March to a Different Drummer

Democracy - A Second Look

2011-11-19T02:52:00.013-05:00

I’m noticing in myself that after a decades long personal evolution to wrest myself from my early Southern Baptist indoctrination and even question the basic tenants of faith, I have in my twilight years also begun to question other sacred cows. And one of those is democracy itself. And this is at a higher level than implied by such Churchillian quotes as, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”, or my favorite, “"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." My journey has brought me not only to just question religion, or to question free will, but to now question democracy. To question the very sacred tenets upon which democracy is supposed to rest: that the people can or should govern themselves, that the majority really should rule, that men do really have inalienable rights, that the “will of the people” is really the will of the people.

In any event, American democracy is not working, is corrupted, is a farce, inhabited by career politicians beholden to their own self-interest and brazenly more of a popularity contest that is a high school class president election.

I did a bit of looking at the statistics. And I went a bit further, all politics being local. And drilled down to state and county data. Here they are run through my spreadsheet. Voter turnout varies from country to country for a host of reasons, and turnout is not necessarily related to the quality of governance.

The United States here ranks quite low, however the data used is from a midterm election where turnout is always lower than presidential election years.

The historic data for United States voter turnout looks like this:

And Virginia places in the bottom 30% when compared to the fifty states.

The Virginia Election Board data suggests that there is even a tendency over time towards lower voter turnout, especially on off year elections.

And when compared with Chesterfield County, a similar pattern is noted: Of particular interest is the 19% turn out in Chesterfield County in 2003. This is 19% of registered voters – 31961 county residents voted in that election, in a county that in 2003 was 278,000 – 11.5% of the population actually voted. The majority won the various local offices, by even smaller margins for local district races. This was rule by majority that was in fact rule by a small minority.

I won’t broach the liberal versus conservative mind but I will recommend John Dean’s book, Conservatives Without Conscience, which is a good primer on the subject, other than to say it is much easier to lock step march conservatives to the polls, especially if there is a social issue that plays to their belief systems.

I will though add that the power of incumbency is used worldwide to secure elected position, with everything from erecting barriers to participation by selected groups, e.g. registration and voting barriers, to blatant gerrymandering. Particularly offensive is the disenfranchisement of felons.

"23% of the African American population in Virginia are disenfranchised, according to a breakdown of data by state by civil rights advocacy group, The Sentencing Project, where they report a whopping 2,331 disenfranchised African Americans per 100,000 of the total population of the Commonwealth. 7% of the total voting age population in Virginia have lost their political voice.   

You can apply to have your civil rights restored, but the process is lengthy. There's also no guarantee that your application will be approved. The number of newly disenfranchised felons in Virginia each year exceeds the number of ex-felons who are able to regain their civil rights.   

Despite evidence that bringing ex-felons back into the franchise actually reduces the recidivism rate, Virginia continues to disenfranchise any and all convicted felons regardless of the nature of the crime. The waiting period keeps many ex-felons from being eligible to have their civil rights restored, because disenfranchised felons are more likely to be reoffenders. What this really means is that Virginia continues to adhere to a policy that actually creates more crime.   

Virginia is one of only two states remaining in the United States that disenfranchises all convicted felons and require personal action from the Governor in order to restore the rights of ex-felons."

But all this begs the question, democracy – does it actually work? Can democracy compete with China’s “single party, part socialist, part capitalist, authoritarian/totalitarian oligarchy with figurehead leaders.” Does democracy offer the best quality of life for the largest number of people?

Lost in Conversation

2011-11-17T22:38:00.002-05:00

Lost in the midst of the largest economic downturn in generations, lost in the 1% versus 99% realizations that there is an historic and growing divide between rich and poor, lost in polarized images of the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party phenomena – lost in conversation is the reality that although the rich have the power, the less rich have the votes, at least in the democratic countries.

Protests from either side that refers back to our original democratic founding seem to miss a very important point – democracy requires citizen participation. Democracy is and was a grand experiment in governance in which instead of citizenry being ruled by a king or dictator or emperor or pope, the people would for the first time govern themselves. That basic assumption has become an utter failure.

The peoples’ electorate in the early colonies so undemocratically included only white men over the age of 21, and those elected were by and large already the prominent, respected, and . . . often rich and powerful members of their communities. Over time that electorate was broadened to include women, blacks, 18-21 year olds – all with the hope that a more inclusive democracy would be a better democracy.

The reality is that in the march of democracy in America, the electorate has fully shirked its responsibility. The few who do drag themselves to the polls are far too often uninformed about the candidates and issues they are voting on. It is far too easy to accept that one person’s vote, one way or another, is very unlikely to make an iota’s worth of difference. And little acceptance is given to the maxim that “all politics is local”. Thus suggesting that a scant few ever attend a municipal council meeting, write to their legislators, join a local political organization, or support with time or money a local candidate.

And into this gaping vacuum step the rich and powerful. Into this void step the special interests. They are not necessarily bad; they take up this opportunity because they just simply can. It is a natural and expected consequence of electorate apathy. It is a natural and expected reaction to the sense of indifference felt by so much of the electorate.

And this may be a natural and expected evolution in a democracy – especially an established democracy that has had as many iterations of the electoral cycle as has America.

Imagine a hypothetical island of ten people where one person happens to own 90% of the palm trees, the main food source on the island. His family accumulated these trees over time and now, due to the power of ownership of this resource, he has inordinate influence over the community. The other nine protect the island, and the palms, from invaders from other islands. They work on the palm farm to nurture and harvest the fruit, and they provide the island and the wealthy palm tree owner with all the other services this small island requires.

Now lets assume this island is a democracy. What prevents the nine from voting to more equally divide the island’s resources? What prevents the community, at the death of the palm tree tycoon, from some redistribution rather than allowing the palm grove to go to his spoiled progeny? My guess is that on this hypothetical island democracy of ten, that there would be natural tendencies to a somewhat more equal distribution of wealth and the benefits that accrue to such wealth. Not that hard work and innovation wouldn’t be rewarded. Just that excessive tilts in this wealth distribution due to good fortune, special privilege, the accident of birth, and the contributions of others much less rewarded, would be less likely.

Was American exceptionalism and the paradigm that anyone who worked hard could accomplish his/her dreams in America merely a myth largely perpetrated by the unique position America found itself in after two world wars – where the great economic powers of Europe and Asia were in ashes and America with its huge resources left intact?

And on top of an economic crisis, the country has become more polarized than anytime in recent memory. The politburo in China must be having a great laugh. They don’t have to put up with an unwieldy and dysfunctional democratic experiment – they can rule by fiat and as long as their population is as uninvolved in their collective destiny as are the Americans, then China may easily again step onto the world stage as a dominate player.

And lost in the conversation is the fundamental failure of America’s democratic experiment.

Is Eric Cantor Now The Face Of Virginia?

2011-10-24T23:19:00.001-04:00

OK, I’m a Virginian who doesn’t reside in Virginia, however, I do follow the news from my home state and the news mentioning Virginia is seldom pleasant. And the news mentioning Virginia is only Virginia news because it all too often only focuses on Virginia 7th District Congressman Eric Cantor.

Now, I’m not a fan of Eric Cantor. To me his smarmy, high-pitched voice and condescending demeanor make it hard to actually hear what he is saying. And when I do get past that I find his arguments insipid, unoriginal, and hollow. He merely speaks talking points – he plays word games cleverly calculated to resonate with a national conservative audience. He doesn’t even have to consider the resonance with his own constituency, as his seat is about as rock solid as any in Congress. Why? Because the progressives in his district seem incapable of fielding a credible opposition to his candidacy.

So can anyone suggest a living Virginian who is better known nationally, than Eric Cantor? I cannot. And that is embarrassing. Certainly not our two Senators – Webb was a shooting star who then just fizzled out as his agenda seemed to be a more personal agenda and his personality a bit too abrasive, and Warner just doesn’t get the media attention he deserves. But Cantor is attracted to the TV camera like a moth to a flame and night after night it is Eric Cantor who is the face of Virginia.

And why doesn’t Cantor have to worry about his job? Incumbency, party support, and the lock step following of the conservatives – that, plus a totally disorganized and unmotivated Democratic leadership in his district and certainly in Chesterfield County. On returning to Virginia in 1998 from over eight years abroad, I was concerned enough that there were no “D”s to counter the “R’’s at the ballot box that I joined the Chesterfield County Democratic Committee. Chesterfield, a county of over 300,000 where perhaps six individuals control the main supposedly progressive NGO of the county. In a blue state these six would be called Republicans. Inane archaic convention rules, competing agendas, inertia, and cliquishness. Little wonder that the county’s true progressive, Dan Gecker, chooses to run as an Independent.

The 7th district has a population of over 650,000, almost the population of the entire state of Virginia in 1790. But then Virginia was able to produce a George Washington, a Thomas Jefferson, a Patrick Henry and scores of other notables. That was then – Eric Cantor is now. So sad, so very sad.

A Reasonable Solution To The Impending Political Impasse

2010-11-03T23:29:00.000-04:00

The scenario: a deadlocked Congress more so than seen in our lifetimes. Continuing economic demise in the face of a myriad of possible unfortunate events (acts of nature, acts of terrorism, etc.), and a gleeful Asia that is ascending while we are descending. Against this unfolding picture may I again suggest a possibility out of this mess and one that might actually work.

As prologue may I use the analogy of the closing of military bases. This has perennially been a no-winner as the representatives of impacted regions cry loud enough and are passionate enough to disrupt any required action. No elected official of any such affected state can possibly view the larger interest of the nation against the needs of his/her constituency. The solution: Congress very cleverly came up with the method of protecting these politicians while at the same time achieving the necessary closing of redundant bases by agreeing to have an impartial commission, mandated to make a recommendation as to specific base closings; and here is the genius of this scheme, Congress would in return agree to NOT debate this recommendation but only to vote on it – up or down.

I argue that this same process can be used on a myriad of national governing issues that have festered for years if not decades: tax reform, energy policy, entitlement programs, defense budgets, and many more.

Washington may be populated by some of the most hypocritical, conniving, lying, and masquerading as Mr. Smith Goes To Washington on the eve of every election cycle, individuals. But these are also pragmatic people. Washington, and the country, is also gifted with scores of real experts with real solutions to these problems. I challenge Congress to adopt the model used for military base closings to this range of unsolved national problems.

Democracy, as wonderful a governing idea as it is, is flawed in that it assumes an informed and wise electorate – an engaged electorate. Well my precinct had a 52% turnout in last Tuesday’s election. As a previous poll watcher I’m aware that too many go into the voting booth and face the candidates names and the ballot issues for the first time. And equally aware that few voters under the age of 30 are even motivated to show up at all. And for reasons social psychologists are just beginning to study, conservative personalities can be more predictably marched lock step to the polls than liberal personalities who, as lofty as their ideals may be, find any excuse not to exercise their franchise.

More autocratic governments can have an appearance of democracy while still having a strong central control of universal and long range policy – note the one child policy and imposition of the Three Gorges Dam project in China. In an economic “war” of the new world order, democracy has a potent adversary, and unless we come up with real solutions to govern such that national problems are faced timely rather than just being kicked down the road, then we may just forge a national decline of our own making.

Apartheid in Virginia

2010-03-09T23:03:00.004-05:00

A very brief history: Europeans arrived in Virginia in the 17th century to find a bountiful land occupied by indigenous peoples. Upper class Caucasian males soon came to dominate the land and profited in an agrarian environment that depended on indentured servants and slaves. And white males were a major source of the intellectual and passionate force that arose to create American independence and found modern democracy.

Slavery, which helped to accrue power and wealth to upper class whites, was abolished only after a very bloody civil war, however this white class maneuvered second-class status to blacks economically, socially, and politically. Evangelical and fundamentalist Protestantism that had a distinct ingrained intolerance also heavily influenced Virginia’s culture.

Government mandated discrimination or segregation of the races was eventually dismantled by the courts in the 1960’s; however, white upper class males with a long legacy of superior education, hereditary wealth, and superior political skills remain to this day the dominant elite.

The combination of forced school integration and increased white class mobility in the 1960’s onward led to the exodus of whites from urban areas to newly developed suburban communities leaving the blacks, by demographics, to accrue urban political power.

However, this demographic segregation, misguided social programs, black cultural values, lack of resources, and poor education spawned generations of broken black families, broken neighborhoods, crime, drug trafficking and addiction, and despair.

Although some inroads have been made in women’s rights – especially suffrage, technology that freed women to take work outside the home, improved education, birth control, and women’s rights legislation - women remain a real minority, despite being a demographic majority, and have only limited political power as the composition of legislative bodies and corporate management clearly shows.

In recent decades religious tolerance is commonplace, however the state, especially in rural areas, still maintains rather unenlightened fundamentalist Protestant views and values. This is also evidenced in the clout that evangelicals have in the legislature and in their continuing insistence that homosexuals are a threat to the well being of society and thus they actively lobby to prevent gays from achieving parity in civil rights.

Virginia’s white heterosexual Protestant males retain their sense of superiority over women, non-Protestant religions and the unreligious, blacks, Hispanics and other races, northerners, foreigners, and homosexuals.

Certainly this is not apartheid in the South African sense – but it is, in my opinion, apartheid in Virginia in 2010 that should be an embarrassment and a call to action to every fair minded, enlightened, and conscientious Virginian to work for a future where all have an equal opportunity to achieve their potential, where all are ensured equal rights by their government, and where the diversity of Virginians is embraced.

I Am Ashamed That Eric Cantor Is My Congressman

2008-09-29T17:32:00.003-04:00

I understand that most don’t have the leisure I have, as a retiree, to follow issues, to stay tuned to political debates, to spend time and become involved in local politics. However, it is appalling that those fellow citizens of my 7th District in Virginia have such a knee jerk reaction to this current financial crisis such as to swallow the political rhetoric of Congressman Cantor and to not see this partisan politician for who he is.

To see Congressman Cantor spotlighted on national news holding up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s floor remarks and using this as the reason that Republicans failed to pass their administration’s backed financial crisis bill was nauseating. Cantor was playing politics. Cantor was petty. Cantor was being used by his party handlers to try and shift this failure to reach accord onto the Democrats for political gain. Cantor was seen as a safe spokesman who is from the brightest red district of a red state with little formidable opposition to push this malarkey.

It is an insult to the intelligence of his constituency to essentially say that because Pelosi hurt their feelings they changed their vote and decided to put their fragile egos ahead of the interest of the country.

Congressman Cantor needs to accept his lack of leadership and the responsibility of his Party over the last eight years for their part in this financial disaster.

Solve The Economic Crisis – Sell Alaska Back To Russia

2008-09-22T22:06:00.002-04:00

In 1867 Russia was in a difficult financial position and sold Alaska to the United States. Perhaps its time to consider selling it back. Russia might pay for this helped with their huge oil revenues. At 350 million acres, by offering to sell back Alaska to Russia at a mere $5,000 per acre, there would be an almost two trillion dollar infusion into our Treasury. This would pay for the bailout of Wall Street and hopefully restore our financial markets as well as pay the cost of the Iraq War. There is certainly precedence for this. Countries sell territory when they get into big problems. For example the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon.

After all the population of Alaska is only about 700,000 (about the same as Memphis Tennessee) and they are geographically closer to Russia than mainland United States. And this will have many side benefits. The drilling in ANWR debate is shifted out of our politics. Governor Palin now becomes a Russian citizen and will get some international experience and could be a real foil for Putin. The independent wilderness types and hockey moms could well be a force to democratize Russia. And a cross migration between Alaska and the residents of South Ossetia could mitigate a current source of international tension.

There could also be a precedent for this during a political campaign year - in December 1961, Goldwater told a news conference that "sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea". There might be an argument now to saw off Alaska to solve our country’s deep, deep financial debt that is dragging down our future and that of our grandchildren.

(This is tongue in check – no ignorant replies needed).

"World War V" - a timely novel

2008-09-18T15:01:00.009-04:00

First time novelist Tom Elliott has hit a home run with this propitiously published new novel, “World War V”. Elliot seems to be a cross between Follett, Vonnegut, and Pynchon but with an uncanny ability to capture the disparate characters playing in the big picture of a world stage while simultaneously being so fallibly human.

The year is 2010 and in the midst of a worldwide financial crisis, accelerating inflation, and tightening of credit, traditional military war is being replaced by economic war. OPEC, Venezuela, and Russia have been holding secret meetings, each with their own agendas but with the realization that together they can put enormous pressure on the west to advance their agendas. And together they are able to pressure China by both reassuring it on its energy supply and suggesting a way to bolster its relative geopolitical power and prestige.

This all bodes poorly for the west and especially for America. In the states unemployment has skyrocketed, personal equity has plummeted as stock values and house values drop. And to add fuel to the fire, massive natural disasters have devastated several metropolitan areas. Changing weather patterns have raised havoc with agriculture with attendant effects on food prices.

Into this dismal mix author Elliott weaves an intriguing and suspenseful account of the comings and goings at the White House, cleverly bouncing from alternative scenarios of a hawkish Republican president who very closely resembles a current candidate and an accommodating diplomatic Democratic president who is a dead ringer for another current candidate.

Russia, led behind the scenes by a clever and sinister figure who dreams of the reemergence of the Soviet, is playing its oil card and also playing a dangerous chess game where the future of world power is at stake. A growing dictatorship in Venezuela is consolidating power among several South and Latin American countries and Cuba by dangling the carrot of cheap oil. And OPEC sees this as the opportunity to finally leverage their interests against Israel.

And in the midst of such seismic events, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iran are not sitting on their hands. A loose suitcase nuclear bomb is missing somewhere in the mix.

And China prodded by intimidation by the growing oil consortium and seeing the opening to emerge as the new world super power, secretly colludes to raise the price of exports at the same time it begins to call in the enormous debts owed by the United States. So as oil prices in the states go through the roof, prices of imported goods at the big box stores skyrocket, and the U. S. Treasury has problems printing money fast enough to pay its creditors, the new administration in Washington is simultaneously seen coping from two different cleverly juxtaposed perspectives – two time dimensions of two completely different political styles and personalities. This is one read you won’t quickly put down once begun and your heart will race as – well spoiler alert, the ending guarantees that a movie script is already in the making.

Why Is Congressman Eric Cantor Not The Prime Example Of The Type Of Politician That McCain And Palin Say They Are Fighting Against?

2008-09-18T15:01:00.008-04:00

Rather than go into a lengthy discussion on the ineptitude and toadiness of Virginia’s 7th District Republican Congressman, I thought this interview of Cantor by Chris Matthew would better prove my point.

Will Virginia Decide The Election?

2008-09-14T13:25:00.003-04:00

Regardless of all the national polls, least we forget, it is the electoral votes that decide the presidency. An interesting insight into this dynamic is provided by intrade.com, which uses the consensus of the market where real dollars are being bet on the presidential election and other political races. I’ve plotted the “market value” of the electoral votes and here is the graph.

And it’s a very close race by any measure. And Virginia is both now in play as a swing state and perhaps is a presidential decider. Northern Virginia is swinging blue and has for years. And to some extent, so is the Richmond metropolitan area. Surprisingly, the stalwart conservatives in the Norfolk area are even giving Obama a second look. Certainly rural and western Virginia will vote along conservative lines.

But, again least we forget, it was Jim Webb, whose recent close and surprising win over George Allen, tipped the Senate to the Democrats and changed the balance of power in Washington. And now Virginia, with its 13 electoral votes, stands to be king maker and both parties know this. And we Virginians can expect a lot of campaign attention, national news focus, and plenty of close up opportunity to see all the candidates in the next two months. I challenge all Virginia voters to accept this civic responsibility of making an informed choice and to exercise that choice at the polls – the future of our country can be at stake.

The Presidency Will Change – But What About The Congress?

2008-09-05T01:11:00.002-04:00

With both parties waking up to the clarion call of all Americans for change, and not just change, but basic change in the way our government serves its people, there are now four individuals of uncommon promise. The presidency will change. But perhaps much more importantly, will the Congress?

Mohandas Gandhi is quoted as saying, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”. To follow in that thought I have to say to the McCain campaign, “I like your presidential candidate, I don’t like your Republicans. Your Republicans are so unlike your presidential candidate”.

The tone of McCain’s speech was so opposite to the vitriol of previous night’s speakers. He didn’t rail against the evil and effete liberals. He accepted that we are all more alike as Americans than our differences would suggest. And most importantly, he acknowledged the failures of the recent Republican control and the need to fix Washington and to reach for the best ideas regardless of party. To stop the infantile squabbling and to actually move to solve our common problems.

With the thoughts of his acceptance speech still in mind, I wonder at what this means to the race of Virginia’s 7th District Congressman Eric Cantor who is so closely identified with party politics, association with the likes of Jack Abramoff, being the consummate glitzy campaign fund raiser, his close ties to special corporate interests, and having not one memorable initiative of record or any reputation of working across parties to move legislation.

Or Virgil Goode, the Representative from Virginia’s 5th District. Can’t a District of 700,000 citizens find a Congressman who is less an embarrassment to the ideals of inclusion and tolerance? Is he really an example of the type of Congressman McCain spoke of tonight who would be the bright minds and creative problem solvers?

Virginia is loosing its Republican Senator John Warner and I’d be happy to vote for another Republican of his statue and integrity - if there were one. Fortunately, there is a good Democratic nominee that will, along with Senator Jim Webb, bring two competent and capable partners to whomever wins the presidency.

As we approach November, voters need to keep in mind the need to also change those in Congress who hardly need to be rewarded for the last eight years.

Sarcasm Is An Indirect Form Of Anger

2008-09-04T01:49:00.001-04:00

Behaviorists who study such things say that sarcasm is an indirect form of anger. If that is indeed true then the speeches at this year’s Republican convention, especially those of Romney, Giuliani, and the vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin dripped with that subsurface anger. But what are they angry about? Are they angry that the last eight years of Republican control has been so disastrous that they feel power slipping from their hands? Are they angry at a countrywide awakening that we are up to our collective asses in problems and its time for a change. Are they angry that regardless of who wins in November there is a mountain of debt that will have to be paid back by all of us – Democrats and Republicans.

I’m at a loss for an answer.

Just as “compassionate conservatism” in previous Republican cycles was a clever phase – it hardly is a way we remember the reality. And is certainly not a slogan continued in the current cycle. The current cycle seems to be about macho conservatism, a cheerleader rally about us versus them.

