I understand that the convention is already over and I wish I had realized it earlier but I have to say it.  Most people in the MSM and indeed here in the blogosphere refer to the site of last nights speech as Invesco Field.

I'm asking you all (especially you posters like Todd, Jerome, Johnathan, and Natasha) from now on to call it MILE HIGH STADIUM.  "Phooey," you say, "Mile High was demolished years ago." Furhermore aren't there better, more noble, less nit-pickey causes to write about?  Certainly all these points are true, but let me explain my reasons before you dismiss this as moon-bat-ery.

As many of you may know Denver was home to a Stadium called Mile High Stadium from 1948 to 2001. Around 1998, after the Broncos finally won a Super Bowl, the owner of the Broncos, Pat Bowen, strong armed the city into building a new stadium for the team which they did using mostly taxpayers dollars to do.  The new stadium was slated to carry the same name as the old one.  However, once the new stadium was built, Invesco bought the naming rights to the stadium and changed it to Invesco Field, setting off a PR firestorm in the local media.  The Denver Post refused to use the name Invesco.  Citizens who had paid to build the stadium felt they had been betrayed and finally Invesco settled to call it officially "Invesco Field at Mile High."

So why should anyone care about a name?  A rose is a rose is a rose, right?  As George Lakoff would say, its all about the framing.  The importance of using Mile High instead of Invesco is that Mile High reminds us that the stadium was built on taxpayer dollars.  The name Invesco concedes the "right" of private companies to rename -- and metaphorically take ownership of -- a building that we the people of the City of Denver paid for.

After a speech like the one that Obama delivered last night, one in which he criticised this conservative doctrine of private companies freeloading on publicly funded projects, it just isn't right to call it Invesco Field.  Granted the stadium isn't a public park, but we paid for it and then Invesco slaps their name on it.

Obama's speech and this convention will be talked about for years to come, so when you write about it call it Mile High Stadium.  It doesn't cost you anything and it reinforces the idea that the building was built by us and not Invesco.  Its also going to make you popular with people from Colorado.

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Here is how the evening is projected to go:

1.  The media coverage opens with camera shots of the clouds above the city, and then moves through the clouds to float above the assembling masses below, with the intention of portraying beauty and majesty of the scene.

2.  Upon arriving at the field, Obama emerges from a full-scale replica of Air Force One, to thunderous applause and a cheering crowd, and is escorted backstage

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnew s/article-1050017/Obama-God-Democrats-bu ild-temple-Barack.html

3.  Upon taking his place among greek columns meant to evoke the Lincoln Memorial & the White House (and built by the same stage designers who do Britney Spears' shows), the speeches begin.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282008/new s/nationalnews/temple_of_dem_on_mt__o_ly mpus_126450.htm

More points, and sources, below the fold ...

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