Well, this is it for me:  last e-mail, last game.  Next week, I'll be joining the great left-wing frisbee diaspora (now showing in Chicago, Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, San Francisco, New York, Cameroon, and wherever it is that Neil wandered off to).  It's been a fabulous 4 1/2 (!) years, and I'll miss the games, parties, sideline babysitting, baskets of Mackey's fries, and cheesecake-eating contests enormously.  (Actually, I've always been glad to have missed the fabled "I can eat that cheesecake in 1 bite" bet, but, as I take my leave, even that acquires a rosy glow.)

Thanks for indulging my weekly admonitions, exhortations, laments, and plaudits, not to mention the straight-out rants.

As for your fate, next week you'll be returned to the care of the original e-mail maven, Jill.  We're also moving the list to Yahoo, so you'll be getting an e-mail shortly asking you to join.  Make sure you accept the invitation or you'll be dropped from the list.   

I think we're safely between hurricanes at the moment; who's playing Saturday?

Don't you think it's about time people realized that no one should actually live in Florida?

Assuming Ivan spares us, who's playing on Saturday?

I must admit to a wee bit of ambivalence about the pending expiration of the assault weapons ban.  On the one hand, the law, pathetically inadequate though it is, has kept some of the more terrifying types of machine guns, as well as magazines that fire more than 10 rounds (9 rounds being plenty to polish off a deer), off the streets.  On the other, Dick "Spawn of Satan" Cheney has, remarkably, managed to hit a new rhetorical low, and has actually come out and said that a vote for Kerry is a vote for another terrorist attack.  (As Maureen Dowd points out, they've recycled Bush I's "Message: I care" slogan into "Message: You die.") And suddenly I understand that one sometimes needs the ability to fire many, many bullets as quickly as possible.

On that cheery note, who's playing this week?

Signs spotted at Sunday's anti-RNC march in New York:

• Someone else for president
• Halliburton uber alles
• Any 12 grandmothers to rule the world
• George Bush and the Republicans are vampires
• Oh well, I wasn't using my civil liberties anyhow
• 6-year-old for peace
• Kerry volunteered!  'Nuff said.
• Send Jenna.  (A sentiment no doubt echoed by a lot of Republicans after her embarrassing convention performance.)

And many, many, many others.  (Photos if you're interested: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/share/view?i=EeBNnLRyzbNXJA&open=1&sm=1&sl=0  )

Anyone in town for a Labor Day weekend game?

Early message this week because I'll be AWOL on Friday.  Please try to RSVP by Thursday night.*

Bloomers, speeches at Seneca Falls, polite pickets in front of the White House, and Mrs. Banks singing "Cast off the shackles of yesterday!"  Those were pretty much my early images of the women's suffrage movement.  Quite a serious struggle, to be sure, but seemingly accomplished by persuasion and persistence. 

It wasn't until I read one of those "young adult" novels we ordered from the weekly Scholastic catalog (I think that's where I learned half of what I know about the darker aspects of U.S. history; move over, Howard Zinn) that I found out that it wasn't just moral courage that finally won us gals the vote.  The public outcry over the savage beating and clubbing of a group of imprisoned suffragists, who then endured weeks of hunger strikes and force feeding, forced Wilson to fall into line.  Well done, Sister Suffragettes.

(The account that's currently going around the web is posted at: www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=4&id=7596  ; I can't vouch for every detail the author cites, but she gets the basic story right.)

So, who's playing Saturday?

I tell ya, if it's not a gas crisis, it's a player shortage.  Besides the usual summer trips out of town and etc., two of our reliable regulars are gone for good -- Brian's got a new job in Jacksonville and John is on his way home to San Francisco -- so we'll need some more folks to come out if we're to avoid the dreaded summer hiatus.  So, who's playing Saturday?  (Please RSVP by noon Friday if you plan to play so you don't have to listen to me nag.)

It's just not fair that every hurricane season the storm names start back with the letter "A."  It seems only right that they begin with the next letter after the last storm of the last season.  After all, shouldn't little Xerxes or Zev have the same shot at infamy as Andrew or Camille?  I say yes! So, anyway, who's playing Saturday, assuming neither Bonnie nor Charley makes its way up the coast?

