codex: involute stream of consciousness

"Team Kucinich" wrote to me,

Once again, some of our elected Representatives are pushing to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [ANWR].

On May 19th, Rep Pombo, Richard W. [R] introduced H.R.5429, “To direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish and implement a competitive oil and gas leasing program that will result in an environmentally sound program for the exploration, development, and production of the oil and gas resources of the Coastal Plain of Alaska, and for other purposes.”

In response, I wrote to my esteemed Congress-person,

Honorable Representative Smith,
I am writing as voting consitituent of yours, and a supporter of your political career, to urge you to act against the Hon. Rep. Richard Pombo's sponsored bill H.R. 5429, which would mandate the exploitation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for fossil fuel production. The amount of fuel that might be extracted from this last pristine wilderness preserve, and the timeliness with which that product might be brought to market do not justify the environmental damage inherent in such an enterprise. I believe the stated purpose of the bill, an "environmentally sound program for the exploration, development, and production of the oil and gas resources of the Coastal Plain of Alaska", is an oxymoron. The historically low price of fossil fuels in the US compared to the rest of the world has created a status quo of over-consumption. Increasing fuel prices are the only means of making that fact apparent to the industries that prey on this situation. The continued support of that unsustainable status quo and its profit-hungry, change-adverse benefactors is not the goal of creation of the ANWR. The current administration has already pried open my so-called "social security lock box" and squandered the assets they were charged with preserving, please don't let that happen to our precious national ecological resources. Thank you.

A friend wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I never send email forwards around, but this was an
> eye-opener to me.  So, I decided to send it to those who have
> kids and are likely to have this spray in their households.
>
> I've already known of a friends child sniffing gasoline.  I
> thought it bazarre, but kids talk each other into the
> wierdest things.  Best to just not have any of it on hand for
> them to experiment with.
>
> With love to you all.
>
> Note: forwarded message attached.
>
> Subject: FW: Dust Off- A Serious Fatal Hazard
> Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:50:04 -0500
>
> To my friends and family with kids..... I confirmed this one
> on www.truthorfiction.com and it is NOT an urban legend.
(Included refence to the letter found here)

Thank you for the informative article. Anyone who has ever
used Dust Off or any of various similar products, and has paid
any attention to the label warnings is surely aware that such
product presents a danger if misused.

The Snopes page (at http://www.snopes.com/toxins/dustoff.asp)
on this issue is much more informative than that cited in the
letter. In response to the admonistion that is 'Best to
just not have any of it on hand for them to experiment with',
I point out this this observation:

"Yet while it might be tempting to regard this threat as one
limited to Dust-Off (and therefore as a danger that can be
averted by banning a specific product from the home), the truth
is a great number of teens and pre-teens routinely attempt to
get high by abusing inhalants and solvents found in common
household products. Dust-Off is just one of a thousand or more
products that can abruptly end the life of someone foolishly
looking for an inhalant high. The list of items that can be
turned to this purpose is almost endless and includes such
innocuous-looking goods as hair spray and aerosol whipped
cream."

I can add, from personal experience as an inexperienced
thrill-seeking adolescent many years ago, that there are
certain techniques for achieving such oxygen-deprivation
"highs" that do not even involve the use of ANY particular
substance, illicit or otherwise, which involve similar risks.

The real take-away here, is that if you are concerned for
your children's well-being and safety, then as parents you
must:

• Teach your kids about the existence of such behaviors and what their real consequences are. Ignorance is no defense.
• Observe theirs and their friends behaviour. It may just be the tip of the iceberg, but at least you can tell which way its going.
• Pay attention. Everything means something. The Snopes article points out that many parents miss the warning signs of huffing due to wishfull thinking. However it is possible to over-scrutininze and read bad things where none are present. Your experience will have to be your guide in deciding where to draw the line.

The last point is the most important, and applies equally
well to much more than just child welfare. Too many people are
content to leave life-changing decisions to others, whether by
believing label warnings, trusting traffic signals, making
consumer product choices, or voting in public elections.

Wake up and live, here, now!

I stipulate that the President's judicial nominees deserve fullest possible consideration of the Senate, in its capacity as a deliberative body charged with the responsibilty to "advise and consent" the Executive branch. However, fulfilling that responsibility does not necessarily mean having an "up or down vote", which would be capitulation to the tyrrany of the majority.

The fillibuster is an essential part of the deliberative process of the US Senate, and has been for two centuries. In controlling all three branches of government, the current majority party has unprecedented control over the government now, so to engage in changing time-honored rules of order to ensure their party's influence beyond the tenure of their "mandate" at the expense of the rights of minority is degenrate, unpatriotic, and counter to the spirit of our Constitution, bordering on treasonous. Those who would support such an exercise deserve the opprobrium of all Americans, and forfeit their ability to be respresentatives of a free citizenry as a result, if ever they had any.

