Anyway, here are some random thoughts about some of the speakers I have been able to see over the last two days:

Robert Kennedy Jr.: I popped home for a "minute" at lunchtime on Wednesday and I turned on CSPAN. Bobby Kennedy Jr. gave the greatest speech! Being Bobby, he focused mainly on the environment, and since that is one of my major areas of concern, I was overwhelmingly pleased with his fabulous speech.

He didn't seem to feel the need to play nice and do no Bush-bashing either.

Hee. :)

Too bad there were about, oh, 20 people in the audience and nobody is going to see his speech on t.v. unless they just happened to luck out and run home for lunch, as I did.

I think Bobby knew it, too. He totally rushed through his speech (well, his voice was giving out, so that may have been an additional reason why) and when he was done he just said "thank you" really quick and practically ran away from the freakin podium...

It was kind of weird, actually...but a great speech, nonetheless. He made me late returning to work, but it was totally worth it.

By the way...those of you who never read his article Crimes Against Nature need to do so and you can find it here. Even if you are not necessarily an environmentalist � read it. You may become one, afterward.

An excerpt from his convention speech:

Five years ago, if you asked experts what they thought was the gravest threat to our environment, they�d mention a whole range of issues, from over-population to global warming, to toxins in our food and air. But today, they�ll give you just one answer: It�s George W. Bush. . .

This administration has promoted 400 major rollbacks that threaten to eviscerate 30 years of environmental progress. They�ve put polluters in charge of the very agencies that are supposed to regulate them. The second in command of the EPA is a former Monsanto lobbyist. The second in command of the Forest Service is a former timber industry lobbyist.

This administration says that we have to choose between environmental protection on one hand and economic prosperity on the other. But that is a false choice. Good environmental policy and good economic policy are identical. If we treat this earth as a business, converting our natural resources to cash as fast as possible, we might have a few years of pollution-based prosperity. But our children would have to pay for it - pay for it with a barren landscape, poor health, and astronomical clean up costs.

Environmental injury is deficit spending � putting the cost of our generation�s prosperity on the backs of our children. This entire Administration is about deficit spending. They�ve squandered a $5 trillion surplus. And they�ve squandered the goodwill of the world. . .

John Kerry understands that we�ve got to protect our environment not just for the sake of the fishes and the birds, but for our own sake. John Kerry understands that we�ve got to protect our environment because it enriches us � not just economically, but historically, recreationally, culturally and spiritually.

When we destroy nature, we diminish ourselves. John Kerry understands that.

Dennis Kucinich: Well...the little dude FUCKING ROCKED! Since he gave his speech at about 4:00 my time, I had to watch it on the repeats*. Barbara, however, caught it the first time �round and she called me shortly thereafter saying that both she and Arnett loved him (and Barbara had never liked him before). He sure was full of passion (not that I am surprised by that � the man could light a small state just breathing).

Dennis is so good when he's not all desperate to fit twenty minutes worth of points into two minutes of allotted time at a debate. Yes, he has lofty ideals�but when did that become a bad thing anyway?

Although I must admit that visions of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz kept popping in to my head when he was going off on the "courage..." portion of this speech.

In our National Anthem, when Francis Scott Key asked �does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o�er the land of the free and the home of the brave?� He connected freedom and bravery, democracy and courage. Courage America! Courage to replace an administration which has dishonored our constitution and attacked our Bill of Rights. Courage to reject doctrines which separate us from the world. Courage to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons, land mines and small arms. Courage to work with the International Criminal Court, to reduce global warming and face seriously the challenge of climate change. Courage America. Courage to take principles of nonviolence and make them part of the everyday life of our nation, to work with the nations of the world to put an end to war. Courage America�to create a nation where our government achieves legitimacy not from the money it spends on arms, but from the resources it channels into education, health care, job creation, housing, environmental protection and new sustainable energy policies. Courage to give John Kerry the chance to restart the 21st century. Courage America. Courage to shake off the administration�s deceptions, their attacks, and their fear-mongering. Courage America.

