There is a flow to life. Back home in Maine, I'd taken up foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants as a hobby, and learning what foods are edible also goes hand in hand with knowing when they are available to eat.

Just as the bounty of the land changes with the change of the seasons, so does the bounty of other things. Right now, we are in a winter of sorts on the intern team. Chaz, Cory, and John have all left us. Chaz and Cory have left for NYC on the EuroRock 2007 tour to Rock the World for Peace.

You can see the shirts that our very own Stacey designed for the BR Family, and also the artist and our Harrison modeling themhere

John left us to head back home to St Paul. We'll miss you John, and we wish you well.

---

So once, there were eight. Now there are five. We've lost nearly half our staff. Yikes. If anybody wants to become and intern, please, please, please apply!

In spite of the recent shortage of staffers, we're still pushing ahead with all our projects, with full steam, including Students for Kucinich. Hal is working on getting a webpage that the Students For Kucinich groups can edit themselves. We'll have all sorts of resources up there for you, and as you figure out what things work on your campus, you can share your ideas online, and keep in touch with what other groups are doing.

In other news, after ABC gave us the full gauntlet to deny us meaningful coverage, there was an upwelling of support. They replaced the photograph that cut Dennis Kucinich out with one that included him. They did NOT however put the poll back up. It's still accessible through the link, but it's not linked to anywhere on ABCnews's website any longer (at least not that I could find.)

On MSNBC's AFL-CIO poll, Dennis Kucinich is now at number one with 27%!

And after MSNBC's LIVESTRONG forum, Kucinich not only brought the house down, but he also cleaned up at the poll with a full 36% of the vote.

Check it:


Irritatingly, they took down the poll that same day at 7:30 and replaced it with a poll that asks, "Which of the GOP candidates do you think will make Healthcare a priority?" which unlike >the one that Dennis won, has been up for a couple days now. Not suprisingly Ron Paul won, as he does with every online poll ever, with 41% last I checked.

I realize now that I never gave a real introductory post. I guess I should talk a bit about who I am.

---

My name is Asher, I'm a jazz musician from Maine. I'm currently a registered Green. I voted for Kerry back in 2004. That's why I'm registered Green now. The Green, Libertarian, and Reform parties were the only ones that challenged the voter fraud in Ohio in 2004. Bob Fitrakis of the Green party ran for Governor in Ohio in 2006 on the platform of suing Kenneth Blackwell for vote rigging with electronic machines.

Now, why the heck would I vote for Kerry? I had totally planned on "throwing my vote away" with gusto on the Cobb/LaMarche ticket (I don't actually think it's throwing it away), but I was a member of the League of Pissed Off Voters and we'd decided to vote for Kerry en bloc. I learned the hard way that if your candidate doesn't actually want to be president (because his running mate is a member of the same Neo-Fascist fraternal order), you shouldn't vote for them, because they are a patsy.

This same election cycle I also learned a ton about activism and the primary process. My student group, University Student Activists (U.S.A.--clever, no?) started to fall apart as we couldn't agree on whether or not to endorse a candidate, and from which party we should if we did. We continued to work on local election stuff, organizing protests against the war, and lobbying the campus cafeteria services provider,Aramark, to include locally grown foods in their offerings. I myself switched from supporting Dean to Kucinich, and after voting in the municipal primary, was elected as a delegate for the Maine State Convention. I witnessed Dennis Kucinich's speech there first hand. It was so moving, he moved from 11% to 33% of the delegation to the National Convention from Maine.

Because of a student group that me and some politically active and locally minded people started up, I was selected for a scholarship to go to a sort of boot-camp for political organizing in Columbus, OH, called the "Smack Down." It was amazing. I met people from all over the country, from all sorts of different ethnic and economic backgrounds.

We all had so many opportunities to talk about what life was like where we were, and what kinds of political fights we've had to fight on our own turf. It was like vicariously traveling and living in major cities all around the USA, condensed into the span of a week. There was a open-mic slam poetry fest held one night, and it was really quite inspiring. I had written one piece after the USAPATRIOT act passed, but I was so inspired by this event, I started seriously listening to, and writing slam poetry after that.

I also accepted a campus fellowship with EnviroCitizen.org, which was really helpful. I learned a lot about canvasing first hand with them, and I was able to collect information to use for my GOTV (get out the vote) efforts with the LPOV. I interviewed local candidates and asked them about issues that my campus group decided were important. I made up a great little voter guide, printed up a few thousand copies, and then distributed them to every person who lived on campus, and encouraged them to register and vote locally.

It worked. We had a massive surge in voter turnout, especially in my age group. We were able to affect real change locally as well. Later, I was able to lobby the candidates we'd endorsed, and I was able to submit legislation on some of the issues that my group championed, and hold those politicians accountable on their campaign stances. So later, I got the opportunity to testify in Augusta on behalf of bills I helped create. Which was way cool. While there I met a bunch of lobbyists who were there on behalf of the bio-fuels industry, and talking with them, I learned a lot about the state of bio-fuels in Maine.

After 2004 though, I was so burned out and so disappointed, dropped out of politics and I focused almost exclusively on playing bass, electronic music and composing and arranging orchestral music.

I'm supposed to be graduating this year. I applied to be an intern while bored at work one day, and I got it. I was totally prepared to let this election cycle go by with a little bit of campaigning, and a vote on my part. But I got in, and they've wanted me to stay so far. The political animal that was killed by cynicism back in 2004 is active and healthy again.

As far as the bounty of my activism goes, It's now mid-summer.