•Making a case for mental health parity: A congregation of politicians, medical professionals lobbyists, and Hollywood stars gathered yesterday at the Denver Art Museum over salmon and arugula to agitate for something that can be in short supply at a national political convention: mental health.

 Rhode Islander Bill Emmet was honored at the luncheon for his work with the Campaign for Mental Health Reform, an umbrella group of 18 organizations that is lobbying for better insurance coverage for the mentally ill.

 Emmet, a one-time journalist and teacher who got into this business years ago by trying to help a brother who has schizophrenia, said the campaign’s goal is as simple as its motto, “Mental health is integral to health.”

 The organization’s top priority at the moment is the so-called mental health parity bill, which would require insurance companies to cover mental illness on an equal footing with physical ailments. The parity bill is the signature issue of Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, who was on hand in the modern, sunlit museum to urge the members of the Creative Coalition to use their celebrity to lobby for the bill before Congress adjourns this fall for the national elections.

 The stars on hand included Matthew Modine and Anne Hathaway.

 Mental-health lobbyist Emmet noted that his organization has worked hard to enlist the support of all the disparate mental-health groups as well as politicians of both parties.

 He said wryly that he hoped it was permissible to mention President Bush’s support for the cause. Nobody objected.

 But Modine, the actor, did say during his turn at the microphone, “We have the opportunity to show how mentally healthy we are with the election of Barack Obama for president.”

— John E. Mulligan, Journal Washington bureau

•Staying sober in Denver: Since the hilarious Prohibition-era reports of The Baltimore Sun’s H.L. Mencken and before, the American political convention has been a great place to drink. The free-flowing tradition holds this week in the Mile High City, where the Democratic National Convention kicked off Sunday with a New Orleans-themed bash at the downtown Denver Convention Center.

 After the final gavel each night, the festivities adjourn to clubs and hotels around town, where individual state delegations and interest groups gather for music and socializing.

 All well and good for those who — in the correct coinage of the liquor industry — drink responsibly. But there are some who can’t, former Rhode Island Rep. Tom Coderre of Pawtucket testifies from hard experience.

 “I can remember being a delegate in the 1996 convention in Chicago and coming to those breakfasts and — let’s put it this way — not feeling my best,” said Coderre, whose battle with alcohol and cocaine was well-known in political circles.

 So this year Coderre, who has been a recovering addict for some time now, helped to lead an effort to give sober conventioneers a chance to gather over coffee and soft drinks and, if the spirit moves them, sit in on a 12-step meeting.

 Coderre’s friend Patrick Kennedy, the Rhode Island congressman whose experience with alcohol and drug addiction recovery has become a big part of his political life, was among the convention delegates who helped to publicize the availability of the “Wellness Recovery Rooms” in the Convention Center and the Pepsi Center, where the nightly Democratic program is staged.

 The rooms also welcome those who suffer so-called “co-occurring” mental illness — not at all uncommon in the world of addiction, Coderre said.

 That’s a tricky business, since anonymity is a hallmark of the recovery movement. But Coderre said the organizers of the rooms have depended on their informal networks to pass the word.

 “It’s a chronic condition. It’s not something that goes away,” Coderre said of addiction, “so we have to support each other.”

 Getting out of that world “has been such a turnaround, such a difference for me,” Coderre said. And of course, he added with a smile, “I’m so much more alert to what’s going on at the convention” than he was 12 years ago in Chicago.

— John E. Mulligan

•Pastore helped shape Biden’s career: Sen. Joe Biden took the national stage last night to speak passionately about Barack Obama’s run for the presidency.

 Rhode Islanders of a certain age will remember another time when Biden spoke from his heart — in September 2000 at the funeral of the legendary Rhode Island U.S. senator and governor, John O. Pastore. After a masterful eulogy from Sen. Edward Kennedy, Biden told of Pastore’s counsel in 1972, when he was first elected to the Senate from Delaware.

 Between Biden’s November election and January swearing-in as a senator, his first wife and daughter died in an auto accident on their way to pick up a Christmas tree. Biden was so distraught that he wanted to leave politics without even being sworn in.

Pastore went to see Biden, who then was only 30. A blunt Pastore told Biden his life story, as a poor son of Italian immigrants who was raised in a cold-water flat on Federal Hill, which early in the 20th century was a neighborhood of squalor and poverty.

 Pastore told Biden that he was "an Irish Catholic kid from nothing” who made it to the Senate and must take his seat. Biden took his advice and is now his party’s vice-presidential candidate.

— Scott MacKay, Journal staff writer

•Campaign takes on new hue: Barack Obama’s youthful image may have helped propel him to the Democratic presidential nomination, but as he prepares to formally become his party’s standard bearer in the November election, Obama’s closely shorn hair appears to be increasingly gray.

 A little salt in the pepper might come in handy for a candidate who faces questions about whether he has enough experience.

 On the campaign trail in recent weeks, Obama tells supporters that the new hue is from the rigors of spending long months stumping for votes.

 “I’ve been running for president for 19 months, which explains the gray hair,” the 47-year-old says.

 Zariff, a Chicago barber who goes by one name and who has cut Obama’s hair for about 15 years, said he first noticed the gray about three years ago.

— Los Angeles Times