In the spirit of writing shorter posts, more frequently/regularly, I offer the following:

Em and I drove out to the East Bay tonight for our first-ever dinner at Zachary’s. The place is something of a Bay Area legend as far as deep-dish (aka “Chicago Style”) pizza goes, but I’d never heard of it until a few nights ago. Em only goes for thin-crust, wood-fired (aka “Snooty”) kind of pizza, so it never landed on her radar either. But the deep dish was good, and the place is top-ranked by all the local papers, so we hadda get it done. I managed to eat a third of a small “Jambalya” deep-dish pizza, and the doggie bag will probably hold me over for another couple of days. Good stuff. Em put a small dent in a thin-crust pizza that wasn’t awful or anything, but did make it obvious why thin-crust pizza is not what Zachary’s is known for.

Anyhow, the main reason for heading out across the bay wasn’t Zachary’s – it was to attend a benefit for KPFA and Global Exchange: Al Franken, Paul Krugman, and Kevin Phillips at the Berkeley Community Theater. It wasn’t an awesome event (the hosting by Amy Goodman wasn’t that great, and there were some really awful microphone problems), but it benefits a couple of worthy causes, and it was interesting to be in the presence of that many California ultra-libertarians. Or, as my friend Leslie likes to (affectionately?) call them, “Dirty Hippies”. Or, as I sometimes call them, “Seitan Worshippers”. Okay, enough of that joke – it started unfunny and got worse fast.

We’ve got Krugman’s latest book, and it’s not bad. I may pick up Franken’s book, if only to support the cause. Undecided about Phillips’ latest title – there are probably some interesting facts in there, but there’s only so much preaching I need to hear, since I’m about as converted as they come. Speaking of which, I actually started thinking (while sitting in a room tonight *packed* with the converted) about forming a site/campaign called “PreachingToTheUNconverted.org” (or some such), that concentrated on distributing flyers outside of (e.g.) churches, military bases, and other “known Republican strongholds”. Maybe I just have an uncontrollable urge to get beaten up… But I’ve always felt that someone ought to try taking the anti-Bush message(s) directly to the folks who really like Bush and what he (claims he?) stands for. Does this make sense? I suppose there *are* people doing this already, but I just don’t hear a lot about it. People (certainly) preach to the converted – on both sides. And everyone tries to sway the Undecided. But are many people crazy/brave/foolish enough to take their message right to the opposing side’s *base*? Does anyone know of people doing this? And better yet, of it actually having worked?

Okay, that’s already too long, and I need to get to bed besides. If you can, please vote against Bush when the time comes. And if you’re Canadian, please help me keep an eye on Paul Martin.