2008 Woodie Awards
Close encounters of the Mike Thompson kind
Paul Encimer
Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: Opinion
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Our local Congressional Rep. MT had a super successful fundraiser at the Arcata Community Center - maybe as many as 300 people paid 20 bucks or more for a vegetarian pasta dinner (you got two "glass of wine cards" however - which I exchanged for plastic glasses of a nice rough red - despite a sense of being morally compromised).
A local band provided rock around the clock while people lined up and chowed down. Mike was dishing out pasta in the middle of the serving line thus offering darshan to everyone who ate dinner. I had a handwritten note on one of our paper tombstones(we had several extensive cemeteries set up at strategic points around the center, made up ff hundreds of leftover paper tombstones used during the recent Big March ) The note was from one of our peace movement women - Sage - to be handed to Mike. I was in the chow line with Robin Donald, my nonviolent crime partner (we had occupied MT's Eureka office, getting arrested after 20 hours) because a supporter had donated us the two tickets it took to get in. We tried to say
something to MT "on line" but it was noisy and he said he couldn't hear us.
We found some seats as down front as we could get, right behind State Senator Chesboro, who was probably the only one who could hear my occasional chants of "Woolsey Woolsey". MT's speech was good politics all the way, thanking all the right people - chef, wife,etc. Talked about his earlier Congresses as places where ideas go to die. He congratulated his audience for putting the Democrats in the majority and providing the momentum to the end the war movement in Congress.
I so desperately had wanted to ask him why he didn't join the Out of Iraq Caucus for godsake but was on my best behavior. After all, me and Robin had been the not-named Times-Standard roast of the day for wasting the time of the good staff members of MT. Shame on us, said the editorial writer.
(Oddly enough our Congressional office vigil group got plaudits as the antiwar movement keeping the demos feet to the fire in the same toast and roast editorial) MT trotted out the debt of 9 billion and waved it dutifully at us. He couldn't be asked about his vote for the recent backrupcy law that nailed American debtors to the wall. He did a riff on Global warming with an Al Gore joke. He had a lipservice attack on oil company profits which he vaguely wished could be diverted to alternative energies.
A local band provided rock around the clock while people lined up and chowed down. Mike was dishing out pasta in the middle of the serving line thus offering darshan to everyone who ate dinner. I had a handwritten note on one of our paper tombstones(we had several extensive cemeteries set up at strategic points around the center, made up ff hundreds of leftover paper tombstones used during the recent Big March ) The note was from one of our peace movement women - Sage - to be handed to Mike. I was in the chow line with Robin Donald, my nonviolent crime partner (we had occupied MT's Eureka office, getting arrested after 20 hours) because a supporter had donated us the two tickets it took to get in. We tried to say
something to MT "on line" but it was noisy and he said he couldn't hear us.
We found some seats as down front as we could get, right behind State Senator Chesboro, who was probably the only one who could hear my occasional chants of "Woolsey Woolsey". MT's speech was good politics all the way, thanking all the right people - chef, wife,etc. Talked about his earlier Congresses as places where ideas go to die. He congratulated his audience for putting the Democrats in the majority and providing the momentum to the end the war movement in Congress.
I so desperately had wanted to ask him why he didn't join the Out of Iraq Caucus for godsake but was on my best behavior. After all, me and Robin had been the not-named Times-Standard roast of the day for wasting the time of the good staff members of MT. Shame on us, said the editorial writer.
(Oddly enough our Congressional office vigil group got plaudits as the antiwar movement keeping the demos feet to the fire in the same toast and roast editorial) MT trotted out the debt of 9 billion and waved it dutifully at us. He couldn't be asked about his vote for the recent backrupcy law that nailed American debtors to the wall. He did a riff on Global warming with an Al Gore joke. He had a lipservice attack on oil company profits which he vaguely wished could be diverted to alternative energies.
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