(Sent as a letter to the Editor of the Austin American-Statesman)

The following was posted to the JohnKerry.com "Report a Voting Problem" form:

There was a problem with my candidate. Where does Kerry get off conceding before all the votes have been counted? I had counted on him to preserve the backbone implant that Howard Dean had given the Party, but like the flip-flopper that the GOP had accused him of, as soon as the going got rough, Kerry chickened out and didn't live up to his promise, reiterated just last night by Edwards, that "every vote would count and would be counted". There still remains the possibility that kerry could win the Electoral College vote and not the popular vote, and if so, would be every bit as entitled to the Presidency as the current Resident of the White House, but now that he has conceded, Kerry will never know if that may have happened.
For what, to reconcile with the GOP? No thank you! We should be marshalling our troops to resist the greatest assult on American values since the War of 1812, but instead, we are appeasing the facist neo-cons in a vain attempt to appeal to a non-existent centrist mainstream.
As a life-long Democrat, I am disgusted and humiliated by my Party's behavior in the last two elections. If this election is not recognized as the wake-up call long needed and future planning is as timid and ineffectual as it has been in the new millenium, then we will be trivilaized and supplanded by a Party with values to drive it, like the Greens.
Democrats, learn something from the debacles of 2000 & 2004. Return to your root values, and represent them faithfully. Don't try to adjust your message to your percieved political currents.

On the EFF-Austin mailing list, Randy Zagar wrote:
> I just got this from one of our contacts in Maryland.
> Hopefully our local and state election officials will be
> more "transparent" in their treatment of paper ballots...

I am afraid those hopes are ill-founded. I voted this morning at my local polling place and discovered, after a long term absence from this state, that we have switched to electronic voting systems.

I asked the polling examiner for a paper ballot, and he replied, "We have them, but there's a lot of paperwork involved..." I got the impression that he was trying to scare me off. I said, "OK", to his apparent chagrin.

He asked for my government-issue photo ID, again, and went to make a phone call. I overheard him explain that he had a "provisional voter" requesting a paper ballot. After he got off the phone, he told me that I could use the paper "provisional" ballot, but that IT WOULD NOT BE COUNTED. Not, that it may be counted under some circumstance, but that it would categorically NOT be counted. I might as well just throw it in the garbage.

This seemed a nonsensical position to me, so I asked, "Then why do you have them?". He explained that they are for emergency situations, such as a voter who has no registration card and cannot be found in the roles, or that appears at the wrong polling place tool late in the day to be reasonably expect to get to the right place before the polls close. Outside of these extraordinary circumstances, any such ballot would simply be rejected as invalid by a voting judge. Apparently, a healthy sense of distrust for non-transparent technology does not qualify as extraordinary enough, though it seemed to take the polling examiners there by surprise.

Given the option of being discarded out-of-hand, or compromising and using the e-voting system, I opted for the latter.

Then, just to heap insult upon injury, the precinct captain proceeded to take me aside and explain to me just how secure the e-voting system is. He pointed out that the voting terminals were connected to an onsite controller, which recorded votes in a secure digital non-volatile memory card (I'll spare you the hown-home vernacular in which this information was reverentially dispensed), and that "no trace of your vote is retained in the system, except in the card" which is removed and delivered to election headquarters. I did not point out to him that the fact that my vote was subject to a single point of failure in that card did not encourage me.

I think his perception was that I was concerned that someone might penetrate the system security to determine how my vote was cast, and we was oblivious to the idea that I was concerned that my vote be reported and counted as actually cast.

Posted by: Kevin Calman / 8:53 AM

--- Someone wrote to the group Dem-NY-Catskills@yahoogroups.com:

> A war declared by idealogues on foreign countries
> and the dismantling of everything we have fought for
> for over twenty years right here at home, has got to
> be a wake up call to moderates and those who didn't
> vote in the past.
> The absolute steamrollong of our infrastructure
> and its dismantling to satisfy the idealogigal
> elite because nuts slipped in under our noses
> allowing the rich and aloof to openly promote
> their business and their fears and superstitions
> has got to end.
> Only the blind follow Bush. Only the religious
> dictators seem to have a grip on the weak ...
> and they are Republican.
> Lets beat ALL Republicans this next election. The
> Republican Party seemed not to care that they are
> throwing the baby out with the bath water. Should
> we be selective? Not one iota. Vote Democrat.

Ooooh, powerful words there, sparky! Unfortunately, you're preachin' to the choir. Your rhetoric sounds reminicent of the line from those very Republicans when they were all in a lather about President Clinton's indescretions.

