Convention season is officially upon us. It is that time of the year when officers are elected, resolutions are passed, rules are made and broken, and maybe even a party or two gets thrown. All in all, young people meet and mingle with other young people to discuss how to be more effective leaders of their local and state democratic organizations.

One of the major changes in the new, Democratic-led Congress is that the environment has a fighting chance. The Republicans led an all-out assault on our natural resources, ruling with a polluting fist.

On April 28, I was lucky enough to go to TEXVAC's annual Rayburn-Johnson dinner in Dallas and meet many people, some of whom I was already familiar with and some of whom I was not. I was familiar with State Representative Allen Vaught. I was not familiar with Mr. Hussein Albayati, the Iraqi translator who had aided US troops, endangering his own life to save others.

Dodd has the Dodd Squad and his proposed army of videographers, asking questions. Hillary has her Sopranos spoof and a campaign song chosen via vote from her campaign website. Now Dennis Kucinich is throwing open the doors of his YouTube channel to the public.

Everyone continues to wrap their brains around the commutation of Scooter Libby's jail term by President Bush, and the train doesn't stop there: now Bush has categorically refused to rule out the possibility of a pardon winging its way to Libby's doorstep.

Screening Liberally, a concept under the Drinking Liberally and Cosmopolity umbrella, held its most recent group outing to watch SiCKO its opening weekend in Plano, Texas at the Angelika Theater.

It is always a challenge for Presidential candidates of both parties to maneuver successfully through their primary and remain viable for the general. At this point the Democratic candidates are doing much better than the Republicans. Democratic candidates’ positions are in large part consistent with public opinion on Iraq, comprehensive immigration reform, health care, education, and Scooter Libby.

Last Wednesday’s 5-4 decision in Parents Involved v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education provided a powerful backdrop for Tavis Smiley’s All-American Presidential Forum at Howard University.

This week's mailbag is mixed, so to speak, and nationwide.

(and the "Week Of" date is fixed now — turns out we skipped a week there in early June. Oops! — GN ed.)

Apparently Senator Cornyn is having some trouble with the notion of legalizing the approximately 12 million people in the US that currently have no legal status.