Wednesday night's Philly For Change Meetup offers a chance to meet, talk to, and show your support for an important leader working on a huge Civil Rights issue as Congressman and Iraq War vet Patrick Murphy stops by to discuss the legislation he's sponsoring to end the nation's bigoted Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy.

State Senator and Appropriations Committee member Larry Farnese explains the biggest local issue of the moment -- the State Budget -- from the inside and answer questions about what we can do the get the best possible State Budget.

That other huge issue -- Health Care Reform -- gets an update from Health Care for America Now's (and YPP's) Marc Stier, who'll discuss Thursday's big event and plot the preservation of the public option and what we can do to help get it to the finish line.

...when the line of people waiting to get into the healthcare reform town hall meeting is chanting "people not profits!" and has on pink shirts for women's health. The sense I got was of people just really, really wanting someone to give them health insurance.

There were exceptions, but not many (the Inquirer had to reach for a five-paragraph LaRouche anecdote to fill its crazy quota).

A doughy white guy in a navy blazer with gold buttons (you can't make this stuff up) was handing out flyers that appeared mimeographed (even during the 90s reform attempt, there was desktop publishing...). They threatened that "death may be inflicted in your home even if it's against your wishes!" There's a mention of "elderly 'euthenizing' and other disrespectful ending of life" as well as an inexplicable number of references to ACORN taking over. A little research suggests the guy's from Florida.

Mostly, it was Sestak's show. He played it up, both listening and parrying, in total buddy salesman mode. He was good. And it was good to hear him state that a public option was nonnegotiable.

Frequently the audience response didn't make sense, cheering at politically opposite points. But the whole thing was a nice break from the stories that have been flowing in from town halls elsewhere. Instead of the total breakdown of civic discourse we've been seeing, last night felt more like the messy work of coming to consensus in a shared project. Cool.