I've attempted to offer some analysis -- however flawed in places -- of what happened and why with regards to the Clinton blogger lunch. I got some things wrong in the process, and have tried to clean up my side of the street in those instances. Now I want to try and offer some suggestions for moving forward without rehashing any that if I can help it. More to the point, I want to address what I think progressive bloggers of color -- or any other constituency of progressive bloggers, really -- can do to help ourselves and others in our corners of the blogosphere, independent of what anyone else does or doesn't do. The primary point is to strengthen ties and communications between us, and secondarily to help us find, support, and promote one another. So, I offer this as a proposal in response to Jeffrey Feldman's diary on Daily Kos.

So the discussion during the LGBT caucus at YearlyKos was about what I expected. There was a lot of discussion about the direction of the Democratic Party on gay and lesbian equality, which which was pretty much a review of the complaints voiced recently, from the Dean's appearance on the 700 Club to what is or isn't happening on the local and state level.

People were, of course, all over the place in terms of what they thought the party leadership should or shouldn't be doing on gay & lesbian equality issues. But what it all boiled down to for me is this: the party is not going to lead on our issues. So, if we're on our own in that regard how do we organize the LGBT netroots on our issues at the national, state and local levels, In fact, where are the queer netroots?

Have you ever been the first person to arrive at a party? Or one of the first? You kind of stand around, nibbling the refreshments and making small talk with the host, while you wonder just when everyone else is going to show up. Because, you know, it's not really a party until they show up. When they finally do show up, long after you and the host have run out of small talk, you wonder what took them so long? Did they get the time wrong? Did they get the same invitation you got? Did they just not read it correctly?

I have similar questions about Democrats who backed the Bush team on Iraq, and who now regret having done so, and are even honest enough to say to. It comes to mind because Richard Gephardt recently made just such an admission.

I've mentioned before how I feel about Columbus Day (not to mention Thanksgiving). I guess some folks might find something in it to celebrate, but I'm long, long past being able to do that.

I remember learning about Columbus and his "discovery" of America in school. (To quote Chris Rock "How the fuck do you discover something that's already got people on it? That's like me 'discovering' your car stereo.") It wasn't until years later that I got some idea of what his "discovery" meant for the folks who already happened to be sitting on that patch of ground. I kinda figured it didn't go down to well for them, since there aren't many of their descendants left around.

I've written before about the dilemma faced by gay Republicans, embracing a party that doesn't exactly embrace them. But recently it's occurred to me that gay Democrats or left-leaning gays aren't faring much better on the other side of the political spectrum, when some candidates run to the right on some issues, in hopes of winning a few more votes.

Case in point, a few weeks ago I got an email from a blogging list-serve I'm on, asking me to post some code to put a button on my site for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine. At the time I didn't think much about it before putting the button on my blog. I figured if Kaine was the Democratic candidate, He had to be better than whoever the Republicans were running. So, I didn't check into his record or his positions before posting the button. That was my mistake.

I've hear all about how dissatisfied conservatives are with the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination. I've heard George Will bemoan it. Even stranger, I've heard liberal bloggers support her nomination and even seemingly morph into "Miers Boosters."

I've been seeing blog posts about the National Enquirer story that Bush -- who stopped drinking after turning 40, but never entered treatment or admitted to having a drinking problem -- has been hitting the bottle after Katrina happened and his ratings started seriously tanking. I haven't posted anything about it, but this afternoon a reader sent me a link to a Salon.com article about the Enquirer story, its veracity, and what it means .