REPLAY - MESSING AROUND IN THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM

REPLAY - You wake up and it is August of 1960 and your memory is intact. Somehow you've been given a second chance to make the World a better place. Fascinated by this particular plot device, I've been writing my own version taking Jackson Browne's notion that "It might be easier sometimes to change the past" to it's ultimate end.
It's not as easy as you might think to try to recall past events and figure out how to thwart evil. The memory of recent events starts to fail as time goes by. Waking up in your own 14 or 15 year old body knowing what you know about the future you are about to relive as past offers some interesting challenges and a faulty memory is paramount among them.
The Jacket, the Butterfly Effect, Deja Vu, Premonition, The Time Machine, 12 Monkeys, Ground Day, The philadelphia Experiment, Time Bandits, Next, Frequency, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future, 12:01, The Grand Tour, and not one gives us the pleasure of imagining a better world. Isn't that a paradox? (pun intended)
Let's propose that you're limited in what you can do below the fold - if you dare to pursue this dream and offer your own imaginings of how to change the past to make this the better future you think could be.

So which 5 American's would you eliminate by exposure if you could use your powers of prediction to keep someone from committing heinous crimes or seizing power? Stop Ted Bundy and Tim McVeigh or can you recall the places and dates where Ted and Tim did their evil deeds? You can save the World Trade Center - since you can surely recall 9/11. Show up on Bundy Drive on June 12, 1994 to see who is wearing that ill-fitting glove? Or do you figure out how to stop Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling along with Bernie Madoff? What day would you have to show up at Columbine High? When would you keep the cars off the Cedar Street Viaduct in Oakland?
Suppose you have three saves to make. Who do you choose? Can you convince JFK to eliminate J Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles, stop the Bay of Pigs invasion, and put a crack team on the trail of Lee Harvey Oswald along with every other possible element suspected of being involved in Dallas in Nov of 63? Can you keep Bobby out of the kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel? Surely you would track James Earl Ray in early April of 1968 or David Chapman in December of 1980.
Money won't be a problem if you can remember well. A sports trivia addict would do well at this.
You can bet a bundle on Pirates, Yankees, Yankees, Pirates, Pirates, Yankees, Pirates in October of 1960, bet the Dodgers 4 game sweep in 1963, the Amazin Mets in 69 and remember to bet heavily on Shurluck in the Preakness in 61 for a $65.00 payoff. You can take those winnings and buy Xerox stock for a few years before handing your investments over to Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway until August of 1987 when you short stocks until the Black Monday Crash in October is over. While your at it discover Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and the Stones along with Stephen King, John Grisham and J.K. Rowling. Then join forces Bill Gates and Steve Jobs along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Money and the power to seriously influence the world won't be a problem.

So which 5 people would you eliminate and which 3 would you save and what financial moves would you make to give you the power to improve our collective fate?

Saving JFK would have a profound effect on some of those I would choose to eliminate from their positions of power so keep that in mind when you consider your list.
Here's my elimination list:
1) George Herbert Walker Bush and by doing so get two birds with one stone since W would never make it without Poppy. A few reels of film at a DKE party gone horribly awry at Yale in 67 should do the trick. White powder in a big pile, some barnyard animals, and Rohypnol should do the trick. Without Reagan George H. W. Bush doesn't make it to the White House and neither does his son.
2) Ronald Reagan - If the Iranian Hostage crisis is eliminated we can avoid the Reagan Presidency and trickle down economics. With two JFK terms followed by LBJ then RFK and Gore there will be no chance for Reagan. No war in Vietnam and a less violent reaction to the counter culture can keep him out of the California governorship. Amplifying his close ties to McCarthy and the blacklists should help with that.
3) Richard Cheney - I know if Bush and Reagan never get to the White House there will never be a VP Cheney but Cheney gets terminated with extreme prejudice in some horribly embarrassing way because he truly deserves it. Illegal substances in his car when he's busted DUI in Wyoming in the 60's should do it.
4) A large package of Oxycontin makes it's way to Rush Limbaugh and we will let gluttony take it's course. Who knew those 50mg tablets were mislabeled as 5mg. Rush ends up in an emergency room and rehab after the overdose with enough on hand to insure his prosecution for intent to distribute.
5) Rupert Murdoch - the atrocious Aussie and his Newscorp may have done more mass destruction than any entity in history. With enough capital gained from bets and investments there is more than enough to wreck his takeover plans and keep him harmlessly in Perth. (Rupert becomes an American and that qualifies him for this list)

