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The Longest Now


Africans and Railroad Porters 4 Clark
Saturday September 27th 2003, 7:35 pm
Filed under: chain-gang

Clark jumps to the top of my shit list.  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth… 


First there was the way the Official draftclark movement kept trying to supporess the popular draftclark movements that sprung up around him (“either funnel support to us or stay out — you guys are gonna screw things up!”).  That was creepy. 


Then there was the standard “look at all the independent minority sites not affiliated with my campaign, honest supporting me [without any personality, history, or aparent user base]”.  Par for the course; nothing I can do about it; shady but not awful, as long as they are all aloof and polite.   Now I’ve run into the AADL, an organization which has magically come into existence mid-September solely to support Clark, but insists that it is a separate League, encourages separate donations to it and to the Clark campaign, and still has little more personality, history, or user base than any of the other EZ-grow Chia-pet support groups. 


And it’s so tactless!  Their front page features a far-too-prominent MLK photo, and contains such gems as this section header:


Porter Service to Our Links


emphasized by a old black-and-white image of a black porter.  This clearly isn’t insulting anyone, since Regina Mullen (producer of the site and owner of litigation data services) isn’t the kind of person to insult her target audience, but it seems a bit … out of place.  Again, I hardly think she has anything to do with the content or running of the site.


You are also asked on the front page both to donate directly to the Clark campaign and to donate to the AADL “if you want to support our goals”.  Presumably you can donate as much as you like to the AADL (“Do you like our mission and goals?“)… Of course their single goal at present seems to be directing attention towards Clark’s campaign.  


You’d think that with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, the campaign could afford to at least have a pleasant, personable face with some individual style… It’s not merely the raw venality and impoliteness of the site, but the utter artlessness with which it is all put together, that chaps my hide.




I have been and still am gathering names of old time railroaders along with any pictures of them. My first book was called Trackin’ the Past, on amazon.com. I sold all I printed and am now working on another type rail book with accounts of the people who made it all happen. I am very interested in the train Porters, would love to find a place where I can get their names and pictures of anykind and when and where they worked. Can you help. thanks in advance..Mike in Missouri (retired conductor) 40 years with the Missouri Pacific.

Comment by Mike Wiseman 12.02.09 @ 1:44 pm

Thanks for the broadcast, Mike 😉 I also love old railroad photos, but don’t have any handy.

Comment by metasj 12.21.09 @ 7:31 pm





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