for the Dem convention I've read yet:

The Price of Insecurity

She's yet to be tossed in Gitmo for this thoughtful analysis of the erosion of civil liberties around the convention -- but only for some.  

 Beware, people of color and/or those with smelly and/or "suspicious-looking" backpacks on Boston's subway or commuter rail system!  The managing agency MBTA is instituting a system of random bag searches which will escalate during the Dem convention in July:

You can read the henious article here.  

The jist:  T police will single out riders who fit a pattern of 'suspicious behavior'.  If one of the bomb dogs happens to be with an officer, the dog will sniff your package (ha, double entendre!).  If a dog is not present, the officer will no, not sniff the package, but conduct a cursory search.  Here's a graf from teh article:

"Last month, T police announced that the entire force has been receiving counterterrorism training that includes spotting suspicious behavior. The ACLU and riders groups, fearful that the policy could lead to random ID checks, have contended that the stops represent an unwarranted intrusion. But T officials insist that the "behavior pattern recognition" training that all officers are receiving is geared toward security, and not to pestering riders.

Martino said the T Police Department is seeking to double the size of the dog unit to spread the baggage inspections across the vast transit system."

The ACLU is on the case, and if you're not a card-carrying member, sign up now.  

(pix to come later, once I figure out how to insert them...)

Ah, blessed celebration!  Cambridge, MA's City Hall was a huge, impromptu party last night as a throng in the thousands counted down to the legalization of gay marriage in the commonwealth.  A small marching band contingent played "Goin' to the Chapel" and "God Bless America."  Also present:  a violinist and an Eastern European dance troupe.  Signs abounded:  "God Love Fags", "Hey, Romney, we're Legal Now!", and the celebratory "Mazel Tov" and simply "Yay!"  

When I drove past City Hall around 6pm, the only visible folks were the anti-marriage protesters, holding signs of two dogs with the caption "Fags Wed".  These protesters were apparently imports from Kansas, courtesy of a Reverend Phelps.  I'm happy to say that by the stroke of midnight, the dozen or so of these folks had been pushed off the lawn, and indeed off Mass. Ave to upper reaches of the Post Office steps.  In order words, essentially invisible in the huge crowd, and completely neutralized.  

The stroke of midnight was counted down, then a prolonged cheer went up.  The place was swarming with film crews, with one commentator attempting to do an on-air piece, but having trouble with the boisterous crowd cheering behind him, not unlike sports fans on camera.  How delightful to think that these images of a supportive straight and gay crowd will be circulating in the media.  Though most images I've seen have been interior pictures, and you don't get a sense of the party on the lawn.

And if you check out the New York Times article on this today, you can see a picture of my financial planner and her partner of 19 years with their daughter.

Reporting from Cambridge, hotbed of democracy,

magpie02141

Hi, this is my very first diary entry...
I live in the Greater Boston area, and I would very much like to volunteer for a Get Out the Vote organization with a focus on young women (being a (not so) young woman myself).  Does anyone know which organizations are doing this?  A bit shy offline, and the idea of canvassing gives me the willies, but perhaps there's something I could do, or organize, or SOMETHING.  

Has anyone organized, say, a 20-something GOTV fashion show?  Club party?  Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

And since I can, I'm going to do my FIRST POLL: