Austin Plane Crash Deliberate Attack on IRS

Update 20100219 1044PST: Two bodies taken from crash site; Facebook fan page deleted, reconstituted

Update 20100218 1213PST: Two taken to trauma center; One missing

As I deal with the travel / family consequences of an ER visit in St. Louis, a story is breaking about a plane crash in Austin. On twitter my web host is asking how to get her child to school. In between calling Frontier Airlines, calling Sara, and checking web sites, I see:

(Source: http://twitpic.com/13yxsb)

Then I read this:

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

It appears (as of now -- obviously in any breaking story information is changing rapidly) that Joe Stack took his plane and attacked (link offline at federal request 20100218 1148PST) the IRS with it at 10am local time (8am Pacific).

[20100218 1149PST Update: embeddedart.com link offline -- text of manifesto is still online at news story above, linked just before quote block]

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Weekend Libations

Forbes magazine has a story and accompanying slide show of "America's Hardest Drinking Cities." Leading the pack is Austin, Texas. My home town of Philly doesn't make the top 20. Lots of other cities that you would expect and a few surprises.

Austin ranks high for its drinking habits across the board. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, 61.5% of adult residents say they have had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days, and a staggering 20.6% of respondents confess to binge drinking, or having five or more drinks on one occasion.

With all of this roller coaster politics, the election is sure to drive us all to drink. Bottoms Up!

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Downtown Austin's “Monkey Bars”

(Photos by LowerManhattanite—Austin, July 2008)

Seen in Downtown Austin during Netroots Nation:

I have a habit—sometimes a bad one while dodging a fired-and-liquored-up college crowd on a Friday night—of looking up at signs and architecture of cities I visit. Just sort of noticing things. One thing I noticed was this odd pairing of nightspots—nearer to the corner, there stood Darwin's Pub—“The Sixth Street Evolution”, and a few doors away the chucklingly monikered “Chuggin' Monkey” as shown in the highlighted photo above.

I got a laugh out of the two places' proximity—nearly as big a laugh as I got at the Heath Ledger “Joker” lookalike in full costume colorfully voiding his alcohol-spoiled gut a few feet away from where I stood. The pubs weren't affiliated in any way, but...I just kept thinking to myself that in the interest of equal time, other views should have been represented.

Because you never know when some flat-earther will stumble down the street looking to drown his sorrows and seriously want to hasten that seventh day, to get that “rest”, dontchaknow?

So, with that, I busted out the Photoshop and added in that oh-so-necessary nightspot where getting plastered needn't be a chance thing—and there's no possibility of ever, ever...getting “Ape- Shit Drunk”.



I hear they serve a mean pretzel, too.

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Morning Round Up from Austin

Day 2 dawns, bright and early here at Netroots Nation. With the proper fuel from Jo's coffee next door; here's what's what.

It was a long day yesterday, esp. when factoring in Tokyo jet lag.
Highlights of the day.

1. I have also volunteered to voluteer a few hours a day all week. So I put my time in from 10:30 am yesterday till 1pm working as a volunteer at the Progressive Book Club stall. I met and talked with some fun people there; Dave from Orcinius, the aforementioned Rick Perlstein, and lots of friendly bloggers. I will repeat this performance this morning! But today should be even more interesting as I think there are 3 or 4 author singings during my time at the booth, including Richard Clark I believe.

2. I told you about the Firedoglake Caucus, which was a nice chance to catch up with bloggers who have been very very supportive of the GNB.

3. The big speech! 2000 attendees! including many candidates running for local offices around the country. Darcy Burner was there. Yeah Darcy!

The MC was one of my favorite Laughing Liberally funny men, Baratunde Thurston. He is a comedian, editor of the Oninon, and damn funny fellow. He had the crowd pretty warmed up with Brandon Friedman from VOTEVETS.org came on. Brandon introduced Gen. Wesley Clark. Wes gave a very genuine supportive speech where he spent a lot of time talking about how what we do the the blogosphere was very relevant, and how he was so grateful for the support the bloggers have shown him when he was unfairly characterized by the news media over the last 4 years. He talked a lot about our responsibility to help steer our country and the discourse. He was a stand-up guy and got a standing ovation.

Next was the lead in to Howard, which I must say I missed! Why you ask? Cause Tokyo Terri one of our commenters and fellow travelers who won a Netroots Nation Scholarship here is doing a series of podcast interview (videocast) and we got a call 10 mins before Howard's speech, which told us that if we got our butts upstairs to Gov. Dean's green room we could have a 5 min. interview with the gov!!! LM, Terri and I hauled our asses up there as fast as we could. Missed our window to set up! But, the gov. who is a big Terri fan, promised that if we waited till after he spoke we could do the interview. So we did, and he came back and was fabulous as always. All this means that I will have to let Sara, Jesse, or HS tell you what he said downstairs. But it also means that when Terri starts posting her "Unofficial Netroots Nation" podcast you will be able to see me asking the gov. our 3 questions!



After all the excitement, the event finished up at about 10pm. At which time the fact that I skipped dinner became a real problem. A few of us went out to grab some grub. And then we hung out a bit, and talked to the lobby lounge waiter about movies. LM by the way can do a very very realistic impression of Christopher Walken... I have to admit I will never see him in just the same way again!

Crashed, under the blogger moon.
Now am trying to drag my tired gator bum into the new day.

More soon. Today is filled with very interesting panels and speaker events.

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Austin Dinner, Pre-Netroots @ Lamberts YUM

This morning, my bag and jacket from last night still smell of wonderful wood smoking from dinner at Lamberts. Locally owned and operated-- they used all organic, sustainable, Austin produce. We had spicy deviled eggs, mac and cheese, baked beans, pulled pork, pork ribs and hanger steak. That ginger brew above was great, unusually not just spicy ginger zing but some sweet honey taste too.

Nice service and everything was prepared perfectly and surprisingly served lightening fast. Yes, I like Austin!

This morning, starting out with tea, and breakfast taco's next door to the hotel and a roadside coffee house, Jo's. Wireless working out here, and I talked to the hotel, the tech guy is on the way to fix what ails us.

Off to the opening of Netroots in a wee bit.
More from the convention center, oh and lots of Austin food blogging for sure.

Oh, and at Lambert's there was a peach, raspberry cobbler that will get a post all on it's own, when I can find the words to describe the indescribable.

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You Know You Are a Blogger When...

you find yourself checking in at Netroots Nation and you hear people asking--

"Is it under your real name, or your blogger name?"

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GNB Reading Room; What Are You Reading Now?

I know some of us are still slogging through Nixonland. (a worthy but weighty read) What else are folks reading. AND what is on your TBR pile? (To-be-read)

What do you recommend for a leisurely day on the beach or by the pool (hooshing it up or not as the case may be)?

What do you recommend for my gazillion hour flight next week to Netroots Nation?

What do you recommend to view this year's election in an historical perspective?

also- Anything we should avoid? Read any disappointments lately that are a "can/should be passed by?"

P.S. those going to Austin, I went to a good bookstore there when I was last in town, BOOKPEOPLE. I''ll be stopping in there for sure again next week.

P.P.S anyone from the area? I hear there are great used bookstores too-- any recommendations complete with addresses please?

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See You in Austin for the Netroots Nation Convention!

Nice Video from last year (I was there though I didn't make it any of these scenes-- I am complaining to my gator-agent now.) Who is going this year? The GNB team will be there in force, and we are looking forward to meeting, greeting, learning, speaking, and drinking liberally with all of you! NETROOTS NATION CONVENTION-- was YearlyKos, 7/17-7/20 in Austin Texas. Find out all about it here. We have to try to get over Stubbs while we are in town!

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