[This is a letter sent to the Boston Globe in response to the horrid Op-Ed contribution “When Librarians protect terrorists” by Richard L. Cravatts on February 6^th, 2006. I called the paper to see what follow-up they planned on this, but learned nothing. This is obviously much too long to be a letter, now. I’ve added some links here for your viewing pleasure.]

While the podcast medium has not ushered in much of a revolution so far– downloadable audio files have been around for years now, and their marriage with RSS has not made it that much easier to skim them, as it has for bloggus bloviatus, the common blog– there is one use where the aspect where podcasters make a brilliant use of the format.

Here’s the list of convention bloggers. I’m not on that list, since I take exception to calling this website a blog. Nonetheless, if I do come up with some idle thoughts that are blogworthy, Jon Lebkowsky and Aldon Hynes have asked me to contribue to Greater Democracy. With 15,000 journalists in town, it’s going to be a challenge with any unique slants. I expect to contribute one or two articles here. And about 200 pictures.

I’ll be doing the American Lung Association Asthma walk on the Charles River in two weeks, and I’ve joined team Sánchez. For a couple of simple reasons. One, my Dad has suffered from an asthma-like condition. The more direct reason is that Rep. Jeff Sánchez asked people to join his team at the recent Democratic Town Committee meeting. So I joined up, and I pledged to raise an additional hundred dollars. Sánchez’s district covers part of Brookline– not my part exactly, but just down the street, one of the places that I’m looking to buy a condo. Or just as well, Sanchez’s district may yet change thanks to a court-ordered redestricting of Boston’s legislative districts.

• Friends of the Boston’s Homeless Benefit at Avalon: $20
• coatcheck, 2 coats: $6 (+$1 tip)
• Two drinks, $14 (+$2 tip)
• Winning the silent auction for two tickets to Swan Lake: $140 (anything to avoid ticketmaster charges)
• Taking in Jonathan Soroff’s presence for 5 minutes, for the second time in a week: cliche.

Next time we’ll show up early. Jamie and I missed the dinner (which only would have set us back another $30), missed the Mayor, missed meeting any new people, and missed much of Kendrick Oliver’s band playing– they played one song in the third set. The crowd really thinned out after the dinner; I haver never seen Avalon so empty. And once again, I get that feeling of winning a fundraising contest in weak competition. It would have been nice to learn more about the organizations my money went to. I hope I have the courage to look a homeless person in the face now.