Fresh Loaf

Edward McNally is a guest blogger for CL and is blogging about his experiences as a runner for the press at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The past 48 hours are a blur of faces, sounds, sights and physical extremes.

The Democratic National Convention may attract the strangest, widest mix of celebrities from the worlds of film, TV, sports, books, art, news media, underground protest movements and, perhaps the strangest entertainment form of all, politics.

Getting the obligatory name dropping out of the way, I’ve seen, run into, greeted or chatted with: Hillary, Ted & Caroline Kennedy, Sean Penn, Hilary Duff (chatting together at The Brown Palace Hotel, believe it or not), Kal Penn, Richard Wright, Lou Gossett, Jr, Spike Lee, Jacob Dylan, Cyndie Lauper, George McGovern, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, Gloria Borger, Mark Shields, Tom Freidman, Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Lewis, Mayor Franklin, and Rev. Joseph Lowery….”to name a few.”

Sen. Reid wouldn’t stop shaking my hand as he vowed to help Jim Martin beat Saxby Chambliss in the GA Senate race. “We’re gonna send him money and get Chambliss back for what he did to my friend!” Reid declared, looking me straight in the eye. By friend, I assumed he meant Max Cleland, whom the GOP smeared in 2002 by running ads showing Osama Bin Laden, to make the claim that Max was soft on terrorism.

I can tell you that the Denver Police Department is absolutely NOT soft on terrorism — or groups of 20-somethings in jeans and T-shirts standing together on the street without DNC credentials. The shock troops here are in full all-black riot gear from helmeted head to steel-footed toe. (more…)

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This is a Soapbox submission by a guest blogger.

Trouble in Paradise

By Hannah Palmer

When ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came to Stumptown, I was just as excited as everyone else at the office. The project site was one block from my high school, on a street where I had trick-or-treated, babysat and toilet-papered houses. Ahyoka Drive was one of the nicest streets in a low income neighborhood, which, by 2005, wasn’t saying much.

During the shoot, I cruised by to get a glimpse of the action. It was winter and through the naked trees I could see the construction zone, surrounded by cranes and lit up like a movie set. People with bullhorns and Starbucks were moving about purposefully. People from LA!

I even tuned in to the Sunday night broadcast to get a look at the interior, “meet” the family and share in the community-wide freakout. And I’ve cruised by a few times since the “dream house” was finished and the cameras cleared out. With its turrets and archways and copper gutters, the place looks like nothing else in Clayton County. It inspires gawking.

So now Lake City’s “Extreme Makeover” home is making the news again. I saw the headlines and thought, great. One more embarrassing story to put Stumptown in the national news. I was worried by the grouchy remarks of Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt who said, “It’s aggravating. You do that much work, and they just squander it.”

He’s “aggravated.” The Harper family is losing their home. I thought a touch more compassion would be appropriate. And what did he think would happen? That they would live happily ever after? (more…)

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