I met this representative of AfterDowningStreet.org this morning on the 16th Street Mall, the best place to get a civilian perspective of the DNC. The pedestrian mall runs for a couple dozen blocks through downtown Denver, attracting thousands of folks who may lack press credentials but have no shortage of flair.

Yes, that's a mint in her hand. An "Impeach Mint."

This is not a story that proponents of the Iraq War will find comfortable. Here, have a look.

Meet a parent whose child -- a 20-year-old son, to be precise -- spent two years in Iraq and sustained a catastrophic brain injury. That's his photo on his dad's placard. The name isn't important; there are thousands of parents in America whose children have suffered the same fate. Many of them have banded together, as did this gentleman and his fellow protester, in an organization called Military Families Speak Out.

I'd like to see advocates for the rightness of this war explain to this man why his son's life had to be ruined beyond hope of repair, and what platitudes about freedom, terror, fighting-them-there-so-we-don't-have-to-fight-them-here justify a young life destroyed as surely as if it had been ended entirely.

A word on the geography of the Democratic Convention. The strategy is one of segregation, and the only police action I observed today was when this segreagation of the various groups interested in the DNC was challenged. Just look at the map to the right: A is the Pepsi Center, B is the Convention Center, and C is where the protesters are officially allowed to be.

For anyone unfamiliar with Denver, here's a cheat sheet: From Pepsi Center to Convention Center: 1.3 miles, or a 30-minute walk. From Convention Center to Civic Center Park: 0.7 miles, 16-minute walk. From Pepsi Center to Civic Center Park: 2.0 miles, 46-minute walk. (And these times don't account for the influx of 60,000 people and police flooding city streets, obstructing even foot traffic.)

The Pepsi Center, site of the speeches broadcast each evening is an off-limits mystery to the non-credentialed, surrounded by a buffer zone so wide that the Pepsi Center isn't even visible from one of its entrances. Here even a celebrity journalist-Fox New's Alan Colmes (you know, the "liberal" one)-was refused entrance until a Fox handler came out to rescue him (during which time he turned down the autograph request of a Fox news devotee with a sign proclaiming his undying love for the network of fair and balanced news).

The same entrance that held up Colmes was the site of the only police action I observed on Tuesday. An uppity group of anti-abortion activists broke free of the prescribed protest zone in Civic Center Park, and made an break for the entrance to the Pepsi Center's buffer zone. As described in an earlier post, this act and the temporary blockage of the gate got a bunch of these martyrs arrested, and delayed journalists and delegates' entrance to the Pepsi Convention Center for a whole 15 minutes. Hope the ride to jail was worth the attention of the 30 or so folks around the gate and massive disruption of these very busy people's schedules.

Had they played by the rules, these anti-abortion activists should have been in Civic Center Park, fourteen blocks away. This was a haven for those alternative voices that wanted to be heard at the convention, but weren't warmly welcomed with open arms by the DNC. Here one finds the libertarians, advocates for the legalization of drugs, supporters of returning stolen lands to native Americans and Mexico, environmentalists, and peace activists. Civic Center Park was also home to the greatest visible concentration of Metro Denver's police in riot gear, helmets, and plastic handcuffs drapped over each shoulder, and a holster of either tear gas or mace (I didn't look too close) in a holster on each waist.

Interestingly, the one group of demonstrators that was allowed to set up displays outside of Civic Center Park was the Falun Gong, who had an impressive amount of space for their displays and demonstrations on the side of the street much closer to the third major convention destination, the Convention Center.

The Convention Center is home to the daytime caucuses-official Democratic Party sponsored events that are open to the public. This is where the committee aims to proclaim its openness and inclusiveness in events designed to appeal to the broad swath of contingents within the party. A broad open ground for interested Democrats who didn't make the delegate cutoff and who are not yet alienated enough from the process to seek refuge in Civic Center Park.

For these caucuses, some groups get to meet on Monday and Wednesday, others on Tuesday and Thursday. Monday and Wednesday you get the AAPI Caucus, Black Caucus, Ethnic Coordinated Caucus, First American Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, LGBT Caucus, Rural Caucus, and the Senior Caucus. Tuesday and Thurday feature the Disability Caucus, Faith Caucus, Veterans & Military Families Caucus, Women's Caucus, and the Youth Caucus.

I leave it you to puzzle over why these caucuses were broken up in this way.

This is the landscape in which motivated political junkies nationwide-delegates, activists, and press-must navigate to realize the promise offered by the Democratic National Committee for four days in Denver.

