The Oscar nominations came out today, and among those up for Best Actor is Sean Penn, who portrayed assassinated San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the city's first gay officeholder, in the movie Milk. More of that in a moment.

Milk for supervisor and Milk for assembly campaign buttons.

Not long ago, I received this note from reader Gary Crum:

Please add my name to the Political Junkie mailing list. By the way, I hear you are a serious collector of campaign buttons. I have about 1,000 of them and am always interested in conversation with other button nuts. To brag a little, I bet you don't have a Harvey Milk button.

Gary, Gary, Gary, what am I going to do with you? You should know better than to make such a bet. But it does, on this day of Oscar nominations, give me an excuse to show you the buttons I have of Milk.

As for the movie, for some reason I still have yet to see it. But for anyone who wants to learn more information about that awful day back in 1978, I urge you to listen to an extraordinary piece by NPR's Richard Gonzales, which ran on Morning Edition last Nov. 26. Thirty years after Dan White shot Milk and S.F. Mayor George Moscone, Gonzales recaptured that moment with great archival tape, including that of then-Supervisor Dianne Feinstein announcing the murders, the tape of White confessing, and interviews with players on the San Francisco political scene. It's a fantastic piece and you can hear it here.

Remember, you too can be famous like Gary Crum and appear in this blog. Sign up for the mailing list at politicaljunkie@npr.org.

Tags: A Look Back in Politics