Heh. So my friend Rock has a piece up this morning, presumably right below this one, with a call-out.

But what I am surprised about is the curt e-mail from my white Parisian cousin over at the Daily Gotham blog, admonishing me not to go “overboard” with my candidate (Ed Towns). Michael “Frenchie” Bouldin says that he hates to pick political fights on the blogs, and yet he throws these lil pit-a-pat punches when something is on his mind. So Michael: tell us how you really feel about this race in the 10th congressional. Why; the cat got your pen?

Okay then - callout. Smackdown!

The answer is really very simple: I send terse emails all the time. It's a time-management issue. The email I sent was to the effect that I detect a gap between Rock's supine hagiography of Towns and the legislator I know, the one who voted for the bankruptcy bill, the one who's missed over 10% of all votes since 1993, the guy who tried to declare India a terrorist state, who voted for CAFTA and against net neutrality, the latter presumably not because he understand the issues involved, but because his coffers overflow with checks from the telecom lobby. Towns even refused outright to take Project VoteSmart's Political Courage Test. While we're at it, he even voted against ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would establish the right to not be fired because you're gay on a national level.

It's difficult to choose Ed Towns' worst vote out of the smorgasbord of failures in the House. Is it the one for the bankruptcy bill, the one that, in a relatively poor district, makes it next to impossible to ever get out of debt? Is that what the residents of New York's Tenth wanted, or needed? I'm not so sure, but I do know that Ed Towns got tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from banking and credit card industries, who have made billions from the law, at the expense of ordinary citizens burdened by a law that falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor.

... meeting the crew of Rochester Turning, shooting the shit with Azi, finally meeting hand-crusher Liz Benjamin and driving back to the city with Michael, Paul and Phillip.

Especially the driving with the guys. I laughed so hard I think I broke my Poughkeepsie.

As much as I like having access to events and people who make what we call the status quo, it takes me a while to take in all the people's faces, rants, raves, ticks and tocks; especially if I don't know them on or offline.

Let's say is my way of being polite I like to ponder all the newness in an attempt to ... believe it or not ... make no knee-jerked judgements.

But they're coming.

On the other hand, meeting my colleagues and finally putting a face to the words I have been reading for months and/or years is always an immediately welcomed treat.

With other bloggers and journalists, I do get to be judgemental right away, no filters, no holds bar. I get to unleash the bitch and the momma immediately and with no velvet rope to hold them back.