And 3 to save:
Saving JFK while uncovering the conspiracy would stop Vietnam, the Nixon Presidency, RFK's assassination, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis if it's done right. With W out of the picture we would get to see that Gore Presidency we deserved and a concerted effort to address the climate crisis.
Saving Martin is the other imperative and it would be nice to keep Teddy off that bridge at Chappaquiddick while saving Mary Jo or to keep Paul Wellstone off that plane, or Patsy Cline or Malcolm X or Jimi, Janis, Duane, or John or to save Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, and John Edwards from themselves? I'm going with JFK, RFK, and MLK.

Is Heaven a world of your own making where your imagination is the only limitation - a version of "What Dreams May Come"?


















What a wonderful world it might be with a few adjustment by my own private army of the 12 Monkeys.


















Given the opportunity what adjustments would you make?
Who would you stop and who would you save to make the USA and the World a better place? Or perhaps you may just want to comment on your favorite time travel movies.


























NOTE: REPLAY by Ken Grimwood was published in 1987 and I've been fascinated by the idea and the movies that have been made using the theme. It has always bothered me that Denzel in Deja Vu seems to be one of the few protagonists with success in eliminating an evil deed along with 12:01 and The Grand Tour.

It seems to me that one could not simply eliminate Lee Harvey Oswald and save JFK. It would require proving to the Kennedy brothers and their close advisers the ability to know the one known future/past while convincing them to have Lee Harvey Oswald, E. Howard Hunt and the Operation 40 team, Clay Shaw, and Jack Ruby closely monitored to ferret out their contacts and connections. JFK should have stopped the Bay of Pigs invasion before it began and we should have known about the missiles in Cuba months in advance of the 13 days. J. Edgar Hoover should have been removed from office along with Allen Dulles in the first weeks of 1961. In REPLAY the protagonist is successful in eliminating Lee Harvey Oswald but that does not save JFK.

The Wingnut would suggest that these changes in our history would have us enslaved by the USSR or the victims of a nuclear holocaust brought on by weakness and appeasement. What do you think?

I will save the next DailyKOS diary for choosing people outside the USA for elimination from power or saving.

DOOMED TO REPEAT - THOUGHTS ON FROST/NIXON

Now that Frost/Nixon is available on DVD or On Demand more of us have had the opportunity to see and respond to the Ron Howard film. I have re-read the relatively unflattering reviews here on Daily Kos by AdamB and chingchongchinaman and the even less flattering comments to both diaries. But over the past 48 hours I've viewed the DVD and the special features completely twice and parts more often. In addition I've had the computer by my side consulting the YouTube interviews and additional historical references, so I am not limited to a memory from a single viewing in a theater. So let's discuss this again in relation to what is current - prosecution of the Bush administration for torture and lying to the American people.

At 63 years of age I have a complete perspective of the Nixon years. I watched every minute of the Watergate hearings after leaving the USA for Canada on the eve of Nixon's re-election in 1972. I worked hard for George McGovern and decided I should not live in a country that would elect Nixon for a second term. At 26 years of age in 1972 I was passionate about politics and very involved in raising money for Jimmy Carter so I could feel good about returning home in 1975.
As a starting point in this discussion I offer these quotes from George Santayana who is responsible for the "Doomed to Repeat" title reference