Lacking is any accountability for the last eight years. Lacking in the attacks on the intransigence of Washington is any acceptance that it was their party that was the intransient. And completely lacking was any spotlight on any Republican politician who shares the blame for that intransigence.

Watching the TV cameras pan across the Delegates, you are hard pressed to see a black face. This is a white party – a monolithic party and a party still obsessed with their belief that they are entitled and that they are never going to share that entitlement, especially under any “we the people” government mandate.

It is a grasping for constancy in their lives rather than consistency with their alleged beliefs. It is the play on code words like “liberal” and “effete” and “San Francisco” that belies any suggestion of intent on inclusion.

After November we will find that we all occupy this same country, we all live next door to each other, we all depend on each other – and as best we can, we will have to deal with the divisive, shrill, and yes, the sarcastic language that will still echo in our midst – and, most likely still, in our Congress.

Congressman Eric Cantor - Poster Boy for the Last Eight Years

2008-09-02T23:29:00.003-04:00

Do you know who your Congressman is? If you do, I challenge you to ask the next five people you meet and find one more who does. Perhaps it’s just that your Congressman is more a part of the political machine that only raises its head when elections roll around. And which provides the ride back into power of career politicians who see their main challenge as raising more money so they can continue to stay in power.

In the midst of two weeks of political party conventions, the volleys go back and forth but one common theme is prevalent – and that is that the Congress has been ineffective in the last eight years in addressing the important problems facing our country. And there has been possibly no Congressman more associated with this gridlock, this inability to work across the aisle, this putting of party interest above the interests of America than Virginia’s 7th District Congressman Eric Cantor.

But don’t take my word for this. I am just a political junkie who is concerned with the course the country is currently sailing and am deeply concerned about the troubled waters we find ourselves in. I challenge you to take on your citizenship responsibility and do a bit of research on your own. You might start out by scrolling through the Interest Group Ratings that are collected on the Project Vote Smart website. Here is the LINK.

If you have a concern for issues such as:

➢ Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

➢ Education

➢ Environmental Issues

➢ Health Issues

➢ Labor

➢ Senior and Social Security Issues

➢ Women’s Issues

You may be surprised at how low he is ranked almost universally on all of these issues. But, no surprise, he has great ratings for anything relating to business interests.

I might suggest you also Google Eric Cantor and see if you don’t conclude, as I have, that Congressman Cantor is the darling of the Republican Party, a loyal lap dog, and a gifted fundraiser. But what has he done for you, for Virginia, for America?

Congressman Cantor has a formidable opponent this November; Anita Hartke is not a career politician, not a Washington insider, but is a more representative example of the values of both the 7th District and of America. She is someone who will work with whomever wins the Presidency for the best interests of America. And as we change the Presidency, don’t you think it might also be a good time to change the Congress.

Do We Really Want To Elect A Left Handed President?

2008-08-26T21:01:00.002-04:00

Not long ago in history, and in some parts of the world even today, being left-handed was seen as a curse. Despite the best science and medicine today that overwhelming tells us that being left handed is not a moral choice but is a state of being, there exists some level of prejudice, bias, and discrimination against the left-handed among us. In America, generally those born left-handed are not insisted to change their handedness to right-handedness, although that was the case just a few decades ago. Parents and teachers would routinely coerce the left-handed to adopt the majority handedness. We don’t persecute or torture the left handed as happened in earlier generations although in Muslim cultures being left handed can be quite a disadvantage as religion requires food to be eaten only with the right hand – the left being used for personal hygiene.

What does this have to do with a left-handed president? NBC news tonight reported that four of the last six presidents were left-handed (Ford, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton). And now we are about to have another lefty, as both McCain and Obama are left-handed. Science doesn’t know the cause of left-handedness. Continuing brain research has yet to unravel this mystery. But left-handedness does seem to correlate with both creativity and achievement – and about ten percent of the population is left-handed.

Perhaps, you, as I do, can make the leap to analogize this left handed conversation to a conversation about homosexuality. Science and medicine today overwhelming concludes that homosexuality is not a moral choice but is a state of being. Overwhelming gays will tell you that as early as they can remember, their sexual orientation has been towards their own sex. But the human species seems to naturally react to those who are different. Whether that is differences in skin color, in religion, in physical appearance, or differences in language, customs, or just about anything that characterizes us.

And despite the deeply insisted on values of tolerance within both American tradition and Christian tradition, there still exists a stubborn insistence that homosexuals be treated with prejudice, bias, and intolerance. Despite the best science and medicine, many insist on their interpretations of 2000-year-old texts without regard to the context of the time and place of their origin. And many refuse to accept that Jesus never once spoke to the subject of homosexuality, but to a more encompassing message of treating others, as you would have others treat you.

The cherry picking of isolated verses to support one’s own bias may be the real sin.

Few have any problem today with electing a left-handed president. But, in the eyes of God, how mean spirited we are as a people to continue to demonize the minority among us who happen to be gay. And how mean spirited it of us as a people to exclude from one of the most cherished and desired of human institutions, the institution of marriage, those who desire to have equal acceptance of their mutual commitment to a loving and caring relationship. Shame on those who still, in 2008, insist that the benefits and privileges of marriage be held exclusively to the heterosexual.

Congressman Cantor - Do We Really Want To Reelect You?

2008-06-30T18:10:00.002-04:00

Recent House Votes

Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act - Vote Passed (355-59, 20 Not Voting)

The House passed this bill to cancel a scheduled 10 percent Medicare reimbursement cut to physicians.

Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO

Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act - Vote Failed (276-146, 13 Not Voting)

The House fell short of the two-thirds margin necessary to pass this bill, which would have expanded the Federal Trade Commission’s powers to combat price manipulation.

Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO

Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008 - Vote Passed (233-189, 12 Not Voting)

The House voted to “patch” the alternative minimum tax.

Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO

Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act - Vote Passed (322-98, 14 Not Voting)

The House approved $1.7 billion in grants to mass transit authorities.

Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO

======================

There is an alternative to those who seem to have a higher loyalty to their party than to the district they represent, an alternative to the gridlock and courting of special interests, an alternative to the lack of solutions in a time of so many common threats to our common good.

And that alternative is Anita Hartke, candidate for Congress from Virginia’s 7th District. Check her out at her webpage and consider this choice for change -- we need solutions not politics.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright

2008-03-22T05:23:00.002-04:00

The current 24/7 news cycle this week latched onto several clips from sermons from Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the pastor to presidential candidate Barack Obama for some 20 years.

Most have now seen these clips of the minister’s theatrical and hyperbolic style. And it would be to walk among mine fields to attempt to defend the several sound bites that the networks have chosen out of the many sermons the minister’s church apparently makes available on video.

Wright’s statements in these clips have been almost universally characterized as incendiary, outrageous, and anti-American.

It may not be possible now, in this poisoned atmosphere, to view these in context, but I challenge you to do that. I challenge you to imagine you are in the congregation during these sermons and I challenge you to abstract yourself from the current controversy and honestly ask yourself if you had been there, would you, without the coaching of TV and radio’s talking heads, have the same opinion of this minister.

Well here is that opportunity. Here are those two sermons – and if there were equivalent inflammatory sermons out there, then I would imagine the media’s research would have already found them. So I am assuming these are the worst of the worst the media can recover.

Does Virginia Really Want To Reelect Congressman Cantor?

2008-03-18T04:47:00.004-04:00

For the first six years of the Bush administration all three branches of government were under tight Republican control. It was no secret over those years that a housing bubble was growing. Speculation was rampant. Housing developments were carving a new landscape. Whole TV channels were being devoted to how to make fast money by flipping real estate. And TV commercials were full of enticements to buy and refinance at suspiciously low rates with lots and lots of small print.

Where were the regulators of this industry? The mortgage bank regulators? The federal and state financial institution regulators? Were they all asleep?

Bear Sterns demise over the weekend may be just one domino. And though I have little sympathy for the Bear Stearns execs and the threat to their multi million dollar salaries and loss of millions of their equity, what about all the middle class Americans who were lured into this market bubble and are now threatened with loss of home and hearth?

When the Democrats wrested control of the legislature in 2006 they began to reverse the lack of regulation and to put more safeguards into the system. The bill was the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act and it passed the House 291-127 including substantial support from Republicans from some of the more seriously affected states.

This bill is described as: An act to amend the Truth in Lending Act to reform consumer mortgage practices and provide accountability for such practices, to establish licensing and registration requirements for residential mortgage originators, and to provide certain minimum standards for consumer mortgage loans. And Virginia’s 7th District Congressman Eric Cantor voted NO!

His vote was little surprise as anyone who follows his voting record can not but notice that he votes consistently along party lines – not along the lines of the needs and values of his constituency.

Check his top Political Action Committee contributors in this election cycle; Genworth Financial, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, Wachovia, and Capital One were all in the top seven contributors. Any chance they have more influence on his voting than does the mere average citizen in his district who is being affected by the mortgage crisis?

The administration elected this November is going to need to work with a Congress that is willing to stop the political gridlock and work to bring common sense solutions to our commonly shared national problems. We need statesmen not politicians, we need representatives who are willing to work across the aisle, to bring ideas rather than obstructions, and to listen to the people over the largess of their corporate sponsors.

Cantor will be opposed. Anita Hartke, daughter of former Democratic Senator Vance Hartke is preparing to throw her hat in the ring and others have indicated their intention. Certainly in a district of 700,000 there must be better candidates than Cantor who both can take the concerns of Virginians to Congress and can work collegially with other members to deal with our economic, health, environmental, and other major problems that affect every American.

Turmoil in Chesterfield County Elections

2008-03-16T04:00:00.007-04:00

Beginning before the January 3rd Iowa primary, there was a heady storm of general interest in November’s upcoming presidential election. Eight more primary election dates would build this crescendo of public attention before the Chesapeake primary on 12 February that included Virginia. Election Commissions and Registrars across the Old Dominion were gearing up for what was to be a very high turn out primary. But somehow this preplanning was far insufficient for one Virginia County – Chesterfield County.

Early on the morning of 12 February red flags were going up in the county about long lines and long waits to vote at several insufficiently staffed precincts. And as the day progressed problems compounded to the point that disgusted voters walked away from lines that circled around polling sites. And then even worse -- precincts began running out of ballots. As the polls closed almost 300 votes had been placed on scraps of paper, countless voters had walked away from the long lines, and the county was in the spotlight of a whole lot of angry dissatisfaction with the management of the county’s primary election.

Why were polling places insufficiently manned? Why weren’t contingency plans in place to anticipate long lines and voter turnout that outpaced ballots? These were some of the issues that caused a rare convening of the State Board of Elections for a public hearing that occurred on March 5th.

At the hearing private citizens, interest groups, and politicians alike testified to problems they encountered on voting day and the need for investigation. Jim Holland, the county’s lone Democratic supervisor, anticipated to call for the resignation or removal of the registrar, merely gave a timid admonishment. State Senator John Watkins made a political speech that brought out the one rare applause, but for what I don’t know, as he merely made the political remarks of “there is much to be said on both sides”. And Registrar Larry Haake, although present and glad-handing as if he were running for office, inexplicably chose not to testify at all.

Rumors swirl in the county that Haake is nothing but a political hack who won the cushy position of registrar due to his political network, and that the commission itself was generally incompetent. Haake's wife is said to be an active and supporting Republican and that there is no love lost between the Haakes and the local Democratic bigwigs.

There are 100 counties in Virginia – why was Chesterfield the one county that stood out as having such a poorly managed election? Why were the precincts with the higher level of black voters the precincts most affected? Why wasn’t there, despite the early red flags, a timely response by the county election commission and registrar to deal with the problems? Well the matter is still under investigation. A State Board of Elections report is due out in April. But in the meantime can Chesterfield residents be confident that the current county election officials will be able to manage a fair and orderly election in November without the long lines, long waits, and ballot stock outs?

And is it time to replace this registrar and this election board in the light of their performance and in the interest of an assurance of an orderly presidential election? With the visions of election mishaps in and screw-ups in Florida, Ohio, and Michigan, do we want Chesterfield County and thus Virginia added to that ignominious list – I hope not.

The Missed Story – From Tuesday’s Election

2008-02-14T22:07:00.003-05:00

Virginia is perennially considered a red state by TV’s talking heads and the print world’s political pundits. Virginia is considered a conservative bastion and the home of fundamentalist Christians as shown by being custodian of the two holy places of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club and the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Last Tuesday’s primary would expect these authoritarian Virginians to march lock step to the polls and vote solidly Republican – but they didn’t.

Where the voter had the option to choose a Republican or a Democratic ballot, only 34% chose a Republican ballot as opposed to 66% who chose a Democratic ballot.

And in my county of Chesterfield, which has been a bastion of Republican ole boy politics up until the last board of supervisor’s election, the breakdown was 38% choosing the Republican ballot and 62% choosing the Democratic ballot.

Virginians were going Democratic versus Republican – two to one!

This is a seismic shift, a pole reversal, an underreported story that bodes the possibility that Virginia is truly turning from red to at least purple, and suggests real opportunities in November for Democrats in Virginia, if they can get their act together, to make further inroads in local and state offices.

Dare I Mention the Word - Marijuana

2008-02-13T13:47:00.003-05:00

The following is a response to blogger Paul Hammond's posting on Barack Obama's position on marijuana.

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America’s criminal justice system has over the past few decades evolved into a criminal justice industry where vested interests and corporate interests have propelled our country into the largest prison in the world, and the largest prison population in the world. And it is not just the two million who languish in cells; it is the millions more affected as families and communities are disrupted. It is not just the millions incarcerated; it is the consequences of the world’s greatest crime university that takes in young men who committed small crimes and turns out hardened criminals and recidivists. It is not just the millions who sit imprisoned, but the fact that one in three adult black men in America are felons or ex felons – deprived forever of not just their suffrage, but disadvantaged regarding housing, employment and education opportunity. And a huge portion of those entering this system for the first time are there for relatively small illegal drug offenses.

We fail to recognize how barbaric we appear relative to all other western countries and many third world countries when it comes to crime and punishment. We fail to understand that The Netherlands, where small amounts of recreational drug possession is decriminalized, that for every person per population that Holland puts behind bars, America puts fourteen. That’s right, we incarcerate at a rate fourteen times as high, on a relative basis, than does The Netherlands. These are hard facts.

And as for marijuana use, the middle class, clean cut, white suburban high school student, who goes into the murky shadows of inner city realms to find a bag of grass, is coincidently exposed to predatory drug pushers who will acquaint our young lad with a far more dangerous and addictive menu.

Our pharmaceutical industry and our physician enterprises are all too eager to prescribe any of an assortment of “legal” mood changing chemicals to their affluent patients. But marijuana, a medicinal for centuries, cannot be even seriously studied for its efficacy.

I lived recently in Amsterdam for two and a half years. There were three coffee houses within blocks of the middle class canal house where I lived (not like the more psychedelic tourist trap Amsterdam coffee houses that cater to the world’s backpacking youth). These were not shady crack houses with disreputable clients, they were bright and warmly friendly gathering places where well dressed neighbors met, sipped coffee, would perhaps ceremoniously roll and share a Dutch marijuana and tobacco joint, and relax amidst an environment where crime is virtually unknown, excepting the occasional bike theft.

We, as Americans, arrogantly insist that we are the beacon to the world, but fail to look outward for solutions that other countries have long ago found to a myriad of social issues – not the least, an undeniable urge of many to chill out with an occasional marijuana smoke.

I can’t fault Obama too much for backing off this subject on which an inordinately influential segment of our population still views with irrational hysteria – I only hope that more, like you, will have the courage to come forward and insist that marijuana be fairly judged in the civic square relative to tobacco and alcohol use.

I Know What You Are, But What Am I?

2008-02-13T01:51:00.004-05:00

I’ve wanted for some time to ponder the growing tendency of many Republicans to use the term “Democrat Party” instead of the more familiar “Democratic Party”. A tactic even our President has adopted. And the current Republican strategy to demonize the term “liberal” and equate it to limp-wristed, nebbish, effete, ex-hippies. And to further suggest that any semblance to socialism is to be equally dismissed as a slippery slope to communism. Even further, France and now all of Europe are not seen as precedents of America, but as a region of weak, withering, peoples, only existing by being propped up by our global might and reach. Somehow the oafish bullies and the BMOC types of high school become the Republicans of adult life.

I suggest you pull out your Webster and refresh your understanding of the labels “liberal” and “conservative”. I’d further suggest you afford yourself of the studies that indicate how those with conservative leanings are apt to be individuals who are attracted to authoritarian control.

One wonders at the longer term implications of even having a self-selecting volunteer military. Our earlier wars that were soldiered by a draft would certainly have cut more equally across the population.

In the context of the time, democracy was a very liberal concept. In the context of the time Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and many more of our founders would have been seen as liberal. Certainly the Loyalists and the Tories occupied the conservative niche at the time.

If a liberal characteristic is the ability to see things in the context of the time and place they occurred, then I value that characteristic. If being liberal means I am less drawn to authoritarian father figures, and am more independent, questioning, open minded, and take responsibility for my own path in life, then I value that characteristic.

Yes, there is a broad swatch of the population that can be mesmerized by an authoritarian figure who suggests he/she, and thus you, belong to the superior race, religion, creed, etc. And I suppose that is why there will always be unquestioning followers of a Hitler, a Pope, a Castro, a Pat Roberson, an Osama bin Laden, etc.

It is authoritarian led conservatives who end up being the cadres of recruits for authoritarian headed conservative movements. Thank God for those not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms -- they are the “liberals”.

But regardless of our growing blue/red divide, our pissing contests between Republicans and Democrats, our gridlocked legislatures, the problems on the horizon are undeterred. And our American arrogance can be so soon humbled when we are overtaken by problems that have been foreseen for years and by now are close to being inevitable.

The childish name-calling and innuendo by our leaders permeates to our communities, to our schoolyards. And unless we as a nation start pulling together rather than pulling apart, we, to use a military term, will be OTBE (overtaken by events).

If There Is A God, Huckabee Will Be Our Next President

2008-02-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

Don’t get me wrong, I like Mike Huckabee. He is an eloquent and compelling speaker, he is not a part of the Belt Way establishment, and he has a great sense of self-deprecating humor. He is even a musician and I respect his discipline in losing 100 pounds. I like his intelligent initiative to dramatically overhaul out tax system to stop the disincentive to production and earnings.

But as much as I like Huckabee, I would never vote for him. Or anyone who has such an unenlightened and simplistic view of this mystery known as God. No, even large numbers of theologians question the inerrancy of the Christian Bible.

I believe God inspired the Bible – and I use “God” as a short cut for my sense of whatever the mystery of mysteries is. But then aren’t all great works inspired? I believe that Jesus was the Son of God. But aren’t we all the children of God? The more one has a sense of history and of the wiles of men, the more I, at least, can see through the lens of time more and more the mark of just human beings and human institutions, rather than the hand of God, both as editors of the word of God, and frequent contributing authors.

How can we not appreciate, as science progresses, that what was previously explained by myth and imagination, is now explained with reason and logic? And how much of unfounded bias, prejudice, and discrimination, has subsequently been overturned by enlightened men and societies who truly see that all men are equal.

But apparently not Mike Huckabee, who still holds to the notion that gays and lesbians are morally deficient and not worthy of the full civic equality that their heterosexual brothers and sisters in America so casually take for granted.

Whomever becomes our President, I hope that he/she can be the President of all Americans and can move policy forward that is based solely on reason and the best expert advice and not couched in the hidden agendas derived from one’s belief in whatever man made myths and fairy tales.

It is everyman’s individual responsibility to search out their own spiritual path – but when someone imposes their concluded spiritual beliefs in such a way that it diminishes me, a gay man, in my civic life, it then becomes untenable.

A Prayer For 2008

2007-12-27T01:16:00.000-05:00

How shameless it is of some to stand in their conviction that words alone convey meaning and without attribution to the time and context written by mere mortal men. How courageous were our founders who grasped for words and fought amongst words to elicit a sense of democracy and freedom – in the context of their time – and how do we not revere their courage and their, yes enlightenment, and even their liberal or progressive views – taken in context of the time and place they were conceived. Just as some can only see the literality of the Bible and walk it as if it were traffic directions and never see the courage and enlightened thought that in the context of the time and place it was written could produce such a marked and magnificent view of morality. One in which individuals were worthy, all individuals. And that men treated men not just with civility but also with love and caring and charity.

Amazingly, it is that some among us are so rigid, so obfuscated, so obtuse, as to lose their way in principle, and rail against those who lose their way in feeling. And rarely are there those amongst us who can delve between principle and feeling to offer insight, to offer common good, to offer common sense – that too takes courage and an enlightened soul, such as were once held by those great authors of the Bible and of our own Constitution.

We don’t so much live in perilous times, as life exists perilously – and only when courage and a flash of brilliance and God given inspiration join in one man’s soul does he have the opportunity and the burden to move us forward. Pray that we find such character in our next president.

Sleazy Politics In Chesterfield County

2007-11-03T21:24:00.000-04:00

Two nights ago in a debate in Chesterfield County, Don Sowder was asked specifically to comment on negative campaigning. Any person who attended would have heard his seemingly sincere and plaintive words – how much he just hated, just hated, just hated negative campaigning. He is the incumbent supervisor from Midlothian District and one of the supervisors on the county board of five – all Republicans. There has been some sniping back and forth, but rather fact based, and for some time the local papers and blogs have examined the issues. Both his challenger, Dan Gecker, an independent, and Sowder have insinuated that developers are too close to the other. It has been politics as usual but up to now on a rather civilized and respectful basis.

Until today. Today, just one business day before the election, Midlothian residents find in their mail a brash, completely new, and hugely controversial accusation that implies Dan Gecker is in bed with some developer who is a federal felon who plead guilty to bribing a city counselor.

This slick mailing was certainly in the works long before last Thursday’s debate – but it was not mentioned in Sowder’s opening nor closing remarks nor addressed in any of the 15 questions posed to each by the panel or by the several questions posed by the audience. Don Sowder was feigning repulsion of negative attacks while apparently quite aware of this coming, so cleverly timed, bombshell. It is just plain and simple sleazy politics.

Is the county electorate so disrespected and so contemptuously held as to have not been informed by Sowder weeks ago if this were a real issue?

