Friday, August 29, 2008
Stutter Talk
Listen here to a podcast of the excellent Stutter Talk, in which Peter Reitzes and Greg Snyder discuss Joe Biden's childhood stutter and my article They Called him B-biden.
Meanwhile, outside the convention
Politics were busting out all over Denver. This was at a peaceful immigrant-rights march, which ended in a rally at Lincoln Park.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Watching Obama and Gustav
By Barry Yeoman
The Independent Weekly / August 28, 2008
Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. By chilling coincidence, Hurricane Gustav is now barreling toward the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans is preparing for another direct hit. It seems fitting that this storm is brewing during the week of the Democratic National Convention: There is no better fodder for critics of President Bush's domestic leadership than his handling of Louisiana's "twisted sisters," Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As recently as last week, with the Lower Ninth Ward and other neighborhoods still in shambles, Bush visited New Orleans and declared, "Hope is being restored."
This week in Denver, Democratic leaders aren't shy about reminding the nation of Bush's aloof treatment of New Orleans while its residents were literally drowning, or the inability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to respond to the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.
"The Bush White House, the Republican leadership, and FEMA showed up not just late, but unprepared," U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana declared from the podium Tuesday night (before booking an early flight home in anticipation of Gustav). "America deserves a FEMA that works. A FEMA that understands the best ways to leverage the private sector and nonprofits. A FEMA that will rebuild our communities with respect, dignity and determination."
I was, coincidentally, sitting among the Louisiana delegation during Landrieu's remarks. At the mention of FEMA's incompetence, the delegates broke into a standing ovation. While Democrats from North Carolina and elsewhere feel tremendous urgency about reclaiming the White House, in Louisiana the feeling is more like desperation. Several Pelican State delegates were impacted directly by one or both of the hurricanes, and they know how a laggard federal response can turn a deadly storm even worse.
If Republican John McCain is elected president, worries New Orleans delegate Jay H. Bank, the federal response could look eerily like 2005. "I would be very concerned that the lessons taught by Katrina weren't learned," says Banks, the membership director of a local YMCA. "This thing could be replicated in Carolina and Florida and Texas."
Click here for the rest of the article.
The Independent Weekly / August 28, 2008
Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. By chilling coincidence, Hurricane Gustav is now barreling toward the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans is preparing for another direct hit. It seems fitting that this storm is brewing during the week of the Democratic National Convention: There is no better fodder for critics of President Bush's domestic leadership than his handling of Louisiana's "twisted sisters," Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As recently as last week, with the Lower Ninth Ward and other neighborhoods still in shambles, Bush visited New Orleans and declared, "Hope is being restored."This week in Denver, Democratic leaders aren't shy about reminding the nation of Bush's aloof treatment of New Orleans while its residents were literally drowning, or the inability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to respond to the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.
"The Bush White House, the Republican leadership, and FEMA showed up not just late, but unprepared," U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana declared from the podium Tuesday night (before booking an early flight home in anticipation of Gustav). "America deserves a FEMA that works. A FEMA that understands the best ways to leverage the private sector and nonprofits. A FEMA that will rebuild our communities with respect, dignity and determination."
I was, coincidentally, sitting among the Louisiana delegation during Landrieu's remarks. At the mention of FEMA's incompetence, the delegates broke into a standing ovation. While Democrats from North Carolina and elsewhere feel tremendous urgency about reclaiming the White House, in Louisiana the feeling is more like desperation. Several Pelican State delegates were impacted directly by one or both of the hurricanes, and they know how a laggard federal response can turn a deadly storm even worse.
If Republican John McCain is elected president, worries New Orleans delegate Jay H. Bank, the federal response could look eerily like 2005. "I would be very concerned that the lessons taught by Katrina weren't learned," says Banks, the membership director of a local YMCA. "This thing could be replicated in Carolina and Florida and Texas."
Click here for the rest of the article.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
They called him B-biden
By Barry Yeoman
The Independent Weekly / August 27, 2008
I was walking to the Pepsi Center in Denver this week, talking with a former public official from Illinois. The conversation turned to Sen. Joe Biden. “I have a personal question,” she said to me. “You don’t have to answer it. Do you think the fact that Biden began life stuttering causes him to compensate by talking a lot?”