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

* This famous statement has produced many paraphrases and variants:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory. It might almost be said to be no science at all, if memory and faith in memory were not what science necessarily rest on. In order to sift evidence we must rely on some witness, and we must trust experience before we proceed to expand it. The line between what is known scientifically and what has to be assumed in order to support knowledge is impossible to draw. Memory itself is an internal rumour; and when to this hearsay within the mind we add the falsified echoes that reach us from others, we have but a shifting and unseizable basis to build upon. The picture we frame of the past changes continually and grows every day less similar to the original experience which it purports to describe. George Santayana

I find these thoughts to be agreeable, and it is in that agreement where I wish to engage debate about the film Frost/Nixon as a distillation of one view of the history for the purpose of compelling drama. Is that really such a problem?
We cannot expect any kind of a majority of American's to dig deeply into the specific history of Frost/Nixon or Watergate or the Nixon Presidency. I feel that Frost/Nixon is wonderful tool for teaching a simple truth. Nixon's statement "When a President does it it isn't illegal" seems to me to be a good place to start a conversation about what made the Bush/Cheney administration so wrong and why prosecution on any part of their crimes is preferable to the alternative.
You may find this article from TIME published shortly after the airing of the Frost/Nixon interviews illuminating. I cannot find anything is the article read shortly after viewing the film on DVD that dissuades me from the view that the film is of great value as a starting point to interest more people in prosecution. If Nixon's lawlessness and his escape from legal responsibility led to Bush/Cheney, should we not learn that allowing them to escape will only lead to more illegal activity in the future?
Perhaps the most interesting perspective comes from James Reston Jr. who was deeply involved in the interviews and passionate about prosecuting Nixon for his crimes. Reston says of the play and the film:

In a New York Times article published this past November, Morgan (Peter Morgan, the acclaimed British screenwriter (The Queen), who wrote the play) was unabashed about distorting facts. "Whose facts?" he told the Times reporter. Hearing different versions of the same events, he said, had taught him "what a complete farce history is."
I emphatically disagreed. No legitimate historian can accept history as a creation in which fact and fiction are equals. Years later participants in historical events may not agree on "a single, 'true' version of what happened," but it's the historian's responsibility to sort out who is telling the truth and who is covering up or merely forgetful.
But this was not my play. I was merely a resource; my role was narrow and peripheral. Frost/Nixon—both the play and the movie—transcends history. Perhaps it is not even history at all: in Hollywood, the prevailing view is that a "history lesson" is the kiss of commercial death. In reaching for an international audience, one that includes millions unversed in recent American history, Morgan and Ron Howard, the film's director, make the history virtually irrelevant.
In the end it is not about Nixon or Watergate at all. It's about human behavior, and it rises upon such tran­scendent themes as guilt and innocence, resistance and enlightenment, confession and redemption. These are themes that straight history can rarely crystallize. In the presence of the playwright's achievement, the historian—or a participant—can only stand in the wings and applaud.

If Reston can have this perspective who are we to disagree with his applause? If he can view the play and film as being about guilt and innocence is that enough to make it useful in bringing others to view prosecution as an impediment to future wrongdoing instead of some dwelling on the past? If President Obama wants to look forward can he not look forward to a future where leaders know they will be prosecuted if they break the law?
I feel the article in Time and Reston's point of view are ample evidence that the film and play constitute a reasonable distillation of the event more than suitable for inspiring large numbers of people to think positively about prosecution of Bush administration officials for their criminal activity.
It seems to me the negativity about the Frost/Nixon project is counterproductive to the goal of encouraging American's to support the prosecution of wrong doing at the pinnacles of power. We watched the Republicans prosecute Bill Clinton for being less than candid about a sexual encounter and now we are seeing a lack of united resolve on the part of the current leadership to go after Bush/Cheney for criminal activity that has cost the lives of thousands of American's and many more Iraqi citizens.
If the thousands who read Daily Kos were to actively rent/buy and show this Frost/Nixon DVD to their friends and families with the intent to engage them on the idea of demanding prosecution of criminal activity by the Bush/Cheney administration perhaps we could put an end to this kind of criminal activity in high office for a longer time span then 25 to 30 years(1977 to 2002-7)that passed between the Frost/Nixon interviews and the crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration. Perhaps the Santayana quote that has been distorted to give us the idea 'those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it' combined with the slightly distorted history of Frost/Nixon may help lead to a majority of American's demanding accountability through prosecution of these Republican's who believe they are above the law because they hold high office.
If you know of a more compelling piece of contemporary art that has the capacity to inspire action please let me know. If not please give your recommendations if you agree that Frost/Nixon is worth seeing and promoting as a tool to get others to encourage prosecution to stop the cycle of abuse of power. Go rent or buy Frost/Nixon and think about it in these terms as a part of the experience. It is a brilliant reminder of a not too distant past that is relevant to the central discussion today involving prosecution of high officials for breaking the law.

