The purpose of this blog is to allow me to write stream of consciousness essays on my own personal thoughts. My thoughts the last few years have become more and more political. It seems the more I learn, the less I agree with the governance of the United States.
At this particular moment I'm especially interested in the Occupy Movement. I have been expecting something like this movement for a couple of decades. What I want to know is what took so long?
If this blog actually gets any traffic, which is highly unlikely, but IF it does, I will put a little ad on here and have it directly contributed to Spencer Mills, AKA @OakFoSho on Twitter and UStream.tv. Spencer is a brilliant young independent citizen journalist/editorialist who is covering the Occupy Movement, particularly in Oakland, his home town. If you would like to know more about him, view his videos of either Occupy Oakland or his trip to Occupy LA just click here.
He has recently taken a leave of absence from his job (that he loves) working at a gym in order to be able to document the movement. There is a link on his page that allows him to take donations so that he can continue his important work. In the spirit of transparency he also is documenting every donated penny spent, whether it's for travel expenses, living expenses or equipment.
Granted, he was amazingly overqualified for a gym job. He has a BA and an MBA from Loyola-Marymount University. He graduated in 2008, just in time for the bottom to fall out of the jobs market, the real estate market, the stock market and every other damn thing.
When law enforcement threatens violence against peaceful demonstrators he gets right in their faces with his camera, tells the viewers the names and/or badge numbers of the rule breakers, and tells them how many thousands of people all around the world are watching them, live. He has been tear gassed, shot with pepper spray filled paint balls and has had police point their weapons directly at his head at point blank range, with a finger on the trigger-- something that is expressly against policy.
I was lucky enough to have been there from his first broadcast the night the protesters shut down the Port of Oakland, and I've been hooked ever since. When he made his famous "run for the battery" I was right there with him, sitting on pins and needles and cheering him on all night long. I can't tell you the last time a man has kept me up all night just listening to him talk, but this young man can do that.
When UStream saw what a fantastic job he was doing they loaned him a multi-provider six modem unit so that if AT&T stops working it switches over to Verizon or Sprint. It also has three or four batteries that keep everything running and a high resolution Sony Handycam video camera with night vision capabilities. The pack weighs something like 40 pounds, so he still uses the Android phone he started with if he's just interviewing occupiers, touring camps or answering viewer questions in real time via the chat and social media streams at UStream.
What an impressive, smart and dedicated young man he is. If there were more people like Spencer Mills this would be a much better world.
(Edited on 12/11 to update cell phone service information.)
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