Ok, that might be a bit of a stretch, but some of this year's Campus Progress National Conference Award Winners did get some good press.

For example, you might have read about Justin Elliott, who won the CampusProgress.org Contributor of the Year award for his inquisitive interview with the Executive Director of a Pro-Israel lobby group. 

Or about Chrissy Elles, the superstar organizer of the UCSB Climate Change Alternative Spring Break who won the Best Organizing of an Event award. 

Nick Owens and Vanessa Rozier stood out by emerging in an India Post article that praised their 'Black is Beautiful' event as a model for building a progressive movement.

Our Best Publication awardee, Cipher made it on an Oklahoman news site thanks to it's editor Matt Elmore who is originally from Norman.

Last but absolutely not least, our very own Campus Progress Student Representative of the Year, Adrian Shanker became (almost) a celebrity in New York websites for his great work year-round organizing events, building movements and speaking on panels.

Once again, congratulations to all of this year's award winners. Keep it up and let's turn this world into one we are proud to be living in.

A friend and I attended the Conference yesterday. Loved the food (ha), got lifted from inspirational folks such as Julian Bond, Jeff Johnson, M-1, Jared Bell, and Keith Ellison.

Unfortunately though, I was incredibly disappointed in the girls. I arrived to the conference feeling inspired by how many kids were out here for the progressive movement and believed the turnout to be an indication of the direction and the state of this progress. But come 6:30,  when Ryan Gosling was supposed to take the stage, I realized just why it was that the 2008 National Conference was bigger this year than any other year. Crowds of girls were packed against the ballroom doors as they prepared to bring this dude onto the stage; when they opened the doors, they swarmed into the room in droves, stampeding towards the front tables so they could get the best live view of everyone's favorite star of "the Notebook." When Ryan came out, I saw dozens of cell phones and cameras fly into the air. I was especially ashamed when the John Prendergast, head of the ENOUGH campaign and main moderator of the discussion had to remind the crowd amid whistles and hollers that we were here to talk about genocide and war in Uganda and Sudan, but it was no use. Here we had two heroes of the cause on the stage who had worked their entire lives to rid their home countries of violence, and all any of these girls cared about was the guy who had only been working on it for a year or two. I'm not trying to bash Gosling; he tried his hardest to redirect the attention to these champions of the cause and make the audience aware that he doesn't know as much as they did. But it was no  use. After Gosling left the stage, about 30% of the crowd exited as well.

To Campus Progress:

I think you guys did a fantastic job; you brought incredible people to the stage and gave us all kinds of interesting and exciting things to talk about. Thank you for that.

To the rest of y'all:

All I gotta say is... damn. 

1. Looking up from a fascinating lunch conversation to realize that I was sitting across from Amanda Marcotte, and then awkwardly expressing my girl crush

2. GIANT COOKIES!

3. Keith Ellison talking about twisty lightbulbs

4. 20 new facebook friends! (I mean... er... NETWORKING!)

5. My supersweet new totebag, and the "I *heart* pro-choice boys" ... and "I *heart* pro-choice girls" pins I got to go on it