It's not that I think that Bruce and Babyface playing a few concerts in swing states ( www.moveonpac.org/vfc ) is going to put us over the top, but it does feel like people just keep piling on. 

Besides generals for Kerry and rock stars and hip hoppers for Kerry,  Lee Iacocca, Warren Buffett, and Steve Jobs have all joined George Soros in the really-really-rich-people-with-some-credibility-on-Wall-Street-for-Kerry coalition.  It's all got to add up to something.  Seriously, it's just got to. 

(P.S.  It may not have the poetry of " Thunder Road ," but Bruce's op-ed in today's Times isn't bad.  Yes, the line "the country we carry in our hearts is waiting" is pushing it, but I'm an unreconstructed Jersey girl and I don't care.)    nytimes.com/2004/08/05/opinion/05bruce.html

Please RSVP for Saturday.

If you had told me that the absolute highlight of my week would be a speech by Bill Clinton, I would have said you were on crack.  (Well, maybe you are -- I don't need to know what you do on your own time.)  Clinton's charisma thing never worked for me, and don't get me started on his role in shifting the Dems to the right.  But his speech to the convention was something to behold, beautifully written* and brilliantly delivered. 

If you missed it (or Obama or Sharpton), listen at: http://www.dems2004.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=luI2LaPYG&b=125919&ct=158734

*Save for a hideous bit on the courage of the DLC.  Please RSVP for Saturday's game.

• Days until Kerry accepts the nomination:  4
• Days until the Repubs have their coronation:  39
• Days until the election:  103 
• Number of battleground states:  16
• Electoral votes in battleground states:  174 
• Electoral votes needed to win:  270
• Electoral votes Kerry would take if the election were held today:  332*
• Electoral votes Bush would have taken if the election had been on June 23:  285*
• Chance of more Republican dirty tricks before the election: 99%
• Chance that my head is going to explode from anxiety before Nov. 2nd:  67%

*According to a website that purports to track the latest polls ( www.electoral-vote.com ).  

Tonight!  Come Drink with Labor at the Big Hunt, 6 pm, on Conn. Ave. just below Dupont Circle. Details in the e-mail. Who's playing on Saturday?

We're celebrating Keith's & Jim's birthdays on Saturday night at Finn MacCool's.  Come on down!  

Also, the next Drink with Labor will be next Thurs., July 22.  Details for both in the e-mail.

Who's playing?

Promise me this is going to work, okay?  Promise me.

Who's playing on Saturday?

It's hardly an original observation, but it is remarkable how often history is repeated, or, to step out from behind the passive voice, how often we repeat history. The Library of Congress has a wonderful collection of WPA posters that I've been browsing through, and I've found dozens that could have been made yesterday instead of 60 or 70 years ago.  (Though these days there wouldn't be quite so many about syphillis.) 

Two of my favorites for the 4th of July (pictured here if your e-mail can handle images): "Democracy . . . a challenge" (and John Ashcroft has thrown down the gauntlet, hasn't he?) and a speech titled "Democracy's last stand."  (Granted, it was about the Spanish civil war, but we're holding the line here, even if Bush isn't quite Franco.)

So is anyone in town to play this weekend?  Let me know.

*The frisbee e-mail's coming out early this week because I'm headed out of town. Please RSVP by Thursday noon if you can.*

I'm just delighted with today's news from Chicago that Republican Jack Ryan's candidacy for the Senate seems to be going down in flames.  (Unsealed divorce papers reveal that he tried to take his now-ex-wife to sex clubs.  Stupid reason to ruin a career, but I'll let the Repubs fight that one out.)  This, we hope, guarantees that the Senate will soon be graced by Barack Obama, he of one of the most excellent names in politics.  (And when he's campaigning in Irish neighborhoods, he's only an apostrophe away from being Barack O'Bama.) 

