Margaret was a Culture Kitchen blogger for awhile and, while there, was one of our best bloggers. She moved on long ago, and I always missed her presence at CK. But she went on to what she considered bigger and better things. In her 80's she discovered her public voice and I am proud I was one of the people who encouraged and helped her find that voice.

This comes late because I mainly interacted with Margaret Bassett by email. So if I didn't hear from her, I didn't think much about it. But I knew she was over 80. She was a subscriber to my Progressive Democrat Newsletter from the beginning soon after the 2004 election. She had seen me as something of a hope for the future in messaging, something I think she overrated me on, but I was flattered and tried to live up to.

Today I sent out a message to my subscribers that my writing of the Progressive Democrat Newsletter had clearly been on hold for over a month and I wasn't sure if/when it would come back.

One email bounced. It was the first time Margaret's email bounced in all the time she read my stuff. So it caught my attention immediately. It sent a shiver down my spine. So I did a quick google search and discovered what I feared...Margaret had died, back in August, at the age of 89. I cried.  read more »

I have found very little about this in the news...even BBC is letting me down this time. But Daily Kos has had some coverage of large scale protests in Israel. The total number of protesters across all cities amounts to 460,000, 300,000 of them in Tel Aviv. That amounts to 5% of the total population of Israel, Jews and Arabs, taking to the streets in protest of failed right wing policies. The Israeli police have stated that it is the largest protest in Israeli history.

And it all started with one woman.

Info and photos are from Daily Kos. Thanks to The Troubadour for this coverage.

Here is the first day of protest in Tel Aviv, with one person in early July:

Here is the protest on August 6th with 350,000 (funny how I didn't hear about it at the time...not in American media...not on BBC...):

And here is Tel Aviv today at the beginning of September:

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July 2011's Eating Liberally meeting will be July 12th at 7 PM at Java
Indonesian Rijsttafel restaurant
455 7th Ave
(between 15th St & 16th St)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(on the border of South Slope and Windsor Terrace)

Check out their menu here:

http://www.menupages.com/restaurants/java-indonesian-rijsttafel/menu

Been thinking about the Brooklyn Surrogate race and many people have been talking to me about it. I know to non-insiders this seems like a minor thing, but in reality the Surrogate Judge, and all judges, are important elected positions and the fact that the machine's lock on appointing judges has majorly slipped is a very big deal.

My post-primary piece might have been a bit overly pessimistic, though I think fairly accurate. But the reform clubs are celebrating and for good reason. I put down the reform clubs a bit in my last piece, but honestly they did help swing the race for Diana Johnson and did hand Vito Lopez a solid defeat.

And it really was a solid defeat. Diana Johnson won with almost 60% of the vote. That means Vito Lopez and his machine lost about as decisively as you really ever expect in a judicial election. There was a time when Surrogate Judge was the machine's to give away like a plum. It was one of the bigger plums the machine could give.  read more »