It was not unreasonable question: My stutter is often the first thing strangers notice about me. It short-circuits my speech and causes me to jerk my head when I’m trying to look like a competent professional. While stuttering forces some people into painful introversion, it also launches many of us into the hard work of self-acceptance. Eventually for us, talking becomes an act of liberation.
For stutterers, tonight is our moment on the national stage. Although Biden’s speech impediment started abating in high school and pretty much disappeared in college, it is now a part of his public biography. “They called him B-b-biden,” Barack Obama said when he introduced the Delaware senator last week as his vice-presidential pick. “He picked himself up. He worked harder than the other guys.”
My closest encounter with Biden came in 2004, when he spoke to a self-help group called the National Stuttering Association at its annual convention in Baltimore. Biden admitted to us that, at 61, this the first time he had ever spoken publicly and candidly about the subject. “When I first started my job as a U.S. senator,” he said, “while those who knew me knew I stuttered, I was reluctant to be nationally identified with it.”
It turns out that school kids weren’t the only ones who mimicked Biden. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said. Then he launched into a story about reading aloud in a seventh-grade class at a Catholic school. When he mispronounced “gentleman,” the nun who taught the class asked him to repeat the word. This time, he stuttered on the initial G. The nun looked at him with contempt. “Mr. B-b-biden,” she said.
Click here for the rest of the article.
The Independent Weekly / August 27, 2008
I was walking to the Pepsi Center in Denver this week, talking with a former public official from Illinois. The conversation turned to Sen. Joe Biden. “I have a personal question,” she said to me. “You don’t have to answer it. Do you think the fact that Biden began life stuttering causes him to compensate by talking a lot?”
It was not unreasonable question: My stutter is often the first thing strangers notice about me. It short-circuits my speech and causes me to jerk my head when I’m trying to look like a competent professional. While stuttering forces some people into painful introversion, it also launches many of us into the hard work of self-acceptance. Eventually for us, talking becomes an act of liberation.For stutterers, tonight is our moment on the national stage. Although Biden’s speech impediment started abating in high school and pretty much disappeared in college, it is now a part of his public biography. “They called him B-b-biden,” Barack Obama said when he introduced the Delaware senator last week as his vice-presidential pick. “He picked himself up. He worked harder than the other guys.”
My closest encounter with Biden came in 2004, when he spoke to a self-help group called the National Stuttering Association at its annual convention in Baltimore. Biden admitted to us that, at 61, this the first time he had ever spoken publicly and candidly about the subject. “When I first started my job as a U.S. senator,” he said, “while those who knew me knew I stuttered, I was reluctant to be nationally identified with it.”
It turns out that school kids weren’t the only ones who mimicked Biden. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said. Then he launched into a story about reading aloud in a seventh-grade class at a Catholic school. When he mispronounced “gentleman,” the nun who taught the class asked him to repeat the word. This time, he stuttered on the initial G. The nun looked at him with contempt. “Mr. B-b-biden,” she said.
Click here for the rest of the article.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Streets of Gore
By Barry Yeoman
The Independent Weekly / Aug. 26, 2008
During this week of the Democratic National Convention, it’s hard to walk more than a few blocks in downtown Denver without encountering clusters of abortion opponents carrying billboard-sized photos of fetal remains. They often make a lot of noise—but the demonstrators outside the University Club on Monday afternoon were particularly aggressive. They had timed their protest to coincide with the “Women’s EqualiTea,” a reception sponsored by the National Organization for Women and four other feminist groups to honor the progress made in the 88 years since the 19th Amendment granted voting rights to female citizens. The event would be a particularly ripe opportunity for the pro-lifers to confront their Democratic adversaries.
As 3 o’clock drew near, a stream of taxis pulled up to the curb outside the neoclassical landmark a few blocks from the state Capitol. Democratic women stepped out of their cabs and onto a sidewalk chalked with dozens of anti-abortion slogans. There, they encountered a 25-year-old North Carolinian wearing oversized blue plastic sunglasses that matched the color of her T-shirt and bullhorn.
“Most of you guys are probably against the war,” shouted Kortney Blythe, who grew up in Charlotte. “What about the war on the unborn children? What about the war that kills over 3,000 children every day in our country alone? One-third of those of us who were conceived after Roe v. Wade were violently killed in the name of choice.”
Click here for the rest of the article.