Anyway, the book on Obama is great:  very smart, progressive, and politically able, not to mention a desperately needed black face in the Senate -- and he's endorsed by our very own ex-left-wing-frisbee'er Lars.  One seat closer to taking the Senate back . . .      

Great turnout last Saturday -- can we do it again?  Please do RVSP.

If ever I was grateful for the web and its attendant cult of self-publishing, it's now.  Thank god for the blogosphere, which provides the only escape from the fawning -- and often counterfactual -- press coverage of "graceful and gallant" St. Reagan with plenty of reminders of the true nature of his destructive, nasty, and downright stupid ("Trees cause pollution") record. 

Who's playing Saturday?

George Tenet has just fallen on his sword, the Times is admitting, however tepidly, to Judith Miller's WMD lies, Bush is lawyering up in the Valerie Plame investigation, Ahmed Chalabi's neo-con lapdogs look like idiots (and not just to us), Michael Moore won the Palme d'Or and found a U.S. distributor, the Medicare prescription drug scam is being exposed in plenty of time for the election (73 different cards?!), Rove-ian discipline at the White House is breaking down, tapes of Enron employees gleefully discussing f---ing customers provide irrefutable evidence of the dangers of privatization, Congressional Republicans are scrambling for a 10-foot-pole to put between themselves and the president . . . .  Damn, it's been a good week. 

Who's playing Saturday? 

I've heard from a lot of people who will be out of town this weekend. Who'll be here and wants to play?

It seems that under campaign finance reform, Kerry's campaign won't be allowed to solicit contributions after the end of May, and won't be allowed to accept them after July 4. (At least that's what the volunteer who phonebanked me into sending another 200 bucks told me. But she did it in such a great New England accent.)

So if you've been deleting all those e-mails and figuring you'd contribute, just not right now, stop procrastinating. (I know, I know, he's not my poster boy, either. But if you say you really want Bush out, you've got to walk the walk. If you absolutely can't stand to donate to Kerry, at least give to one of the PACs or 527s.)

Who's playing Saturday?

Also, if you know that you definitely will or won't be playing Memorial Day weekend (May 30), let me know now. (If there is a game, it'll have to be moved somewhere else because they're expecting 1 million people on the Mall for the opening of the WWII memorial.)

And don't forget -- a couple of cool labor solidarity events coming up:

This Friday, May 21, concert with Baldmear Velasquez of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, 7:30 pm, 11 Pine Ave., Takoma Park

Next Tuesday, May 25, Solidarity DC's monthly happy hour fundraiser, this time for the DC Employment Justice Center, 6 pm at Mackey's

Details in the e-mail.

As everything Next Monday is the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board, a day to be celebrated, to be sure, as the beginning of the end of Jim Crow, but it's also a reminder of how far we have to go to achieve anything like racial justice.  

Makes me think of that quote from the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.  The story goes that his friend Samuel May said to him, "O, my friend, do try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool; why, you are on fire," and Garrison replied, "I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt." Let's go out there and melt some mountains.

Here's one small way to help usher in the spring thaw:  You're invited to fight the right at a cookout/MoveOn fundraiser on Saturday night.  All the details in the e-mail.  (Though it starts at 4, I've been assured that arriving post-game is most acceptable.)

Who's playing on Saturday?

All I want for Memorial Day (Christmas is just too far away) is to see Rummy with electrodes on his gonads.  (Oh gosh, did we forget to use the fake wires with no current running through them?  Whoops!) Who's playing on Saturday? 

Update: Game's on.  There won't be many 60 degree, cicada-free Saturdays after this, folks, so come join us!

As everything goes (tragically but predictably) to hell in Iraq, we've got an opportunity to help secular, democratic organizations have a meaningful voice in the rebuilding. U.S. Labor Against the War is raising $10,000 to send directly to the 2 Iraqi union federations who are fighting, among other things, the U.S. Occupation Authority's enforcement of Hussein-era anti-union laws. (Even a vicious dictator can't be wrong all the time, huh?) Details on the site linked below about how the money will be used.