MAD HATTER'S FAIL IN DISMAL TURNOUT

Compare the Crowds

1 Tea-Bagging tax protesters who just got tax cuts in St Louis













vs Obama supporters at his campaign speech last fall prior to the election









Pictures tell the story don't they

THREE EVILS AND SEVEN DEADLY SINS
BUT HOPE AND CHANGE ARE WHAT WILL WIN

I beg your pardon for what may seem a sacrilidge - using the iconic OBAMICONical poster art to illustrate the opposite of HOPE and CHANGE

The selected individuals below personify a diametrical opposition to the HOPE and CHANGE promised by our present leadership. No matter how one may dress them up in effective poster art it cannot hide their true nature.



Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity

Oh VANITY - LIEberman has it down pat. Unable to follow the will of his party he splits the vote and gains re-election as an Independent. Despite demanding power as a committee chairman from the Democrats, he openly opposed the nominee of the party.

You're so vain Joe, you probably think they will name the LIEberman LASER airplane after you,
Quite appropriate really - a heavier than air flying light show that costs billions but serves no purpose.


Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Such an obvious choice for the obvious reasons. Steele covets what Obama has so bad it has driven him completely mad. Since he can't be Obama he will do anything he can to destroy Obama



Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

The thirst and hunger for power and money is perfectly manifest in this bloated gasbag.
Rush Limbaugh - the personification of the raging consumption of the Republican Party as the ravenous gargantuan evil beast that wanted everything so badly they almost destroyed America to get it.


Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

The raging desire for attention and affection adorned in a fortune of Needless Markup and Sacs of clothes and jewelry this former beauty queen is the centerfold of the Republican's public persona. Miss Wasilla in camoflage shooting wildlife from airplanes as the polar bears drown. Covered in sensual oil she brings out the Frank T.J Mackey in every self-loathing sexually repressed Republican.


Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Glenn Beck pollutes the airwaves with such vitrolic venom he has provoked a plethora of crimes of violence as his acolytes take up their firearms and blast away until at last the guns are pried from their cold dead hands.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Cheney's Haliburton has stolen far more loot than Enron and none went to jail or lost their fortune. The personification of evil that hides from the light in an undisclosed location even removed his residence from Google Earth. His bunkers rival those of Saddam Hussein as shown in Three Kings. Cheney is swimming in ill gotten gains lifted from the US Treasury. With Dick it was and is always about the money.
Has anyone actually done a visual check on the gold in Fort Knox and the other depositories?
Don't be surprised if it is gone - replaced with gold painted brick and. Darth Cheney had it buried in his complex of bunkers built by men who were buried with the secret. Now he alone knows the location and has the key.

It is easy to imagine Darth Cheney uttering these words from TRUE ROMANCE spoken by Christopher Walken as Vincent Carcotti to Dennis Hopper's Clifford Worley: "I'm the Anti-Christ. You got me in a vendetta kind of mood. You tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you."

No one in the history of American politics has personified GREED and EVIL like the torturer of Wyoming.



Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Karl Rove has avoided doing any of the heavy lifting in any physical or spiritual way. Rove was the Grima Wormtongue to a braindead and soul-less King George and his imperial court.. Karl wormed his way to wealth and power with his tongue in the ear of others. He told them only what they wanted to hear and how to lie effectively to get everything they desired.


THE THREE EVIL THINGS IN NIETZSCHE'S THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA were
VOLUPTUOUSNESS, PASSION FOR POWER, and SELFISHNESS: "these three things have hitherto been best cursed, and have been in worst and falsest repute." said he as he made the case that they were not evil

I can manufacture no such excuse for these three evils - an Axis of Evil if you will



Ann Coulter HATES like no other. Her vitrolic screeds scream TREASON and SLANDER using lies and distortions to raise the ire of her readers. Coulter is such a HATE monger the mere mention of her name is nauseating to people with a conscience.


"The Horror,The Horror" - Col Walter E. Kurtz. Apocalypse Now
Michelle Malkin preaches apocalyptic politics on par with Ann Coulter
The RUDE PUNDIT has so aptly describe the HORROR of MICHELLE MALKIN I suggest that you take the time to READ IT NOW Why Michelle Malkin Ought to Be Caged Like a Rabid Shih-Tzu (Rank Hypocrisy Edition):

.

Bill O'Reilly is a TERRORIST and FAUX NEWS is his weapon of mass deception. No words are required - his reputation is already made.

These deadly sinners have laid waste to America that once was and contributed in large measure to the misery we now endure. It's enough to make a moderate compassionate American long for Kevin Spacey as John Doe in SE7EN

The good news is that this evil has failed while HOPE and CHANGE prevailed

Can we stop them - YES WE CAN

Thanks for the memories, but you were all completely "Irrelevant" during the historic victory that Barack Obama achieved during 2008 Presidential election. All your smears failed to change the course of history.

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

"Irrelevant"

NORTH CAROLINA GOTV HALLOWEEN TRIP
after a month in Boulder Colorado (see the pictures below) I still had not had enough so I headed over to Asheville NC from Knoxville on Thursday to work with the Obama effort in Western NC

Saturday was a truly enjoyable day at Swannanoa GOTV headquarters

This is Whitemont Lodge in Swannanoa
It was a beautiful day in the mountains and you see the volunteers phone banking from the terrace



Our host and hostess were Nancy(in red) and Thad (on the right) who provided this unique and beautiful place as the staging area for the 50 Volunteers who spread out across the area canvassing for votes or used their cell phones to phone prospective voters


There was no mistake that this is OBAMA for PRESIDENT headquarters in Swannanoa








This was the corner reserved for the data entry people where I spent most of the day registering the information gathered by the phone and canvassing people in the Vote Builder data base


Even the Smokey Mountain Black Bears are firmly in the Obama camp


Dolly and her partner kept a keen eye on the proceedings from the terrace


As the sun set over the Smokey Mountains to the West it had the feel of the sun setting on the Republican control of the executive in the USA



The Asheville Obama Headquarters was a beehive of activity on Halloween




If Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, and New Mexico are anywhere near as active and organized as the effort here in North Carolina and the effort in Colorado I cannot see how Obama can lose this election. I am optimistic that a similar effort in Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Georgia, and even Arizona could make this a landslide of amazing results on Tuesday.

Nobody is taking anything for granted. Every effort possible is being made to register every last vote for the Obama Biden campaign here in Western NC and I have to believe that is being duplicated across the battleground states.

