There are a pair of local events my wife and I enjoy every year, and this time they both fell on Saturday. Friends of The Library held their annual book sale, and the Planet Earth Celebration was held in connection with Earth Day.
I really enjoy the FOL book sale. For me, it's comforting to spend an hour or two browsing through tables full of old or gently-used books. Since I donate most of the books I've read or lost interest in, I like to see how many of them turn up on the display tables. Saturday, I spotted at least five. I can buy individual books for 2 dollars or a grocery sack full for 15 bucks, and my wife and I were able to select ten books which nearly filled a bag. I wound up with a like-new copy of Norman Mailer's last novel The Castle In The Forest, a detective story anthology, a book about the Bush-Cheney foreign policy by Mark Crispin Miller, and The Winds of War by Herman Wouk.
We arrived at the Earth Day festival about noon. It makes me feel good seeing so many people volunteering their time and effort to a cause like that. I first learned about compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) at the Planet Earth celebration two years ago, and started using them on a limited basis. Apparently, CFLs are going to be federally mandated, just like digital television signals. I have doubts about the federal mandates in both instances, but nobody asked me. As usual, each booth at the festival had assorted freebies; my wife picked up a couple of frisbees and a yo-yo for the grandsons, and I got a totebag and a 6-inch ruler. Hooray for free stuff !
Now for the not-so-much-fun:
In 1994, the Repubs took over the House of Representatives on the strength of their so-called Contract On America. This was a plateful of dogshit being sold as steak and eggs, but I did generally agree with the COA provision on term limits. Of course, once the conservatives actually got control of Congress, the term limits idea went out the window.
Over the weekend, Rick (Hairgod) Perry made it known he'll definitely be running for still another term as governor, and given the mentality of a majority of Texans, he'll probably be elected again. Time for that pos to get a real job. The same goes for Tom Craddick. Of course, this being Texas, even if Perry wasn't allowed to run again, the pos who replaced him would probably be just as bad, maybe even worse.
On the national scene, there's a video circulating on the internet showing Barack Obama pandering to voters by trying to bowl. After he rolled a few gutterballs, the "Obama Under No Circumstances" crowd went crazy. He's such an elitist he can't even bowl, and he wants to be president ?
I haven't seen the bowling video, but have you seen this dude play basketball ? There are a lot of lardasses at the bowling alley, not so many on the basketball court. I've tried bowling and I've played a little basketball, and for my money, b-ball is by far the more demanding athletic activity.
The people in the media who are constantly badmouthing Obama were never going to vote for him in the first place. All they're doing now is trying to persuade everyone else not to.
There are many things about organized religion that leave me scratching my head. Pope Benedict is wrapping up his US visit, and from what I'm reading, large numbers of American Catholics spent time analyzing the symbolic significance of the garments he was wearing. What is the meaning of the ermine ? The lace ? To me, this has the same level of importance as Obama's flag pin. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Finally we have the FLDS story, which I haven't been keeping up with too carefully. When it comes to religion, I try to be tolerant of everybody's beliefs, or lack of them as the case may be. Just don't get in my face with them. The FLDS folks look like your classic example of too much of a good thing: religious devotion carried to ridiculous extremes. I've been surprised by the number of people defending them, but it probably ties in with the fear The Extremely Religious People have that they're constantly being attacked. From where I sit, it's The Not-So-Religious Folks that are under attack, and The Wrong Religion Folks even moreso.
I am proposing a bloodless, popular, political revolution in our country. I believe that it is very necessary, very possible, and doable.
ReplyDeleteAfter running my website tenurecorrupts.com for over five years, I am convinced that the heart of our country’s political problems arises out of the ‘permanent’ Congressional political class, and their devotion to party power and big financial special interests.
There are two ways to break the grip that this ‘class’ has on our political system:
• Create Term Limits of “6 years and out”
• Create public financing of elections, OR ALTERNATELY, allow unlimited campaign contributions from INDIVIDUALS ONLY (prohibiting corporate money), with instant disclosure, on the Internet, of all sources, with stiff penalties for fraudulent disclosures. (If you can’t vote, you can’t contribute)
The first of these steps can only happen by means of a Constitutional amendment. And Congress will not allow such amendments to even be proposed. (They have effectively, invisibly, and unconstitutionally ‘vetoed’ Article V).
But there is still one way that the voters can use to make these things happen. And it wouldn’t cost anything more than getting your friends, and their friends, to do the same, by a nationwide email campaign thru out 2008, 2010, and 2012, and maybe longer.
That way is... NEVER REELECT ANY Congressional incumbent, anytime, in either the House or the Senate, good guys or bad, in either party. NEVER REELECT!
If we succeed in doing this for two or three election cycles, we would sharply reduce the rate of successful reelection from over 98% in the House to less than 60%. That would get their attention! It would force them to give us those changes.
I’m Nelson Lee Walker of tenurecorrupts.com