If this alleged connection was so important to the substance of the race, then why has Sowder waited until the last possible minute to spring it? Is this the character and integrity of the politicians we want in public office?

I don’t know what Dan Gecker’s explanation or response is – I only hope he has the opportunity to make it before the polls open on Tuesday.

Scandal in Chesterfield's Sheriff's Race?

2007-10-18T18:50:00.000-04:00

The Sheriff’s office pulls a bunch of inmates out of the county lockup and brings them over to the house of a relative of the Sheriff’s to clean up the yard and carry away loads of trash. Sound like something out of “The Dukes of Hazzard” or “Porky’s”? Actually it was the fairly recent practice in Chesterfield County, or so alleges Perry DeMay, candidate for Sheriff of Chesterfield County.

He alleges that. In violation of state law,

On February 1, 2000, the Sheriff’s inmate work force performed work at Sheriff Clarence Guy Williams’ Jr. cousin’s house.  

• A fallen tree was cutup and removed 
• Snow was cleared from entrances to the house.  
• Salt was applied to walkways.  
• Three loads of brush were taken to the county landfill 
• Sheriff’s Office trucks transported the brush

This is a clear violation of the laws of our Commonwealth and the trust of the citizens of Chesterfield County. The Sheriff’s Office does not perform these services for all of their county taxpayer’s.

There was an attempted cover-up for the work performed at the sheriff’s cousin’s residence and it has taken seven years to break the veil of silence to expose this corruption. The deputy who supervised the inmates on the job was advised by a member of the sheriff’s administration to keep quite, “He instructed me not to speak to anyone about this matter.”

At a recent debate at the county library the three candidates for Chesterfield County Sheriff stated their positions and qualifications, answered questions from a moderator, and from a packed audience. Apparently half packed by members of the Sheriff’s Department and their families and friends. The back half of the room all spotted large Proffitt signs and after the debate I spoke with a mix of those attendees to confirm that. The same Sheriff’s Department employees that are alleged to actively man the campaign tables at the polls. Note: all the circular blue “Proffitt for Sheriff” labels on the right shoulders.

The debate was well run. The audience was well behaved and attentive. The questions were fair and all three candidates gave a good showing.

The current Sheriff, Dennis Proffitt is alleged to have been handed his job on his friend’s, prior Sheriff Williams, early retirement so as to give Proffitt an incumbents advantage in the election. In fact, a main tenant of DeMay’s candidacy is that the county is riff in good old boy politics where plum jobs are passed one white Republican man to another in a very ingrained and patronaged way – such that jobs are more often based on the interconnection of networks rather than on qualification.

Independent candidate Ken Hall positioned himself as the true conservative among the contenders and is running a strong platform of anti illegal immigrants, although he admits that there are major limits on what a local jurisdiction can legally implement. He is an ardent admirer of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona – the self described "Nations Toughest Sheriff".

Allegations were also made that local developers and builders were financing the campaigns of the status quo as it helps insure a steady flow of low wage illegal aliens to work at their housing and shopping center projects.

DeMay contends that decades of one party control has lulled the county into a system of inefficient operation, created a dispirited Sheriff’s Department, and pursues poor policies of advancement and promotion – all resulting in a department that does not reflect the diversity of the community.

Will the electorate see a need for change? Will Hall and Proffitt split the conservative vote and open an opportunity for DeMay? Or will the county continue its decades long status quo? We’ll know in less than three weeks.

Challenge To The Chesterfield County Board of Supervisor Candidates

2007-10-14T21:57:00.000-04:00

Full Disclosure:

I have challenged all 13 candidates for Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors to take an online test that can help inform county voters on 6 November as to where they fit on the political landscape. If you are a voter, I would challenge you to also take this test – here is the LINK. I don’t pretend that this should be determinative. But I do think it is informative, and that participation in this exercise will be informative in itself. Following is the message I sent to the candidates and if you are an eligible voter in the county, I suggest you encourage your local district candidates to participate.

Results will be published here prior to the election.

---

Hello,

My name is Bill Garnett and I write a blog that, among other topics, often explores aspects of Chesterfield County politics. Recently I sent out a test questionnaire to the 13 candidates for the five board of supervisor positions up for grabs on 6 November – I only received back responses from four and hope this is not representative of how responsive you will be to constituents should you be elected.

I am now making another request and this request is that you take a few minutes to show where you fit on the political landscape by taking a very short and easy online test. (It takes me less than five minutes). I think you will find this personally useful and informative.

I ask that you respond by sending me the two resultant coordinates

(1) Economic Left/Right
(2) Social Libertarian/Authoritarian

My intent will be to publish the results, by candidate, on a graph that will be published on my blog before the election, as an additional assist to voters who may find this instructive to their choice. I intend to present this information in a neutral manner.

I look forward to your participation and to your “test” results and I will have to suggest that not participating, in my opinion, would suggest a characteristic that might be also indicative of your style should you be elected – so please do respond. The test is at this LINK.

I am thanking you in advance for your participation.

Regards,

Bill Garnett

Dan Gecker – A Ray of Sunshine In Chesterfield County

2007-10-09T13:54:00.000-04:00

Chesterfield County nestled in the bosom of the James River, bedroom community for Richmond City commuters, and a patchwork quilt of public soccer fields and shopping malls and . . . well, not really much else. It’s a sleepy contented sort of place, blighted to the east by the gradual crawl of lower class whites, blacks and Hispanics, that nudge their middle and upper class white neighbors to leap frog again and again further west into the once verdant county, and now leaping all the way into Amelia and Powhatan.

This slow motion generational immigration west is prompted by the encroaching deterioration of neighborhoods, increased crime, and neglect of the schools, that even to a stalwart resident would omen the depreciation of his property’s value. No one expects anything better, the county has long been lulled by the mesmerizing tunes sung by their self perpetuating Protestant deacons and their inept and embarrassingly corrupt and ineffective politicians who feed at the trough of the real county dynamic: commercial and residential developers -- both feeding, and capitalizing on, the leap frogging west of the white classes.

It’s not an inspiring place. Hating one’s job and shopping occupy most of a resident’s time. And with little more to look forward to in the county than the opening of a new further west located mall and the new slew of low paying retail jobs that seem to be the only employment future the county has to offer.

Into this rather bleakly painted suburban scene steps a displaced Yankee who has come to love and plant roots in the community. Over years he has established a reputation of fighting for his neighborhood, his county, and his region. A man of law and a man of vision. Someone who has quietly and pleasantly made innumerable unrecognized contributions, seeks no accolade, and could do much better for himself and family somewhere else in some other pursuit – but he chooses to stay in Chesterfield County because he sees the promise others lost sight of long ago.

Let me step back before I introduce Dan Gecker, Independent candidate in the upcoming November election for Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors. Some time ago I sent out an identical email to each of the 13 candidates running for the five county board of supervisor seats. The entire board is up for election and represents a potential turning point for a county that has been essentially totally dominated by a local Republican machine for decades. A machine that has put more emphasis on cost control than on the effectiveness of the dollars spent. Has put more emphasis on growth through unbridled development, rather than a sustaining growth through ensuring a mixed level of good paying jobs. Sees the concerns of the deep pocket developers over the rather ignored needs and values of the citizenry it represents.

Of the 13 emails which asked simply the candidate’s position on a matter that affects directly perhaps 15,000 of the county's 300,000 population, but indirectly scores more, only four candidates had the courtesy to reply – and this is in the run up to a hotly contested election. Imagine how responsive these guys will be should they become ensconced in office? Well, at least that’s my conclusion from this exercise. But one candidate not only promptly responded but also suggested that we meet at a local coffee shop so that he could listen to my concerns and give a fully thoughtful response. That meeting took place yesterday and Dan Gecker afforded me over more than an hour of unrushed time, a rare opportunity to feel that someone was actually listening. And took the time to respond such that I truly knew his position and his reasoning of that position.

One would never imagine that Dan Gecker came to Chesterfield from New Jersey, his Southern gentleman politeness is now truly authentic, as is his self effacing humility, his courageous candor, and a clear intellect that steered him through Princeton and William and Mary and on to advise local governments and teach at the university level on his passion, which is thoughtful urban and suburban planning aspiring to a better quality of life for residents. His service on the county planning board, if past is prologue, certainly suggests his political and management acumen, his energy and diligence, his foresight and imagination, and most of all the deferring to community interest over that of proliferate developer largess. He has almost single handedly revised and restructured the way the planning board operates, making it more transparent, more professional, and more clear-sighted. All skills that are sorely needed on the board of supervisors.

Few have a political bent in this sleepy stepsister of Richmond; few know the names of their local officials much less have an interest in issues. Off year elections are particularly poorly attended – the corollary election four years ago had a 19% turnout of the eligible voters. And with no social issues driving the religiously conservative, with disaffection for the Republican administration in Washington, and with the resurgence of independent political leanings, Dan Gecker, in this two-thirds Republican county, may just have a chance – and there could be a quiet revolution at the county courthouse. And what a pleasant change that would be.

Does Congressman Eric Cantor Represent Your Interests?

2007-09-24T23:47:00.000-04:00

Expanding American Homeownership Act of 2007 - Vote Passed (348-72, 12 Not Voting)

The House easily passed this bill that will give the Federal Housing Administration the authority to assist struggling homeowners in making their mortgage payments.

Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO

But, I guess Congressman Cantor and his wife (on the board of directors of Media General) haven't the problem of struggling to meet their house payments -- or identify with those in his district who are struggling.

“Representative Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican famous on K Street for his annual fund-raising weekends in Beverly Hills and South Beach, has recently invited lobbyists to join him for some expensive cups of coffee. A $2,500 contribution from a lobbyist’s political action committee entitles the company’s lobbyist to join Mr. Cantor at a Starbucks near his Capitol Hill office four times this spring.” New York Times February 11, 2007

The Politics of War

2007-09-20T05:24:00.000-04:00

The junior Senator from Virginia and decorated war hero and former Secretary of the Navy, Jim Webb, introduced an amendment to H.R.1585 (To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.), with the purpose of specifying minimum periods between deployment of units and members of the Armed Forces deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

This amendment lost by a vote of 56 to 40 generally along party lines (a vote of 60 was required for passage).

The senior Senator from Virginia and previous Undersecretary of the Navy, John Warner, introduced a parallel amendment to express the sense of Congress on Department of Defense policy regarding dwell time.

This amendment lost by a vote of 55 to 45 generally along party lines.

Anyone following this legislation and following the debate on CSPAN can only scratch their head and wonder if our elected Senate is any more wiser, any more adult, than are high school politics. The Senate fiddles while America burns (or more accurately our forces in Iraq).

Senators who should be elected based on their integrity, wisdom, intelligence, experience, and fair mindedness would NOT so routinely vote on party insistence but on their own individual best judgment. Such voting solely on party lines is not indicative of a high level of judgment. Would we not as well turn over the vote to the respective party headquarters? We deserve a government that is run on the best interests of the common good – not he best interests of the common party.

Were this just one example it might be excused but this is more the rule of our times and is largely responsible, I argue, for the intransigence, grid lock, and ineffectiveness of a Congress that procrastinates on moving forward to solve our common and serious problems and rather continues to push into the future any effective action or any real world solutions.

As the election season heats up in Virginia for local elections on 6 November, it is our duty to make choices based not so much on party, as on the integrity, wisdom, intelligence, experience, and fair mindedness of the candidates. And to do that we all need to make informed choices BEFORE we enter the voting booth and are confronted, perhaps for the first time, by the candidates’ names.

In The Aftermath Of The Virginia Marriage Amendment

2007-09-09T02:28:00.000-04:00

A year ago November the people of Virginia entered the voting booth and amended the state’s Bill of Rights to discriminate against the state’s gay population. The argument was that this was necessary and essential to protect the traditional family.

Yes, but what is a traditional family? Is this the traditional family?

Or is this the traditional family?

Or perhaps this – no, not until 1967, when the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional.

But is this not a family?

Or this?

Or this?

It’s a funny thing how stereotypes can influence one’s bias isn’t it? Our state has a spectrum of people with all sorts of God given traits – but in a democracy, each person is supposedly equal under the law – and have an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Sadly, too many Virginians so cavalierly dismiss this notion – even many people of color and women who not so long ago faced a bias themselves.

The following is from a text used in the state’s universities:

“Not until the nineteenth century did the notion of love as a basis of marriage become widespread in Western society.”

“Marriage provides a sense of emotional and psychological security, however, and opportunities to share feelings, experiences, and ideas with someone with whom one forms a special attachment. Desires for companionship and intimacy are key goals in marriage today”.

“Broadly speaking, those people who want to get married do so because they believe they will be happier if they get married.”

Today, an article by archconservative Ken Connor titled, “Evangelicals must stay the course” appeared on the web”.

It included these lines and they betray the sense of many conservatives that either the people cannot be trusted to govern themselves or that the public cannot choose the wisest among them to govern.

“There was a reason, after all, that the Founding Fathers embraced the concept of "separation of powers." They did not want to concentrate too much power in the hands of flawed human beings. They were not naïve about the nature of human beings or politics, and we should not be either.”

However, the people are far ahead of the legislature as I remind the reader by the following, the people were far less supportive than were the Republican politicians who ramroded the amendment through in a year calculated to turn out the religiously conservative. And it is our younger generation, much more accepting of gay marriage, who have this biased legislation foisted upon them.

In passing this amendment does the state continue the democratic experiment started by earlier Virginians now so proudly remembered – or will this be seen by generations to come as an aberration? Who will really remember this as our proud moment? I love my state but I am repulsed by this amendment and by the political calculations, hypocrisy, and homophobia in which it was advanced. And those who pushed this measure should be held responsible to those younger Virginias who have to live with this state sponsored discrimination until a more enlightened, just, and fair minded Virginia will finally offer them full citizenship and equality. Until then Virginia shares the dubious distinction of discrimination, bias, prejudice, inequality and religious fanaticism of the very areas of the world we consider in opposition to the American way of life.

click on the above map for a better view

Is There Going To Be A New Sheriff In Town?

2007-09-08T03:54:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of rumors and allegations and some facts blowing around Chesterfield County in Virginia about the local Sheriff’s Department. Suicides in the jail (one recent one that seems to have been suspiciously underreported), a mistakenly released criminal serving a 20-year sentence, use of prisoners to do yard work and other chores for a sheriff’s relatives (apparently documented). But the most pervasive charge is that the department is full of cronyism, and jobs and promotions are routinely handed out based on patronage and not necessarily on qualifications.

But a stranger just rode into town and he is challenging this status quo. He is Perry Demay and he is just possibly going to clean house with his commitment to bringing about a fair and impartial professionalism, based on fair recruitment and promotion, better training, and accountability to the citizens of the county. No arrogance, no pomposity, no sense of entitlement.

Mr. DeMay is challenging the incumbent County Sheriff Dennis S. Proffitt who is alleged to be emblematic of a county tradition of being part of the good ole boy’s club. If you meet DeMay you will find a motivated, courageous, open-minded, and fair cop, who is fully qualified and who is aggressively waging a fight to bring some semblance of balance and fair play to local politics. He deserves your consideration.

Democratic Party Candidate For Sheriff Perry DeMay pictured on the right

I grew up in the county; my best friend, before he was killed in the Viet Nam War, was the son of the previous County Judge D.W. Murphey (his other son in what is emblematic in the county is now Chief Judge Tom Murphey). I was regaled with stories from the then 1960’s of how the well connected in the county were optioning property ahead of the I-95 corridor through Chesterfield. How ironic that Route 288 recently had its interchange coincidently located on a local politician’s land. Whether these are merely coincidences or suggestive of insider political advantage is unknown but what is known is that the county is one party dominated, and when that happens there can be a culture of complacent mediocrity – and new ideas are not properly balanced, debated, or argued to the benefit of the populace at large.

Come November, Chesterfield voters will have an opportunity to address this and perhaps there will be a new Sheriff in town.

Chesterfield County At A Political Crossroads?

2007-09-07T07:36:00.000-04:00

In the 400 years since a European first set foot on what would become Chesterfield County, Virginia, and in the 230 odd years since Virginia joined in this experiment in democracy, and in the 140 odd years since our Civil War, one might suppose that some sort of reasonably effective progressive movement might arise out of what is now a population of over 300,000. But alas, it hasn’t. The rather stuffy but tenacious Republican Party holds firm reins over the county as some sort of entitlement, controlling all five supervisor seats and filling most of the county’s policy and management positions. With an election coming up in less than two months, is there a change in the wind?

All five supervisor seats are up for grabs -- is there a chance that at least three will turn Democratic? Well the Democratic Party was only able to field candidates for three of the five supervisor seats so they would have to have a sweep to do so. Bermuda District has an increasingly impressive candidate in Ree Hart who is actively working the grassroots in her community. An equally impressive Jim Holland in running in Dale District and a bit more lackluster Bill Hastings is competing in Matoaca District. The Clover Hill and Midlothian Districts both have Independents challenging Republican candidates.

Dan Gecker, Independent vying for the Midlothian seat, is certainly a progressive, and is an experienced planner and knowledgeable about the county from an insider’s perspective. He brings an intelligence and strategic point of view and is a formidable opponent to Republican Don Sowder, who was only recently elected to fill the vacancy left by the Democrat Ed Barber, after Barber left due to scandal in his personal life, and after Independent Teri Beirne had temporarily filled that vacancy. Were two Democrats plus Gecker to win seats on the board then there would presumably be a shift to a more progressive policy in the county.

But . . . Chesterfield is two thirds conservative Republicans by past voting patterns and the county has a long history of being managed or governed by a rather small and rather inbred group of Republicans who can not be easily dismissed, who most likely are far better funded, and who have the momentum of history behind them. How large a “Bush backlash” is blowing in their face may be the real measure of how successful progressive inroads might be in the county in this election cycle. This is an off year election. Primary elections in the state hardly motivate five percent of the electorate to the polls. This graph on the county’s website hadn’t been updated in four years – when pressed, the County Registrar issued this rather terse reply, I imagine rather indicative of the general disinterest in the county in things political:

Greetings,

The turnout data for elections since 2003 is on the web. You can get that data and create your own graph. We have not updated due to lack of resources and other more pressing matters since 2003.

Lawrence Haake  Chesterfield General Registrar

In such situations it is not unexpected that conservatives, more disciplined and more authoritatively controlled, will file out to the polls in larger numbers than liberals, who though a bit more idealistic and energized about the issues, are often less dependable to show up to vote. Without the socially compelling issue of gay marriage, there is less interest from the religiously conservative to vote as well. So, in the end, it may only be the growing dissatisfaction with the Bush war and with the direction the country seems headed, that could be the deciding factor in whether even conservatives choose an “R” or a “D”. After all, as recent history has shown, few will arrive at the polls with a working knowledge of any of the candidates anyway, and so it may just be the broader winds of change that might blow well for progressives in this stodgy old county.

The Rip Van Winkle Method Of Candidate Selection

2007-08-16T12:38:00.000-04:00

Washington Irving imagined a Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep under a tree only to wake up twenty year later. Imagine for a moment that you fall asleep tonight and wake up on the morning after next year’s presidential election, November 5, 2008. Now, honestly, try and imagine how happy you would be if you picked up the morning paper on that day and read “[blank] WINS ELECTION”. Substitute the current candidates for [blank] and rank your level of happiness to the news. Be sure to NOT base your decision on what you think is the probability of that person winning, or on who you are currently supporting, but on how happy or unhappy you would be after being asleep from now until after the election and awake to the news.

I took the test on myself and here are my results (on a +10, most happy, to a -10, most unhappy scale). And I was surprised at how this point of view helped me adjust my choice of whom I should really support. It is a bit like the concept of following your bliss.

+9 Barack Obama
+7 Hillary Clinton
+6 Joe Biden
+5 John Edwards
+4 John McCain
+4 Mike Huckabee
+4 Bill Richardson
+3 Dennis Kucinich
+3 Chris Dodd
+2 Ron Paul
-3 Mike Gravel
-4 Sam Brownback
-5 Duncan Hunter
-5 Tom Tancredo
-6 Rudy Giuliani
-7 Fred Thompson
-7 Mitt Romney

I challenge you to test yourself using this method. And more than that, I challenge you to, after taking the test, to put your money where your bliss is and support that candidate.

President Bush Frees Scooter Libby

2007-07-02T22:18:00.000-04:00

And I,
holding my head in horror, cried: "Sweet Spirit,

what souls are these who run through this black haze?"
And he to me: "These are the nearly soulless
whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise.

They are mixed here with that despicable corps,
of angels who were neither for God nor Satan,
but only for themselves.

Dante’s The Inferno, Canto III

After living abroad almost ten years in both Saudi Arabia and in The Netherlands, one of the most upsetting and glaring aspects of American life I experienced on my return was the apathy and un-involvement of the average Americans I met. They seldom had the least interest in the governance of their community, scant interest in world affairs, and little sense that they, as individuals, could make a difference.

This was utterly at odds with my experience living in middle class neighborhoods for years, both in Riyadh and in Amsterdam – two extremes of the liberal/conservative world. In both countries it was usual, not unusual, to comfortably routinely have conversations about politics and frequently to find that natives were even well informed about American politics. (The press – not unsurprising unfairly skews the portrait of Muslim life, even in Saudi Arabia,).

And as unsettling as today’s news is about the commuting of Libby’s sentence by President Bush, I look beyond that to indict the American people who continue to put up with this White House and the continuing corruption of our country’s executive branch. It has been an extraordinary tenure of overreach, arrogance, and outright politicization of a supposedly equal branch of government.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
--From Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

Regardless of your political persuasion, how can you, the reader continue to be herded, like sheep, putting up with, rather than taking exception to? Be not surprised that into the vacuum that ensues from your non-involvement, that special interests and the rich and powerful gleefully take your place in governing.

And as to the freeing of Scooter Libby, well one wonders at the record death sentences George W. Bush signed as Governor, sending America to the top of the list of those who still use this barbaric practice. This barbaric practice that denies, to permanently caged humans, the Christian opportunity for redemption, and places the hand of every American on the executioner’s hand. We can’t use public funds to transfer frozen zygotes, that will be discarded, to medical research to help save lives and reduce human suffering --- but we can use public funds to take the life of a caged human –-- even though DNA testing occasionally shows that the convicted are actually innocent.