If you haven't volunteered in your area or a nearby swing state I strongly urge you to GO NOW and help this amazing effort. There are some wonderful people out there doing everything they can to insure a brighter future for all of us

BOULDER VOLUNTEERS - YES WE CAN
and have made a difference

I have described in previous diaries the decision and actual trip to Colorado to work for Change
COLORADO VOLUNTEER - my swing state action
TRIPPIN FOR OBAMA - XCountry Photo Diary
XCountry part 2
Michelle takes Boulder - Photos for Michelle Fans
and
VOLUNTEERS - Change for Colorado

Today is day 23 of my Swing State Safari and I have been promoted to
Tennessee Volunteer Dude in charge of Vote Builder Data

First a little Colorado EYE CANDY



Here's the scene at the Pearl Street office for CHANGE today at 3pm

This isn't unusual or special - it's been like this every day I've been in town for 3/4 weeks. There is a constant turnover of Volunteers who come in off the street. From 20 to 40 people at a time man the computers and the phone banks

Some of the veterans train the new Volunteers


The Phones are in use constantly


I was just promoted to Dude in Charge of Data Entry (seen here being congratulated by Barack)




We have some very artistic pumpkin carvers at work today




These shots will give you a feel for the level of activity
The sound is a constant murmur of phone conversations













Given how beautiful it is outside in Colorado, the level of dedication by the 100's of Volunteers is truly amazing.
Here are the Maroon Bells just outside of Aspen

I once spent 3 days at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen where Hunter Thompson held court in the hotel bar each night

Too bad Hunter isn't around to enjoy the present campaign - we can only guess how he would have handled Sarah Palin.

Meanwhile enjoy some of the brilliant gold from the world's largest single living organism - The Aspen







Everything is truly coming up GOLDEN in Colorado where Barack Obama has taken a commanding lead thanks to the many VOLUNTEERS


Even the Mule Deer respond positively to the mention of his name.

VOLUNTEERS - CHANGE FOR COLORADO


Boulder Colorado is a wonderful place to Volunteer and work for CHANGE.

I have described in previous diaries the decision and actual trip to Colorado to work for Change
COLORADO VOLUNTEER - my swing state action
TRIPPIN FOR OBAMA - XCountry Photo Diary
XCountry part 2
and
Michelle takes Boulder - Photos for Michelle Fans

Now 11 days into the trip I want to share the actual experience for those of you who might be thinking about traveling to VOLUNTEER to make certain that this guy

is the next PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
The BOULDER COLORADO office is nothing fancy

but it is a large space that once housed a food co-op. Lots of mismatched chairs, tables and desks with phones and computers and 100's of VOLUNTEERS





The Boulder office is a beehive of activity from 9am til 9pm each weekday as dozens of VOLUNTEERS rotate through the office making telephone calls, doing data entry on the computers, registering voters, and planning canvassing runs. We call other VOLUNTEERS to make up teams for events like Michelle's speech at CU this week or a sign making party for the event.

Every new registration to vote is taken to the county clerk and a copy is entered into the permanent database. Every attendee at an event like Michelle's speech is entered into the data base as is every canvassing report

Boulder County is averaging 1000's of new registrations a week. Add to that the 9000 who attended the Michelle Obama rally at CU, the phone contact data of dozens of phone bankers, and the data gathered by the door to door canvassers, and you get an idea of how much information gets entered into the VoteBuilder data base.


Most of the VOLUNTEERS bring in their own laptops for doing the data entry and we are building a permanent voter database that will serve the Democratic Party for years to come.

Now I'm not going to get more specific than that about the operation and these are things anyone who enters the office and offers to work will know.

The wonderful thing about the Boulder operation are the people. Sure there are many college students this being a college town but there are people who came here from across the country like I did
Like Kathy and Bob from Berkeley

or Judd from New York

or Jenna who was on her way to Stanford from New Jersey but decided to stay in Boulder and delay her education for a semester.
Or Deanna from Idaho or Holly from Cambridge.

Some local folks bring in cakes, cookies, pies, and lots of snacks. Some offer rooms in their homes for out of state Volunteers.

Now I know this isn't possible for everyone but if you are in a position to spend some time in a battleground state don't let this opportunity pass you by. Not only will you be working to save our country from the ravages of Republicans but you will make new friends and be a part of a great victory. I hope this diary give you a little push toward spending a little time crossing a state line to work in Ohio, Pa, North Carolina, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia, or another state where Barack has a good chance to win with extra effort.