Please donate. Please do it now. Give $100, give $5, give something. (And please let me know if you do, or plan to do so -- we're trying to track the fundraising efforts.)

(Select "Iraq Labor Solidarity Fund" from the drop-down list under "Purpose of payment" and 100% of your donation will go directly to Iraqi unions.)

Thanks. After that, you deserve an excellent game of frisbee. Please RSVP.

Hell, you deserve a beer, too. Have one at Lynne's annual May Day party Saturday night. Details in the e-mail. (Note to all you last-minute types: you'll need to RSVP to Lynne to get the entry code for her building.)

Saturday looks like another perfect frisbee day. Between the tourists, the IMF protests, and the people coming in for Sunday's repro rights march, things may be a little crowded downtown, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Coming up: Free lunchtime solidarity concert at the AFL-CIO on April 28 and Lynne's annual May Day party, not to mention the March for Women's Lives on Sunday. Details in the e-mail.

I love April 15th. I'm not crazy about the paperwork, but I love paying my taxes. Yes, just at the moment an unconscionable chunk of our federal dollars are going to fund Dubya's warped imperial ambitions, but look at what else we contribute to: Head Start; national parks; public schools, housing, and roads; Amtrak; Pell grants; national health insurance -- oh, wait, that's all the other industrialized countries; the EEOC; the Smithsonian; Legal Aid; PBS; NPR; ADA enforcement; the National Cancer Institute; the Hubble telescople; workers' comp; the NEA & NEH; and a whole lot more. So file with pride!

Coming up: Free lunchtime solidarity concert at the AFL-CIO on April 28
and Lynne's annual May Day party.

This week we're springing forward to our summer time, so the game starts at 4 pm at the FDR field. (Directions in the e-mail and map attached for those of you who haven't played there before.)

Also, next Tues., April 13, come to a fundraiser for 2 Iraqi union federations who are working to protect labor rights in the "new" Iraq. It's 6-10 pm at Cafe Citron (Conn. Ave., right next to the Big Hunt).

The endless gray skies notwithstanding, it's spring, which means the winter fence is down and we can go back to the FDR field this week. For newcomers who haven't played there before, directions are in the e-mail and a map is here.

It's still Cherry Blossom time, and parking anywhere near the Tidal Basin still sucks. You are *strongly* advised not to try to drive. (Closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. If you're coming from Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan/Mt. Pleasant, take the 52 bus down 14th St.)

*Next* week, April 10th, the game moves to summer time, 4 pm. (Though Plevan is making a pitch to keep it at 3, at least until it starts getting hot. If you agree, let me know.)

(Whatever happened to Mayim Bialik, anyway?) It's Cherry Blossom time. The festival starts Saturday, so there'll be hordes of people downtown. You are *strongly* advised not to try to drive. (Closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. If you're coming from Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan/Mt. Pleasant, take the 52 bus down 14th St.)

Location change is coming: Next Saturday, on April 3rd, we should be able to return to the FDR field. Yahoo!

Hold onto your hats: Jim "Eeyore" McNeill is feeling wildly optimistic about our prospects in November. Clearly, this heralds either the long-awaited Democratic renaissance or the end times. Lord knows our hopes are on the former, but there is that 17-year plague of cicadas due in May . . . .

Help nudge the renaissance along by coming out next Wednesday morning to help D.C. parking workers. Details in the e-mail. (Yes, it's early, but it's good for the soul.)

And, get ready for the location change. In 2 weeks, on April 3rd, we should be able to return to the FDR field. Yahoo!

Our family philosophy about the kind of folks who like to run down New Jersey has always been: Let 'em We know that New Jersey is a beautiful, friendly, funky place, and if thinking that the view from the turnpike is all there is keeps the riffraff out, all the better. And now comes news that makes me prouder than ever to be from the Jersey shore: Asbury Park--famous as both one of Springsteen's early haunts and the site of my brother's honeymoon--has joined the list of cities issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. That's my kind of town.

To everyone who came out to the Sterling Laundry strike fundraiser last week, we raised $6,000 for the strikers!

