My Kerry/Edwards button story of the day

[swag]

Sorry to pollute GD:2004 with this post, but I want to post this trivial story and I reckon this spot is close enough.

I work in a 16-story office building in downtown Portland, OR, in a financial services office whose main partners are a bunch of men who over the years have given tens of thousands to the Cheney-Bush junta and affiliates.

We (most of us who aren't "partners" in the firm) have combatted this in various ways, most specifically this year by holding our own small-fundraiser parties, by donating ourselves, by galvanizing ourselves, our workmates, and our friends into political action. I dare say we have beaten the millionaires at their own games so far, and gone beyond them in our verve and activism.

But anyway, I never wear my button in the office, and we have raised so much shit about political paternalism of the owners in the past that they too have toned down their political personas while in the office, for the sake of harmony, decency, productivity.

I put my Kerry/Edwards button on in the elevator on the way downstairs after work. People in the elevator sometimes admire the button, so they ask me for one. I try to keep a lot on hand, handy to hand out.

A few minutes ago, I got paged to our front desk. Building security had sent a woman from another firm up to our offices because she was in need of a Kerry button and our security guards knew instantly who had them. I was a bit leery, I must confess, about being the building's go-to guy for Kerry buttons given the political disposition of the owners of my firm, but I snagged a button from my colleague (alas, Kerrygear, I am temporarily all out) and headed to the front desk for a delightful chat with a woman who is the Executive Director of a local environmental foundation. She's going to a huge birthday bash tonight for a Republican friend with a huge crowd of other Republicans, but she wanted to make sure that if others in that crowd were aggressive with their political views, that she had hers at the ready in a visible form. And now she does, with her brand new Kerry/Edwards button.

And we swapped email addresses, and we're going to help one another be effective and active, and blah blah blah.

In other news, my colleague here in the IT deparment found out that the local west-side Dems need some network hubs, and we just happen to have a ton of them.

IT GEEKS: SEE IF YOUR LOCAL DEMS NEED ANYTHING THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE SITTING AROUND! OURS HAVE NEEDED POWER CORDS, HUBS, ROUTERS, ETC.

Anyway, sorry for wasting so much ASCII on a very slight story, but there it is - making connections for Kerry/Edwards via the Security guards.