You might just meet a guy like my new friend Joe

Joe took many of these pictures of Barack, Michelle, and the DNC final night at Invesco Field. I will leave you with them and the hope that you will feel inspired to take a little trip and VOLUNTEER.

This VOLUNTEER from TENNESSEE made it to Boulder to VOLUNTEER for the CAMPAIGN FOR CHANGE - OBAMA, UDALL, POLIS, & MARKEY

I've made a few 100 calls, canvassed, and entered lots of new voter registration data down at the Boulder office but today was a real treat

Michelle came to the CU COLORADO UNIVERSITY CAMPUS and spoke this morning


and I got lots of Great Pictures - follow me below
This was the scene at FARRAND FIELD at 8am this morning when I arrived

The FLATIRONS make a great backdrop

There were about 100 VOLUNTEERS divided into teams for different tasks


I got to be on the best team - VIP check in with Holly from Cambridge, Bob and Kathy from Berkeley,and Matt. Lots of us came from out of state to help.


The crowd started to gather early and were entertained by Meniscus - I hope I spelled that right.


I got to meet Jared Polis who is running for Congress to replace Mark Udall


Jared got the crowd fired up and ready to go


He was followed by Maggie Foxx Udall the wife of Senate Candidate Mark Udall



Former Pro receiver Rod Smith fired up the Bronco's fans


A CU sophomore active in the campus campaign introduced Michelle

TRIPPIN 4 OBAMA - XCOUNTRY PART 2

Yesterday's Photo Diary Part 1 covering Tennessee, Kentucky and into Missouri found at this link is continued from Camdenton MO to Oakley Kansas.

This is all supposed to be Republican territory in the rural hills and lakes of the Ozarks but there is ZERO evidence of McCain support. Not a single McCain sign or bumper sticker in 500 miles today. Picturss from Wednesday's journey below the fold.

Today's drive was continued on 2 lane roads across Lake Ozark

and Lake Harry S. Truman

through Tightwad Missouri a town of 63

with the perfect bank name given the current banking situation

In Tightwad I found the first campaign sign of the day

A PERFECT sign of the times for all Tightwads don't you think?

Fun with the GPS

This is my first cross country trip with a GPS and it turns out that using "shortest distance" to find a route between small towns off the beaten path can be quite an adventure

Between Harrisonville MO and Freeman MO on the Kansas state line the GPS put me on a very narrow gravel path

over this bridge

it was the shortest route but not one I would have found using a AAA map. Without the GPS I would have missed the best mailbox and Obama sign combination of the trip so far

The "Don't Worry About the Dog, Beware of the WIFE" Dog mailbox was on the gravel GPS suggested shortest route.
I doubt many people get to see that mailbox and Obama sign but it proves that at least one Democratic wife in rural Missouri supports Obama and has a sense of humor.

The road less traveled across Kansas took me through Council Grove where these sculptures

graced the hill outside of town


where at least one Obama supporter live


Today I saw a half dozen Obama signs and ZERO signs for McCain in Kansas or Missouri. Once again no bumper stickers for either candidate.

At Salina I took my first Interstate miles past the boyhood home of Bob Dole and Arlen Spector in Russell KS. Just past there I saw my first wind farm of the trip


As night fell a massive storm system bore down on Kansas from the Rockies in the west and marble sized hail brought me to a halt in Oakley KS. The lightning show was spectacular but I'm glad to be off the road and inside tonight.

Tomorrow I reach Colorado and the Obama campaign.

I was happy to see a comment in my first Trippin for Obama diary from Jared Polis. He or someone in his campaign reads DailyKOS and he was kind enough to comment there and I want to thank him for that.

I've traveled over 1200 miles thus far and I'm anxious to see the Rockies and get to work for Obama Biden and the Democrats in Colorado.

My next photo diary should be filled with pictures of campaign work in Colorado. In the meantime

YES WE CAN.

Thanks for all the good wishes