Steve Harrison is having a press conference tomorrow at 2pm at the Staten Island Ferry (Staten Island side) to discuss his position on congestion pricing. Steve has stated that he does not oppose congestion pricing, but he does oppose THIS congestion pricing plan. You can read more about his position on our website: www.steveharrisonforcongress.com.

Please support us by attending this conference and telling your friends and neighbors to join us as well.

New Democratic Majority is hosting a fundraiser tonight for the Activist Academy, an ongoing series of workshops to, well, train activists.

Join us:

Red Sky
47 E 29th
April 18th, 2007
6:30 to 9:00 PM

This year's first Academy session, on Albany reform, is being held this coming Saturday, featuring Brian Keeler. For more details, please go here.

Alrighty, that was an extraordinarily short post. That's because I'm running out the door; see you there tonight.

MARK NAPIER
new software art and prints

Thursday, April 12, 2007
6:30-8:30 pm

bitforms gallery
529 West 20th Street, NYC
(btw. 10th & 11th avenues)

If you live at a relative stone's throw from the Empire State Building, what does the ultimate symbol of capitalism become before your very eyes? How is this place tranformed by digital culture after 9/11?

In the creative mind of Mark Napier, the ESB is a cyclops formed of brick and mortar yet powered by flesh and cicuits. It is a symbol of a crumbling physical power caught in the webs of immateriality forged by software and the net. It is the very essence of the shifting structures of power.

Mark has been at work on this project for about 2 years now. It's interesting and horrific to live with a working artist. There is no reason for him to code the software that created the print for the sites or the actual artwork, yet it's more than just like a disease. He codes because he has to. That's how he builds his sculptures and paints his digital canvases.

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. This item on NYP's Page Six made me laugh because it happened to me just days before.

Michael, David and I were invited by Dave Pollak (grok, please tell me I go his last name's spelling right or I'll have to rend my shirt and gnash my teeth) to a fundraising event with Nancy Pelosi the same day John Edwards came into town.

Now, mind you, I'm poking fun at Dave and Eliot because ... well ... do I have to have a reason?

I arrived at Cipriani's early to scope the room and get a feel of how I was going to photo & video blog the place. So I'm checking my camera's batteries and find out the dang rechargables are dead. On my way to the corner store I find Eliot Spitzer already pressing the flesh. I nod a hi and run out. On my return, I have about 8 packs of batteries, just to make sure my darn camera doesn't go dead (it did, days before, during a John Leguizamo interview).

Eliot notices the mess of cells and asks incredulously, "Why do you need so many batteries?" As non-minxish as I could (the man is gorgeo although not as tall as I thought he would be) I responded, "So I can film you saying The Daily Gotham is the best blog in New York City."

March is an insane month for the amount of political events you can go to. The proof is in the amount of political heavy hitters DL21C was able to wrangle during that month : Jon Kerry, Wesley Clark, John Tester, John Edwards, Bill Richardson. It is also an insane month for the amount of technology and media conferences you can get invited to, the most important (at least for me) being SXSW --but there's eTech and IDPI as well.

I missed almost all the events involving presidential candidates because of the amount of conferences I was involved in during the month of March. Once I was done with my last one, ARC's national conference on "Facing Race", I was free to enjoy a candidate or two by the end of the month. I wasn't able to make it to the John Edwards event (I was having some fun at a party with Nancy Pelosi).

So 3/26 was Bill Richardson's lucky number.

As the SD-7 race ends, the 40th City Council race heats up...and the field narrows a little. But it is still a HUGE field and it is hard to keep track of the players. To date I have only met four of the candidates: Moe Razni, Jesse Hamilton, Zenobia McNalley and Wellington Sharpe. All seem like good people, though personally I prefer Jesse and Zenobia so far.

Two more candidate forums (am I the only person who is enough of a Roman nerd to use "fora" as the plural?). Our good friend Chris Owens sent me this. And I should note that many, including Rock Hackshaw and people I know at both IND and CBID, thought Chris should run for this seat, but Chris refused because he felt it would be hypocritical for him to move in on that race after the big deal he made about Yassky moving into the district to run in the CD-11 race.

Well, probably not. The chances should have improved for National Health Insurance Insurance (Medicare for everyone) both because of the outcome of the recent mid-term elections and because of the crushing financial burdens employer-based insurance has put on public and private employers. To see how veteran health insurance advocates see the politics unfolding, consider attending the following:

After the Elections:the Future of Medicare
The politics of universal health care

Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006 With Hon. John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member, U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary
Committee and Rosanne M .Leipzig, MD, PHD Professor and
Vice Chair for Education Brookdale Department of
Geriatrics and Adult Development, Mount Sinai School of
Medicine Deputy Editor, Geriatric Medicine (4th
Edition)

6:00 pm Reception ($20,students $5) 7:30 pm Forum
(free) Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Square
South, Manhattan (accessible entrance: 243 Thompson
Street) Subways: A, B, C, D, E, F, V trains to 'West
4th St.' R train to '8th St.' - 1 train to 'Christopher
St.'

Reservations not required but rsvp to assure a space:
pnhpnyc@igc.org or 212-666-4001

The name of this place just KILLS ME. I',m just waiting for the crack head caddies to make an appearance.

I am here thanks to the coordinating efforts of New American Majority, Drinking LIberally, Democracy for New York, DL21C and other grassroots organizations working here in the city for either the Democratic or Working Families parties. Anybody that's anybody in the political grassroots movement here in New York City is here, waiting and cheering (or booing) as the results come in.

Here's a little podcast just posted over at culturekitchen. I've tried to extrude some thought through the manic noise enveloping the place.

Just wanted to give a little taste of what's happening here.