I'm in the Twin Cities, for a series of performances (see the previous post) occasioned by the RNC. The city is quiet for the moment, though I'm on the Minneapolis side of the river. You can hear the cicadas, but not the cops bursting into the RNC Welcoming Committee Convergence space late at night to confiscate dangerous pamphlets, laptops, cameras, and activist bodies. Which already happened a few days ago--but since the space has since re-opened, I'd be surprised if more raids weren't in the works.

Tomorrow will be hot, especially in a black hood and orange jumpsuit, in which we'll march with the War Resister's League in a demonstration against torture and extraordinary rendition.

This is my first real "political blog moment": is anyone else utterly dumbfounded that the media is reporting McCain's choice of vice presidential candidate as "confusing?" Is there anyone who's been following things to whom the opportunism of this act (the attempt to give the guy "diversity credibility" and to appeal to the--small, I hope--group of female Clinton supporters who are so bitter about Obama that they'd actually vote for a sexist maniac) is anything but utterly transparent and comprehensible? In a performance tonight, my friend Courtney McClean told us how tired she was of being angry about war, hatred, etc. I realized that I'm actually not angry about those things--my feelings about them are strong and very different from anger--and that what raises my ire is the knee-jerk circulation of phraseology through public discourse--the way people just accept phrases, sentences, descriptions, frames as they're thrown at them--and so, even when that language is treated from ideologically opposed points of view, the terms are already more powerful than anything their speakers might actually want to say.