The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Robin Grantham:

It's true. In Chicago on February 5th, only ticketed people were supposed to be able to get close to Senator Obama. The weather was bad, though, so even though I thought I would have to stand in the spillover area (I didn't have a ticket), I walked straight in and stood twenty feet from the podium. There were no lines by then. A man searched my purse, but no one checked me with a metal detector. The woman in front of me in line ended up center stage behind the podium -- where there were no bulletproof shields.

I thought this was a hush-hush thing done because of the bad weather. Also, the secret servicemen -- and there were a lot of them -- seemed very attentive despite the change in procedure. Several of the people I walked by who were handling the event did seem distraught about the change, however.

In conflict with what Nathaniel @ #10 reports regarding an optimistic interpretation of the thread at DKos, it wasn't true that it was "first come, first serve," as far as getting close to the stage. As I mentioned, you had to have a ticket to get close, but when there were gaps, they filled them in with unchecked latecomers who did not have tickets. I, of course, was thrilled to be one of those latecomers. In retrospect, however, I suppose it would have been safer to fill in the gaps by letting the spillover crowd move down. They had been through security earlier, when they were still wanding everyone.

If you really want to be a conspiracy theorist, consider the implied proposition -- the ones who really love him aren't going to vote for him because they don't want to see him get hurt. Hmm.

Happy New Year! Who could say 'no' tonight?

I have a twelve-year-old. I asked her if she remembered any big news events before 9-11 and she said, "Um, World War II? World War I?"

Yeah, she looks at me funny a lot these days.

After some clarification, she reported that she does not remember anything before 9-11. I'm not sure she really racked her brains out over the question at that point, though.

My earliest big news memory is of the Israeli hostage situation, though for the longest time I thought it must have been the Kennedy assassination I'd made myself watch in order to be a responsible citizen. (I was six at the time.) It was pretty eye-opening when I figured out Kennedy was assassinated before I was born.

I have much stronger memories of my father repairing televisions by cannibalizing old ones. Soldering guns, transistor tubes, a healthy respect for electricity . . . He used to make me hold a mirror in front of the screen so he could see how it was going.

I was also a big Bozo fan. Every morning there was Bozo, right before Captain Kangaroo. Then HR Pufnstuf. Maybe it was The Electric Company. Or Sesame Street. Then I had school or some such before I could get back and watch the three o'clock movie. Good times.

Those are so good, I can't even pick a favorite.

Thanks.

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