The Electron Pencil

Cathi’s Clown

Hah! Pencillistas, start paying attention! Only one of you has pointed out that my spanking new logo for our coverage of the Democratic National Convention featuring delegate Cathi Crabtree actually has her name misspelled.

Sheesh. Come to think of it, Cathi herself hasn’t even raised cain about it so I assume she missed it, too, unless she’s so self-effacing, modest, and unwilling to confront a wrong that she decided to remain mum about the whole deal. But, um, that wouldn’t be our Cathi, would it?

Logo Designed By Big Make

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Fightin’ Words

So, Cathi and her delegate pals Martha Hilderbrand and Jeanne Smith just spent a couple of days in an SUV and all three will share a single hotel room on the outskirts of Philly through the four days of the Dem gathering. What makes this combo so remarkably successful thus far is the fact that Cathi and Jeanne have yet to strangle each other. See, Cathi’s a rabid Hillary backer and Jeanne…, well, Jeanne goes for Bernie.

Uh oh.

But, as I say, so far Nuh uh. No fighting. No voices raised. No petrified Martha Hilderbrand huddling in a corner of their hot rod speeding through the Allegheny Mountains.

The Dems hope and pray the convention plays out in exactly that serene fashion. We’ll see. Based on my readings of social media and certain Bernie-tilting websites, there still are scads of peeps hoping beyond hope for a Sanders coup. And, weirdly — extremely weirdly — some Bernie-istas are chanting “Lock her up” on the streets of Philly already.

Nice choice, huh? Borrowing the fave screech from last week’s Republican National coronation of D. Trump as Strongman-in-Chief. Go figure.

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You Never Liked My Mother!

Hah, again! Some commentator on NPR this AM was talking about Hillary’s major drawback in this historic election: Her un-likability. That’s an inarguable assessment. Me? I’ve said all along that for all the charisma her old man, former Prez Bill Clinton, possesses, she’s the exact opposite.

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This commentator said voters were asked a poll question on the order of If Hillary was a member of your family, which one would she be?

Very few selected her as Mom, Sis, or a favorite aunt. In fact, clear majorities ID’d her as their harsh, unloveable aunt or — shudder — their mother-in-law.

My gal Hill has an image problem, babies.

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To The Nines

Dig Cathi Crabtree, all gussied up for those Democratic “hospitality tables” late yesterday afternoon:

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Cathi’s Communiques

Here’s Cathi’s filing, this AM at 7:21 EST:

Monday morning. Ready to get down to the business of the Democratic national convention

In the lobby drinking coffee and waiting for them to open up the room where we will have our daily breakfast meetings. Will get our credentials for the day there, get the schedule of what’s going on, and also there will be a guest speakers. I don’t know who they are yet.

Been looking at the schedule of caucuses. It’s going to be really hard to pick because many of the things I would like to see overlap on the schedule.

Sporting my “bitch,  please” Benghazi hearings tee. I saw Amy Schumer wearing it and had to have one so I ordered it sometime ago.

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Last night, Cathi and Co. attended the big welcoming bash for delegates at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Here’s her missive re: their arrival therein:

OMG! So we just arrived at the museum and it’s amazing! Met group and volunteers outside. They handed out little flags for all of us as we arrived!

There’s a live jazz singer and it’s just phenomenal the music was incredible!

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Meanwhile, Jeanne Smith reports that last night Art Museum soiree was an “amazing drunk party with two great bands.”

She acknowledges the two wings of the party (capital P) are more or less circling each other warily. “We are all a little in the dark,” she says. Then she adds, “Lots of people thinking it’s not over.”

Here’s a pic of the three with two other Monroe County delegates, state Dem chair and IU SPEA instructor John Zody and former Indiana House majority leader former Indiana Senate minority leader Vi Simpson.

(L-R) Zody, Hilderbrand, Smith, Crabtree & Simpson

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Cathi, too, gushed over last night’s fete (report filed at 11:52pm):

The museum is actually open so we can see much of the artwork.

I feel so swanky!

There was a superlong line at the bar but a good man pointed us to another bar with no line. It’s not a cash bar — it’s free so watch out!

String trio playing Coldplay!

So many amazing little appetizers incl. cucumbers stuffed with fava bean hummus.

We went outside and there was a DJ so we danced  a lot!!! So fun.

Met delegates from all over, incl. Guam.

Oh by the way having the time of my life!!!

More tomorrow!

Hot Off The Dance Floor

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July 25th Birthdays

Thomas Eakins — A native of Philadelphia, Eakins is viewed as one of the most important visual artists in American history. A realist painter, portraitist, sculptor, photographer, and teacher, he wrote his father while an art student in Paris: “[The female nude] is the most beautiful thing there is in the world except a naked man, but I never yet saw a study of one exhibited.”

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Gavrilo Princip — The man who started World War I?

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Rosalind Franklin — Perhaps science’s most overlooked female. She was instrumental in the discovery of the DNA helix but her two male colleagues, Watson & Crick, weren’t terribly eager to share the credit with her.

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Steve Goodman — Songwriter who gave us “City of New Orleans” and this great classic:

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Louise Joy Brown — English woman acknowledged as the world’s first test tube baby.

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On this date in 1989, Steve Rubell died. He was the co-owner and master of ceremonies of perhaps the apotheosis of the decadent, me-decade 1970s, Studio 54. The nightclub/disco actually occupied the old CBS TV studio on 54th Street in Manhattan. For one New Year’s Eve party there, four tons of glitter were dumped on the dancefloor, leading Rubell’s biz partner, Ian Schrager, to observe it was “like standing on stardust.” And you need never read another word to better understand the ’70s.

(L-R) Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, Brooke Shields & Rubell At Studio 54

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