Please RSVP for Saturday. Weather forecast is perfect.

Justice Harry Blackmun's papers have just been made public, and we now know that the Supreme Court came within a hair's-breadth of overturning Roe in 1992. If it hadn't been for Justice Kennedy's last-minute change of heart, we'd be living out the Handmaid's Tale right now. (Okay, okay, that's a little melodramatic, but still.) Sounds like a good reason to make plans to be at the April 25th March for Women's Lives (not to mention registering several million new Democratic voters).

*Great* game last weekend -- nice weather, good turnout. Who'll be there this Saturday?

The labor; movement needs more! gratuitous punctuation: don't you think?!

I'm sure that the newly combined UNITE! HERE! powerhouse will soon take care of this sort of thing, but in the meantime, come out next Wednesday to have a few drinks and support the Sterling Laundry Workers. Details in the e-mail. (Cafe Citron is smack-dab next door to the Big Hunt.)

Who's playing on Saturday?

Who's up for playing on Saturday? (Don't mind the headline; it's an Austin thing, where I'm taking a break from winter.)

Hey, don't be all Dubya-like and be AWOL from Saturday's game. RVSP now, and we'll have a permanent record to be hauled out when you next run for office.

Let me get this straight: Rumsfeld says, oh, sure it's *possible* there were no WMDs in Iraq, but it's not *likely.* It's more likely that Iraq just snuck its enormous cache of WMDs out of the country. No doubt he's right -- they got a bunch of people to put on really baggy clothes, tuck a few warheads and several thousand pounds of smallpox virus under there, and slip over into Syria. "Hey, Syria, man, could you hold onto these for a sec? Just until the cops are out of sight." Yeah, I'm sure that's just how it happened, Donny boy.

We're looking at a tropical 42 degrees on Saturday. Please RVSP.

In observance of the Super Bowl, I note that Saturday's game will be number CLXXXV.* While I thank the Romans for olive oil and republican (small "r") government, bless the Arabs and Indians for coming up with a rather more logical and user-friendly numbering system.

*Or so; we do our best to keep track of these things.

Social and solidarity calendar:

• Tonight (Thursday) - Eyewitness reports on the Iraqi labor movement (I just heard a preview and it's really good, interesting stuff -- you should come). 5:30-8 pm, AFL-CIO.

• Friday, Saturday, Sunday - Picket with Safeway workers at the 17th & Corcoran store. Times and details in the e-mail.

• Saturday night - Celebrate Amy's birthday! Details in the e-mail.

The most surreal experience of my '20's was the afternoon I spent hiding out in a strip mall diner with a group of women who were in the middle of a 2-day abortion procedure. (Second trimester abortions take 2 days; on the first, the cervix is dilated; on the second, the abortion is performed.) A crowd of a thousand anti-choicers had blocked entry to the clinic, and the P.G. County police refused to arrest them or clear a path for the patients. These women couldn't just go home and come back another day; once the cervix has been dilated, there are major health risks if the abortion isn't completed.

As the crowd encircling the cars in which the women (and the boyfriends, friends, and parents who had accompanied them) were waiting became more and more hostile, we finally drove them away from the clinic, with antis in pursuit. There was a car chase, there were decoys, and there were finally sighs of "I think we lost them" over "mobile" phones the size of small briefcases. After many hours and too many pancakes at the Hot Shoppe, we got word that most of the antis had dispersed, and we snuck the patients back into the clinic under the cover of darkness.

Happy 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Don't take choice for granted.

$1.5 billion to tell people to get married (or, as Maureen Dowd put it, to make Bush the national yenta)?! $1.5 BILLION?!?!?! These people are out of their gourds.

OK, OK, it was kind of cold last week. This Saturday should be practically tropical in comparison. Please RSVP.

Here's my 2004 wish list:

• Health and happiness to you and yours;
• The crushing defeat of the right.

Is that so much to ask?

Please RSVP. I know it's cold out there, but it's fun.

- Amy sends word of an apartment for rent in Mt. Ranier. Details in the e-mail -- pass it on.

See you tomorrow.