It takes a lot to dislodge Howie from his blogging chair -- a blast from the past

WEDNESDAY, MAY 09, 2007

LIVE GRIFFITH PARK FIRE BLOGGING AT DOWN WITH TYRANNY

the green on the upper left is all charred now

Yesterday I was so busy excoriating Chris Carney for lying to me about his position on equality when he wanted Blue America support, that I didn't pay any attention to anything else. So when my ex-roommate, Roland, called as he was driving home from school-- he teaches in Compton and, like me, lives in Los Feliz-- his news surprised me. "Get out of there," he shouted. "The fire is headed right towards your house." What fire? "What planet are you on?" he asked. "Are you sitting and working on that crazy blog of yours all day? Turn on the TV." He called about 30 minutes later and I had to admit I hadn't turned on the TV. At that point it was something like 3PM and I still didn't know there was a fire other than having heard it from him-- and he tends to get dramatic sometimes.

-- the start of Howie's DWT post at 1:36pm PT on May 9, 2007

by Melody

Yep, as Ken wrote the other day, telling us about Howie's temporary absence from his usual perch: “It takes a lot to dislodge him from his blogging chair, which is the place where he pretty much most likes to be in the whole world.” For those of you who don’t know Howie’s priors, I want to take you back to that day in May 2007, when the DWT post that began as you see above appeared at 1:39pm PT -- with the aerial photo highlighting "Howie's Pad" and text that began as you see here.

I have dug out two YouTubes from Day 1 of the Griffith Park fire -- the fire that led Roland to ask, "Are you sitting and working on that crazy blog of yours all day?” (Which of course he was!)





Bear in mind that while all of this was going on, Howie had been busy -- as he told us here -- excoriating Pennsylvania freshman Congressman Chris Carney. Chris Carney is a paticular sore point for all of us who have followed Howie’s tireless efforts for Blue America, and just to bring this report full circle, he has refused to vanish into the night. Just this past Tuesday Howie wrote a post titled "The Return Of Blue Dog Chris Carney?," which began:

In the 2006 midterms Blue America made a ghastly mistake. We allowed ourselves be be taken in my a bold-faced liar and fast-talking charlatan running for Congress in northeast Pennsylvania. Although we were warned that Carney, a former employee of Douglas Feith in the Bush White House, was untrustworthy, we endorsed him and helped him raise money and develop strategies against against Republican incumbent Don Sherwood. (We did not know at the time that he had worked as an "interrogator" at Guantanamo.) During our endorsement interview he portrayed himself as a progressive and vowed that if he were elected he would vote for the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He was elected, immediately joined the reactionary Blue Dogs and started voting with the Republicans on one crucial roll call after another. . . .

Blue America apologized to our contributors, and asked Carney to refund the money our donors have given him. He started cursing at me. We started raising money to let PA-10 voters know what a fraud Carney is and in 2010 he was one of the dozens of Blue Dogs swept out of office. Republican Tom Marino beat him 109,603 (55%) to 89,170 (45%) and we hoped we'd never have to think about him again, except as an object lesson about how to deal with dishonest candidates.

Unfortunately, Carney is rearing his ugly head again, threatening to run against Joe Sestak in the 2016 Pennsylvania Senate primary. Anti-Choice, anti-gay, he's so right-wing he could easily switch to the Republican Party. But over the weekend he said he wants to run against Republican incumbent Pat Toomey as a Democrat. . . .

I can only conclude that Chris Carney has some really bad mojo.

Chris Carney may not agree, but here's hoping that Howie's back in his beloved blogging chair ASAP.


KEN ADDS: I wish I had news to report, but as of my latest information Howie is still resting mighty uncomfortably while, presumably, those cracked ribs do some healing. Thanks to all for all the good wishes. We'll try to keep you posted.

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