And to this self-proclaimed compassionate President, I ask, what about the two million incarcerated in our country, the highest percentage in the world -- many of whom are serving hellish sentences for non-violent drug related crime?

Garrison Keillor paraphrased Dante:

“Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral.”

It's Time

2007-06-27T04:33:00.000-04:00

The human race in 2007 stands at a crossroads, faced with the complexities of the political and cultural and technological realities accumulated over more than 4000 years of recorded history. And we are being hurtled into the shadows of an approaching unknown – un-experienced by our species and most likely pivotal to our species’ future. And perhaps the real and ultimate test of our religious and our spiritual strength. But constrained by the trappings and vested interests of established religion, there seems to be little promise.

The pomposity, the religiosity, the arrogance, the hypocrisy that their intervention brings to our spiritual quest – all being human intervention, of oft well intentioned ecclesiastics – and often an obstacle to the universal human longing for connection with this universal and magnificent mystery we call by many names – and which is God to all.

It’s time to see the Testaments and the Koran and the Pali Canon in context, to accept the inspiration of all holy script, while accepting the inspiration as well, of our art and literature, our law and our invention.

It’s time to accept reason and logic and science, as the discovery of the magnificence and promise of our shared heritage. To learn from and understand our common history as a long trail of tortured and celebrated and enduring journey, whose hard fought lessons must not be forgotten.

We have not just mastered nature; we have overcome it, conquered it, and are close to altering it in ways that can threaten, if not our planet, certainly our human presence.

Progress marches inevitably and inexorably forward, not in the glacial pace of past generations, but in a more and more noticeable technological acceleration – and beckons us to have the wisdom and foresight to stay ahead of its implications.

It’s time for common sense and common resolve. It’s time to reach down into our core spiritual beliefs, and express that commonality of good, and that commonality of stewardship, and that commonality of love and compassion. And it’s time to summon the courage to overcome our baser instincts of intolerance and privilege, of greed and violence. And to see our commonality and connection though the veil of self-interest.

It’s time – our time in history – our time to stop bickering and start conversation; stop unrestrained consumption and begin sharing our blessings; stop ignorant and insistent mythology and embrace an enlightened wisdom. And to accept, as individuals, a responsibility and accountability commensurate with the God given fact that we are sentient beings, ultimately judged or not on finding the right path, regardless of any person who assumes he or she is closer to the intention of God than are you.

"One" - an Internet Video

2007-06-23T13:01:00.000-04:00

Although I’ve been playing with computers and computer applications since an IBM 1620 was delivered for faculty and student use to the University of Richmond in 1964, I still am amazed at some of the things computers enable, and especially the values available on the Internet.

One recent find I’d like to share with my readers, and I hope you find it as engaging as I did - follow this LINK.

Cantor Banter – Or What The Hell Is This Guy Doing To Help The Country?

2007-06-22T00:48:00.000-04:00

I suggest anyone in Virginia go to www.cnn.com and search under “earmarks” and then under their representative in Congress and find out if they are sharing their earmark requests – if they are transparent on these requests – if they are willing to be accountable for the earmark requests they make.

I live in Eric Cantor’s district - the seventh district in Virginia, and when asked by CNN to disclose his earmarks, the response was “no response”.

Now Congressman Cantor is the fair-haired boy of the Republican Party, the lapdog of his party, and supposed representative of 700,000 Virginians, most who probably have never heard of him. But lobbyists have:

“Representative Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican famous on K Street for his annual fund-raising weekends in Beverly Hills and South Beach, has recently invited lobbyists to join him for some expensive cups of coffee. A $2,500 contribution from a lobbyist’s political action committee entitles the company’s lobbyist to join Mr. Cantor at a Starbucks near his Capitol Hill office four times this spring.” New York Times February 11, 2007

Few follow the votes in Congress of Virginia’s Mr. No, but here are a few of his recent votes – ALL NO

Implement the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act
Fair Minimum Wage Act
Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act
Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act
Creative Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act
Iraq War Policy Resolution
The Employee Free Choice Act
Freedom of Information Act Amendment of 2007
Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007
Accountability of Contracting Act
Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007
U. S. Troop Readiness, Veterans Health, and Iraq Accountability Act
Improving Head Start Act
Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act
Agricultural Disaster Assistance Appropriations Act
Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act
Homeland Security Appropriations FY2008

By the way, the majority in Congress passed all of these measures.

Most of his constituents don’t live the cozy life of Congressman Cantor and his wife, who is a member of the board of directors of Media General Inc., the parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond’s right leaning sole daily paper. Most are hard working, common-sense, middle of the road, average souls, who don’t like the red/blue pissing contest Cantor perpetuates, the grid-lock he contributes to – and particularly the lack of progress on the major problems facing our state and nation to which he seems to not have one creative initiative. Need I mention the war, tax reform, out of control health costs, loss of high paying jobs, and on and on and on?

His district has a proud heritage and certainly there must be someone who is more capable, more dedicated to reform, and who can provide a modicum of leadership and ability to bring about change. And there must be someone out there of any party who can successfully challenge his next bid at reelection to his cushy position.

Excuse me, but the Declaration of Independence does begin with the words “We the people . . . ”.

The Future For Progressives in Chesterfield County and the Chesterfield County Democratic Committee

2007-06-09T02:14:00.000-04:00

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Benjamin Franklin.

The overriding dynamic in Chesterfield County, in my humble opinion, is clear but hardly recognized and seldom discussed. It is the continual white flight west ahead of non-white encroachment that lowers property values and reduces the attractiveness of the attendant school districts. Middle class whites move to protect their real estate equity and to insure that their children have the better educational opportunity.

In the fifties and early sixties downtown Richmond, with its Thalhimers and Miller and Rhodes anchors, imploded, coincident and largely because of a poorly conceived busing solution to court required integration. Retail shopping in the county moved west to malls like Southside Plaza then further west to Clover Hill mall then further west to Chesterfield Towne Center. Anyone shopping at this mall today and noticing the increasing boarded up storefronts and tacky kiosks can only foresee its eventual decline too, especially with the currently planned Watkins Center even further west. Horace Greeley may have exhorted "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country." But today the cry may be “young professionals and affluent, go west, and grow up in Amelia and Powhatan County”.

And even professionals will find themselves on a longer and longer commute into Richmond as the county itself provides few opportunities for jobs above retail clerk rates. It costs me about twelve dollars now just in gas to make a round trip visit from Midlothian to my relatives in Amelia. At six dollars a gallon, easily in a few years, there will be a tipping point where commuting to low pay jobs close to Richmond may just not be worth the trip.

The county has been in the grasp of a Republican clique for some time that seems to have a higher allegiance to developers than it does to quality of life. It is business as usual, just a slow and agonizing deterioration of the eastern frontier of the county, probably eventually resulting in further city annexation and a slow motion withering of the county as a whole.

Enter the Chesterfield County Democratic Committee (CCDC) -- a small group of well-meaning and rather conservative Democrats, and under Pareto’s Law largely controlled by an even smaller cadre of overworked and rather unimaginative stalwarts. The result is county governance almost completely under the thumb of the local Republican machine despite an arguably one third and growing populace that are more liberal and progressive leaning.

Is this bleak picture inevitable? Is it not possible to better integrate and assimilate the county’s population? Is it not possible to bring in serious amounts of higher paying jobs into the county? Is it not possible to offer a quality of life that exists beyond the shopping malls, residential rec rooms, and assorted soccer mom fields?

The answer lies with the people – what would inspire the populace to take even a passing interest in local government – when the population is now highly mobile, not having a sense of place residents of the county had a generation ago. When day-to-day economic concerns trump any time or energy that can be given to civic responsibility.

A part of the answer could come from a more vigorous and open debate in the county, and a part of that would be a more aggressive and energized CCDC that would seek more engagement, have a louder voice, and most of all energize the young people of the county who will be the recipients of a long drift towards the west.

Chesterfield County – Good Ole Boys – and Perry DeMay for Sheriff

2007-06-07T00:24:00.000-04:00

It’s taken 400 years to get us here – I mean the Chesterfield County, Virginia and its 300,000 population that exists ostensibly as a bedroom community for the city of Richmond. I grew up here, went to high school here, and after a long absence have returned to the area – and I’m appalled. The first election I went to had not one Democrat on the ballot. Now I had been a small business owner, a long time business consultant to major companies, and for most of my life a Republican – but I found that local politics was still very much in the tight grasp of a few Republican good ole boys, hardly unchanged for decades. And that riled me to no end, as I am firm in my belief that a vigorous debate of ideas is essential to the evolution of a democratic society.

Which brings me to last night’s meeting of the Chesterfield County Democratic Committee that featured four Democratic candidates vying for county office in this fall’s election. I add here that the county’s five supervisors and most other county officers are – of course – from the Republican good ole boys school. So it was most refreshing that one of these candidates is true grit. Has energy and apparent integrity and a driving intention to upset this Republican stranglehold and attempt to wrench some political power from the steely grasp of a group of county conservatives who view office holding as some ancestral right.

And this “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” of Chesterfield County is none other than A. Perry DeMay – and he gave an electrifying and inspiring PowerPoint presentation that illustrated he is committed to win, committed to changing the county’s balance of power, committed to changing the “nepotism” networking between greedy developers and the county’s blue blood families. And he has specifics of what is wrong and specifics of what he intends to do to change the operation of the county’s Sheriff Department.

Perry DeMay is a stout truth telling common man – so uncommon in these times and particularly in this locale. Candid, self effacing, and committed – one only hopes that should he win, that he won’t be deterred by the powers to be or the general indifference of county residents.

By recent voting patterns, the county is about one third Democratic, liberal, or progressive leaning, and it’s about time the county begins a vigorous debate about it’s future – or the county will become increasingly irrelevant in this metro area and fail to provide the opportunity and quality of life its residents deserve.

Illegal Immigration

2007-05-17T23:33:00.000-04:00

As to immigration - my position:

(A) The U.S. should control its southern border.

(B) Recent illegal immigrants (up to last five years) should be returned to their country of origin.

(C) Illegal immigrants who can prove they have been in the U.S. for over five years, have no criminal record, are fluent in English, and show they are supporting themselves and their family may go through a process that will eventually give them citizenship.

(D) Employers of more than 10 illegals should get jail time.

My reasoning is three fold:

(1) - There is no practical solution I know of that would accomplish a 100% expulsion of illegals.

(2) - We have a legal tradition in America of eminent domain and statute of limitations which suggests to me that if we do not take action in response to a transgression within some reasonable time, then the opportunity to take action expires.

(3) - We do have a long tradition of being a nation of immigrants and most of us are descendants of immigrants.

Regardless of my position, I am incensed that my government has twiddled and shuffled and ignored this festering problem year after year after year -- they are all bums and all of them should be thrown out of office.

Was Jerry Falwell A Christian?

2007-05-17T21:25:00.000-04:00

I give Reverend Falwell a lot of credit. His life surely made an impact. And I am satisfied that much of what he did was good and caring and constructive. I am sure his life work has had national and international impact. And as a Virginian, I realize that he is one of our most famous and recognizable citizens. But was he a Christian? And if he was, does that mean that I am not?

I grew up in the Southern Baptist tradition, and the church was a refuge for me from as early as I can remember, up through high school and before I was able to leave the dysfunctional family and abuse I experienced throughout childhood. My life then was about trying to be perfect and living with the guilt of not being able to attain it. As a child I went to Sunday School, Sunday worship service, Sunday night service, Wednesday night prayer meetings – I read my Bible regularly and studied more for my Sunday school class than I did for my school subjects.

But no one really told me the truth. No one told me about how the King James version of the Bible was cobbled together from centuries of translations, (and mistranslations), whole books added and lost, a history of human intervention that applied the biases of the times to the book I was told was inerrant, was the word of God, was the only true word of God.

No one explained to the child back then of the context in which the Bible evolved and the relation it had to other religions that came before and existed along side.

So I am left with the question – was Falwell a Christian? Can a person who lives a life as a bad person and converts to Christianly at the last moment, go to Heaven? And a person who lives a good life but has skepticism about the historically evolved Christian religion, go to Hell?

I’ve often wondered that the Reverend Falwell seemed far too stuffed with church potluck fried chicken that he could hardly get up from his chair to stand at his pulpit. I wondered that he was as sensitive to the half of the world that either goes to bed hungry or doesn’t know where the next meal will come from. I wondered that as facts changed he was unable to change his mind – stuck in what would seem an arrogant assertion that he alone knew God’s will and that anyone who disputed him was dismissed offhand. I wondered that as science and medicine concluded that homosexuality was a state of being and not a moral choice, how much Reverend Falwell contributed to the estrangement of and discrimination of gays from family and community. I wondered at the anachronism of how his church maintained its older bias against mixed race relationships.

Was this man who seemed to me to be pompous and arrogant and smug within his conceit really the Christian that my childhood introduction to Jesus would suggest? And I have to come to the conclusion that he was not.

Senator Webb -- Perhaps You Should Read Your Mail

2007-05-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

The following is a letter I wrote to Senator Jim Webb in January. I suppose he is too tied up with learning his new job to reply. Perhaps some readers will find thse suggestions useful

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Dear Senator Webb,

I supported you in your campaign and when you were the guest of the Chesterfield Democratic Committee, of which I am a member, I asked you a question relating to our criminal justice system and the high percentage of incarceration in America. You replied that of all the campaign stops you’d had, this was the first time a question of this nature had been posed and you remarked how your Japan experience had sensitized you to this high statistic in the states.

But I write with a suggestion for breaking the impasse on major problems so far not addressed by Congress.

The Democrats are off and running on their much flaunted first 100 hours, and I wish them luck. But I haven’t heard a word on what is to follow. May I be so bold as to suggest an approach for the second 100 hours that potentially could turn our country around and make major strides in solving vexing problems that have been building and unaddressed for decades -- for the world is moving exponentially but government reform is moving linearly if at all.

Let me preface my idea by reflecting back on another issue where Congress perennially maneuvers itself into gridlock -- military base closings. Military bases are very parochial beasts and local self-interest and political survival are usually at stake. It makes sense to periodically readjust and resize our military but “not in my front yard” is the position of any Congressman with a base in his/her district. This problem has had a simple and rather elegant solution – Congress appoints a non-partisan, bipartisan, respected and trusted, experienced and expert, panel that steps back and takes a global view and can often come up with a consensus recommendation to Congress. The other essential part of this strategy is that Congress pre-agrees that when the recommendation is made, that there will be no debate – only an up or down vote. The debate would only be initially on whether to follow this strategy and how to empanel it.

This approach removes much of the politics, pettiness, infighting, and influence of special interests, and hopefully, although some will be disappointed, the best interest, on balance, of the nation will be served. And an intractable problem can sometimes be politically dealt with.

Well, I say we use this same strategy to deal with a myriad of universal problems that seem unaddressed and festering. My candidates would be:

(1) Education – We educate in ways little changed from the methods of our grandparents, where summers were taken off, as children were needed for critical farm chores. We take an inordinate amount of a life span to educate ourselves and it is inefficient. We do a poor job of matching education to skills needed in society. We do a poor job of preparing the young for the realistic challenges adult life brings. Education is inordinately expensive and education varies considerably in quality depending on the wealth base of the local community – there is no equivalently equal access to education.

(2) Health Care – We fall far behind other western countries in providing the security of health care, something that is a universal need. Our system is overly complicated, overly controlled by special interests. Contrary to a free market system, providers of health care, through associations equivalent to trade cartels, restrict paramedical professionals and even the quantity of medical professionals. Applying the 80/20 rule suggests that preventative care and minor medical procedures could practically be performed more efficiently by paramedicals. And the insurance industry has far too tight a grip on devolving medical care in their own interests and opposing a system that best meets the common good.

(3) Taxes – Federal, state, and local taxes only grow – they never seem to be overhauled, reinvented, or restructured. Our federal income tax system turns a nation into exasperated bookkeepers, and promotes whole hoards of accountants, lawyers, and tax administrators. And as taxes are both incentives and disincentives, it makes suspicious a system that taxes labor – and increases the tax relatively the more and harder one works – it’s like the government is saying we will tax you if you work, and the harder you work the more we will take of each dollar you make, we will teach you!

The tax code is now over 30,000 pages, the income tax system was never envisioned by our founders, and was only to be a temporary measure when it was initiated. The original 1040 was a simple one-page form. Our government has become addicted to this poorly thought through tax system that has developed a life of its own. Retiring the income tax and substituting a combination of a national sales tax, property tax, and carbon tax could be a major boost to competitiveness in the new world order.

(4) Criminal Justice System – A sea change in approach to substance abuse where this human condition is viewed from the medical/health point of view rather than from the criminal point of view, would help move us from the world’s largest incarcerator of human beings to a more reasonable and compassionate society. Attitudes towards recreational drug use, particularly marijuana, have hardly budged from the hysteria of previous generations. And here again, vested interests in prison building, drug testing, and the criminal justice industry, continue to propel this national policy which frankly has failed miserably – and destroyed countless lives of both those incarcerated and their families and communities.

And the corollary is that white-collar criminals are treated with kid gloves and certainly disproportionately to non-violent drug offenders. The system of justice for the poor and the minorities is far different from that administered to the white wealthy.

(5) Energy – Our dependence on an overseas, undependable, volatile, and diminishing source of hydrocarbon energy is a major national security risk. Incentives to develop national energy independence, new sources of energy, and more efficient use of energy require a national mandate. Disincentives have prevented, for decades, the building of new infrastructure, nuclear plants, and refining capacity.

So, would this Democratically controlled Congress adopt my suggestion for the second 100 days, to appoint such commissions, to return within six months, practical, broad reaching, enlightened, proposals for major legislation to restructure our education, health care, tax system, criminal justice system, and energy policy – well then, this Congress would perhaps be the most important in memory and would have bulldozed through the almost impenetrable thicket of national intransigence and have initiated a markedly improved quality of life and international competitiveness for America.

With kind regards I am,

Sorry To Tell You – But The End Is Near

2007-05-08T09:24:00.000-04:00

I find it fascinating to see the DNA helix in 3-D and alive and reproducing in a video animation, an artificial depiction of our best level of insight to date. Its zipper like unraveling and then its coded arms searching the sea of amino acids for one of four matching molecules, and presto – reproduction.

That’s on the micro level. But on the macro level – our level – there is a continuation by an analogous mechanism. A reproduction that happens where, more or less rare occurrences of contact, under the right circumstances forms a bond, and these occurrences are more probable when the distance is less, the similarities are greater, the experiences similar, the points of view compatible, the areas of interests somewhere overlapping. And a bond is formed – by proximity in family, community, school, and work, and church. In the boy scouts and the softball league; the NAACP and the Urban League.

These become denominations, townships, tribes, guilds, trade unions, political parties, governments, leagues of governments, alliances, provocations, diplomacies, engagements, resolutions.

Technology and economic prosperity and levels of freedom accelerate this reproduction. Life evolves from the first replicating carbon based molecule to man -- and to believe in evolution would suggest that mankind not be at the penultimate limit of this species. And as natural evolution is relatively slow, may not a new order of evolution take place, where the natural world of physical laws is coupled by the advanced acceleration in capability in one natural species – i.e. homo sapiens.

So recently have the higher-level organisms of Nazism, and totalitarian communism, and corrupt dictatorships grown to maturity and completion of cycle to resolution, while others remain intact.

Perhaps the attendant accelerating impact on the quality of life will reach awareness before it reaches reality.

Don’t just read this, don’t just agree with me – go out and find out, convince yourself as otherwise you will not act, if action is necessary, unless you are convinced. Don’t just read, "The Singularity is Near" by Kurzweil, or view the TED conference videos online, or take in a viewing of Gore's "Inconvenient Truth". The top hundreds of thousands of scientists in a spectrum of disciplines have convincingly made the two basic arguments;

1) The Earth is warming at an alarming rate and with dire expected consequences

2) Mankind’s activities are clearly at the cause of and the potential solution to this eventuality which, by the way, we are told we only have about a ten year window to reverse or that we will enter a timeframe of point of no return, where the environmental consequences experienced are to be beyond our ability to impact and which consequences can be a threat to the existence of the human race and to civilization.

I know, too alarmist, almost to declare. Well I, and far more before me, have added their voices. Add yours, help us reach a tipping point where the will to act will override the hesitators, resistors, apologists, and stay the coursers.

Inauguration Day 2009 Predictions

2007-04-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

It’s over a year and half away but here is the podium on Inauguration Day 2009

President - Hillary Clinton
Vice President – Bill Richardson
Secretary of State – Joe Biden
And reaching across the political divide
Secretary of Defense – Colin Powell

What arrogance is this to go out on such a limb so early?

Well I can tout my bona fides that out of grad school I spent four years in a small corporate planning group reporting to the executive committee of the then world’s largest chemical company, as a futurist and technological forecaster. I could mention my lifelong interest in futurism and strategic planning. Or my heightened political junkiesm in my semi retirement.

But truth is this is not based on some formal extrapolative or normative crystal balling – it is entirely an intuitive conclusion and I would be interested in anyone else who is willing to stick their neck out and make an early prediction.

Are You In A R.U.T?

2007-04-28T00:31:00.000-04:00

What is R.U.T.? RUT is Ritualized Undertaking of Tasks and it seems to be as characteristic of humans as it is to most of our brother and sister species in the natural evolution – an adaptive behavior that can arguably be assigned as one of the strong indicators of survivability. From the honeybee to the gray squirrel, from the nuthatch to the pacific salmon – all seem to have the predictability of repetitive behavior somehow hardwired in their small or large brains. And undoubtedly we as human animals share in this natural addiction.

However, the unique characteristic of our species – consciousness and technological achievement – have catapulted us far from this need for natural discipline and we tend to applaud and revere those who do escape this prehistoric tendency and rise above the strong urge for ritualized behaviors.

However, there remains some comfort in this normalcy – some security in the way we make or don’t make our beds, the compulsion to order and arrangement, the ritual even of our worship. I have an aunt who even in her 80’s gets up at five each morning and robotically performs her daily and day of the week related tasks as if some clockwork puppeteer were in control in some cosmic morality play. She even irons the family’s underwear and arranges them orderly in their specific places in their specific chest of drawers. Interruptions to this orderly life disturbs and provoke anxiety.