What are the implications of this landscape? Well, the ubiquitous hanging badges provide a clue. Only those with badges are allowed in the Pepsi Center, which means that delegates feeling anti-social can segregate themselves from the non-credentialed rabble. More social delegates can be seen networking outside the Convention Center, exchanging cards, numbers and knick-knacks. And in the protest zone, passes are a rare sight indeed. If being seen by delegates is the main goal of the protestors, seems they're out of luck due to the predetermined lay of the land (Convention Park and the Pepsi Center are in opposite directions from the Convention Center). On the other hand getting the attention of the hordes of press searching for stories seems to be working out pretty well.

This post was written by Bobble, who's in town for reasons unrelated to Awearness or any other blog.

In her opening-night speech at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama announced that her husband wouldn't rest until every child in American received a "world class" college education. Promises, promises. And Michelle didn't go into specifics about how exactly Barack would make this come about. (It would certainly entail an increase in federally subsidized loans). But one thing that's fascinating about Michelle's line is that it hardly represents a "far left" position in the contemporary political debate. It's likely George W. Bush and John McCain will say something similar next week at the GOP convention. And it's actually quite hard to imagine anyone taking up the other side, arguing openly that enough people go to college already or that too many are involved in higher education. 

Well, somebody is doing just this. His name is Charles Murray.

There's probably no more reviled social scientist--perhaps no more reviled American writer--than Murray. This hostility has little to do with his work on economics and  welfare policy, and more with the notorious book he co-authored 14 years ago, The Bell Curve, in which he took up the old "nature vs. nurture" debate and firmly came down on the side of nature. In the process, Murray brought into questions many of the basic assumptions of modern education, including that "every child can be anything he or she wants to be if only the schools do their job properly"--what he now calls "educational Romanticism." The Bell Curve quickly sparked much criticism--some of it legitimate, some not.

That Murray would now be arguing that fewer people should be going to college would seem to lend credence to his harshest critics' depiction of him as an elitist, racist, pessimist, and general merchant of doom and gloom.  

Well, Murray is none of these things. And even those who share Michelle Obama's vision of universal higher ed should take a look at Murray's reasoning for his controversial claims, put forth in his new book and a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

First off: What is this vaunted BA anyhow? It's true that without one, it's nigh impossible to get a high-paying job, or even get in the door for a job interview. But then, does this mean that most employers think it necessary that all workers have spent four years of their lives in some Arcadian locale, played a little beer pong, and taken a course on the construction of gender in Milton? Of course not. The BA serves as a kind certification that one was bright enough to "get in" and diligent enough not to flunk out. Not bad. But then for most people, is this college experience really more valuable than working for a couple of years as a manager at a small grocery or doing an apprenticeship with a master electrician? Probably not.

Until about 30 years ago, it was perfectly normal for highly successful people to lack a BA--Harry Truman and Frank Lloyd Wright being two examples among many. But now, with more and more being pushed into higher ed, anyone who didn't graduate from college gets a rap as being stupid or lazy. And thus more and more are willing to take on debt, large loans, and generally waste four years on an educational venture that in itself might not be too valuable. 

Murray's proposals for greater emphasis on skill-certification exams and apprenticeships seems to me the makings of system that's much better suited to average Americans--and much more practical than forcing everyone to attend a bunch of "organic chem" lectures while on a hangover.

In the past year, we've seen how the notion that everyone should own a home (and that the government should subsidize the whole project) has had rather bad unintended consequences and created a lot of pain for middle-class families. Political programs in which more and more Americans are pushed into taking on loans and wasting time would seem to have implications than are no less harmful. And there's nothing elitist or deterministic about pointing out that.   

Finally, some good news about health insurance: the number of people without health insurance dropped last year to 45.7 million people from 47 million in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau -- the first time since President Bush took office.

The decrease is thanks in part to expansion of government coverage of children. Granted, a 1.3 million person -- that's equal to a 0.5 percent difference -- drop isn't that much improvement, but it's a better than nothing.

Unfortunately, there's a downside to this story (as you probably figured). The number of people who have health insurance through their employers fell to 59.3 percent. The peak was 64.2 percent back in 2000. That means that if it weren't for broader governmental coverage, more people would likely be uninsured than ever.

Texas is the state with the greatest number of uninsured residents, while Massachusetts has improved the past two years. Its healthcare reforms were authored by Senator Ted Kennedy, and could be a model for reform at the federal level as well.

[2004 Health Insurance Coverage Status map courtesy of the Rural Assistance Center]