These are the people that made it possible for a large percentage of the Green Party of Santa Clara's frequent voters to get a copy of the newsletter above. We can't thank them enough for all the work they did. However, what makes it fun to attend these parties is listening to all the news that people shared while they worked. To give you a sense for it, I've included something of the gossip below.

Cameron talked about how more and more green politics reminds him of the free software movement. To prove the point, he kept us laughing with various uses of the saying that Spock used smoke the evil supercomputer, "logic is a little flower that smells bad." During the spam war update, he said that the hopeful sign of progress is that a lot of ISPs with really bad English are coming into the net abuse news groups asking "What's the right thing to do?" Historically, they had all thought good manners was beneath them. When the topic changed to Partisan politics, he said "Senior elected officials from both the Republican and Democratic Parties have been busted for spamming."

Stephanie tended to stop by for an hour after attending some important community meeting. One time it was a meeting about the Toxic Waste problem in the Ellis Street area, where Greg Perry had needed an ally in the discussion. Another time it was a meeting as the Sierra Club rep with some guy that is going to be running for Simitian's seat as a Democrat. She talked some about running for City Council. We told her that at the Green Party meeting Charlotte had said good things about her running, and she was glad to hear it.

Gerry was a bit quieter than he usually is. Maybe that had something to do with his mother dying a little while ago. His preference was to put the address labels on the stuffed mailers and count them into bundles, the last steps before taking them down to the Post Office. When he did that the measurements of the guy at the Post Office always agreed with him about how many pieces were in the mailing.

A typical stuffing session would end with a pile of mailers ready to take down to the Post Office, and the volunteers socializing outside. This particular pile was between a quarter and a third of the whole project.

Valerie (on left by bike) was over many times. She has hands that fly, and very well thought out stuffing strategies. Many times I would show somebody a good way to streamline a procedure that I had learned by watching her work.

Gerry has always come to my stuffing parties by bike. Every time he leaves after dark he wears reflective pants ties and vest. Not shown are the head and tail lights on his bike. If everybody riding their bikes after dark was as meticulous about that stuff, there would probably be less accidents.

Dana was bubbling about the fact her daughter was graduating from UC Santa Cruz next weekend. In addition to that, she made a great Garbonzo stew with cous-cous for the volunteers one Sunday evening, probably the best meal I ate during that entire time frame. She had gotten the recipe from her Indian neighbor, who had said it was called "peasant stew". The FREEDOM TO MARRY sticker on her shirt came from the Gay Pride Parade, where we had all marched together as the Green Party.

Warner Bloomberg talked about his upcoming race for the 22nd Assembly District. This time he wants to raise enough money to support an ongoing canvassing campaign, a major step up from his last campaign. We spent some time debating wether such a race would be a good positioning move for a later San Jose City Council run. At this point going for that big a seat doesn't make sense for him because he isn't well enough known and his incumbent hasn't been termed out yet.

Pam didn't like the picture I took of her enough to let me use it, and unfortunately I didn't manage to take a better one. At one point I played a Mumbo Gumbo record which had a song on it about "something in the water." We had a discussion about the phrase, and it seems to me now that her understanding of the term was more similar to mine than anybody else's.

That's me (Tian). Cameron took this picture. I got that NO BLOOD FOR OIL pin in exchange for a MEND YOUR FUELISH WAYS sticker at the peace vigil one Saturday at the intersection of Stevens Creek and Winchester in San Jose. In addition to doing my share of the stuffing, I did the buying, most of the schlepping, and this report on the event.

Charlotte was glad that we had a pitch for our new T shirts in the newsletter. She also enjoyed the fact that the words sticking out the top of the statewide newspaper were Brazilian Principals, a reference to her article about the landless workers movement in Brazil.

I ran into Rudy at a panel discussion about the Patriot Act put on by the League of Women Voters. I told him about the mailing party, and he made time in his schedule to help out.

Angela told us about her recent run for President of her Union Local, which she had lost by ten votes. The union in arranged in such a way that her opponent was the candidate from the other campus, which gave him a built in advantage. She and Cameron spent considerable time talking about computer issues, and it was all interesting.

Fred helped out one evening, during which he told a lot of stories about life in Wisconsin. Another time he picked up a batch of reply envelopes and took them home to address. I took this picture then. Those streamlined the stuffing considerably.

Probably the biggest volunteer was Mike, who was home recuperating from a hip operation. He couldn't leave the house, but he was willing to work there. I'd walk over a couple of bundles of newspapers that needed folding, and a couple of hours later he'd want another batch.Once he got ahead of the stuffing volunteers, the work went much faster.Mike didn't want his picture taken, but one time he gave me this batch of New Zealand spinach that he grew in his back yard. He told me how to cook it to: "Brow some garlic in some oil, and when it is ready add water and the spinach. Don't cook it too much." I ended up just steaming it and adding soy sauce, but it was delicious anyhow.

Not shown are Shiloh and Ken Adams. Shiloh made the whole project possible by editing the County Newsletter. Ken Adams brought three bundles of the statewide newspapers down from Sacramento at the last minute, making our shortfall much smaller than it could have been.

The sad/glad news from the Post Office is that John, the Bulk Mail Technician who has put our mail into the system since we got going four years ago, is retiring in a month and a half.

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