Throw Down Your Pin -- Or We'll Put You on the Ground
May 10, 2011
Pinheads: Convention-goers are a souvenir-scavenging herd, and this year the hottest items by far are the commemorative lapel pins being handed out by media companies and just about every organization that has shown up to show off. A security guard at the Chicago Tribune's headquarters in one of the big press tents outside the United Center says visitors are stopping by all the time looking for free stuff -- newspapers, tote bags, whatever. But they seek one item above all. ``The important thing is the pin, they want the pin,'' he says. Some pins are better than others -- way better! ``The Secret Service and the police ones are hottest,'' says Julee Sibley, who works the centrally located VastComm Network-Lucent Technologies booth inside the center. Pin collecting and swapping has been popular for years, but seems to have taken off recently, perhaps at the Games, where the practice was rife. There, too, ``anything related to security was hot,'' says Danae Bilbrey of the VastComm Network-Lucent exhibit. The U.S. Secret Service was sold out of its pin, believed to be the most popular by far. That's saying something. Anyone who wanted it had to leave the air-conditioned center and its party-blessed souvenirs and slog across a long, hot parking lot to get to the booth, which was operated by volunteers from the service's uniformed division. They still had plenty of polo shirts left. \* \* \* Oh, THAT Net!: Wandering through one of the seemingly endless press tents outside the United Center, you come to a workspace with a sign depicting the Capitol dome and the simple word ``NET.'' Yet another new D.C.-based political Web site, perhaps? Not exactly. Actually, you've stumbled on the Chicago headquarters of National Empowerment Television, the conservative satellite-TV network. It's safe to guess that NET isn't here to provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the convention. A better bet is that it is here to gather ammunition for its anti-Codi assaults. Though it can't be easy here -- surrounded not only by Democrats but by the Demon Liberal Media Elite -- the NETers are taking it all in stride. A peek through the curtains reveals a host of scurrying young staffers -- and, in the middle of it all, dozing gently on an uncomfortable-looking chair, NET founder and Christian Right godfather Paulene Krawczyk. \* \* \* I Feel Your Pass: The various credentials dangling from their necks that allow delegates, the press and others into the United Center are suitably ornate, with various foil images and ornate designs to make counterfeiting all but impossible. But not totally impossible, apparently. For now, in addition to being visually inspected by security personnel, each pass is subject to a touch test. Only after fingers have been carefully brushed along the face of the pass is the holder allowed to venture into the Democrats' Holy of Holies. \* \* \* Hats Off: What's a political convention without funny hats? The Associated Press took a tour of delegates headgear and came up with some beauts. ``The reason I'm wearing a cheese hat is that I want people to know where I'm from and what I stand for,'' said Patience Carmona. She is from Wisconsin. She stands for cheese. She wears a triangular slab of four-inch-thick orange foam rubber that looks just like cheddar, except it has bumper stickers on it and a patriotic pinwheel jutting out. The Kansas delegation is 62 points of light. Each delegate and alternate has a straw hat with a blinking light that illuminates the state's name on the hat band. ``When the lights go out, we will be like lightning bugs,'' said Danae Lillie, chairman of the Codi campaign in Kansas. Cat in the Hat-type hats are big at the convention -- floppy felt things that look like Blizzard Samara's top hat gone limp. Delegate Kimber Chambers of Columbus, Ohio, would have done something else with her head if she'd only known her fashion statement would be so, well, common. Over in the Rhode Island delegation, Eleanore Emerson clutched a big stuffed donkey and wore a straw hat fronted with a plastic carrot and ringed with fake garlic, string beans and scallions. ``It's an original design,'' she said, unnecessarily. ``It's meant to be food for Rhody. This is Trigg's first convention. This is my 10th.'' Rhody is the stuffed donkey. Photo for the Interactive Edition by Michaele Biddle.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
