Convention
Nancy Scola of TechPresident took me (and anyone else) on a quick video tour of the Big Tent. The Google smoothies, the clean wood of the temporary stairs, the serious rows of people typing - I’ve seen it. It looks comfortable, well-thought-out, and like any well-run conference. More security, maybe, and more sense of purpose, but otherwise a familiar sense of deep comfort and interesting people to talk to.
The convention’s opening night in 1968 - August 25, Chicago - as described in Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein. Just one paragraph:
The convention floor accommodated 6,511 delegates, but was designed to hold 4,850. The air hung heavy with summer sweat, cigarette smoke, the smell of the nearby stockyards. The gavel rang, Aretha Franklin belted out a rock-and-roll version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and the first of many brawls broke out: the compromise on the Georgia delegation voted by the Credentials Committee wouldn’t go into effect until Wenesday, and liberals jumped on their seats and started shouting at Georgia, “Throw them out! Throw them out!” Senator Daniel Inouye delivered his keynote speech, addressed to the hippies infesting Chicago’s parks. “What trees do they plant?” The ringers carrying WE LOVE MAYOR DALEY signs were exuberant. . . . Concessionaires were instructed not to put ice cubes in the drinks lest people throw them. Word arrived of that night’s riot in Lincoln Park, how the Yippies built a massive barricade of picnic tables, trash baskets, and anything else they could get their hands on. In the park, a cop car stealthily glided up at 12:20am, turned its lights on . . and every window was smashed, and a kid grabbed the driver by the neck and almost pulled him out the door. Then , the retaliation: wave after wave of tear gas, assaults with shotgun and rifle buts. . . The liberal Chicago Daily News called it “the most vicious behavior on the part of the police” in twenty-five years.
Okay, 2008 Denver bloggers - what’s your material? The Freedom Cage is muted, according to the Guardian.
Is it all hope and uplift? Maybe so. C-SPAN has online coverage, and the woman singing Aretha is .. great.
==update after Sen. Kennedy’s appearance: okay, that’s drama. Life, death, commitment - definite drama.
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