Once at a safety conference a behavioral psychologist explained that testing indicates a threshold of repetition that can lead to habit, to a more of less unconscious response to stimuli, that is more comfortable to have than not. His example was that in studies it was shown that if a driver who doesn’t routinely wear a seatbelt, will by conscious and consecutive choice, snap on his/her seatbelt for a certain number of consecutive days, then from that point on the behavior will not require conscious reinforcement but will become a part of unconscious and instinctive sequence and will be the likely behavior. Their studies suggested that this happened at a surprisingly low repetition sequence of thirteen times. Just repeating an activity -- fastening your seat belts, taking a vitamin, flossing your teeth -- once each day for about thirteen days will program oneself such that this activity becomes mostly automatic and subconscious.

Is it this security gained from ritualization that leads to careers where we are willing to get up before the sun and sit in a small windowless office all day long doing repetitive and numbing activity, and then return after dark to houses that we work so hard for -- to ensure their carefully groomed lawns and façades?

How unfortunate that in the three natural cycles of our experience – the daily rotation of the planet, the yearly arc of Earth around the Sun, and the 28 day cycle of the moon – we still fall prey to ritualized, repetitive activity. Each morning we awake and brush our teeth and perform ever unconsciously our hygiene behavior. Each week there is a weekend and expected chores and activities, each year has its seasonal and expected requirement for celebration or scripted behavior. If I don’t do it today, I can do it tomorrow; if not this week then next; if not a trip to Europe this year then next – and it becomes so easy to take the next logical leap: if not this lifetime then the next.

Life seems eternal to children who have so little experience of a time frame – from Christmas to Christmas is an eternity then. But ask anyone in an elderly community how fast the years fly by. Time is constant but perception changes as we age. We eventually realize the truth of how “youth is wasted on the young” and how very brief a single life can be – even a full and healthy and rich life. I challenge you to pull out a large piece of graph paper, with the columns and rows of little squares, and rule off a rectangle of 100 by 300. Now within that rectangle are 30,000 little squares, you can easily see each one – take a pencil and fill in any unique little square. Now realize this – you are looking at the finiteness of a life. If each little square represents one day in your life – then the entire rectangle of squares you see before you represents a life of over 80 years!

You can see the day you turned 16, the day you graduated from college, the day you got married, the day you had your first child – each day is so visible and part of such a very small quilt of days we have to live our lives.

And how much of each of these days are not at our conscious disposal but are really just part of some unconscious ritualized behavior that we don’t notice and which we are dully hypnotized to?

Well as far as I know this is the only opportunity we have or will ever have to experience being alive – to have been born at some random time and place, sex and race, into some culture and civilization that we didn’t make but that we now have the opportunity to experience and effect.

And regardless of the length of life, it only happens in the moment and whether we seize those moments as an opportunity to be in them, to extract ourselves from the unconscious programming and take the courageous risks that conscious behavior implies, may be the way, whatever God there may be, will eventually judge our lives.

Whether you believe that we are souls that have always existed and will always exist, most religious tenets presume only this small speck of time as a human experience. And as no one has evidently ever come back from death (my apologies to inerrant Bible reading Christians), this may be it – the only time we are or can be human. To use our consciousness, our curiosity, our innate intuitive goodness, our unique talents and resources, to give proper respect to this incredible gift of 30,000 days and not spend far too much of it in a RUT.

Unnecessary Hysteria Against NBC

2007-04-26T05:28:00.000-04:00

There is an unwise movement in our midst to retaliate against NBC for their making public the mailing they received from the Virginia Tech killer.

This movement’s argument is that this release will somehow both give notoriety to the killer and prompt others to follow his example. They propose a nationwide boycott to punish NBC and to prevent further examples of this in the future. I strongly object to their methods.

My objection is that this approach of boycott is completely unbalanced in that it narrowly focuses in on one specific network event. They seem not to take the entirety of NBC news in balance. Their approach, if logically followed could say that a newspaper that printed a Cho photo is just as liable for boycott. Or the 7-Eleven that sold that newspaper issue could reasonably expect picketing.

This type of boycott can ultimately chill our free press. It can be worse than the tyranny of the majority. It becomes the tyranny of the minority. The news, as they have agreed, is commercial and responds to perceived public receptivity.

And to imply that the recent NASA event was copycat is to try and bolster an argument out of thin air. Almost eight years passed since Columbine with very little in terms of direct copycatting, but incredible increases in draconian security at public schools. It is an unnatural and unwarranted intrusion of a state of fear that efforts like theirs tends to perpetuate.

We are a nation of 300 million – there are tragedies that will happen that are NOT cause for some universal overreaction. Perhaps the ability to hitchhike, or leave our doors unlocked, or not fear a law suit if we are a Little League coach – things that have changed since my youth – are, in part, because of hysteria prompted by widely distanced and rare events that too often become universalized.

Taking Don Imus off the air was a recent example.

Society should not have to bow to the knee jerk sensitivities of the lowest level of risk taking in our society. Response should be proportionate and not ratchet us towards a sterile and limited access to experience.

If you don’t like a program on TV, turn the channel. If you don’t like a movie or a newspaper, or a cause – don’t promote it. But don’t play God and boycott its availability from the rest of us.

We have Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and yet at the table there is no room for Mothers For Drunk Drivers – or more rationally Mothers For Responsible Parenting. And thus we limit the debate and allow the flag wavers to be assumed as the best arbiters of policy.

I do applaud their efforts to examine the issues rationally – I just don’t support unbalanced, emotionally charged, and poorly targeted boycotting that rather than expand liberties and freedoms and access, will in fact, restrict them.

Response to River City Rapids – “The Media’s Woody”

2007-04-22T19:52:00.000-04:00

Let me begin by saying I do applaud the energy and altruism that I sense your blogging represents. But I find it troubling that you don’t allow replies on your own site, so I reply here on mine.

I take exception to your hyperbole over the NBC airing of the murderer’s tapes. You violate your own premise by suggesting the next atrocity could be committed “by some sicko attaching a camera to themselves as they walk down a hallway perpetrating such heinousness”. Humm, I wonder if someone reading that will get an idea?

It’s a bit presumptuous to assume that those with such murderous intent are not creative enough to have thought up what we sane and balanced individuals could not imagine. Just as many don’t want the weaknesses in our open society to be broadcast to terrorists as it might give them ideas. It’s naive to think that either terrorist or the mentally deranged aren’t as bright and creative as we are in imagining evil actions – as evidenced by much of the creative violence on TV and film today shows.

NBC and the rest of media are businesses that live off the public craving for its output and carefully orchestrate that output through clever media monitoring. And if any American life is as important as another, I’d challenge you to find the commensurate national attention to the 17 American soldiers, also of the ages of the Virginia Tech victims, who were grotesquely killed in Iraq last week.

I believe NBC was at least as responsible in their handling of the “sicko tapes” as you were in your blog post. Unfortunately we miss in this entire episode perhaps the broader issue of the lack of mental illness parity in America, the bullying that still routinely occurs in our school systems, and the lack of us as individuals to respond compassionately to those in our midst who suffer from mental illness.

And overreaction to this incident will predictably make our society less open, our schools under tighter restrictions, and our communities more gated.

An Invitation To Ideas

2007-04-22T05:42:00.000-04:00

A few months ago while in a local convenience store I noticed the clerk was reading a book and on asking him about it I learned it was “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil. It intrigued me such that I checked it out from my local library and found it fascinating and on pursuing the author on Google I came across TED. Now TED is a California conference of elite thinkers open only by invitation and a $6000 conference fee. But wonderfully I found that many of their presentations were available both on their website and as downloadable podcasts.

I have finally finished viewing the available downloadable presentations – about 26 hours worth in total – and they have been a most amazing experience. One I wish to share with all who value ideas and who are open to the broader call of a humanity I hope is in most of us.

The subjects vary from art to architecture, science and technology, economics and world crisis, and they are all uniformly impactful and resonate with a sense of the future – both foreboding and promising. The speakers are leading edge in their fields and vary from a past president to distinguished scientists, to cutting edge architects, to noted scholars in many fields. This is truly one of the richest experiences the Internet has to offer and I dare you to view just one of these presentations and not be drawn in, as I was, into a wonderfully broad and cerebral and even entertaining journey that we rarely have access to.

www.ted.com

Blogging Across The Great Divide

2007-04-08T03:07:00.000-04:00

As regards our local and national political situation, may I suggest that we stop for a moment in our blogging and reflect. I find that continued preaching to the choir in this echo chamber of blogs, while perhaps some sort of reparative therapy, does little to move any us towards a better future.

Some might suggest that blogging would open up a whole new avenue for constructive conversation, adding a new and immediate network to bind us as a people. Instead it seems to coalesce into the polarity of two camps – likes cats hissing at each other.

The world outside, however, keeps going on, while we are hurling epithets across the divide, unable to find common ground, and distracted from looming crises that will impact all regardless of their position on the political spectrum.

The current mess is not so much the doing of one man, George Bush, as ineffective, inarticulate, and incurious as he is – it is the fault of “we the people”. We elected him – twice. Our democracy is an experiment in governing where the power to govern was assumed by the electorate. It is we who have failed America – by not taking on the mantle of that responsibility. By not participating, by not being informed, by not accepting this stewardship responsibility. And into that vacuum have eagerly stepped both incompetent career politicians and greedy interest groups.

In a way blogs are a new opportunity for the individual voice and the individual common sense to again percolate back up to our governance. But until we can begin to communicate across this red/blue divide with reasoned respectful dialog rather than by emotional rants, the opportunity will be lost.

Senator Creigh Deeds, Here’s My Point

2007-04-05T13:12:00.000-04:00

Even at an old age of 63 I’ve retained a lot of my childhood idealism and sense of American government that was taught by equally idealistic history and social studies public school teachers. The words – actual words of heroic and enlightened Virginians still ring in my ears – patriots such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. So Senator Deeds I make no apology for holding you up in comparison.

You are a lawyer, even hoped to be the state’s top cop – so let me take you through this piece of my logic.

• Citizens should be law abiding.

• Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

• Citizens can’t pick and choose which laws they will obey.

• To selectively enforce laws rather than consistently enforce laws would deride respect for the law.

• It is reasonable that Virginians equally respect all laws in the Virginia Code.

• It is unreasonable for Virginians to presuppose what Virginia law may be in conflict with federal law or federal court ruling.

Further, as we are all adults here:

• Virginia law currently considers sodomy a felony.

• Virginia law encompasses oral sex, whether in a homosexual or heterosexual context or whether in an unmarried or married context, as sodomy.

• Current conclusion of scientific analysis universally concludes that most adults in America engage in or have engaged in oral sex.

• There is no reason to suspect that the Virginia legislature is a particularly distinct subset when it comes to typical sexual practices.

• The Virginia legislature raises its hand and swears each session to uphold the laws of the state of Virginia.

Ergo – most Virginia legislators are unindicted felons (and hypocrites).

Ok I know the logic is a bit far fetched and some purists may choose to attack the details rather than see the overarching argument.

My point Senator Deeds is that we have a law on our books that technically defines every one of our approximately 350,000 gay and lesbian citizens as felons. This is in the face of Lawrence v. Texas. This is in the face of contemporary Virginia social attitudes. This is in the face of conventionally accepted science.

What small courage would have been required of you – and I apologize for focusing on you as no other legislators had the required courage either - what courage would it have taken to stand up and say, “Gentlemen, we have a law that is antiquated, that is in conflict with a U.S. Supreme Court decision, that is a holdover from a less knowledgeable less enlightened period. And gentlemen, this law while unlikely to be enforced, and while remaining on the books is an insult to a significant minority in our midst – and may give permission to some element of our society to express their intolerance and prejudices in harmful ways. Harmful to this minority group and harmful to the common good of Virginia.”

No, Senator Deeds, you may consider yourself a Democrat but neither you nor any other Virginia Democrat has had the courage on the side of progressive and democratic ideals to counter the courage of a bigoted homophobe right winger such as Delegate Bob Marshall and his continued fight to take us back to the 18th Century.

Senator Deeds, I’m sure there are realities and priorities and practicalities of politics of which I know nothing. I do know though that you successfully this last session introduced a bill to insure that if a hunter’s dogs stray onto private land and if the hunter goes onto this land to retrieve said dogs, that the hunter cannot willfully refuse to identify himself or face a misdemeanor.

Wow – there must be a dozen situations a year where this travesty of law and justice occurs. I suppose this is why the basic civil rights of Virginia’s 350,000 gays and lesbians can never get priority attention.

If Virginia Were A Blue State Senator Creigh Deeds Would Be A Republican

2007-04-04T22:07:00.000-04:00

The featured speaker at tonight’s Chesterfield County Democratic Committee (CCDC) was Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds and a packed house awaited his remarks. (As I’ve yet to be booted from the committee – if the CCDC is representative of progressive democratic ideals then the Republican equivalent must meet in white hoods.) So I did a bit of Googling before the meeting and found little to excite me about this politician – his 2007 legislative résumé’s top two tags were “hunting” and “police”. To his credit he did propose a more balanced and fair redistricting policy but it is now dead and maybe that tells a little about his political prowess.

So for 20 or 30 minutes he tirelessly covered just about every state senate possibility for a Democratic overturn – in monotonous but animated exposition. If you turned off the volume you could imagine he was selling chop-o-matics or used cars. If I heard “and that’s not all” once I heard it ninety nine times. Finally the political tour of Virginia came to an end and there was an opening for questions. The new execution laws – Deeds failed to mention his support of capital punishment while reeling off the new additions to the death roster with the cool of someone talking about options on a new car.

His next question was about smoking laws – or no-smoking laws and a question or two on transportation bills where he seems to understand that northern Virginia and Hampton Roads are basically K-Mart parking lots but shed little light on how the congestion might be reasonably dealt with.

And when asked about global warming he amusingly offered that he had noticed a lot of aluminum cans and plastic bottles around the Capital and something might be done about that – yeah Senator Deeds, you are sure savvy on a very inconvenient truth.

Questions over, I stood in the receiving line and the guy in front of me, a corrections official, had a suggestion for using inmates in a waste reduction and ecologically beneficial program. Deeds eyes glazed over. Now I know it would be hell for me to deal with this glad-handing and barrage of individual interests but that’s his job.

The Senator was more attentive to an inquiry about his running for governor. Deeds running for governor? – of Virginia? – in the footsteps of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson? Hardly.

My chance came and I asked why social issues such as the failed drug war, gay civil rights, and elimination of capital punishment weren’t even a part of this legislative session. His curt response, “It’s about getting 51%”.

No Senator, it’s about intelligent rational debate, it about having principles, its about facing up to the reality of the issues in Virginia, it’s about taking bold steps to improve the quality of life and increasing freedom and liberty. But I’m sure you think its all just about politics.

----------------------

The meeting was a waste of time and gas except for meeting candidate Perry DeMay, running for Chesterfield County Sheriff. As refreshing, common sense, pragmatic, sensible kind of guy as you’ll ever meet. And someone who candidly admits that the drug war is failing, that marijuana should be decriminalized as it is tying up police when they need to be focused on real crimes, and that marijuana arrests cause inordinate injustice to the casual weed smoker. (I’m paraphrasing). Still he came across as a grounded and honest public servant – I think I’d vote for him come this November 6th. As for Creigh Deeds, please God, there must be better people in Virginia to run for governor on the Democratic ticket.

General Pace Calls Homosexuality Immoral

2007-03-13T01:44:00.000-04:00

The above was a headline in recent news. General Pace is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He compared homosexuality to adultery. He went on to say he does support the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for the armed forces. And he stated, “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts."

I’d like to argue that there are troubling inconsistencies and repercussions from such statements from someone in such a high office. Let me suggest a few.

If adultery is likened to homosexuality, then is an individual who is an admitted adulterer, as are all but one of the Republican presidential contenders -- and also Gingrich should he opt to enter the race -- too immoral to become commander and chief?

Are all the legally married homosexual couples in Massachusetts automatically immoral?

Is it not immoral to engage in the lying and subterfuge, that General Pace finds acceptable by continuing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy now in place.

Let’s consider a hypothetical family in Massachusetts, Jim and Jeff are a legally married homosexual couple with two small well adjusted, well loved, and well cared for children. Now Jeff is a Sargent in the Army and is in Iraq going out daily on dangerous patrols. He is careful not to post a photo of his family in his quarters. Or ever mention his partner and their children. He cannot receive any military benefits for his family under any condition due to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Now a roadside bomb seriously wounds Jeff on patrol. In a coma he is transferred to Walter Reed but is not allowed visits by Jim due to the intervention of Jeff’s family. He is legally shut out by federal law, and if in a VA hospital in Virginia, by Virginia law.

The United States is becoming one of a shrinking number of western countries who view homosexuality as an immoral condition that must be, at the least, kept in the closet, and at its worst be subject to bias and discrimination. And often becomes license for more bigoted individuals to engage in abuse and violence against homosexuals.

Our forces serve in Iraq and Afghanistan with EU nation soldiers who can be and are openly homosexual – with no reported problems. Those nations have eliminated bias against individuals due to their sexual orientation.

The news reports tell that over 10,000 homosexuals have been drummed out of our armed forces due to this policy. One has to ask what difference those 10,000 solders would have made – especially in a time when the military services are lowering their standards and finding it difficult to meet staffing requirements.

This in 2007 when country after enlightened country have come to accept the reality that sexual orientation is not immoral, that committed monogamous love between two consenting adults is not immoral. But bias, and prejudice, and intolerance, and hypocrisy, and forced subterfuge are immoral. Thoughtful, intelligent, moral people on both the right and the left should realize this truth. And our voice should be stronger and loader than the General Paces of the world and their superstitious, hurtful, and ignorant viewpoints on homosexuality.

I am moved to write this as, at 63, and a gay man, I went to high school locally, am a University of Richmond graduate, spent 22 years in DuPont middle management, was an advisor to the Saudi military for six years, started and ran my own small manufacturing company – but my entire life has been clouded by the inability to have an openly recognized monogamous relation with someone I love and who loves me. Something that every heterosexual in America takes for granted. Ignorance by family, friends, church, and government has prevented the most basic and enduring of human needs to be realized.

And I write this in the hope that someone reading this will stop and think of the pain and anxiety that such ignorance brings to an individual life – and possibly will add their own voice to changing antiquated laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

De Plane, De Plane!!

2007-02-10T19:29:00.000-05:00

With all the issues facing America, Virginia’s 7th District Congressman Eric Cantor appears to have the statue of the late Herve Villechaize when he makes national news by crying out on the floor of the House that Speaker Pelosi is flying in too big a plane, back to her district in San Francisco.

When, oh when, are his contingents going to wake up and see this excuse for a Congressman for the Republican lap dog that he is? I ask again, as I’ve asked before, just what has Congressman Cantor done for his district, for Virginia, or for the nation, that anyone can remember? And why in a district of 700,000 can’t we find a candidate with broad unifying appeal, a vision of the future that is inclusive, and who brings ideas to solve our common problems?

“Representative Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican famous on K Street for his annual fund-raising weekends in Beverly Hills and South Beach, has recently invited lobbyists to join him for some expensive cups of coffee. A $2,500 contribution from a lobbyist’s political action committee entitles the company’s lobbyist to join Mr. Cantor at a Starbucks near his Capitol Hill office four times this spring.” New York Times February 11, 2007

But, perhaps like Herve Villechaize, he is living on his own Fantasy Island, paid for by his rich special interest contributors.

Parsing the Bible – In A Democracy

2007-01-26T14:32:00.000-05:00

Jesus, as far as anyone knows, never said a word about stem cell research, never a word about abortion, or never a word about homosexuality. But our American fundamentalist Protestant churches seem suspiciously intent on finding vague and ambiguous meanings in a few isolated verses to support, what I allege, are their preconceived and biased points of view regarding these issues. And they do this while completely missing the overriding message of Jesus. They form churches that act more like country clubs without the golf courses, and pretend that sitting in the pews an hour each week gives them the moral superiority that will convey them to the front of the line at the Pearly Gate.

Few of these churchgoers can abstract themselves for a moment and realize the circularity of, in the case of Southern Baptists for instance, of having their elderly pious male deacons carefully select each of their pastors such that this bias is perpetuated and even accentuated.

These same congregations, that will not welcome a loving committed gay couple, will have a large percentage of their congregants who are divorced – clearly adultery was something Jesus did speak to – and to ever disavow the lifelong commitment of marriage professed in holy matrimony, is adultery.

And these same churches will still pick and choose their scripture to meet the comfort level of their congregation. Just one example is from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church”.

Any ambiguity in that?

I don’t support that verse, as God gave me common sense and I know that the Bible was written in a time and context. However, I don’t pick and choose verses to suit my bias either. Rather, I know from my childhood faith that Jesus brought a message of inclusion, charity, tolerance, caring, love, and humility. These are the basic tenants of Christian faith that seem to be entirely forgotten by bigoted, arrogant, and self-righteous fundamentalists who find some sense of superiority by trying to impose their views on the rest of the community. We don’t have today the same consequences of these right wingers – there are no Inquisitions with torture or all the other excesses of this tradition that have stained the history of Christianity all over the world and throughout time. But today, in America, we still have the racist, homophobic, and intolerant underbelly of the inerrant Bible reading religious fundamentalist nuts who maintain an inordinate control over the message of Jesus and through subtle and less-subtle manner perpetuate bias towards those of different races, religions, or sexual orientations.

And often they justify their positions on the preachings of their Southern Baptist ministers, who in this circularity, are chosen by them to perpetuate this cycle of ignorance.

Who The Hell Is Congressman Cantor Representing?

2007-01-22T18:45:00.000-05:00

There have been six important votes in this new Congress:

A bill intended to implement the remaining 9/11 Commission homeland security recommendations – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill that would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 over the next two years – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill that would expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill that would require the government to negotiate Medicare prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies - Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill intended to make college education more affordable by gradually reducing the interest rate on need-based student loans issued after July 2007 from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill intended to encourage development of alternate sources of energy. - Eric Cantor voted NO.

Is Cantor just a product of Virginia’s Republican gerrymandered districts? Is he just a Republican pol who follows lock-step instructions from his neo-conservative bosses? Is he so obligated to special interests and big business that he fails to see the needs and values of those in his district? Is he just so damn arrogant because the Democratic Party is essentially impotent in his backyard and he sees no plausible opposition?

