Clarence "Sparr" Risher

Oddly, as it turns out, the yellow QR code worked fine for at least one other person's phone, but we did get some of those printed with green instead.

We had a ridiculous amount of food come in given the short lead time* and the direct donations to Capital Area food bank alone had hit $15,000 by this evening and that campaign had only started Tuesday morning.

(This morning, about 48 hours after it was posted, it hit $10k. We did the math. That sounds like so much money doesn't it? SNAP serves 41 million people a month. $10k is 53 people worth. Or 3 seconds of the year. You'll hear that in the live stream below.)


Originally we had confirmed congressman Khanna, Beyer, and Raskin (who had literally a 17 min availability window) but then Khanna had to bail in the morning and Raskin had to bail near go time.

So the event speaking only really went for about half an hour and closed down and then Walkinshaw showed up like 10 min later so he ended up in the group photo op but wasn't on a live stream but I sent someone over to get some video with him I hope it happened.
Edit: he was interviewed by NBC4 and posted the group photo we invited him into over his protest of 'but I only just got here' on his Instagram (I do wish someone had gotten him a better one)


. MSN picked up Fox 5 DC's live stream of the shorter than expected but really good speaking segment . Which is especially good, because the person someone handed a phone to to live stream to Instagram was initially told hold it horizontal and was and then a bunch of people told him to hold it vertical so he changed it so the Instagram live stream is sideways.


Walkinshaw, a new rep from Virginia, didn't seem mad and was really nice and joined our group photo, the one guy in a suit surrounded by the rest of us in high vis, and holding one of the signs, too.

I noticed in some photos that someone posted on Blue sky that Beyer went and joined the crowd behind the speakers after he spoke.


I am especially happy about my part in making this happen.

I'm also pleased that I can see evidence of my process improvements, possibly in these Getty pictures and possibly in somebody else's I forget - things like I taped up a sign that was in amongst the food on one of the tables and it was my idea to use blue tape to identify the people who had just been introduced to the press as people willing to talk to them, and I was part of starting us sorting like with like from the beginning and as it came in.

David told me that anytime he mentioned me people told him how great I was.

It was just astonishing this came together so very quickly. I think the organizing chat started Monday evening. Thank goodness they were afraid that the weather wasn't good enough on Wednesday and moved it to today and thank goodness the weather suddenly got better today.

Long after everybody else was on their way out, a photographer for Somal News showed up. I cajoled the guy who started this to give her a quick snippet, and later this evening sent her some further pictures. I look forward to seeing the article. At one point she asked about what's the deal with fun food not ballrooms and I had to explain the whole Trump ballroom and a swing demolition and found this article which is kind of heartening


We then got back here, went to noise making, talked with some people there, went to all about burger and got chicken tenders (i think I managed to leave my whole soda there which is a little annoying, and boy howdy am I grateful that David was able to come and pick me up and help me get out this morning even though that was the afternoon because oh boy howdy was I scattered), and then I went inside the house and sat down on the floor for an hour making it rather look late to try and deliver something to Laurel but how to really nice conversation with Charles and Lisa for a while in establishing that and now sometimes it's 1:30 in the morning partly because I've continued looking at articles and finding pictures and stuff and stuff and stuff.


I really need to spend some time on life maintenance tomorrow.

I have zero idea what I'm going to do for halloween. There's a house dance I've been kind of meaning to go to in annandale, there's an Acro evening Jam in Columbia, and there's some movies outside and I don't know what to call it but it's sort of 4:00 on the beltway. I guess I have a couple options for clothing but I don't really have the energy.



*I think we sent five cars out split between the two food banks that were not Capital Area Food Bank. I keep kicking myself for not having thought to post to the big mutual Aid Facebook group or the welcome to DC Facebook group or my building link, but there were just so many moving parts and I thought of a little some of that and then didn't get to it in time. And who knows maybe walk in Shaw could have spoken if I had been a little faster at trying to track down additional speakers. But honestly, the food was basically there as bait for the media. If you're going to buy food yourself, that's much more for mutual Aid and community pantries - real food banks can buy food at the same prices grocery stores do; it's so much better to give them dollars to do so. Although yes there's a bunch of stuff that they're less likely to buy, like, say, multi packs of canned chicken from costco. And those that handle fresh at all that's entirely donations.

And in a turn of dark hilarity, with only like 2 or 3 days of work on it we have so far 3 confirmed congresscritters but we've gotten nowhere finding anyone willing to speak who works in a food bank or mutual aid, who is receiving SNAP and looking at losing it, who is a fired or furloughed fed, or who is with USDA Food Nutrition Service.

But anyway. Yeah, 3-5 in front of USDA HQ on the Mall side near Smithsonian Metro, a rally (and food drive*) and we're sending the physical stuff to probably more the food bank in Arlington and the one in Gaithersburg** and we've raised over 5k in a day or two for Capital Area Food Bank and I feel guilty that I don't have a link that has links for all three.

I have no idea what I'm doing or wearing for Halloween.

I suppose I need to spend some more time trying to track down . . . something.

My phone died while I was in the library printing and I ended up talking with a lady for like 45 min after the library closed who plans to show up tomorrow (yay!) and who was telling me about things DC did to keep people from autofalling off medicaid when she was a case worker, and who also was telling me about some guy who was curing AIDS with herbs in the 80s; I went back to explaining PEPFAR and soft power somewhere in there. I think her name was Latisa. We also saw a desperately cute tiny dog.

I need way more sleep tonight.


*and yes we know generally it's best to just give $ to food banks and food pantries but hopefully the photographers will be really into the congresscritters helping load cars? (well actually I think they each have literally like 17 min windows of available time on site.)

** Manna food bank in Gaithersburg is desperate for additional volunteers the next few days:

"Manna Food Center in Maryland serves a significant federal workforce population. Because of the ongoing government shutdown, they are making emergency bags for furloughed federal workers in our area.
If you are available to volunteer for any of the shifts listed below, please contact Manna's Volunteer Coordinator, Kalandra Thompson, at 240.268.2520 x2520 or kalandra@mannafood.org
Volunteers are urgently needed for the following shifts:
· Thursday 10/30 9am – 12pm – 3 openings
· Thursday 10/30 9am – 12pm (Rescued Produce shift) – 8 openings
· Friday 10/31 from 12pm – 2pm (Frozen Meat Prep shift) – 9 openings
Manna Food Center Warehouse: 9311 Gaither Road, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

It's been a very full week.

It's been a bunch of time with a good friend. Had all my assumptions about another friend dashed later in the week, astonished that that person could be capable of such cruelty*.

Managed to be part of a support system.

Didn't manage to get to one of the parties I would have liked to get to Saturday night, but did reconnect with a social circle some of whom I hadn't seen in years.

I do wish I'd spent more time outdoors today, because I was in a tank top and leggings and more than warm enough in the afternoon before driving all the way to Acro and spending the rest of the nice time indoors.

I'm so tired.




* I really don't have energy to explain and this isn't the venue anyway but even before I knew any more than that divorce papers had been served I was floored by the cruelty of the timing.

Anyway, this is a memory: mom took me to the glass flower museum in Boston. And I sort of think I returned there with Joe in 2001 but we were getting sick at the time.

https://open.substack.com/pub/kirkgordon/p/the-age-of-silicon-began-long-ago?

I suppose I should get back to sleep.

I have things I really want to go to today in Manassas and Elkridge and Capitol Heights and argh.