Pvt. George R. Dow-8th New Hampshire Volunteers

Memorial Day was originally created to honour the Civil War veterans, so this post is dedicated to my great-great grandfather's older brother, George Dow. He was the second son of Simon Dow, a shoemaker in Hampstead, NH, and was born in 1842. He enlisted in the 8th NH on 31 Dec. 1861, and his regiment was assigned to Gen. Bank's army in Louisiana. They were part of the campaign to cut the South off from the Mississippi by capturing Port Hudson, while Grant was trying to take Vicksburg. Dow's regiment was involved in a big assault on 27 May 1863 in which almost half of the attacking force was killed or wounded, including Dow. He died in Baton Rouge on 12 June 1863 at the age of 21, apparently from blood poisoning. According to family tradition, his mother nearly went mad with grief on hearing the news.

Unfortunately that is all we know of his story. He lingered in the Baton Rouge field hospital for two weeks, possibly undergoing some amputations before gangrene set in. We'll never know if he was an abolitionist, or a patriot, or just bored with the prospect of making shoes for the rest of his life. Did his parents know he enlisted, or did he go out drinking with friends and wake up in the camp?

On my last trip to New Orleans, I had to leave out of Baton Rouge, so I took the time to locate George Dow's grave site. Lord knows if he's had any visitors over the years. Wherever George is now, I doubt he's waiting in Baton Rouge, but I took time to brush the leaves off the grave, just to show that somebody dropped by.

Markos comments on his visit:

"Way too early next morning, I was on my way to Tallahassee. I did a lunchtime event at the Tallahassee Progressive Center, where I picked up some nicknacks at the Fair Trade Store on premises (some masks from Bali). That evening I spoke at the Florida State University law school at an event sponsored by the FSU Environmental Law Students Association and the Democratic Club of North Florida. I lucked out weather-wise. It wasn't hot."

Crashing the Gate

Got to meet Mr. Dailykos himself yesterday, Markos Moulitsas. He and another blogger, Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, are on a tour to promote their book, Crashing the Gate. We did not know he would be visiting the Center until Sunday, so the gang had to slap together an event at the last minute. Rich spent his own money so there would be copies of the book available to buy and to have signed, and Adrien set up a lunch gathering at his cafeteria. Despite the short notice, we had a good turnout of at least 30. After lunch, Markos gave a short talk and took a few questions before signing books. I had to leave early to get back to work, so my only contact with him was having my book signed. I have yet to hear if Rich and Allen were able to tell him anything about the Center, or if they had any substantial discussion.

The irritating thing about this is that I had been aware of the book tour for a couple of months. Before they started, they posted a list of cities they would be visiting and asked people to set up events for them. I was ready to volunteer us, but wanted to discuss it with the Center's Board first. Unfortunately, the Board has not been meeting recently, so after a week or so of trying to tell them what was happening, I went ahead and notified the tour organizers that we were interested and sent them a link to the Progressive Center website. I hesitated because the tour organizers were not very specific about what kind of events they would like to do, and what kind of input they would need from us, but I assumed they would e-mail me back to work something out.

Weeks go by and I hear nothing. Finally, I check the tour page and they announce they are not scheduling any more events, and the only listing for the Tallahassee visit was for the Leon County Democrats. Therefore, I had assumed that we had been snubbed. I have not been very active at the Center, and I thought organizing this event would be a good way to start earning my keep. It was not until this Tuesday that I learned that Markos was, in fact, coming, and it was not until yesterday that I learned how much my friends had to scramble to make it happen.

* * *

Kim and Nichole are in town for a wedding this weekend, visiting from Chicago. Rich is trying to get them together tonight, but we may not get to spend any time with them until the big wedding party at Barnacle Bill's on Sunday.

Colbert

Well, it's been a long week. Most of the time was spent cleaning the house, with a beer-powered Allen turning it into a community event. Felt like more of an intervention than a spring cleaning. Most of the clutter from our activist days is now at the Center, and I will be gradually trying to make an accessible archive out of it. For now, though, so very, very tired. I'm just going to lie back in this snow drift and rest my eyes for a few seconds . . .

