Last night we joined Daniel Ellsberg, the producers of his wonderful documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America, and others at the home of his distributor. It was a beautiful brownstone on the Upper West Side with a remarkable cast of characters gathered — actor Woody Harrelson and the producer of his haunting movie about war deaths, The Messenger (Harrelson taped a promo for the Ellsberg doc); Gen Janet Karpinski, once head of prisons in Iraq – including Abu Ghraib — now a major whistleblower; Leon Weinglass, the revered civil rights attorney who had defended Ellsberg and his codefendent for their leak of the Pentagon Papers; and founder of discussion group The Common Good (and famous beauty), Patricia Duff. I also taped a promotional video for the film , which is screening today at noon in NYC for The Common Good. It made me hopeful. Ellsberg is as commanding and inspiring as ever. When I asked Weinglass why I should not feel despair — I asked him to tell me from his deeper historical vantage point that the pendulum will swing again — he laughed. `If you are a political person you have to have hope,’ he said; later, he and Ellsberg went into deep detail about the judge and the ruling in the Pentagon Papers trial — a conversation I wish I could have captured for posterity.

Friends, I want to ask you to educate us a bit more when you have the time and inclination. There are really substantive issues coming up on the Facebook discussion such as net neutrality. I have heard comments supporting both sides of this issue and people have posted some links but what we have to get in the habit of doing is writing brief but informative summaries of WHY — why we should support or not support net neutrality (I don;t mean to single that out, it is a general request.) It’s great to hear you say your brief views but please educate us! Links are good but a summary in the voice of a fellow citizen is even better — better practice for us, better educating. Don’t just tell me to do my homework re this or any other issue — you are the teachers! You write the lesson plan! Same with Prop 8 — pls post the websites you want me to highlight and write an op ed (750 wd) summary of your argument if you want me to seed it into whatever other media I can…i will gladly do so.

Thanks so much all….it is very very cold in NYC today and I am missing that tropical wind…xxx naomi

We got a hundred new community members in the past week…welcome all.