Well those I talk to couldn’t recognize him, never heard of him, can not recall one specific thing he has done for the 7th District or for Virginia.

And this from Style Weekly, “His Every Republican Is Crucial PAC (ERICPAC) raised $1.45 million for the 2004 elections, and he gave $515,292 to Republican candidates for national office, according to the most recent figures from the Center for Responsive Politics. The PAC’s assuredly refilling its coffers for the next elections. Cantor’s even been taking his fund-raising show on the road and into such posh places as Beverly Hills and Aspen. Such financial success is one reason the GOP has elevated Cantor, 42, to the position of chief deputy whip in the House. Cantor’s wife, Diana, is executive director of the Virginia College Savings Plan and a board member at Media General Inc.”

His wife is director of Virginia College Savings Plan – now that is just funny, pathetic, and ironic.

Is there not one Virginian of the caliber of Senator Warner (R) or Senator Webb (D) - Democrat, Republican, or Independent in the 7th District? Do we have to, in 2007, tolerate the kind of indifferent and unaccountable politician of the likes of Eric Cantor?

Congressman Eric Cantor – Virginia’s Mister No

2007-01-15T14:28:00.000-05:00

Last week there were four important votes in Congress:

A bill intended to implement the remaining 9/11 Commission homeland security recommendations – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill that would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 over the next two years – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill that would expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research – Eric Cantor voted NO.

A bill that would require the government to negotiate Medicare prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies - Eric Cantor voted NO.

Is Eric Cantor actually representing the approximately 700,000 residents in Virginia's 7th congressional district? Or is he just another lawyer type Republican propelled into office by the local Republican king makers? How many in his district could actually pick him out of a line up or offer one thing they can remember this Congressman actually accomplishing for his district, state, or nation?

Try calling his office and getting the monotonous voice of a staffer who has become inured to the growing groundswell of citizen based movements like MoveOn.org. Or try and get a response by mail and receive his standard boilerplate “You may be assured that I will keep your concerns in mind should legislation pertaining to this matter come before me . . . “

What can be done? Well here are two suggestions. First, get involved. This is a democracy, we govern ourselves and that takes a stewardship to our citizenship responsibility. And second, support a newer approach to spanning the representational divide that makes it inefficient and almost impossible for the needs and values of the electorate to percolate from the 700,000 up to their Congressional representative. This divide, it seems to me, only creates apathy, cynicism, and frustration by ordinary citizens and as these citizens back away from their citizenship responsibility, the void left is gladly filled by special interests – interests of the rich and powerful who often are not aligned with the interests of the populace at large.

What has Congressman Cantor done to attack illegal immigration, outsourcing of American jobs, the growing deficit, rising medical and education costs, reform of the tax code? I know of nothing – Mr. Cantor can you respond – or will I just get another NO!

Virgil Goode Should Not Represent Virginians

2007-01-14T16:56:00.000-05:00

The current estimated population of the United States is 300,970,614 as of this moment. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 currently fixes the total number of Representatives at 435. That means that each Congressman is selected, on average, from a population of approximately 691,886 citizens. Can someone explain to me how Virgil Goode, the Representative from Virginia’s 5th District is the best out of almost 700,000 Virginians? His remarks about Muslims in America is reprehensible, embarrassing to the state, ignorant, biased, and far from the tradition of great Virginians who came before him and who made such positive contributions to this state and to this nation.

For him not to fully recant his statements, fully apologize, and additionally take meaningful steps to address the harm he has caused further shows his character. Our national problems require better and Virginia certainly should have better men and women to deal with the national challenges of 2007.

The Republican Party, Virginia politicians, Virginia newspaper editors, and the public at large need to take Virgil Goode to task and to show the nation and the world that we are a better people than that suggested by Virgil Goode’s anti Muslim remarks.

Facing a Growing Divide in America

2007-01-13T02:06:00.000-05:00

Perhaps I am a bit of a European-style socialist, although I’ve not thought of myself as such. I’m not that comfortable being pigeonholed. I actually agree with and/or find merit in quite a bit of what the ”other side”, the conservative right, is arguing in this discussion, this controversy over minimum wage increases. I am rather open-minded and willing to listen to the arguments.

The core issue to me though is not as clear as it seems to most conservatives. I am unconvinced that applying economic theory alone outside the context of sociological and behavioral considerations is the best response of government to those who are at the bottom of the wage scale. I certainly do not support an increase in the minimum wage for what might be called “feel good” political strategy.

I sense that solely thinking in a supply/demand free market way about minimum wages is simplistic and unrealistic, although I do agree that this works well at the micro level and does bring about efficiency and fairness. Left to run its course, it becomes a “game” in which some win because they know the rules and play well and others lose because they don’t know the rules and play poorly. Certainly the incentives and disincentives of “invisible hand” economics play a large part in the success of economies and in individual success.

But I take a broader point of view, that although this game does play out in one dimension of our society, there are other important dimensions that need attention if we as a society are to enjoy a higher quality of life.

I also think there are philosophical questions that should be addressed that are outside the realm of economic theory and equations. One relevant here is how should we respond to a class of our citizens who work fairly and honestly for wages, but those wages only allow a below poverty income. And this despite the rather significant wealth of the community at large. It seems naïve to expect that an employer would always pay a living wage. And it may be the proper duty to one’s stockholders for an employer to maximize the discounted net value of his company by paying the lowest wage the market will bear.

As we move further into the new world order, the international economy, we realize that as Anne Lynam Goddard, the new president of the Christian Children’s Fund recently stated, “Three billion people live in poverty around the world. And half of them are children.” To take free market theory to the extreme and eliminate all trade barriers, and restraint to free movement of goods and labor, would, I’d guess, result in a substantial increase in worldwide total wealth, but I think it would certainly depress the relative standard of living of America’s middle, and lower classes.

Thus moves to pure free markets have, to me, to be seen in the context of the reality in which we live.

There is a growing chasm between the wealthy and the middle class in America – this is well documented. Real growth in middle class incomes has stagnated recently, also well documented. And the top few percent of the wealthiest are doing extremely well. These are changes that will have consequences to the fabric of America and I would hope that this could be addressed sensibly and rationally and sooner rather than later. Conversations on boards such as this could be part of the process of facing this reality, and I believe conservative leaning and liberal leaning Americans must come to the same table and work together to face this squarely as we have successfully faced common issues in the past.

Mitt Romney Flip-Flops

2007-01-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

“I believe every American deserves equal opportunity” – so says Mitt Romney. "I was wrong" to say in 1994 that "all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation . . . . I’ve led the fight to protect traditional marriage. I’ve taken every legal step I could conceive of to prevent same sex marriage.”

For the overwhelming number of heterosexuals in this country that means also the equal opportunity to get a marriage license should they fall in love and want a mutually committed relationship. But homosexuals, no less law abiding, no less tax paying, no less legally voting, no less moral than heterosexual citizens, are not allowed to get a marriage license – are disenfranchised from the rights, privileges, and rewards that our government bestows on heterosexuals.

When will conservatives educate themselves that homosexuals are (1) not a threat to traditional marriage, and (2) giving equality to homosexuals to marry could actually strengthen the concept of marriage and stable community?

An Argument in Support of the Minimum Wage

2007-01-10T13:21:00.000-05:00

Classical economics, Adam Smith, and free market forces – all wonderful concepts and very efficient and practical methods of managing our micro marketplace activities.

Except – except that in this natural world the ultimate progression is that the weak eventually fall by the wayside and the strong ultimately accumulate all the wealth. It is a game of Monopoly played large and as anyone who has played Monopoly knows, it is no fun to play once someone else controls all the hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place.

Are those opposing a hike in the minimum wage suggesting that the obscene pay packages of many, if not most, of America’s top companies are the result of free market forces? Hardly, they are the result of networked boards, good old boy networks, greedy contracts of these executives, and the impotence of the finely divided stockholders who have little ability to coalesce into an effective opposing force. Do they think that there are not capable managers in America who could competently run any American company and happily subsist on a salary of half a million or less? These overpaid execs are not there out of a fair market competition – they are there because of a system that is skewed in their favor.

Is the ratio of remuneration between a nurse and a physician, or a lawyer and a paralegal based on market forces? – Not a chance. Is the value of a business executive or engineer that much greater than a high school teacher or a social worker?

As to minimum wages – there is half the planet that exists on less than two dollars a day. Certainly there are millions who would gladly take jobs in America for a fraction of the minimum wage. Note the effect a flood of illegal Hispanics has had on construction industry wages.

The minimum wage is a contract with ourselves, an agreement within our larger community that anyone who exchanges his/her work for pay should at least get enough to sustain himself/herself above poverty. This is not free market – it is compassionate and Christian values.

When we take the obsession with free markets and free trade to the extreme, we are essentially saying let the raw rules of nature, survival of the fittest, trump human compassion.

There are other models in the world – we are so hysterical when “socialism” is even slightly inferred that we may fail to see the advantages of community policy that results in a more egalitarian, democratic, fair and compassionate society. Otherwise we will only continue this slide towards a bipolar society, a widening gulf between rich and poor – and eventually the seeds of social unrest. And this is not the American promise.

Virginia – A Goode Place to Live

2007-01-10T00:36:00.000-05:00

Yes, with this year 2007 being the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent English colony in the new world (remember John Smith and Pocahontas), we Virginians can be duly proud to live in a state that has produced such illustrious leaders. Now I’m not referring to the old history book crowd – the George Washingtons, Thomas Jeffersons, James Madisons, or Patrick Henrys – no they are mere footnotes in our 1950’s history books. Wildly exaggerated personalities (Washington never cut down a cherry tree or threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River) – men who were in actuality traitors to the British government which was legitimately ruling at the time. They were the rabblerousing, rebellious, free thinkers, hopelessly idealistic upstarts. Jefferson probably even grew his own marijuana that he and his black slave girl Sally Hemings would smoke during their love trysts.

No readers, I am talking about the real men of Virginia – the men who we today look up to, revere, and want to emulate. Let’s start with our saintly and holy (holier than thou) religious leaders, particularly Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (such a shame that Pat didn’t get the nomination, he would have been such a wonderful president, especially with his direct line to God and his amazing ability to forecast future calamity). And then we have Delegate Bob Marshall who almost single handedly saved the Commonwealth from the scourge of gay marriage – thank God. Oh, and let’s not leave out that monumental thinker and astute retail politician, our ex senator George Allen – shame on you YouTube for showing us what was just supposed to be a clever word play to show the locals that he knew their true hearts.

And now we are proud to add one more name to this illustrious list. Virgil Goode has shown the nation just what Virginia is about and why this state is such a wonderful place to live. Yes nation, there is no place better than the Old Dominion. Sure we had to integrate but we did it reluctantly – and are still doing it reluctantly. And know that if you are bigoted, or prejudiced, or homophobic, or intolerant, or just a plain old inerrant Bible reading religious zealot, well know – you can always come home to Virginia – it’s a Goode place to live and do business.

The Second 100 Hours

2007-01-09T12:03:00.000-05:00

The Democrats are off and running on their much flaunted first 100 hours, and I wish them luck. But I haven’t heard a word on what is to follow. May I be so bold as to suggest an approach for the second 100 hours that potentially could turn our country around and make major strides in solving vexing problems that have been building and unaddressed for decades -- for the world is moving exponentially but government reform is moving linearly if at all.

Let me preface my idea by reflecting back on another issue where Congress perennially maneuvers itself into gridlock -- military base closings. Military bases are very parochial beasts and local self-interest and political survival are usually at stake. It makes sense to periodically readjust and resize our military but “not in my front yard” is the position of any Congressman with a base in his/her district. This problem has had a simple and rather elegant solution – Congress appoints a non-partisan, bipartisan, respected and trusted, experienced and expert, panel that steps back and takes a global view and can often come up with a consensus recommendation to Congress. The other essential part of this strategy is that Congress pre-agrees that when the recommendation is made, that there will be no debate – only an up or down vote. The debate would only be initially on whether to follow this strategy and how to empanel it.

This approach removes much of the politics, pettiness, infighting, and influence of special interests, and hopefully, although some will be disappointed, the best interest, on balance, of the nation will be served. And an intractable problem can sometimes be politically dealt with.

Well, I say we use this same strategy to deal with a myriad of universal problems that seem unaddressed and festering. My candidates would be:

(1) Education – We educate in ways little changed from the methods of our grandparents, where summers were taken off, as children were needed for critical farm chores. We take an inordinate amount of a life span to educate ourselves and it is inefficient. We do a poor job of matching education to skills needed in society. We do a poor job of preparing the young for the realistic challenges adult life brings. Education is inordinately expensive and education varies considerably in quality depending on the wealth base of the local community – there is no equivalently equal access to education.

(2) Health Care – We fall far behind other western countries in providing the security of health care, something that is a universal need. Our system is overly complicated, overly controlled by special interests. Contrary to a free market system, providers of health care, through associations equivalent to trade cartels, restrict paramedical professionals and even the quantity of medical professionals. Applying the 80/20 rule suggests that preventative care and minor medical procedures could practically be performed more efficiently by paramedicals. And the insurance industry has far too tight a grip on devolving medical care in their own interests and opposing a system that best meets the common good.

(3) Taxes – Federal, state, and local taxes only grow – they never seem to be overhauled, reinvented, or restructured. Our federal income tax system turns a nation into exasperated bookkeepers, and promotes whole hoards of accountants, lawyers, and tax administrators. And as taxes are both incentives and disincentives, it makes suspicious a system that taxes labor – and increases the tax relatively the more and harder one works – it’s like the government is saying we will tax you if you work, and the harder you work the more we will take of each dollar you make, we will teach you!

The tax code is now over 30,000 pages, the income tax system was never envisioned by our founders, and was only to be a temporary measure when it was initiated. The original 1040 was a simple one-page form. Our government has become addicted to this poorly thought through tax system that has developed a life of its own. Retiring the income tax and substituting a combination of a national sales tax, property tax, and carbon tax could be a major boost to competitiveness in the new world order.

(4) Criminal Justice System – A sea change in approach to substance abuse where this human condition is viewed from the medical/health point of view rather than from the criminal point of view, would help move us from the world’s largest incarcerator of human beings to a more reasonable and compassionate society. Attitudes towards recreational drug use, particularly marijuana, have hardly budged from the hysteria of previous generations. And here again, vested interests in prison building, drug testing, and the criminal justice industry, continue to propel this national policy which frankly has failed miserably – and destroyed countless lives of both those incarcerated and their families and communities.

And the corollary is that white-collar criminals are treated with kid gloves and certainly disproportionately to non-violent drug offenders. The system of justice for the poor and the minorities is far different from that administered to the white wealthy.

(5) Energy – Our dependence on an overseas, undependable, volatile, and diminishing source of hydrocarbon energy is a major national security risk. Incentives to develop national energy independence, new sources of energy, and more efficient use of energy require a national mandate. Disincentives have prevented, for decades, the building of new infrastructure, nuclear plants, and refining capacity.

So, would this Democratically controlled Congress adopt my suggestion for the second 100 days, to appoint such commissions to return with six months practical, broad reaching, enlightened, proposals for major legislation to restructure our education, health care, tax system, criminal justice system, and energy policy – well then, this Congress would perhaps be the most important in memory and would have bulldozed through the almost impenetrable thicket of national intransigence and have initiated a markedly improved quality of life and international competitiveness for America.

Spring Is Finally Here!

2007-01-07T07:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, Richmonders, after our long winter, this weekend we are seeing that Spring is finally returning and we will no longer suffer the indignities of Winter’s cruel grasp.

Should you be a typical Richmond conservative Republican, please know that the previous sentence was said in jest. I am enough of a scientist to know that even our unseasonably warm episode does not verify global warming. Nor does the fact that 2007 is predicted to be the warmest year on Earth in recorded history, nor does the fact that glaciers are receding, ice caps are melting and breaking away, and natural phenomena all over the world are changing in relation to temperature.

This is me and my brother in a photo taken in Richmond in the winter of 1951 – back when we had winter in Richmond and most often even snow.

But one wonders just how far into global warming one must venture before even a Richmond conservative Republican will cry “uncle” and admit to the effect man is having on our shared environment. It must be the natural order of things – the balance of nature – that we have both open-minded, rational, progressive, citizens who have a sense that the world is really community seen large. And we have conservative, closed minded, tradition bound, inerrant Bible reading, stodgy, citizens who see life as the survival of the fittest and community as revolving around the survival of their own particular gene-pool.

A new generation today may be oblivious to the scare we had a few decades back – when a hole appeared in the Earth’s ozone layer above the poles and was growing at an alarming rate. The ozone layer protects the planet and life on the planet from ultraviolet rays and peoples at extreme southern and northern latitudes were being warned to avoid direct exposure to the sun. Natural cycles and chains in nature were beginning to be interrupted. A full-scale destruction of the ozone and a threat to life on the planet was even possible. The cause: chlorofluorocarbons – Freon. This wonderful miracle of DuPont science that was seen as inert as water and was responsible for the advance of refrigeration and air conditioning and the aerosol in countless cans of consumer products. This molecule, once seen as inert, was now found to be a catalyst in the upper atmosphere involved in the mechanism that was destroying the ozone.

Take the time to look back. Do a Google search. Read about how the big invested interests were pitted against a few lone scientists in a denial of the truth, and there was a moneyed resistance to considering properly the implications. At the time I worked for DuPont at their headquarters. My secretary was Lois Plunkett the wife of Roy Plunkett, the discoverer of Teflon. My office was next to an office of two men who mysteriously had a closely held assignment – partially of which was to assist in the coordination of debunking those who would postulate theories that would threaten this important income producer. There are important analogies here.

One of the prime reasons, if not he prime reason to study history, is that we learn from the past, and so that we as individuals and as a society have a perspective and do not constantly repeat our past mistakes.

I have seen Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, many progressive, iconoclastic, liberal, open-minded and free spirited people have – but it is more important that stubborn, Republican, tradition bound and self righteous, see this movie and begin to accept the science. More importantly that they begin to accept their God given stewardship responsibility for this small planet we all – all six billion of us – reside.

A Portrait of a Real Life Fundamentalist

2006-12-01T17:44:00.000-05:00

{This is a reprint of the reply I made to hr_conservative's comment on my previous post. He runs a blog: Virginia Conservative Analysis. I hope you will take the few minutes to read it}

Hello: hr_conversative

For those new to my blog, let me introduce you to the poster of the above comment. This poster, who goes by the handle of hr_conservative, runs a blog, Virginia Conservative Analysis. And he has been an obsessed campaigner for the recently passed Virginia Marriage amendment. And he characterizes himself as a devout Christian – an errantly reading, word-for-word Bible follower – not just the Bible, but THE Bible, the King James Version in English. And it is ONLY his interpretation of The King James Version of the Holy Bible in English that, according to him, is the correct and God desired scripture on which one is to conduct one’s life. And despite his implied commitment to the laws and Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, he maintains that his Biblical interpretation is not only to trump anyone else’s interpretation, but it trumps anything and everything – including the laws of Virginia.

But this is just the beginning – this right wing fundamentalist authoritarian driven conservative Republican thinks it is his God given command that he devote his life to have his Biblical interpretation imposed on every man, woman, and child in the Commonwealth.

And this is despite the implied allegiance he should have to the laws of the state and the intent of the Constitution and our tradition that the government is not to intrude on the practice of any religion; and that religion is to not impose its practices, prejudices, beliefs, or laws, onto the common people of this Commonwealth.

My religion strongly informs me that my sexual orientation should not preclude me from any freedom, protection, benefit, or responsibilities that is the right of heterosexuals. This suggests that there are various religious views on this matter. Our founders, anticipating this conflict, and having in their recent history from Europe, a wisdom and brilliant insight, so as to develop a strategy to arbitrate conflict. That strategy is to make civil law based on facts, logical argument, rational debate (much as we imagine our founding documents were crafted.) – facts and logic. And their wise decisions were made, by oath, on the merits, taking into account an unbiased review of the facts and logic. And they made decisions, based on that rational outcome, in the context of the will of the people, and our Constitution.

Even the Kings James version states that we are to give unto God that which is God’s, and to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.

And a second anticipation by our founders was the obvious flaw in a democracy. This is “tyranny of the majority”. On an island democracy of ten people, any six could vote to enslave the other four, take their property, require that they adhere to a specific religious practice, etc, etc. Our founders thought through this process and came up with a list of rights that represented the intrinsic and natural rights of all men, and that these rights were to be inalienable, never to be taken away or infringed upon by the majority, regardless if that majority is six or nine on this hypothetical island.

These rights include the individual inherent worth and sanctity of every human being, regardless of his/her differences. We have the law and tradition of equality under the law. Our ancestors hedged on the rights of blacks, for historical and political expediency. It was practical and pragmatic and by it’s postponement led to 600,000 causalities in the Civil War. And our ancestors hardly considered the suffrage of women, partly out of a Biblical tradition and Biblical justification.

Our ancestors had little thought or knowledge or experience with the characteristic of sexual orientation. Newer democratic governments, with that knowledge, initially insert that right – the right not to be discriminated against due to sexual orientation – into their constitution, as did South Africa recently. Other countries, states, and the EU, with a higher regard for rational debate, a higher level of enlightened tolerance, and less intrusion of fundamentalist zealots into the affairs of state, have amended their constitutions to insure that sexual orientation was protected from the tyranny of the majority.

In contrast, the most undemocratic, unchristian, and despotic countries in the world are the ones who are most discriminatory against homosexuals – from allowing housing and employment discrimination to capital punishment. (These are often the countries that America is trying to democratize and which are threatened by the fundamentalist zealots of another religion.) How dense does one have to be to not be able to step back and see the forest for the trees – to see how pompous, arrogant, stupid, and mean-spirited it is to try and impose your religious interpretation, and in doing so deprive those of a different religion, their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

Mr. hr_conservative, your efforts interfere with the practice and beliefs of my religion, and in this conflict, you violated your oath to the state to decide such matters by fact and rational debate. Your efforts interfered with my ability to be treated as an equal human being, to marry the person I love and benefit from the protections and benefits of marriage, to adopt children, to be seen in my community as equal to all under the law.

