INTERESTING TIMES

 
What people don't seem to know is the goals of the Forward Party.  The platform on the website is admittedly vague, and this is because the Forward Party is made up of Independents, Republicans and Democrats who agree on one thing: the current two-party system is driving us into a hole, and we have to fix our institutions in order to pull ourselves out of it.  The goal: Fix Our Institutions, starting with Elections.

So, what can we do that will change the direction of this failing democracy?  WE CAN FIX OUR ELECTIONS by bringing these three issues to the top of our priority list and acting on them.  If we can fix our elections, we might be able to pull our Anocracy back toward Democracy.

1. Ranked Choice Voting.  There are lots of other ways to vote but this one keeps rising to the top because it allows us to select our favorite candidate, and our second and third favorite, on down the line.  Every vote counts because if your first choice doesn't get enough votes, your second choice is counted.  In this way we avoid the current problem of having to vote for the "lesser of two evils" in order to avoid the "spoiler effect" that can occur if we vote for a 3rd party candidate.  Basically RCV (Ranked Choice Voting) will make it POSSIBLE for candidates from any party to win office if they are good enough.  But this doesn't work alone.

2. Open Primaries.  This means that everybody can vote for any party candidate in the primaries.  You will not be banned from voting in any primaries because of which party you registered with.  I'm not sure but it might become unnecessary to specify which party you belong to in order to vote.  That would be a blessing, because I find myself switching my party affiliation with some regularity in order to support candidates that I like.  I am as independent as they come, and I don't appreciate having to declare a bogus party affiliation in order to support a candidate who is part of a party.  Anyway, in some states it's just a matter of a referendum on the ballot and voters can open the primaries.  In other states, like where I live, it requires a state constitutional amendment.  Open Primaries will further ensure that good candidates from any source can rise to the top.

3. Nonpartisan Districting.  I just learned that in Tennessee the Republicans have redistricted away the last Democrat Congressional seat, the one in Nashville.  They rearranged the lines to split up Nashville Dems so that a Republican can win that seat, and will.  I'm from Tennessee.  This partisan redistricting is a crime against our nation.  I live in Oregon which is districted in favor of the Democrats.  Both parties do this, and neither should be able to.  We must pass a law that creates non-partisan districting commissions.  This change must be nationwide.  We could redistrict based on plain old geography and population.  A computer program could do it.  This would mean that minorities in any state would still have a voice, and support the process of democracy.  IT WOULD BE FAIR.  The current system allows whoever is in charge to increase their power and you know what follows absolute power--->absolute corruption.  It is happening before our eyes.

I admit, these reforms WILL BE OPPOSED by both dominant parties.  They WILL BE OPPOSED by all the major news outlets.  This is because both parties and the news are hyper-partisan.  They have boatloads of money in the game, and they will loose money if their side starts losing elections. 

That is why WE THE PEOPLE must stand up to the money and power and make these changes.  Without these changes we will not be able to change anything else.  Wars, famine, unfair taxation, disinformation and disease will be our lot.  The powerful do not willingly relinquish power, they must be removed.  We must remove them.  These changes will benefit the people, and American government is supposed to be BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE.  Not by the money, for the money.

If this American experiment ever held sway in your heart, then you know what is at stake.

The boys from the City of Oak Ridge were just here and they hacked off my mother's beautiful tree just above the chain link fence.  When I called the City about a week ago, I told them it was in the power lines and I was having trouble getting the vines out.  They lady said that they would call me before coming out to cut on it, but they did not.  The ticket the boys were operating on was written by someone named Butch.  Butch drives a jeep and was the one who came to inspect the tree.  He was supposed to call me to talk it over.  The ticket he wrote said cut it above the chainlink, and also "(dog will bite)".  The sign on the gate says "attack dog" but that is a joke: this dog has never bitten anyone and is about the friendliest dog I have ever known.  The dog will not bite.  He would have known that if he had talked to me.  I gave my cell phone number and expected that call.  I am angry that they butchered the tree.  I am angry that Butch didn't call.  I have been watching for local calls.  They could have cut it right below the telephone wires.

I used to wear heels that made me six feet tall.  I loved being tall and accepted my big feet for the anchors.  I never liked my body much though, or my face, always found fault.  When I was approaching 30 years old I decided to get in shape.  I'd been in shape a couple of times before... from jiujitsu in high school and my first year of river guiding.  My plan at age 30 had to do with biking, swimming, and walking, hopefully running but I had never been a runner.

( When I was living in Knoxville, )

Statistics show that the "stroke belt" is also where you have the highest likelihood (in the US) of dying of cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease (smoking), cancer and accidents. Obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome are probable causes, but what about accidents? Why do southerners have the most accidents? Bless their dangerous little hearts....

SOURCE
http://consumer.healthday.com/cardiovascular-health-information-20/heart-attack-news-357/southeastern-states-have-highest-number-of-preventable-deaths-687436.html

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

You can check out the progress of America's increasing BMI by state, since 1985, on this govt page. The South leads the charge.


Colorado is the Rocky Mountain holdout but they are sliding too.

A new guidebook is available online, for free! You can download it here..

That's what it sounds like from the letter behind the cut (at bottom), anyway. Then I searched and found that there are some senators working to strengthen the Clean Air Act on some specific pollutants, specifically with regard to coal. And frankly, I'm all for it. We need clean air. Clean air makes all the difference. I come from East Tennessee, the land of acid rain and asthma. And I have lived where the air is clean. I know the difference.

The specific proposals are to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 80% by 2018, mono-nitrogen oxides by 53% and mercury by 90% by 2015. I don't know a thing about the technology involved, but if these adjustments ARE technologically feasible we absolutely should require that our plants do them. Even knowing that we have to pay for it. Sulfur dioxide is the main thing that causes acid rain, and acid rain kills the trees and depletes the soil and turns the land into waste. It is the nightmare that people have when they think about nuclear devastation, only it happens. Nitrogen oxide contributes to acid rain. Mercury is just plain old toxic, neurotoxic and hard to get rid of. If we can stop plants from blowing mercury into the air, it won't get rained into the water, and it won't concentrate in the fish or come pouring through our taps. We won't be so poisoned.

Oh, you say, you're not poisoned? Don't check your own heavy metals if you don't want to know.

On the subject of fossil fuel dependence, here's a short history from the Post Carbon Institute.


( this letter from CREDO action in my email inbox today )

Cup of warm strong coffee, organic half and half, brown sugar. Cool morning, first cool one since I returned here from AZ. I clipped the grape and wisteria vines back from the deck already, as I've been working on kayaks out there and the tendrils are a bother. The spiders will hopefully recede a bit also, now that there is less to attach to. I ate one egg a la Bill (on a corn tort with cheese, green onion and garlic) and am saving the other one for dinner. My appetite has been almost gone in the hot weather, but the coolness incited me to cook eggs.
( braindump )

Tennessee's high-tech future became more secure last week when the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the Oak Ridge National Laboratory would become the nation's top research facility for the future of nuclear energy. It is fitting that the laboratory that brought us into the nuclear age would be chosen to plan for its future.
( a pro-nuke editorial and a bit of history from the town historian )

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE EAST TENNESSEE WHITE WATER CLUB
Compiled by Paul Dutky in 1988
( This is not so brief, really, but a very interesting tale of the early days of whitewater river running based in the town of my birth. The tale is deeply interwoven with my family and personal experience, including a mention Potter's falls. )