This Moment in Pittsburgh—UPDATED
Today we’re posting from scenic Pittsburgh, PA, where we’re joining John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Waterworks Mall for the latest stop on the TMOE Tour. There’s been a lot of buzz building in Steeltown about this event, so we’re expecting quite a turnout today. (THK and JK being Pittsburgh residents themselves, the locals are always happy to have them drop by and say hello whenever they can get away from Washington for a weekend.)
Local news media will be covering the event, of course, but so will several Pittsburgh area bloggers who are here to participate in a special Q&A session with JK and THK before the main event begins. Veteran Kerrybloggers GlobalVillage and wisteria are in town for the occasion as well. So we’ll have plenty of good material to keep updating this blog entry with as the day goes by—including on-the-spot live coverage as it happens. Stay tuned! <!As you can see in the photos from GV’s DU thread about this event, the Barnes & Noble store in Fox Chapel was packed very full of people for this event. Their traffic planning was excellent, though, their staff was uniformly impressive, and they deserve all the props I gave them in this comment, and then some. (Thanks, y’all!)
This was not accidental, by the way - both JK and THK are very appreciative of their loyal blogging community, as they are of all their online supporters, and that’s why their staff and the publishers of their book have made a particular point of ensuring blogger access at all the TMOE events. (Thanks, Vince! Thanks, Whitney!) Even though they were crunched for time, the Kerrys insisted on setting aside some special time for bloggers at this event - as this video grab that GV posted of of the duly-noted box-vs-chair JK stockroom interview indicates.
Well-known Pittsburgh blogger Dayvoe of ‘2 Political Junkies’ was present for that stockroom interview, and he not only dashed off a few cellphone camera pix from the event for his co-blogger Maria to post in real time here, he followed it up with a full report written in his inimitably personal style here as well.
Unlike Dayvoe, fellow Pittsburgh blogger spork_incident is a photographer first and a writer second. He posted the first few snaps of his Saturday experience with us on his ‘A Spork in the Drawer’ blog here and then followed it up with a more detailed report here.
Not to be outdone, members of the local Pittsburgh media apparently decided that they really needed to step up and claim equal space with the bloggers at this event. The Post-Gazette newspaper sent a print reporter and WPXI covered it with video footage in their evening news broadcast on Saturday, but KDKA seems to have lapped the pack with its web-based streaming video presentation of not only two clips from their evening and morning broadcasts but with the full uncut videotape of their one-on-one interview with JK and THK, all of which can be viewed on their television station’s website here.
The most important stories from the event, though, the most meaningful moments and the things that made it so much more special than your average run-of-the-mill book-signing session, were the unplanned but not entirely unanticipated interactions between the people who were there attending the event. They don’t have bully pulpits or broadcast microphones or even basic blogs, but the energy they brought to the room was palpable.
Some of the people who came to the Barnes & Noble store yesterday were there just to get their books signed by somebody special. But most of them were not. And they stayed around for a long time after the event just cross-connecting with each other (much to the inconvenience of the bookstore staff who had to reset the room back to its normal configuration, but they were very understanding and for that we are most grateful) and you could sense the energy crackling back and forth as they exchanged information and built new coalitions of environmentally-activist individuals right there on the spot.
Which, is, of course, the whole reason that John and Teresa Heinz Kerry wrote “This Moment on Earth” in the first place… and is also the subject of an upcoming followup post about “This Moment in Pittsburgh—II”
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Woo Hoo!!!
I’m plugged into one of the few available electrical outlets at the Waterworks B&N, crowd watching and waiting for the big event.
In only 2 hours and 46 minutes!!!
It’s interesting to listen to comments from customers when they see the sign and the setup.
“John Kerrry?” “THE John Kerry?!”
Hehe. Should be great fun in only 2 hours and 44 minutes.
OK. I guess I’m a little excited.
:-)
Hey, how is the crowd now? Keep us informed on how everything is going and what it feels like there. It’s great to know that they are expecting a good sized crowd.
I hope all goes well!
Well, all I can say is that it was worth the wait. We were unable to blog during the discussion or Q&A, but we’ve got lots of photos and plenty to tell about this great, fun event.
From the looks of the line, the Kerrys are not going to get out of here by 4:00. We’re currently sitting right in front of John and Teresa as they’re signing books, and it seems everyone has a story to tell or a ‘thank you’ to say.
Really a super nice event and a great, great crowd.
Sounds great GV, will be waiting for your full report and with pics, YAY!
