Last Thursday, workers and immigrants made a unified call for social justice in honor of May Day. By refusing to work, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union shut down all 29 West Coast ports to call for an end to the war in Iraq. And throughout the day, anti-war and pro-immigrant marches broke out all over San Francisco.

Later that day, I took my video camera out to the Castro, San Francisco's gay neighborhood, to ask people how they felt about these issues, and to challenge the Human Rights Campaign for its recent endorsement of pro-war Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is running against anti-war and LGBT ally Tom Allen.

All five FCC Commissioners were at Stanford University this afternoon for a panel discussion on Net Nuetrality, so my colleague David and I took a field trip down south from San Francisco for the day. Remember how Comcast paid a bus full of people to take up room at the hearing in Boston in February? We arrived early to make sure that we'd get a seat this time, but there was nothing to worry about - according to Chairman Kevin Martin, who opened the meeting with a statement of the FCC's efforts to include everyone at the table for an "open and transparent" conversation, Comcast (and all the other Internet companies) declined the invitation to dialogue with the public.

I've been hanging out at the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael this weekend. The peak moment for me was Friday, when Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights kicked off the conference with a moral challenge to the environmental movement to use its growing power to dismantle structures of racial and economic injustice while greening the nation. If you're not familiar with the work of the Ella Baker Center and their work to provide youth of color with skill sets in green technology as a pathway out of poverty, you should check out their site. Van Jones is being honored next Thursday night by the US Green Building Council at their Super Heroes Gala (click here to sign up!) for his work on so-called "Green-Collar Jobs."

Two years ago, on July 19, my father was incarcerated in the Knox County Detention Center on a 150-day sentence. That day, the judge issued a court order mandating the jail to provide him his medication. They didn't. And two and a half weeks into his incarceration – two years ago today – my dad died.

My father was 60, and he died on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I was protesting at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant in Oak Ridge, TN, that day. I was watching and praying for my friends as they were arrested for civil disobedience when I got the phone call that my father was dead.

I'm in the Atlanta airport, leaving the US Social Forum to head back home to San Francisco. My heart is heavy, inspired and hopeful.

I'm a Tennessee boy born and raised. I've been in California for a year now, but I lived the previous 24 years in Knoxville. This was a sweet homecoming to the Dirty South, joining with grassroots activists from across the country (and beyond) to share stories and empower each other to continue working to transform this world to the one we want to live in.

Last Monday, I was on a red-eye flight to Atlanta for the Social Forum. When I arrived, I offered my time and extremely meager skills to assist the Tech Committee to set up the computer networks and Internet that would be used for conference registration and the Media Justice Center. I made friends with the brilliant crew from the May 1st Coalition and spent a lovely first night back in the South sleeping in a hammock on a screened-in back porch. Charming.

Tomorrow, American Rights at Work is marching in Washington for the Employee Free Choice Act. Since we're over here in the SF office, Jory and I are participating in the photo march.

Take a photo and join the march!

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