Laura Flanders, author of Blue Grit, has a chat with Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon. Amanda writes that she pursued the interview because she "was so impressed with her (Flander's) various recommendations for the Democratic party on how to revitalize themselves by tapping the progressive movement..."

Regarding political sea changes and the (much hoped for) rise in progressive awareness and action, Flanders sez:

I don’t believe in random swings of opinion; what you have are swings of organizing. You can change opinions, but it’s not just magic – it takes work.

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I've refrained from too much blogging about Donohue's idiotic campaign to get Amanda fired since the first couple of days, mainly because so many others have picked up on it and Edwards came out and did as close to the right thing as he could. But let's put it all in perspective, shall we? Who is the Donohue guy anyway? Well, besides being a gay-bashing, Jew-hating bigot, he's also the guy who decided that one of 2001's top ten anti-Catholic atrocities was...onion dip. No, I am not making that up.

For those who missed it, Lipton ran a print ad in the June 13, 2001 edition of The New York Press featuring a person holding a bowl of onion dip while waiting in line to take communion--the implication being that this person planned to dip the Eucharist in the onion dip.

Reasonable humor? Clever Madison Avenue marketing? Not according to Bill Donohue. In his eyes, the onion dip ad was an anti-Catholic "atrocity."

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Meta, meta, meta. (rhubarb)

Amanda's plight is so fascinating, and regardless of what happens, there is going to be ink spilled upon the matter for months to come. One angle I've not seen too much discussion on yet is what this battle tells us about Who Really Is In Charge. Short version: it's may not be who you think.