Is anyone here from the like St. Louis or Missouri area?

[JohnKleeb]

Because uhh well I just got placed in a congressman from St. Louis's office. William Lacy Clay, tell me what you know about him.

[JI7]

1. i have never heard of him

what party is he ?

but it's great you got placed ANYWHERE since it will give you an experience that will be useful in the future.

how long will you be working there ? it would be great if you can see someone like Kerry while there even if you aren't working with him.

[JohnKleeb]

2. Democrat

It will be from tommorow until late May. I am gonna see if I can work for Kerry this summer though or some interest group. I would love to see Kerry, that would be neat, I actually tried to get him, albeit unsucessfully.

[sandnsea]

3. Oh cool!

I don't know anything about him. But I was born in St. Louis and my extended family still lives there. You are about to be slam-dunked into old-time machine politics, that's what I understand about St. Louis politics anyway. Unions, city bosses, old family ties. Gritty midwest stuff in addition to alot of attention to urban issues and racism I imagine. I think it'll be a great experience, certainly more interesting than some boring Congressional district out in the middle of Nebraska or something.

[JohnKleeb]

4. Hey you know that for a while my family lived there in the 40's

Yeah, Nebraska is boring lol, if I had the third district congressman and I was a Huskers fan tho, that would be cool lol.

[sandnsea]

5. Just checked a map

His district looks to be on the outer edge of St. Louis, not the downtown area. Some of my family does live there, several WWII vets and their kids. It's an old area though. My uncle's house was actually moved to the lot from a base back in the 40's. I'm not familiar with alot of cities back east, but it's weird to me because they've all got these huge lots. You feel like you're sort of semi-country, but you're really bopping from "town" to "town", all in what's supposed to be a city. Not like here where most neighborhoods are track housing and then when you get to the city, it's city. It's also 50/50 racially with a rather high poverty rate. It'll really be interesting.

Oh, and the guy has been truly against the war from the beginning. Thought you'd like to know that!

Edit: On second look, maybe it does go all the way to the river and include St. Louis city. The map I'm looking at is a little weird.

[JohnKleeb]

6. That sounds interesting

The only people who could really remember my family's time in St. Louis are gone now, since my aunts and uncle were just little kids. You brought up the labor movement, what union in particular are we talking here?

[sandnsea]

7. All of them

My family was teamsters. My grandfather delivered ice, back in the day. In fact, one of my GGG's was baptized at the original Catholic Church in downtown St. Louis and his father was an original settler of Kaskaskia and Ste Genevieve in the 1700's. But anyway, historically there's been everything there, UAW, airlines, grocers, everything. The airport used to be the TWA hub. The area is suffering, plants closing left and right. Two of my cousins worked at one of the auto plants, been laid off for quite some time, last I heard. I also have a cousin who works for Lockheed-Martin, but she's up in management, something to do with contract negotiations. I imagine NAFTA is a big issue there too. And my son's step-brother is studying medicine at Washington University. St. Louis is really quite diverse.

Oh yeah, and very Catholic. High percentage of kids go to Catholic school there. I forget what it is, but seems like somewhere around 25%.

[JohnKleeb]

8. sounds good, a union town

[TayTay]

9. Kleeb, you can take time out and go to a hearing

Check the Senate schedule and see when public hearings of committees that Kerry is on are happening. Then see if you can go on over.

They are public hearings. You know, they invite the regular slobs to come in and see what is going on. I saw regular people coming up to Kerry after the Foreign Relations Committee and shaking his hand and saying a few words. Looked fairly routine.

Worth a shot.

[JohnKleeb]

10. Hmmm I might be able to

I would love to see a foreign relations hearing.