The only way you're going to beat all the Republicans is to attact their weak-minded, finacial elite-wannabe voting base, forget the hard-core PNAC types. To do that, you're gonna need ideas that illuminate the other side of the arguments made by the curent regime.

So, you got any good ideas how to wake those moderate sleep-walkers out of their stupor? How to shake those needing to be lead by the religious nose-ring? How make those who support the "small government" GOP ideal realize that the war and the so-called PATRIOT act have made the Federal government bigger than ever?

To make the chicken-hawks realize that the indefinite "War on Terrorism" is and will continue to be no more effective than the War on Drugs for the very same reason, that they seek to eliminate problems' symptoms, while ignoring or even exacerbating the causes, and making our own society less safe and humane in the process?

To kick the crutches of complescency out from under those that support a Medicaid "reform" that only benefits the private health care industry and pharmacos by doing nothing to contain costs and dooming the public sector solution to strangle?

To light a fire under the dolts that take advantage of government tax breaks to buy SUVs big enough to drive through the loophole in the CAFE standard, supported by a vice-president who negotiates public energy policy out of public view behind closed doors, with his revolving door lobbyist buddies?

Well, if you do, that's what we need to be talking about on this list. Exhorting US to "Vote Democrat" is a waste of all of our time. Its THEM that we need to reach.

Here is some feedback from the Ani DiFranco concert last Friday night (11/14) at the MidHudson Civic Center.

First let me clarify one apparent misunderstanding: This concert was a commercially-operated event arranged as part of the artist's regular touring schedule, and our participation in it was incidental and at the artist's pleasure. It should not be confused with the events that this group has and will arrange independantly as stand-alone events to benefir the Kucinich campaign. All of the proceeds from our effort, but not from the concert as a whole, went to the campaign. Volunteers are admitted free (and even get discounted parking!).

How it came to be:

I saw an item in the Kucinich campaign weekly newsletter about artists endorsing the candidate which mentioned Ani DiFranco. I looked up the artist's web site and found that she is on tour, and would have a stop on POK. This was about 2-3 weeks ago. I contacted the artist's management and made a format request in writing for participation. I requested the following items:

• Permission to "table" at the POK event, that is, to have a table in the lobby of the venue and admit a few people to serve at it.
  
• Provision of 2 prime tickets to be offered to the public for fund-raising purposes.
  
• Opportunity for a statement from the stage, by a campaign rep, the artist, or her designee.
  

After a significant wait, I got a response from the artist's management granting permission to table only. I had to make the arrangements with the promoter and the venue, this happened the day before.

I was not present at the last D4K meetup due to travel, but I understand volunteers were solicited. In the end, I had three volunteers show up, and that was sufficient to cover the event. I had met with folks from the CD 20 DJK Campaign and borrowed some of the stock merch, anticpating significant sales at this event. Lee was kind enough to provide an event-specific flyer in volume, a table banner reading "Ani supports Kucinich", and additional merch (shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, generic campaign flyers).

How it came off:

I arrived at the venue about and hour before the doors were to open, lugging several boxes of stuff. I made contact with event mamagement, got the table, and set up our materials. Also tableing the event were "Shut down Indian Point" and "Not in Our Name" groups. The volunteers showed up and we discussed our approach: 2 folks at the table and 2 folks circulating in the crowd. We all had on Kucinich shirts or buttons/stickers/etc.

Once the doors opened, the lobby got pretty densely populated from about an hour before the show start, thoughout the opening act and intermission, up until Ani hit the stage. From what I could see, the crowd was mostly college-age folks, with a significant GLBT contingent. At first, folks seemed a bit leery of approaching the table, so the strategy of having reps work the crowd worked well. After a while (maybe after they walked past us a few times and realized we weren't pitching energy drinks), more people wandered up and were willing to chat with the table reps.

After the main event started, only folks in the lobby were on their way to or from the restrooms, the smoking den, or the beer line, which streched the length of the lobby. Several times, I went down this line, handing flyers to folks who looked bored. On at least one occasion, I had a person come back for more information and to sign the contact list after having been handed a flyer. We had some GLBT-targeted literature which I handed out discretely to obvious same-sex couples, and seemed well-received.

What we accomplished:

While we did not sell any t-shirts (except to volunteers) we did sell a good number of buttons and stickers, and even a book or two. Total financial contribution was more than $50, I will leave the final accounting to Lee. The real pay-off of this event, however, was about three dozen names on the contact list and all of the 300 event-specific flyers handed out, significantly raising awarness of DJK's campaign with a valuable demographic, first-time and idealistic voters.

In summary, this event was not difficult to conceptualize and arrange, easy and fun to implement, and had measurable impact on the local political climate. I would call it a sucess.

My thanks to Marcie, Kelly & Rod for voluteering their time, to Lee for the support, and to Zena for lending us materials.