Netroots Nation, the annual gathering of Kossacks (derived from the Daily Kos, a political must read by the way) and fellow travelers, ends today In Pittsburgh and I hope to do some reporting on Saturday's events..
Now, Atrios is a guy I've been reading about and watching for the last several years now. One of the things that I thought really revealed the Real Him was this video segment on Philly bloggers where I swear he was trying to hide. He just didn't look comfortable as a public figure. And sure enough when I spoke to him he was quite reserved and circumspect. I suppose if you were the kind of person who described people you met as to how well they conform to Star Trek stereotypes then Atrios would be a Vulcan. I thought that at any moment he was going to urge me to always look toward logic and to harness my human half. Or something. I made sure to ask him what he thought of our urban hellhole of a city and how he enjoyed our public transit system. I just had to.
One specific question, as opposed to meandering, that I did toss his way is if he trusted the Obama economic team or the Hellish ilk known as Rubin, Geithner and Summers, with just a dash of Rahm. I sort of got the impression that he didn't from his "the recession isn't over" talk but I wasn't sure. His answer: a fairly unambigous "no". We chatted a bit more and then he was off.
Related: I noticed that he wrote about Dwelling House Savings and Loan getting "EATED". But its not qute the same kind of "EATED" that he usually talks about. Dwelling House is, or was I guess, a black owned bank that didn't collapse because of the bubble. They were robbed, apparently by hackers who weren't black nationalists. Truly a very sad story. Its being taken over by PNC but here's the thing: the reason you had a black owned bank is that the PNCs of the world weren't loaning to poor and working class black folk. How does this help exactly? Will the bank's mission be retained? i have my doubts.
More Related: One thing I forgot to thank him for, as an African American, are his many angry rants against the Bell Curve crowd. ("Did you know black people were inferior...oh its not racism. Its just science! Feel better now?...not at all like eugenics...") I was always glad to read that but I never understood why he was passionate about this issue. Until I found out that his wife is African American. I guess that would explain it, that and wanting to have kids who aren't marked at birth as being inferior by way of Hue.
Anyway, thanks for doing that. Some of us appreciate that more than others.
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