From Ben Smith at Politico.

Obama moves DNC operations to Chicago

In a major shakeup at the Democratic National Committee -- and a departure from tradition -- large parts of the committee's operations are relocating to Chicago to be fully integrated with the Obama campaign.

The DNC's political department, housed in Washington, D.C., will be dramatically rebuilt, with staffers offered a choice of moving to Chicago, joining state operations, or staying in Washington, DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said.

But the power will clearly be shifting to a centralized Chicago hub.

The DNC's key role in coordinating political operations with state parties is expected to largely be taken over and overseen by Obama's senior staff in Chicago, state party officials said.

"This is part of the implementation of the plans Paul [Tewes] discussed last week with the state party chairs," Finney said. "As part of the efforts to fully integrate DNC operations with the Obama campaign here in Washington, in Chicago and in the states, political, field and constituency operations are moving to Chicago to work in the Obama headquarters. The goal is to consolidate these efforts into one operation and effectively drive one national strategy."

People familiar with the plan said that state party staffers paid for under Howard Dean's 50 State Program would be shifted to working for the presidential campaign, at least in targeted battleground states.

The move reflects Obama's desire to maintain an unusually streamlined campaign, as well as his swift and complete takeover of a Democratic Party that isn't always known for its unity. The move may also save the campaign money, as the Obama campaign can use DNC salaries and staff to pay for elements of its organizing campaign and avoid some of the duplication that has often dogged presidential efforts.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0 608/Obama_moves_DNC_operations_to_Chicag o.html

Makes perfect sense to me since those Chicago people know how to run a political op better and more honestly than anyone.  I know all the loyalists here will rave about this great move but I ask you one thing.

Are you scared yet?

Hillaryism

Defined as the belief that one is intrinsically superior to clinging members of the cult of Hillary Clinton.  The targets of this vial hatred are referred to as Hillaryists or Hilbs, as in "he's a freekin' hilb*, let's bust his balls."

Like racism and sexism before it, Hillaryism is found in all levels of society and raises it's ugly head in social circles and the work place.  Stories are beginning to come into this news room of people being threatened with loss of their job should they not seek a cure for what psychologists believe may be a fundamental problem in the hope receptor capacity of certain individuals.  

Cures range from the controversial mind wipe to the simplistic but often dangerous rally attendance wherein an affected individual is dragged kicking and screaming by his/her loved ones into a rally so their ears may finally hear the voice.  Thankfully it normally takes only one treatment to cure even the toughest cases.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is fast tracking a study as to the viability of adding Hilbs to the list of disabilities covered under the ADA.  Check back later for updates.

* HILB is a derivation of the derogatory term HillBot.

Bo Diddley, the musical pioneer whose songs, such as "Who Do You Love?" and "Bo Diddley," melded rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll through a distinctive thumping beat, has died. He was 79.

Diddley died Monday, surrounded by family and loved ones at his home in Archer, Florida, a family spokeswoman said.

The cause was heart failure, his family said.

all I ask is,,,

Who Do You Love?

Robert F. Kennedy announces death of Martin Luther King Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated two months later.

That was greatness.  Listen and see if you can feel the compassion in his voice.  Then you may have an inkling of what we lost in 1968.

I went from my home in Connecticut to New York on a pilgrimage to St. Patricks.  We waited and shuffled for hours in line just to have perhaps 60 seconds in his presence.

Those days.  That year, are forever etched in my mind and act as a reference point for life.  There was life before 1968 and life after 1968.  Nothing was the same.  Nothing would ever be the same again.

1968.  The year that changed everything.  

The year innocence was lost.  

HOWL

by Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,

I try to revisit Howl once a year because it has never lost relevance.

Howl was 50 years old in 2006. The reading of Howl in S.F.  helped to launch the Beat generation which in turn led to my generation, in part by turning on us little brothers.

From the World Socialist Website http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr200 7/gins-a05.shtml

Last year(2006 ed.) marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of American poet Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century. Very few poems sell over a million copies and get translated into virtually every language in the world. Where a generation could repeat from memory that two roads "diverged in a yellowed wood" that may at other times be "lovely, dark and deep" though there be miles to go before you sleep, so the laconic opening line of "Howl," "I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness," is widely known.

The poem has been annotated, every episode labeled by Ginsberg scholars, who have also written fat biographies and testify to Ginsberg's greatness in documentaries and the better web sites supporting American education. The tykes at the elementary school near the boarding house where "Howl" was pecked out on a second-hand typewriter in 1955 enter a new century with an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Garden, where annually during National Poetry Month children recite their own compositions. There was a "Transatlantic Howl" employing major universities and the resources of the Web. But undoubtedly, the central event in "Howl's" anniversary year was the widely reviewed collection edited by one of many Ginsberg secretary/editors, Jason Shinder, The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later.

A portion of the great work.

HOWL

by Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear,
burning their money in wastebaskets and listening
to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through
Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares,
alcohol and cock and endless balls,

It continues on the flip side.

Welcome
Welcome all to the Clinton Supporters Results Watch Party.

Tonight is a special night here in the Hampster tank.  Tonight we are celebrating the Kentucky Derby and the Filly who gave her all, just to collapse on the home stretch.

Tonight we toast the memory of Eight Belles a courageous horse who ran against the boys and ran hard.  They bumped her and tried to crowd her out but she kept going.  They ganged up on her and she kept going.  She never gave up, until they put her down.

To Eight Belles, a one of a kind horse.