Tell Senator Kerry and Teresa a big HELLO from the JK community.
Sounds like a fun event. How many people are there GV? Tell us more. Also say hi to the Kerrys. Tell them we’re following the events through the blogs and they’ve been terrific! Oh, and tell us more GV.
OK, now how many US Senators do you know who will sit on a cardboard box so he can give his chair to a blogger?
Hmmm…
One that I can think of.
:-)
GV,
That sounds just like the guy I voted for in ‘04, pure gentleman . :-)
Who got the chair? Is anyone taking pictures? What’s the crowd like?
Hint, he’s tall.
Three chairs.
One for the lovely Mrs Heinz Kerry, one for Wisteria, and one for yours truly.
Many, many pictures, ProSense. Patience.
OK, glad there will be tons of pictures, but I can’t wait to see them! Thanks GV!
Three chairs for the red white and blue!
Some LOW QUALITY pics can be found here).
Dayvoe
2PJ
Sounds like a great event and a great turnout! (Not that I expected any less.) I can’t wait to see your photos GV, and thank you Dayvoe for posting yours.
And you’re right GV, JK is pure class - all the way.
I wrote up the event.
Here.
Dayvoe
I’m looking forward to more details and photos!
The NY and Cambridge book signings were great and Senator Kerry and Mrs. Kerry are always kind and pleasant to everyone - even rude questioners!
It is great to have coverage of the events that you can’t attend so that you can share the excitement.
That JK gave up his seat to sit on a box is just another example of his kindness as is this story:
Kerry Gives Marine Mom Special Mother’s Day Gift
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=5803
Well, what an event. So much to let you all know about. I got some good video and I hope to post more tomorrow.
The event was absolutely wonderful. JK and THK did a turn or two of pass the microphone and Senator Kerry worked the crowd with mike in hand. The crowd was so large that the people wayyyyyy in the back could not hear or be heard so Senator Kerry took the microphone to them. In between questions and answers the senator spent some time in the Romance section of the book store and commented on the books for dummies. And Teresa mentioned that her previous trips to the Water Works Mall have all been for something other than speaking engagements. All in good fun of course.
The Kerry’s got down to business though with comments about unsafe chemicals in many of the every day products we clean with and the cosmetics we use. They spoke about instituting the “Precautionary Principle” similar to the way Europe handles chemical safety. And, Senator Kerry mentioned several ways we can all become better consumer advocates and ways we can all do even a little to help our planet. One suggestion that I will just have to try is one cleaning method his Grandmother used to clean her windows, vinegar and old newspaper.
There is so much to relay that I want to make sure I honor the Kerry’s by getting it right. I will have more tomorrow. I do want to take this opportunity though, to thank Senator Kerry and Teresa for being so generous with their time today. And, I agree with the Senator, Teresa would have been a spectacular First Lady.
I posted photos at DU. What a great event!
Thank you, John and Teresa!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x875490
I found this wonderful uncut video of an interview done with Senator Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry yesterday for the TMOE book event. This was done by a local station. Check out the side videos too, they are excellent also.
http://kdka.com/video/?id=27683@kdka.dayport.com
My takes on the event are here and here.
.
Thanks for sharing your terrific posts and photos spork_incident. Good stuff.
Good write up sport_incident.
I also wanted to share this article I found very interesting in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette today. It concerns the carbon capture and sequestration process.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07133/785696-113.stm
“Why put CO in the air when you can bury it”
“In the fight against global warming, local scientists try to make the capture and sequestration process more affordable”
Thanks for all the great coverage and links! I just got home to Pittsburgh from a month-long road trip and found out that I had unfortunately missed this event.
It’s totally appropriate that the Kerrys were at the Waterworks Mall, which is a landmark in Pittsburgh’s environmental history. The mall was built on the redeveloped site of the city’s first municipal water filtration and treatment plant, which opened one hundred years ago (December 1907). Our current water-treatment plant is still next door.
The political battles over water treatment a century ago had similarities to the struggles we’re having over environmental policy today. Then as now, there were influential people who denied a clear scientific consensus, refusing to believe that contaminated water carried typhoid bacteria. Some argued that cities couldn’t afford to build treatment plants. Others wanted to pipe in purer water from someplace else and forget about cleaning up the existing supplies.
Nevertheless, the treatment plants won a lot of public support and did get built. Thousands of lives were saved in American cities as waterborne illnesses declined. The Waterworks site is a reminder that technology and democratic politics can work to make communities healthier.