The Independent Weekly / Aug. 26, 2008
During this week of the Democratic National Convention, it’s hard to walk more than a few blocks in downtown Denver without encountering clusters of abortion opponents carrying billboard-sized photos of fetal remains. They often make a lot of noise—but the demonstrators outside the University Club on Monday afternoon were particularly aggressive. They had timed their protest to coincide with the “Women’s EqualiTea,” a reception sponsored by the National Organization for Women and four other feminist groups to honor the progress made in the 88 years since the 19th Amendment granted voting rights to female citizens. The event would be a particularly ripe opportunity for the pro-lifers to confront their Democratic adversaries.
As 3 o’clock drew near, a stream of taxis pulled up to the curb outside the neoclassical landmark a few blocks from the state Capitol. Democratic women stepped out of their cabs and onto a sidewalk chalked with dozens of anti-abortion slogans. There, they encountered a 25-year-old North Carolinian wearing oversized blue plastic sunglasses that matched the color of her T-shirt and bullhorn.
“Most of you guys are probably against the war,” shouted Kortney Blythe, who grew up in Charlotte. “What about the war on the unborn children? What about the war that kills over 3,000 children every day in our country alone? One-third of those of us who were conceived after Roe v. Wade were violently killed in the name of choice.”
Click here for the rest of the article.
The conventions in pictures
I'll be posting some of my DNC and RNC photos on my Flickr page through these next two weeks. I might also post a few here. Because of the hectic pace here, sometimes the captions will arrive later than the photos. Check back every day or two.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Come All Ye Faithful
By Barry Yeoman
The Independent Weekly / Aug. 25, 2008
The first words I heard when I walked into the theater at the Colorado Convention Center came from the University of Denver's Spirituals Project Choir. Two thousand people had gathered for the first official event of the Democratic National Convention and were greeted with an uptempo promise of Christian salvation: "I'm gonna shout 'til the spirit moves in my heart / I'm gonna shout 'til Jesus comes."
The Sunday afternoon interfaith service was the first of its kind at a Democratic convention. For two hours, delegates and their friends listened to a procession of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist leaders who preached, sang and read from their holy books. "Politics, at the deepest place, is about us as spiritual beings understanding there is a God; this is a created world," said Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who welcomed the guests. "We need to remind the rest of the country that there is absolutely, in our party, a tremendous intersection of faith and politics."
Sharing the podium with Ritter was convention CEO Leah Daughtry, herself a Pentecostal minister from Washington, D.C. "With all due respect to the commentators and my friends in the media," Daughtry proclaimed, "we didn't need to bring faith to the party. Faith is already here." Cheers and amens filled the hall.
For those who believe in the separation of church and state, this might seem like a jarring way to kick off the Democrats' quadrennial assembly. But party leaders have been deliberately trying to snag the religious high ground from the GOP.
Click here for the rest of the article.
The Independent Weekly / Aug. 25, 2008
The first words I heard when I walked into the theater at the Colorado Convention Center came from the University of Denver's Spirituals Project Choir. Two thousand people had gathered for the first official event of the Democratic National Convention and were greeted with an uptempo promise of Christian salvation: "I'm gonna shout 'til the spirit moves in my heart / I'm gonna shout 'til Jesus comes."
The Sunday afternoon interfaith service was the first of its kind at a Democratic convention. For two hours, delegates and their friends listened to a procession of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist leaders who preached, sang and read from their holy books. "Politics, at the deepest place, is about us as spiritual beings understanding there is a God; this is a created world," said Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who welcomed the guests. "We need to remind the rest of the country that there is absolutely, in our party, a tremendous intersection of faith and politics."
Sharing the podium with Ritter was convention CEO Leah Daughtry, herself a Pentecostal minister from Washington, D.C. "With all due respect to the commentators and my friends in the media," Daughtry proclaimed, "we didn't need to bring faith to the party. Faith is already here." Cheers and amens filled the hall.
For those who believe in the separation of church and state, this might seem like a jarring way to kick off the Democrats' quadrennial assembly. But party leaders have been deliberately trying to snag the religious high ground from the GOP.
Click here for the rest of the article.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Welcome to my convention world
This blog will serve as a link to my dispatches from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which I will be covering for The Independent Weekly in Durham, North Carolina. The DNC begins August 25, and the RNC follows a week later, so stay tuned.
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