I've been a fan of Stephen Colbert since he started building up steam with his new show, but after seeing his performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, I now consider him a national hero. Bush and the media got a well deserved thrashing, up close and in person. The mainstream news is trying to dismiss Colbert as just being a comedian, but they are mistaken if they confuse proper satire with a stand-up routine.

MySpace

In other news, I was browsing through some band sites on MySpace, and found a couple of friends who live in Chicago. I set up an account, and have been gradually running into other people. I'm not sure what else I'm going to do with it, but I've put up some pictures from recent parties.

http://www.myspace.com/house_of_kaos

Just realized I had not posted for awhile. Maybe I was waiting to post some good news, but lately there has seemed to be nothing but endings.

Mike's Beer Barn has closed down, and it was a shock to learn that after being there for 300 years, he did not own the property. The Barn is no longer a priority in life since I no longer live in that neighbourhood, but in the KAOS era, it was our main supplier. In time, I was even able to lift a full keg by myself. My roommate worked there for awhile, so that was my only glimpse at the inner workings of Mike's empire; sitting up there in the overlook with a shotgun, departing his racism and disgust with the homeless to his employees. Deprived of Mike's, the residents of the Shelter have discovered that the Circle K that opened in the old Bill's Bookstore is the nearest source of beer. The sorority girls will be in for shock.

It appears that the crooked county officials won after all. Posey's is closed as well. They had intended to rebuild after the hurricane, but were denied key permits. The land is now going to be sold too-- big shock-- condo developers. The closing of Posey's also led to Blue Moon being disbanded, as it was their only regular paying gig. Danny and Kelly had a baby recently, plus Danny is more concerned about his other band, Stillwood. So practice started dropping off, as they did not want to rehearse unless there was a show coming up. They will do their final show at the Moon on April 20th, and hopefully, in few years, there will be a Blue Moon reunion tour. Now that they are splitting up, my mother's long shot efforts to get them noticed by Texas musicians will probably pay off.

Closer to home, the Progressive Center is in danger of losing their building. The landlords have been very supportive and patient, but there are two other elderly owners who are eager to sell and a serious offer has been made. After all this time, we were happy to be just meeting building expenses, but no one took initiative on finding the necessary serious investors. Most of the blame belongs to the disunity of the left wing. Two or three of the bigger non-profits could have insured that we could meet rent and plan for acquiring ownership. However, there is so much rivalry amongst the non-profits, no one would even consider sharing resources, and I'm pretty sure some of them were rooting against us as well.

Cassini

I have noticed some people are protesting the launch of the probe to Pluto because it contains plutonium. This is always a conflict for me because I am a great supporter of space exploration, but not comfortable with putting nuclear material on a potentially explosive rocket. Back in '97 we went down to protest the Cassini launch for the same reasons. I think there are more worthwhile things to protest, but hey, any chance to get out of town. Hell, I'll protest just about anything. Anyway, the most revealing thing about the whole event is I got to see firsthand how the press deals with demonstrations like this. It was one of the largest protests I had ever seen. There were at least a thousand people attending, yet newspapers consistently said "hundreds." Not one of the news channels took any wide view pictures to show the size of the crowd. Photographs were restricted to small groups of people, like the Grandmothers for Peace, or the kooks who show up dressed like Uncle Sam on stilts. CNN just showed stock footage of the satellite, but I know I saw their truck there.

Another thing that struck me was how ritualized protests have become. We were allowed to march to the gates and line up outside, while the police lined up inside. A ladder was allowed to be placed on the gate, a blanket was provided to get over the barb wire, and anyone who chose to be arrested could safely climb over. Once they were inside, a policeman escorted them off, then another policeman would take his place and await the next protestor. No fuss, no muss.

Once I got back, I friend of mine said "Well, think about it. Is plutonium over Orlando a bad thing?"