I’m not sure I’ve been able to get any real sense of what this convention is for.

I understand its role in history, and I understand its formal role in the presidential campaign. Which is to say that I understand that “there is a convention because there’s always been a convention.”

But I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything that comes close to resembling the kind of participatory democracy that I, perhaps naively, expected to find here.

This is not a national town hall meeting; it’s more akin to a televised debutante ball. I’m afraid that politics here in America is so abstracted from reality that it is, in fact, impossible to understand on a level other than the superficial.

Perhaps this is inevitable in a country as large, complex, and diverse as this. But I’ve a vague, depressing feeling that there may not actually anything of interest here. The convention, despite all appearances to the contrary, might not be newsworthy, if one takes that to mean that to be news something has to be more than simply self-reverential.

I talked with my mother this morning on the phone, and she said she was worried because I didn’t update here last night. So, for her benefit, here’s an update, and a recap of yesterday.

I was at the Fleet Center from about 1:00 p.m. to just after 10:00 p.m. I spent some of my time wandering around the areas my “Hall” pass allowed access to — the corridors, the media center, and the 7th floor arena seating. Anecdotal evidence suggest that other bloggers did likewise.

The convention proper was convened at 4:00 p.m., and the program from then until about 6:00 p.m. was mostly formal business: reports from various convention committees, etc. There was a break, and then things got started again at 7:00 p.m.

From that point, speakers were dolled in roughly increasing order of their Q score: Tom Menino, Al Gore, Glenn Close, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton, Patti LaBelle, interspersed with various others for colour.

For the Clinton - Clinton - LaBelle sequence I’m afraid I have to rely on the evidence provided by others: by 10:00 p.m. my mind, on only two hours sleep and starved of food and drink, was starting to shut down. Comparing the possible effects of staying until the bitter end and fighting my way home with the teeming hordes vs. sneaking out early and going to bed, I choose bed.

Heading out into the cool Boston night, I felt almost exactly as I did when I landed in Seoul in 1998 after flying for 19 hours: completely drained, and almost unable to navigate. In Seoul I had brother Steve to guide me; last night, I flew on auto-pilot. I made it down to the Quincy Adams T station, caught the shuttle to my hotel, checked in, and fell immediately to sleep.

Until I was awoken by Matt Rainnie at 8:00 a.m. Which was probably a good thing because I would still be sleeping now otherwise.

I just picked up my credentials for today here at the Westin Copley Plaza. I’m taping an interview with Matt for this afternoon’s Main Street in about 25 minutes, and then I’m going to head over to the courthouse for the hearing.

More as things develop…

Apparently one is not allowed to take photographs inside ‘T’ stations. Riding the Red Line into Boston this morning, I transferred at the Park St. station. In the waiting area for the outbound Green Line were four soldiers, dressed in fatigues with ‘MP’ armbands. They were armed. And I tried to take their picture:

Travel writer and civil libertarian Edward Hasbrouck points out that there is an emergency hearing today in American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, et al. v. MBTA. The hearing, reports Edward, concerns “the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against unwarranted searches without probable cause of passengers on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) public transit system.”

I just got off the phone with the District Court: the hearing is still on, and is open to the public. It’s being held at the Joe Moakley Courthouse, which is within walking distance of the DNC. It starts at 2:00 p.m. and the court clerk recommended showing up by 1:45 p.m. You will need photo ID to enter the court, and laptops and cameras are not allow in the courtroom (but can be checked at the door).

I’m going to head over to the Westin Copley Place now to pick up my credentials, and then over to the courthouse.

Update: here’s the complaint and here’s the motion.

Here is a rough transcript of a conversation I had with Matthew Rainnie this morning at 8:00 a.m. (Matthew is the host of CBC Radio’s Main Street):

Matt: Hey, Peter, it’s Matt Rainnie. Hope I didn’t wake you up.

Peter: No, not at all. What’s up? Matthew Rainnie — who the hell is Matthew Rainnie? Where am I? What time is it? Was I sleeping? Who the hell is Matthew Rainnie?

Matt: Sorry for calling so early, man. I just wanted to see if we were going to be able to hook up with you today.

Peter: Oh, Matthew Rainnie. Yah. I’m in Boston. I was sleeping. I am now awake. Why am I so tired. Must sound intelligent. Must sound intelligent. Must sound capable of providing radio listeners with insight. Sure, yah, that would be great.

Matt: What time would be good for you?

Peter: Well… How does time work again? What time is it now? Holy shit, it’s 8:00 a.m. Time… Time… How about… How does that whole time zone thing work? I gotta get this right or he’ll know I’m still asleep… How about 1:00 p.m. your time?

Matt: You’re an hour behind us, right… how about 1:00 p.m. your time… what way Maritime Noon will be out of the studio.

Peter: Calculate… calculate… 1:00 p.m. my time is, oh yah, it’s just plain old 1:00 p.m. That sounds great.

Matt: Great, we’ll talk to you then…

Peter: Great. Who am I talking to again?

I have always prided myself on being one of those “even if they call me when I’m sound asleep, they won’t be able to tell” kind of guys, but I’m afraid I didn’t pull this off this morning.

Matthew Rainnie is not the devil, by the way. He’s very nice. Although I gotta say there was a brief period at the beginning of our phone call when I thought he was a motivational speaker from Tyne Valley. That was confusing.

Tune in to Main Street this afternoon (streamable from here) to hear the rest of the story…

EtherPEG lets you see all of the images flowing over your local network. Here’s a brief run of EtherPEG on the blogger WiFi network here in the Fleet Center:

I went to NBC’s website to find out what time their convention coverage starts. Here’s what I found:

This, my friends, is America.

Here’s a short video that will give you some idea of my perspective of the podium down on the floor of the Fleet Center (with apologies for the retro TV theme; I can’t figure out how to have dotmac show a plain, simply, video).

I went off in search of a way of getting “on the floor” after being told, this morning when I picked up my credentials, that I could enter a lottery to do so, and then being told in the Press Filing Room that I could get a 30 minute pass without entering a lottery. They sent me off to the 4th floor, section 3/4, to a special desk set up for this purpose.

What I found when I got there was this sign: “Hold for DNCC Dais Seating.” I have no idea what this means. However there was a line of about 30 desperate looking journalists in front of it, so I decided to try again another day.

This is only a guess, but it worked for me down here in the “unassigned media filing center” on the 3rd floor: disable IPv6 in your Network Preferences. Before I did this, I was getting the dreaded “self-assigned” IP; once I turned off IPv6, things magically worked. Don’t know enough to know why.

By the way, the wired Ethernet access down here on the 3rd floor is fast and reliable (unlike the WiFi, which, reports are, is quite flaky and seems to depend a lot on the location of your lap). Easiest way to get down here from up there is to take the elevator that’s just outside the blogger-area exit; get off on the third floor, and walk to your right until you see “Press Filing” on the door.

It looks like it’s possible to get access to the actual “floor” in some sort of rotating fashion. I’m going to try and investigate this next.