It was great, really � I�m just a goofball.

His speech (full transcript may be found here), touched on the major themes of his campaign, while still showing total unity with Kerry, the party and its stated platform, which was completely admirable. And he fired people up � the audience seemed to love him almost as much as I did.

*Side note about the repeats on CSPAN (a network, by the way, on which one should always watch anything at all politically-related, since you get the information simply and on its own - without the stupid commentary by seemingly under-educated newscasters. Making up your own mind about things is generally a good thing): I was getting kind of irritated when I was waiting for them to replay Dennis Kucinich and they just kept showing that stupid State's Roll Call. Jeez...how long can those stinkin' state introductions get? And like there is ANY suspense about who is going to get the nomination?! Couldn't we just have skipped all that hooey and repeated my man's speech so I could shower and get to bed at a reasonable hour?

So while that was going on, I switched channels and watched Amish in the City. It's a new reality show about these Amish kids (like 18-24) who come to live in Los Angeles for a while, with a house full of "city kids". You wanna hear something funny? That show made me cry! The kids all go to the beach, you see, and these Amish people have never seen the beach before. So they just got the biggest kick out of it and one of the girls started crying.

So of course, I did too.

I think this show could be a very cool thing if they handled it well - just two cultures learning about each other. Plus, this is a time in the Amish kids life where, traditionally, they are supposed to go out in to the "real world" and decide if they want to go home and live with the Amish for the rest of their lives or not. So there could be some major decision-making going on there, ya know? But of course the "city kids" they put in the house with them are complete idiots who have been very rude, condescending and down right bigoted at times.

What is UP with that guy Randy�s voice, though? He has a totally rockin� bod and is rather nice looking all around, but then he makes the mistake of opening his mouth and any attraction I may have felt for him completely vanishes.

Al Sharpton: I liked the speech, but I thought it took him a while to get going. At first, he was really lacking his usual fire. As I�m sure you�ve all heard by now, he eventually went off-script, expanded his allotted six minutes to twenty and that's when he started doing well and getting everyone all riled up.

Still � I didn�t think it was really that big deal of a speech. I don�t know why people talked about it so much.

And the kicker for Wed. evening, of course, was John Edwards:

I think the message I left on Barbara�s answering machine after he was finished should tell you all what I thought:

�I just listened to John Edwards� speech and I think I�m slipping in to a sugar coma.�

It was a bit much for me. Well, really it was probably just the last couple of minutes where I just thought, "Oh Good Lord - why don't we pour on the schmaltz already?" It's not that I didn't like the speech and I still like him as much as I did before - I just thought the speech was a bit of overkill in the Clean-Faced, Boyish Optimism department.

I missed almost all of last night�s speeches and didn�t catch the repeats because I fell asleep before 11:00 for once (I even missed who won the Celebtrity Poker Showdown!), but I did see John Kerry�s speech.

It was good. It was certainly much better than any I�d ever seen him give before and that�s some good timing for ya.

I like the emphasis the campaign is putting on optimism. I like the way they are making their points about Bush and company without resorting to name-calling and truth-stretching - they aren�t even making any of it personal. It�s all about �policy� not about Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and whomever.

Sure, it�s a calculated move, but I like it. There are few things more nauseating to me than nasty campaigning. Just talk about the facts, the candidates history in a real way, and trust us to have the brains to vote according to how those facts and histories coincide with our individual beliefs and concerns.

Duh!

Of course, I doubt we�ll get such a nastiness-reprieve from the GOP.

Anyway, Kerry made me feel good about the fact that he is now our nominee, even though there were maybe two Democrats who were lower on my list of preferences when this game began a year ago. I have never much liked John Kerry, in fact, aside from what I know of his work on environmental issues. I like him more now.

So I guess they got what they wanted, at least in my apartment. I may even break down and put a Kerry/Edwards sticker on my car.

P.S. On a completely unrelated note, but one I know will be of great interest to some of you out there, look whose livejournal I just found!

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