But no, the tyranny of the majority enveloped the land on November 7th and may God be the judge of that bias, meanness, prejudice, bigotry – but mostly a strange and almost pathological homophobia – Freudian.

Do we accept that we take an oath. We pledge an allegiance, to, for practical and for Bible based reasons, agree that both we, as people and God intends us, to obey the laws of the land. These laws which guarantee that we may individually freely practice our religion, while not coming into conflict in our communities when religious law and practice conflict.

Mr. hr_conservative, may I ask you, as you are a virtuous man who only had sex after marriage and within the bonds of matrimony? Did you ever violate God’s law and not go forth and multiply?, use any form of birth control ever?, only have sex for procreation? (For if sex is additionally meant by God to be for the purpose of giving pleasure to two people in love, then why is not any consensual sex between two loving people also meant by God?) And you must have over a dozen children. Do you?

And Mr. hr_conservative, how many of the children that you work so hard to insure that no homosexual adopt, do you adopt? These children that will never have the opportunity of being raised by loving caring parents. How many have you adopted?

Yes, readers let me introduce you to Mr. hr_conservative – he and his kind have been with us over time and place. His kind justify their actions based on some rigid narrow reading of scripture, out of context of the time and place in which it was written by imperfect human beings, and by not reading the verses in context with one’s reason. But, instead, reading it from his authoritarian directed and controlled rigid belief bias.

He will pick and choose his verses to comport with his bias; he will interpret those verses such that they comport with his bias. And he will present few if any facts, little if any logic; but merely contend that he will never admit he is wrong, never give a neutral consideration of another’s point of view. And he remains anonymous, without the courage to stand in God’s light and protection. (I might mention that in contrast, at the right is my website with my life history and resume. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I intend to discuss this out of facts and logic, and only mention my beliefs for transparency of discussion, but with no right to impose them or intent of imposing them on anyone).

For the rest of us, God gave us the ability to think for ourselves, treat others as we would have them treat us, the responsibility to question and take responsibility for our spiritual and moral decisions, courage to stand up for what we believe, wisdom to weigh other points of view, humility to admit we are fallible, and flexibility to change in the face of fact and wisdom and common sense.

After all, past our six senses, God gave us common sense. Or at least he gave it to some who are more progressive, responsible, open, tolerant, non-judgmental, enlightened, and intend to live lives, as Jesus would have us live our lives.

. . . and without intruding on the religious beliefs of others.

=============

Mr. Hr_conversative, why not have a commission of scrupulously selected, unbiased, qualified, bipartisan, wise men and women to study this matter and to make a recommendation – BASED ONLY ON FACTS AND LOGIC? I was at Delegate Bob Marshall’s committee meeting.

- Which, as a political ploy and maneuver, was introduced on the first day of the legislative session with a minimal time for the opposition to coral a handful of opposing views - and the entire committee process, from beginning to end was less than two hours – with almost no debate by the committee, few questions, and mostly the bored and cynical expressions of the majority who seemed surely to have had their votes counted long before the meeting started. And this was for a historic amendment to our Bill of Rights – the first time in 260 years. The first time to enshrine discrimination. The first time to withhold rights and not to extend rights.

- Which was confusingly and awkwardly written and “on one hand this/on one hand that” ambiguous phrasing that only a legislature of rural county lawyers could bring. (Can you imagine the conversations on how to word this based on the “real intent” of the proponents which seems to be – "THERE IS NO DAMN WAY WE WANT TWO QUEERS TO BE ABLE TO LEAGLLY MARRY IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRRGINIA"). If you think I am using hyperbole, well you then don’t have the empathy of my life’s journey, or that of the other 300,000 gays and lesbians living in Virginia who fully know, not believe, but know that we did not chose this sexual orientation. And that we know the difference between right and wrong no less than you do. And we, from our life experience, know that being homosexual is not a moral choice, nor is expressing that love in anyway seen acceptable in the state for heterosexuals, to be less moral. We want basically nothing more than what you want. We want to live happy, healthy lives with the person we love and the children we would choose to raise. We want to be accepted and equally treated in our families, communities, and churches and by our government. We know that all this cannot possibly be achieved by legislation. Life isn’t fair. But this amendment is so obviously unneeded - and is riding on a subsurface of ignorance and bias, that I challenge you to disprove. How can we as, a state about to celebrate our 400’th anniversary turn and say to our predecessors: ‘we passed the baton, we preserved the most valuable asset of our country’s treasure – our rights, freedoms, and liberties. And we, as earlier generations have, contributed to extend those rights, freedoms, and liberties'. No, history will see this for what I have just described in one person. Mr. hr_conservative.

We are better people than this.

The Legacy of Fundamentalism

2006-12-01T13:07:00.001-05:00

Today on International AIDs Day let’s take a moment and put some portion of the blame for the 25,000,000 lives lost in painful and agonizing death on Christian fundamentalists.

If you are one of these Christian fundamentalists just give me a moment. Surely promiscuity and sharing of needles by drug abusers are not to be dismissed. But let’s take a moment and look at where some large portion of blame for this worldwide pandemic squarely rests – on Christian fundamentalists.

Those who are willing to realistically look at the history of the response when AIDS first appeared in the United States, during the Regan administration, will conclude that a disease that attacks queers, Haitians, and IV drug users had a muted national response. At a time when the disease could possibly have been contained, it was only considered a back burner issue. Those who compare the earlier response to Legionnaire's disease, which broke out after a convention of American veterans in Philadelphia, can surely see the difference in response. The Christian fundamentalists tended to view, by orders of magnitude, the value of an American veteran over the value of a homosexual. They saw the AIDS epidemic as evidently the wrath of God due to the promiscuity of homosexuals. And now, 25 year later, 40,000,000 are infected with the HIV virus worldwide.

Many of these infected are innocent children or the husband or wife who were unwittingly infected by a spouse. Is this the wrath of God or a product of the smug self-righteousness of homophobic Christian fundamentalists?

These Christian fundamentalists, including the Catholic Church, have dug their heels in when it comes to sex education and the use of condoms - they are insisting on maintaining a Dark Ages approach to the realities of human sexuality.

And they are pervasive still in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where homophobic bigots of the type of Delegate Robert Marshall continue to force their perverted religious views on the population – even if it comes to amending our Bill of Rights to insure this discrimination into posterity.

I’m reminded of the words of Gandhi, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Interview With Terri Beirne - Interim Supervisor of Chesterfield County

2006-11-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

Recently I sat down with Terri Beirne and discussed her experience as the new interim supervisor representing the Midlothian District of Chesterfield County. I found her to be refreshingly candid and very comfortable to talk with. She gives some insight into the county and her brief experience on the board.

As a mother of five and an attorney representing significant clients, how have you been able to take on this new responsibility of being on the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors? How much time a week do your board responsibilities take?

Well, the month of August was a bit of a blur – I should have probably been fired from here because of the work I wasn’t doing for my clients – but fortunately in August many clients are on vacation. August was tough, just getting acclimated and getting orientation from various department heads in the county, and understanding who I could go to, to get answers I needed for constituents. I think one of the reasons people are able to do this and have a full time job is that staff in the county is very exceptional, very professional very efficient. I think they make the supervisors look good.

Board meeting alone are two a months – that’s probably 12 to 15 hours right there. And there are invitations to participate in county functions – probably six to eight a week – and you pick and choose those that you have a particular interest in or some connection to – there are educational seminars, elderly care, realtors – a wide variety of organizations that extend invitations to you. You could make this a full time job if you wanted to.

You were chosen from 17 applicants for your interim position on the board – why do you think you were chosen?

I have no idea. (laughs) I think they were appreciative of the fact that I was not intending to run in the fall, and they didn’t want to prop anybody up or give an incumbent any advantage in the fall election.

How do you connect with the needs and values of the 50,000 Midlothian constituents you represent?

There are official ways, like I had a constituents’ meeting a couple of Tuesday nights ago. This is advertised as the county maintains a mailing list of a couple of thousand of interested residents. About 20 or 30 people showed up – I had the Planning Commissioner there and Senator Watkins and Delegate Waddell.

The other is that now wearing this hat -- I’ve just been out talking to people. If I take my clothes to the cleaner I inquire about their relationship with the county and if they need any service from the county - just really asking people, and that’s not something I would have done normally before.

When I took the job and found out how many people I was representing I was a little intimidated by it. In fact the county Commission on the Future has as one of the issues, I was told, that they were working on was, “Is five members a sufficient number for the board?” I think they are narrowing down their list of potential topics and that that was one.

I am definitely reading local newspapers with a more critical eye than before. And reading letters to the editor. I gather that most people are happy with their situation. If not they send an email or letter or phone to make it known that they are not happy about something.

What are the major three difficult decisions presently in front of the Board of Supervisors?

I think the number one, major one is an easy answer – transportation. The county is not getting money from the state like it used to. We had a presentation Wednesday night and we asked all of the General Assembly delegation to come to our meeting because we were preparing our legislative agenda for the 2007 session and we were asking them about transportation. You know they had this discussion at the end of September, which was fruitless; it didn’t come up with anything.

We had a slide show and it showed the county’s contribution, the state’s contribution, and we’re OK right now but if you look four and five years out in terms of state dollars for highways, in the county we are in deep trouble, and that’s what the county is worrying about is what do we do in terms of tax law and policy and other things to account for that reduction in state funds potentially. And it’s not necessarily just the reduction, it’s the inflation associated with the cost of building new roads. Which you know when you see numbers that jump from two million dollars a month to eight million dollars a month
- it’s mind-boggling. So I would say that transportation is right there on top. And behind that is tax policy, which is directly related.

You say you are an independent – may I ask if that is left or right leaning and where you generally stand on fiscal and social policy. Who do you support in November? And the marriage amendment?

It depends on whom I am standing next to frankly (laughs). I have been working with the General Assembly in Virginia, this will be my 21st session, and the Democrats that were in charge when I first cut my teeth on politics were some of the most conservative people I’ve known. So Virginia Democrats are to me very conservative – particularly in financial arenas.

I would say I am fiscally conservative, and socially, is the opposite liberal? (I tell my husband liberal means open-minded), fairly liberal. I don’t think it would serve any purpose to divulge who I’m voting for in November.

I’m opposed to the marriage amendment because of the conflict it makes to other relationships.

Your choice seems to have been unanimous and appears to have been made prior to the Boards’ meeting where your appointment was announced. Do you know how that decision was arrived at among the board, and how was this done without compromising Virginia’s sunshine laws?

I don’t know that the decision was made before the board meeting frankly. I had individual conversations with other board members, I met with several of the board members after the first interview, that five minute interview - I met with Dickie (King) and Kelly Miller, not face to face with the other two – I had a voice message from Art (Warren) and then I had a couple of conversations with Renny (Humphrey). But as far as I knew, I didn’t know there wasn’t consensus among the board, I just knew what I was hearing because there were some who weren’t telling me what they were intending to do – there were some that did and some that didn’t, and as far I can tell not having been involved in this I didn’t know if one person had been designated as the spokesperson for the board. But from what I gathered that’s what I assumed. But then once I got in I realized that that was not the case, and in fact there are a lot of one-on-one conversations that take place on the board. But there are very few conversations that are three or more, which I think, is the requirement. But I don’t know if that’s necessarily because of that. I think it’s more because of the politics of the board and some of the personal relationships among board members.

You were required, as candidates, to submit resumes, have to pass a state and federal criminal check, be fingerprinted, and supply a disclosure form. Are these requirements that the sitting supervisors have also undergone? Did the supervisors have the authority to make these requirements?

I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know I can ask. It seemed, particularly the criminal background check, seemed a reasonable check for me. Well you can’t be a felon and run for public office in Virginia, and they need to know that for sure. There is some need for such a check – obviously I didn’t know. I didn’t question any of that.

I’ve heard, more than once, county politics in Chesterfield in the same sentence with the phrase “good ole’ boy” network. How would you describe the political dynamics of the county, how is the real power vested?

I haven’t seen that - then again I recognize the limited influence I have in the short time period. But honestly I have seen among the board members - been pleasantly surprised by the level of deference to a board member if there is an issue in the district – I mean it’s really more of a geographic deference, than it is boys/girls, you know whatever. That’s what I’ve seen as much as anything.

I haven’t seen it (Republican control) there may be. I know that some of the board members are active in the party locally but because I’m not I don’t know how much the party controls things or pulls people’s strings. I see people on the board when I see their decision making I don’t necessarily see it as having been motivated by the party. I think a lot of the decisions are more – I take Kelly Miller for example, I mean he’s a lawyer. I make a lot of the same decisions he does because I had the same analysis that I see him going through. For example we were discussing the contract with Powhatan for water, selling water. There’s a line running down Midlothian Turnpike and it’s in my district and I have a constituent that had an issue with it so I got particularly involved in that condemnation and that water line and so forth - and we got into a discussion at one of the board meetings about that contract and the terms of it and what would happen if Chesterfield County for example needed to implement water saving measures. There was a drought or something, but yet we’re piping all this water to Powhatan. What control do we have over them if we need to use that water for our own citizens, and so it was an interesting conversation for me because he and I, we were thinking the same thing and we were thinking about the contract. Based on our legal experience we were looking at it from the perspective of the terms of the contract and who had the bargaining power to get what they wanted out of the contract and that kind of thing. So I don’t believe their were partisan politics. I think it was his professional experience that was driving some of his questions and they were consistent with ones that I had. So there may be a party background - this red filter back there, but I haven’t seen it.

What is the relative influence of builders, developers, and similar lobby groups on the board? How are their interests balanced against the interests of individual citizens?

I see a lot of that balancing take place at the planning commission level when developers are coming in for rezoning and you’ve got planning commission members that are imposing conditions on developers based on citizen involvement. And when it gets to our level for rezoning, for example, the record shows whether there has been any citizen opposition -- and if so what the basis of it is and whether it was addressed by the developer

A good example that was relevant to me was the rezoning on Woolrich Road. We just did a rezoning, there is this undeveloped tract near Midlothian Turnpike, up in the Village of Midlothian. Behind that is a rezoning that we just did to allow for a townhouse development. And the Midlothian Village has a plan, a part of the county comprehensive plan, that calls for Midlothian -- pretty much through there to Sycamore Square -- anyway the whole Village is to be walk able scale and the question is, if you don’t have people you don’t have a Village.

And so the Midlothian Village Coalition had weighed in very heavily with those developers trying to get certain things in that tract that we rezoned.

They were opposing the project initially when it was started at the planning commission level but by the time it had gotten to us, enough concessions had been made that they turned the opposition into support for the project.

So I see a lot of citizen involvement in that planning commission process. And then by the time it gets to us -- and actually we imposed one more condition because there was a concern that from Midlothian turnpike seeing the butt of all these garages so we required some structural things on the back of these garages to make it look not much not like an alley.

So I think there is a lot of involvement. There are these constituent groups that are regularly monitoring board meetings – some individually and some representing their neighborhood organizations or their community associations

I grew up in South Richmond in the 40’s and early 50’s – I saw white flight to the suburbs – and 50 years later I still see – just now further west – do you see this as an unstoppable socio-economic movement? What will happen with community integration? Will the affluent Chesterfield County population gradually migrate to Amelia and Powhatan?

Looking at my district particularly, because I was born and raised in Bon Air, lived there over off of Janke Road until 2nd or 3rd grade then moved to Shenandoah, which was sort of the new, at that time you know it was brand new roads and new subdivisions and so forth, and so it was moving west like everybody seems to be doing. But what I’m seeing actually, because I’ve been watching Chesterfield -- Huguenot Road corridor, Robious Road - I’m seeing a lot of infill – there’s definitely growth moving out west – but I don’t think its because people are leaving I think it’s the growth rate and new people that are coming into the county. UPS, which has bought Overnite, a Richmond, based company, has a lot of people coming into Richmond from Atlanta and other places. It’s new people into the county. It’s not people moving from Huguenot Road to move out to Parrington and some of these places. So I’m not necessarily seeing people leaving the places that are closer in - I guess I look at Bon Air as sort of the center of the district.

Remember that Chesterfield Town Center was the death knell to Clover Leaf Mall.

Here’s my point, I think it’s going to be back filled. If you look at Clover Leaf Mall what the county has done in it’s inception of economic development authority putting land in that area in an extension of an enterprise zone program. There are two places in the county -- the one I’ve paid attention to is the Beaufont Mall area, which is right across from Clover Leaf. So I think that that whole area is going to see a redevelopment and backfilling will be put certainly to productive uses again in the near future.

And Chesterfield Town Center, I’m worried about it but I still shop there. And I’ve been watching it very carefully and what I have been seeing is a couple of stores have left. But I see another tier coming in. I see the Old Navy tier coming in and being very successful there. Not the fanciest most expensive shops that they have at Watkins Center or Stony Point – I don’t shop in those places. I still shop at Chesterfield Town Center and I’ve been watching it and I’m not as concerned about it – and I’ve frankly talked to the Watkins developers about it just last week and said, what’s your answer? Their first answer was, well, it’s their challenge to maintain stores that serve their market. I was questioning the need for Watkins’s Center and they convinced me that there is a need for Watkins’s Center. Particularly with retail space -- they’ve got potential tenants lined up two and in some cases three deep for stuff that’s not even been built yet – so they see a need, so if the retailers see a need then maybe there is a need. And it’s new people coming in, it's the rate of growth in the county. And at some point we may be looking all the way up to Powhatan in terms of our rezoning -- we may be there but there isn’t much more now that the stage is set. People may be going out to Powhatan but that’s beyond anything the county has power over. I see a lot of infilling and I see a lot of new people that are populating both the closer in areas and the further west areas.

Where in Midlothian, will be the high paying jobs for this and the next generations?

High paying jobs? I don’t think there are a lot of high paying jobs today in Midlothian right now. I don’t see them today. There are retail jobs. That’s what Midlothian has. Just like today people are coming into the city, we’ve got Westvaco relocating, probably to Henrico unfortunately, but there are forces that work outside of the Midlothian District that are creating jobs for those people.

There have been four recent elections in Iraq with an estimated turnout of 70% of the electorate, despite the risk of voting there. In the most recent Virginia elections, Virginia’s turnout was only 3-½ %. And to run that election the county spent $80,000 for only 3000 votes.

I don’t know. It’s sad. It’s not democracy. So sad. I don’t know that it’s the school’s responsibility. When I was school one of the things that turned me on to the democratic process - I’m interested in government – is we had registrars come out. I wasn’t old enough to vote, so I couldn’t note, so I volunteered with the registrars. Because it is something that had been instilled in me because of my mom. My mother’s side of the family was all military and they were very patriotic and very engaged in the democratic process. So it came from home long before I got to school. Schools had programs to educate the kids on democracy and participation and they had the registrar there to register kids who were old enough to vote at the time.

I think 4th grade is when you get your introduction to Virginia and American history and so forth. I think it comes from something deeper than that. It’s a very sad state of affairs. My involvement with the League of Women Voters has been primarily with regard to candidate forms and candidate questionnaires trying to stimulate people’s interest in the candidates. But nationally we’re in a bad situation where we’ve got people that are just unengaged and I don’t know the answer

To me there are only two things in life today that are spontaneous: sports and elections, and maybe because I care about elections, I think they are fun and spontaneous and exciting -- they are the only things that are truly unplanned and unscripted and uncontrolled. But there are a lot of people that don’t and I don’t know why.

If you were able to go out ten years and look back at Chesterfield County, what would you imagine would be the top three issues that would have impacted the county over that decade?

I think one of them would have to be immigrants in the county– not English speaking people. Incorporating them into our society – for some of the reasons that you mentioned because the Richmond region is a very white bred conservative place and I think that’s going to blow a lot of people’s minds. I remember seeing that the second largest Asian population in the Commonwealth is in Henrico County. Things like that are amazing to me and you don’t see these people on a daily basis, but when you see the specifics I think Chesterfield and the region in particular is going to have to grasp incorporating people into our society and into our schools. Will have to grasp with much confrontation – bills may be introduced that equire English as a first language – accommodating people – providing social services, incorporating them into our society and recognizing that we are them . . . we were them.

So I think immigration and incorporating different people into our community is going to be the biggest problem in the next ten years.

I do think roads – we don’t have a transportation problem in Richmond like they have in northern Virginia or in Hampton Roads, thanks to Ed Wiley - actually that is more a state wide issue than a Richmond region. Senator Wiley insured years ago that there was enough money to Richmond region.

We have a declining school population - a shift in the demographics – we may need to shift some resources to accommodate that. I don’t know if we have adequate services for the baby boomers.

What advice do you have for the next Midlothian supervisor?

(Long pause) Good question. That might be very different depending on who gets in. My advice to Dan Gecker would be to continue your active involvement in development decisions – his role as a planning commissioner has given him a tremendous amount of involvement and oversight in development decisions in the county and I imagine he’d continue that. It’s my impression that Dan challenges a lot regarding decisions and imposes a lot of conditions on developers and has very strong opinions about development in the county. And I imagine he would continue that active involvement.

I don’t know Mr. Sowder’s experience with those types of issues – but the development and the rezoning cases are the most time consuming and the most intimidating part of this job because you are really changing the physical landscape of the county. The advice to him might be to learn as much as you can about those zoning cases and jump into them with both feet.

A Political Disconnect In Virginia

2006-11-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

VOTING ON THE VIRGINIA MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

The above pie charts tell a story of the political disconnect between the people of Virginia, the electorate, and their elected delegates to the Virginia legislature.

The people spoke yesterday and they are far less in favor of amending the Commonwealth’s Bill of Rights to define marriage than is the legislature. The Virginia Senate, by the way, voted 100% for the amendment.

Although reported in the press at the time and well known to the opponents of this legislation, the politics of this measure deserve revisiting. This measure was spirited through the legislature at the beginning of this year’s session with remarkably little debate for so momentous an alteration to the state's highest law. And this was largely due to the obsessive crusade of Delegate Robert Marshall, to minimize the opportunity of the opposition to present fact and rational argument.

But it more importantly shows how a legislature, who often see their seats, due to the power of incumbency, as personal fiefdoms and the legislature as an old boys club, are, as are many legislatures, trailing public sentiment and values.

Polls show that perhaps 70% of Virginians 18 to 26 actually favor allowing gay marriage.

