Well, it was certainly interesting to meet the faces behind (or rather, hovering over) some of those keyboards. Here are just some random observations.
Ben Smith wasn't there, perhaps because he's out stalking republican Senate candidate whashisname again, on the off-chance that the latter opens his mouth. The results of this will then wind up on the front page of the Daily News.
Scott Sala of Urban Elephants [1] is actually a quite likable – if pronouncedly short – fellow. Seems altogether pleasant.
Certain bloggers really need to work on their verbal brevity.
Others who think newspapers are going away after four hundred years are, frankly, ahistorical to a shocking degree.
Mr. Gur Tsabar is equally pleasant, though what I presume are his republican leanings render him deeply suspect. Just kidding. [Update: Someone emails that to describe Gur as a republican amounts to calumny, since he is, indeed, a Democrat. I guess this particular private joke wasn't all that funny. Apologies.]
Chuck Schumer is wary of The Daily Gotham? What? For the record, I worship Chuck and would argue that he should be cloned. Chuck Schumer kicks serious ass; god alone knows we need, want, must have more people like him. (Cue Atlantic Yards carping from the single-issue, first-Mattera-then-Suozzi-supporting crowd. Two words: blow me.)
To the gentleman shocked that some no-name - Liza, me, whomever - could throw a congressional race, the same two words: blow me.
Andrew Rasiej was there, whom I really would urge to be out and about far more frequently. Most Dems, or many, I should say, are dumb as bricks when it comes to making technology politically relevant. You have a role to play.
I had a bit of a conversation with a pleasant British person, who, after the preliminaries were gotten out of the way, asked me – though out of politeness, one presumes, indirectly - why Americans are such cowards, frightened of anything and everything. That's kind of a sore spot with me, because having lived overseas for a good part of my life, I think it's an essentially accurate observation – we really are big old babies. Here we are, the peer of Rome, ascendant across the globe, clothed in power, and we run screaming from a bunch of goatherds, with the republican party fanning the flames. I sometimes wish we had something like the Blitz in our national background, or Napoleon at Boulogne, to give us some effing backbone; but we don't, simply because ever since a certain other nation laid waste our capital in 1812, we've gone through history largely unmolested by others, and hence are today a big bunch of ninnies, 300 million overstuffed civilians pretending we're engaged in a 'war on terror'.
When we're not shitting ourselves because we just saw a guy in a turban, that is.
This is indeed just ludicrously embarrassing to some of us, dear Briton on your fancy-shmancy NYU scholarship. No, I don't think there's much of a chance that the UK will ever be as cowardly decadent as we are. You have the kind of history that doesn't allow champagne unit deserters into Downing Street, nor blathering idiots to be elected to anything of consequence. Besides, you also have the Germans and those weasely French right next door to keep you alert.
And no, Dave Pollak, I'm not kidding about wanting the actual poll results. Pretty please?
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