The Democratic National Convention is a fortified land of lanyards, with only the most privileged of the press able to enter many areas, like that shiny jewel: the Pepsi Center.
Though it might have been slim pickings for an un-credentialed community journalist like myself, I went to Denver on Monday anyway, camera and notepad in tow, to find out what a national political convention looks like.
The last stop on the light rail ended at Invesco, and I walked to the "freedom cage," which was filled with police officers and not a single protestor.
I visited Tent State University in Cuernavaca Park, headquarters for many of the protests groups. I sat in an exact replica of a maximum security cell in Guantanamo Bay. Ivy Pharr of Amnesty International told me some prisoners there had been held as long as six years without having been tried, and some without knowing why they were there.
I talked with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, many of whom were from Colorado Springs. I read the obituaries tied to hundreds of empty combat boots.
Outside the Colorado Convention Center, I watched a snarky newscaster tell a protester "I think you came here to get arrested," as the boy was being led away.
Vendors hawked wares from their stands: Obama tank tops! They look good and they feel good!
A group of curious Catholics, each one hauling a full-sized cross and chanting Hail Marys, turned heads near the 16th Street Mall.
Outside the Pepsi Center, two men held a banner reading "Rednecks for Obama," and courted newscasters with quotes like "People are afraid Obama's going to take their guns away. He's not gonna do that!"
Across the street, a woman shouted into a megaphone, "You're looking at the face of choice. Obama does not stand for human rights," while her cronies displayed gruesome photos of aborted fetuses.
Ted Flittner, a star in the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car," gave me a ride in his electric Toyota RAV, taken off the market in 2003. He had fought to protect cars like the one we were driving from being destroyed. He dropped me off at a bar near 9th and Lincoln, where David Amram, a living jazz legend and Kerouac's instrumentalist in the 1950s, was playing a benefit concert for KUVO.
I got home in time to watch Sen. Kennedy and Michelle Obama give their speeches. And I watched all the political pundits over-analyze what amounted to a lot of predictable statements - language tested by focus groups - as Karl Rove (without a hint of irony or self-awareness) described it. Being there had been much more interesting. I was grateful I saw what the current center of the universe really looks like.
A few other citizen journalists arecovering the DNC on our west and north Hub sites. Be sure to check out their stories and photos!