The statewide conversation that has ensued due to this amendment has certainly begun an education process. Some members of the legislature have even reversed their positions from their original votes and now say they object to the amendment. Of these is Delegate Katherine Waddell, who ironically won over Brad Marrs by a margin of only about 40 votes after Marrs used references to a gay businessman contributing to Waddell’s campaign in his own campaign mail outs.

The tide of public opinion is turning. Although 20 states had passed marriage amendments, and seven more did yesterday, Arizona yesterday became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage.

The tide of history is suggesting that gay civil rights as a social movement is inevitable. It is unfortunate that now we in Virginia have this discrimination engraved in our constitution, and thus Delegate Marshall has a legacy that will be around for some years to come.

Acknowledging the Delegate Marshall Effect

2006-11-08T00:54:00.000-05:00

I’m sitting here in the early morning hours waiting to see if three of the possible four states undecided will swing the Senate. I’m disappointed but surprised at the outcome of the Virginia Marriage amendment. And I’m wondering – wondering what could have erased the knife-edge difference between Allen and Webb.

And it comes to me that there had to be a large number of religiously conservative voters who were motivated to the polls by the marriage amendment. Without those votes I would imagine that Webb would have won easily.

And the tireless crusading of one Virginia Delegate – Robert Marshall, largely propelled that marriage amendment.

Now should this eventually comedown to Webb losing and because of that loss the Senate remains under Republican control, then a lot of credit will go to Delegate Robert Marshall.

Who would have imagined that Mr. Marshall would have been in the position of king maker – of having tipped an election that tipped the Congress that tipped the balance of power in America?

Yeah, I know, a bit far fetched.

But had the Democratic Party been a stronger opponent of the amendment, if it had courageously taken a principled position fueled with money and resources, one wonders that although the marriage amendment might have still lost, Webb most probably would have clearly won handily.

Will November 7th Be Virginia's Kristallnacht?

2006-11-06T07:48:00.000-05:00

This is the type of crap being put out by supposed conservatives – this from the Cultural Insurrectionist blog. And most of these blogs supporting the Virginia Marriage Amendment are too cowardly to even post comments opposing their views – but I and others need to “out” these red neck bigots.

On the Cultural Insurrectionist blog is this sentence – I suggest you go to the blog to see the type of Brown Shirt bigotry that should be an embarrassment to all Virginians. This is an example of the type of arguments they present to their intellectually challenged audience.

“It is a sad day in our Commonwealth when such action has become necessary. George Washington, Virginia’s greatest son, had sodomites drummed out of his army.”

I say, grow up – that was over two hundred years ago.

Merriam-Webster definition of sodomy - anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex

From the National Center for Health Statistics: Among adult males 25-44 years of age, 97 percent have had sexual contact with an opposite-sex partner in their lives; 97 percent have had vaginal intercourse, 90 percent have had oral sex with a female, and 40 percent, anal sex with a female.

The real issue is the homophobia of insecure supposed heterosexual males who are biased, bigoted, ignorant of facts, and seem to have a perverted need to put down some group in order to bolster their own egos.

Vote NO on the marriage amendment - who knows if your own equality and rights will be next threatened by these authoritarian controlled "compassionate conservatives".

The Advantages of Marriage in Virginia

2006-11-06T04:31:00.000-05:00

The following are the rights that are conferred on a married couple in Virginia:

>> Accidental death benefit for the surviving spouse of a government employee
>> Appointment as guardian of a minor
>> Award of child custody in divorce proceedings
>> Beneficial owner status of corporate securities
>> Bill of Rights benefits for victims and witnesses
>> Burial of service member's dependents
>> Certificates of occupation
>> Consent to post-mortem examination
>> Continuation of rights under existing homestead leases
>> Control, division, acquisition, and disposition of community property,
>> Criminal injuries compensation
>> Death benefit for surviving spouse for government employee
>> Disclosure of vital statistics records
>> Division of property after dissolution of marriage
>> Eligibility for housing opportunity allowance program of the Housing, Finance and Development Corporation
>> Exemption from claims of Department of Human Services for social services payments, financial assistance, or burial payments
>> Exemption from conveyance tax
>> Exemption from regulation of condominium sales to owner-occupants
>> Funeral leave for government employees
>> Homes of totally disable veterans exempt from property taxes
>> Income tax deductions, credits, rates exemption, and estimates
>> Inheritance of land patents
>> Insurance licenses, coverage, eligibility, and benefits organization of mutual benefits society
>> Legal status with partner’s children
>> Making, revoking, and objecting to anatomical gifts
>> Making partner medical decisions
>> Nonresident tuition deferential waiver
>> Notice of guardian ad litem proceedings
>> Notice of probate proceedings
>> Payment of wages to a relative of deceased employee
>> Payment of worker's compensation benefits after death
>> Permission to make arrangements for burial or cremation
>> Proof of business partnership
>> Public assistance from the Department of Human Services
>> Qualification at a facility for the elderly
>> Real property exemption from attachment or execution
>> Right of survivorship to custodial trust
>> Right to be notified of parole or escape of inmate
>> Right to change names
>> Right to enter into pre-marital agreement
>> Right to file action for nonsupport
>> Right to inherit property
>> Right to purchase leases and cash freehold agreements concerning the management and disposition of public land
>> Right to sue for tort and death by wrongful act
>> Right to support after divorce
>> Right to support from spouse
>> Rights and proceedings for involuntary hospitalization and treatment
>> Rights by way of dour or courtesy
>> Rights to notice, protection, benefits, and inheritance under the uniform probate code
>> Sole interest in property
>> Spousal privilege and confidential marriage communications (for example, not testifying against your spouse in court)
>> Spousal immigration benefits
>> Status of children
>> Support payments in divorce action
>> Tax relief for natural disaster losses
>> Vacation allowance on termination of public employment by death
>> Veterans' preference to spouse in public employment
>> In vitro fertilization coverage
>> Waiver of fees for certified copies and searches of vital statistics.

And these are the rights that are conferred on an unmarried couple in Virginia:

>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

- and voting YES on the marriage amendment will insure that neither heterosexual unmarried couples or homosexual couples will ever get any rights in Virginia -- and voting YES will also express your intolerance and disregard for the diversity and inclusiveness and equality of our state.

A Discussion On The Virginia Marriage Amendment

2006-11-06T01:42:00.000-05:00

To defend traditional marriage, as sacrosanct or impervious to change, just because you contend it has been that way, is not a sufficient argument. It is only an argument against change. We certainly have experienced significant drift in the notion, perception, and reality of marriage in Virginia in our lifetimes. A characterization of marriage and the state of marriage in the 1940’s and 1950’s is far different from that of today, whether we are in agreement with that change. The causes of these changes are widely known and have had the result of redefining the relationship between men and women in society, largely increasing the power and franchise of women relative to men.

These changes occurred outside the conversation on homosexuality in society.

To argue that same sex marriages are a dysfunction to society or in some way a threat to the institution of marriage would require a logical argument, so far not introduced. To argue that the purpose of marriage is the production and nurturing of children is both seemingly obvious and intuitive taken the model of the 1940’s and 1950’s. However, to deny the subsequent information, study, conclusions, and experience of homosexuality in Virginia society over the ensuing decades is to deny new understanding on this subject.

And it is factually correct that most of modern Europe has both developed a majority tolerance and acceptance of same sex marriage, and that in Virginia, (depending of the poll) as many as 70% of 18 to 26 year olds are also similarly accepting of and supportive of same sex marriage. This suggesting that you are arguing on the wrong side of societal trend.

You may suggest that 20 states and certainly more after Tuesday will by plebiscite choose to constitutionalize a definition of traditional marriage. But to argue that that is a social trend out of context of political reality and the real rise of political fundamentalism, is to argue that tradition as decided at the ballot box is the correct choice or will be viewed historically as the enduring choice. I suggest that a vote in the Confederacy would have constitutionalized slavery, today not seen as a correct moral choice. And I could go on with analogies about attitudes towards accepting women as coequals.

And certainly to suggest that parenting is normally and biologically a two sex phenomena, does not justify negating the argument that the quality of parenting should trump or that same sex couple parenting is inherently not deficient – in fact the evidence does not support that.

Were the current societal prejudice against homosexuals in general, subtracted from the argument, it is intuitive that providing equality and tolerance towards homosexuals and their relationships, would be empowering and positive in society. It suggests that our families will be less estranged, a diminishment of the psychological issues faced by this minority, and a freeing up of the constructive and positive contribution that this minority can make in our state. A drift towards a more inclusive state offering more individual liberty and equality could be a beacon to progressive growth and an attractant of talent to the state.

Gay Marriage Hasn't Hurt Europe

2006-11-05T01:18:00.000-05:00

The Richmond Times Dispatch just published an article that was originally in the Wall Street Journal and should be required reading for anyone voting this Tuesday on the Virginia Marriage Amendment.

It should put to bed the arguments that same sex marriage will threaten traditional marriage, or that same sex marriage is a slippery slope to other forms of marriage.

Facts have already been proffered that being gay or lesbian is concluded by science to be a state of being and not a moral choice. And that theologians debate whether the scant applicable Bible verses even apply to gays and lesbians in committed relationships.

The legal consequences to unmarried couples are unknown:

Consider an unmarried couple, gay or straight, that decides in Virginia that they want to approximate the rights and benefits of marriage and who go to an attorney and pay untold amounts of money to have wills, contracts, visitation rights, declarations concerning life sustaining procedures, child custody, etc. etc. drawn up.

The amendment states:

“This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage”

Legal experts are already having opposing views on whether or not these documents are prima facie evidence of a violation of the marriage amendment. When there is anything at stake: property, children, emotions, etc, you can be sure there will be endless litigation.

Most major Virginia newspapers have recommended a “NO” vote. Hundreds of lawyers and ministers have joined to recommend a “NO” vote.

There just does not seem to be one valid argument left to support this amendment other than imposing one's religious views on others -- or just plain and simple hateful homophobia.

November 7th will show the true character of Virginians.

The Iraq War Is Now Longer Than World War II

2006-11-04T18:36:00.000-05:00

I recently lived in a middle class neighborhood in Riyadh for six years and I traveled extensively in Saudi and a bit in the Middle East. I don’t pretend to be an expert. But I knew quite a bit about the Sunni/Shia animosity. I had a rudimentary knowledge of the centuries old unresolved conflicts in the region. I had traveled in 22 countries.

But my experience here is more than our “C” grade president. Reports indicate that before the Iraqi war George Bush was not even familiar with Sunni and Shia divisions. He had never traveled outside the states. He had an appallingly scant worldview.

And now this “compassionate conservative”, this “I’m a uniter; not a divider” president is going around the country telling audiences that Democrats are “cut and run”, and implying ludicrously that a vote for Democrats is a vote for terrorists. Shame on him and shame on those who continue to support his policy in Iraq.

Democratic Senator Joe Biden has for some time argued a rational and pragmatic plan to extricate us from this mess and focus on real threats. And Jim Webb, with his extensive military experience and worldview has proposed a plan that follows Biden’s logic. The Baker commission almost certainly will come out after the election, with recommendations to significantly change course. Perhaps rather than “cut and run”, the slogan might better be “cut our losses”.

We have had six years of Republican control of all three branches of government and the legislatures in most states. What has been their legacy? It’s time to throw the bums out. Its time for the good common sense of Americans to take over, and to return to solving the major problems facing our country – domestically and internationally.

And George Allen is as close to the Bush policy and the Bush legacy as anyone in Congress. Virginia deserves better – the problems require better.

Ted Haggard – The Face of Evangelical “Christians” – A Telling Video

2006-11-04T16:44:00.000-05:00

This is a super video that shows the real face of evangelical “Christians” and their hypocritical ministry.

The Devil Masquerading As A Preacher Man

2006-11-03T13:09:00.000-05:00

I have a habit of getting up far too early on Sunday mornings. At a time in the morning when it seems that almost every channel has some smarmy preacher in his sanctimonious preachy preacher voice conducting more of an anachronistic morality play than a contemporary discussion about good and evil and man’s search for spiritual uplift.

And unmistakably there comes a moment when the plate is passed, the pitch is made. Last Sunday there was even the opportunity to take a tropical vacation with the evangelist, where interspersed with some Bible readings the onboard congregation can delight in the wonders of God’s tropical paradise – and I’m sure give the pastor and his family a gratis cruise.

And here in Virginia we are seemingly blessed with the embarrassment of two of the extremes of this evangelical nonsense – Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. We have seen over the years the travails of the likes of many other evangelical scandals and it should surprise no thoughtful person that there is much more hypocrisy undiscovered in the evangelical movement.

How is it that such numbers of Americans can be so blindly led by authoritarian inerrant Bible reading far right evangelical fundamentalists?

Regardless of where the current news of Rev. Ted Haggard takes us – he has resigned as head of his 30 million-member evangelical association amid allegations he had monthly trysts with a gay prostitute over the past three years. And this is a man who claimed that he had weekly direct communications with President Bush. This is the man Tom Brokaw highlighted in last years special on faith in America. (I had been earlier acquainted with him from a youtube video)

I recently read of a politician who had the courage to say that when he took the oath of office he put his hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the constitution – not the other way around.

Another pundit told the story of a man who claimed he spoke to God through a hairdryer and God informed him as to how to wage the war against terrorists. That may seem insane – but does taking the hairdryer out of the equation make this any more acceptable?

Are we to be forever tricked by empty slogans of “compassionate conservatism” and “I’m a uniter, not a divider”?

We seem to have inerrant scripture reading religious fundamentalist zealots in American in a war against inerrant scripture reading religious fundamentalist zealots in the Middle East. It is a pissing war that has moderate Americans in the middle as well as on the front lines.

Somehow I imagine if there is a devil he is masquerading today as a preacher man.

Top 10 Consequences Of Voting Yes On The Virginia Marriage Amendment

2006-11-02T23:46:00.000-05:00

The following is offered as there are opposing lists being circulated by the religious right. So, here are my Top 10 Consequences of Voting Yes on the Virginia Marriage Amendment.

1. Voting Yes is unnecessary, as marriage is already defined in Virginia by statute.

2. Voting Yes ignores the facts – ignores the accepted medicine and science on this subject.

3. Voting Yes to constitutionalize such a socially charged issue, in flux, is clearly in opposition to Jeffersonian Democracy.

4. Voting Yes is an unabashed ploy by cynical Republicans to get out their base.

5. Voting Yes is in opposition to the maintaining of a bright line between church and state.

6. Voting Yes could bring about a myriad of unintended consequences to unmarried heterosexual couples.

7. Voting Yes will continue to paint Virginia as a cultural backwater and an unfriendly place for the location of new high tech businesses.

8. Voting Yes will hardly benefit the thousands of children in gay families nor give hope to many orphans who are passed over by heterosexual parents.

9. Voting Yes will support increased bias and prejudice against gays and lesbians and may be seen as permission by homophobes for violence.

10. Voting Yes enshrines, for the first time in our 230-year history, discrimination into our Bill of Rights.

As you decide as to how you will vote on this important constitutional amendment, please keep in mind that your vote does make a difference. The last election in Virginia, the recent Democratic primary, saw a turn out of only 3 ½ % - yes only 3 ½% of the eligible voters. Keep in mind that locally, in the Richmond area, Delegate Katherine Waddell won by only 40 votes against her homophobic challenger.

For some reason, only now being studied by science, the authoritatively controlled right wing conservatives are more easily marched lock step into the polls by their Republican bosses. While more independent and open minded liberals (liberal means open minded, not sissy by the way) often realize the day after the election that they forgot to vote and will have the dimwitted George Allen as their senator for an interminable six more years.

Please vote NO on the amendment.

Please vote for Jim Webb for senator.

Yes Virginia, There Are Homosexuals – In Spite Of Mean-Spirited Marriage Amendments

2006-10-30T19:52:00.000-05:00

You don't need to be a lawyer to write a marriage amendment apparently, but you could use some common sense. A high school student could have written a better amendment than the proposed Virginia marriage amendment. And if it weren't so poorly written, this topic wouldn't be the subject of debate and discussion all across the Commonwealth.

Just using words like "approximate" and "qualities . . . of marriage" for example --- these words mean something different to every one who reads them.

At least, you will have to admit that for a constitutional amendment to our Bill of Rights, this language is far from ideal. And more importantly is not easily and consistently communicated to the general populace.

But why tiptoe around this. Delegate Robert Marshall has admitted in interviews and debates that he seized onto this quest after Lawrence v. Texas and his homophobia and obsession with sodomy (overlooking that oral sex within heterosexual couples is sodomy – and studies indicate it is rather common).

And taking advantage of the fact that homosexuality is a closeted concept for Virginians and something they are uncomfortable with and embarrassed to discuss, and with the general negative bias and prejudice in our society against homosexuals, he sponsored legislation.

He didn’t have to break new ground, this initiative had precedence in other states, and the Republican good ole boys, slyly winked knowing this would help propel their base into the polls.

And overlooking the importance of the first change to our Bill of Rights, the heart of our constitutional body, he rammed the legislation through committee, at the dawn of the legislative session, with little notice, and less than an hour of debate (I was there). And then essentially dared anyone to vote against it in the legislature or be painted as pro-queer. Talk about the tyranny of the majority.

This was not a rational debate based on facts, or based on our historical notion of extending rights. This was based on political opportunism, and homophobia. And on lies that homosexuals are bad, homosexual couples are unnatural, homosexuals can not appropriately raise children, and that homosexuals somehow threaten marriage and are somehow part of the problem with disintegrating family values.

In other words the 250,000 homosexuals in Virginia are being made scapegoats for the ills of society and inability and lack of political courage to face up to the real issues of rampant divorce and attendant effects on children, children out of wedlock, and difficulties of one parent families in raising children.

Now, Delegate Robert Marshall, please tell me where you disagree with the above.

The Richmond Times Dispatch Reluctantly Opposes The Virginia Marriage Amendment

2006-10-30T07:24:00.000-05:00

The Richmond Times Dispatch editorial in opposition of the marriage amendment was the most unenthusiastic, begrudging argument I’ve ever read. It’s almost as if they felt they could just not put together a credible and intellectually honest position to support this outrageous amendment no matter how hard they tried, and so reluctantly had their most junior and pathetic writer put together this drivel.

No mention of the impact this will have on the ability of this state’s gay and lesbian citizens, in the light of the growing tolerance of young people and educated people, to revisit this subject in the future. No mention of the real threats to traditional marriage. No suggestion that homosexuality is now known by medicine and science to be a state of being and not a moral choice. No mention of the trend of giving gays equal civil rights in many western countries with the lack of any noticeable consequence other than an expansion of societal inclusion.

So much for authentic conservative principles – so much for the courage of a paper that resides in the same city as the setting of Patrick Henry’s great oratory. Give me liberty or withhold our café latte this morning.

After The Virginia Marriage Amendment – What New Amendment?

2006-10-28T16:58:00.000-04:00

Here is a suggestion for an amendment for the next session of the Virginia legislature:

"That only right-handedness may be handedness valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.

This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for left-handedness that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of right-handedness. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another handedness to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of right-handedness."

Arguments are that being left-handed is immoral. That it will somehow threaten right-handedness. That children raised by left-handed persons may grow up to be left-handed. That society should not have to provide accommodation to those who are left handed.

Sound ridiculous? Well it wasn’t too long ago in our history that being left-handed was considered immoral. People who were left-handed were often intimidated to appear right-handed. There were prescriptions that implied that through discipline left-handed people could be converted to right-handedness.

Until the latter part of the twentieth century, Roman Catholic nuns in American elementary schools (and possibly elsewhere, for example Dutch and German primary schools) would punish children for using their left hand to write, typically by slapping their left hand with a ruler if they attempted to pick up a pen with it. Left-handedness was often interpreted as a sign of Satanic influence, and thus prohibited. Many examples can be found in the Christian-Greek scriptures in which the wicked or evil sit at the left hand of God, while the righteous sit at the right hand of God, during Judgment. (LINK)

However, today it is recognized by science and medicine that being left-handed is a normal variation in the characteristics of the human species. And to discriminate against left-handed people would be considered immoral.

Similarly, science and medicine today have concluded that homosexuality is a normal variation of the human species. Enlightened countries, states, religions, and peoples have begun to realize this. And for Virginia to discriminate against its gay and lesbian population is also immoral.

As Jefferson Turns Over In His Grave – The Virginia Marriage Amendment

2006-10-27T00:21:00.000-04:00

The fourth panel of Jefferson’s words at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington states:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

By engraving this legislation, the Marshall/Newman marriage amendment as an amendment to our Constitution, this does create a very formidable piece of legacy legislation that will prevent future Virginians from changing civic policy by normal legislation routes. And this is contrary to Jeffersonian democracy.

Judge James Harvie Wilkinson, III, is a conservative Republican and I would be surprised to find any member of the bar who would even remotely characterize him as an “activist judge”. He has said in part, “Ordinary legislation -- not constitutional amendments -- should express the community's view that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." To use the Constitution for prescriptions of policy is to shackle future generations that should have the same right as ours to enact policies of their own. To use the Constitution as a forum for even our most favored views strikes a blow of uncommon harshness upon disfavored groups, in this case gay citizens who would never see this country's founding charter as their own.” Which coincidentally is very much aligned with the philosophy of government espoused by Thomas Jefferson.

Perhaps some, those unburdened by facts, will never agree on this – but hopefully others will see that science and medicine have only in recent decades conducted research into homosexuality and the facts and conclusions are far from being accepted or understood broadly in our Virginian population. The fact that enlightened countries and states in the western world have begun in recent years to extend full civil rights to gays and lesbians in indicative that there is a change abroad in the world – this issue is in flux, as have most social changes that we now accept (i.e. the end of slavery, equal rights for women, elimination of child labor). For such a social matter in flux to be written in stone in our Bill of Rights is, to me, certainly outside the promise of our Constitution and our American tradition.

How Would Jesus Vote On the Virginia Marriage Amendment?

2006-10-26T00:30:00.000-04:00

Perhaps at some future Judgment Day, we will be called on to answer for our actions and perhaps then we will not be able to justify those actions as being the way we were taught or told – the clear message of unconditional love and non-judgmental behavior may overrule. Perhaps the ability God gave humans to independently think, reason, and question, is both a way we are related to God; and the use of that gift, the criteria on which we will be judged.

We are privy to the lessons of history and to the evolution of civilizations – and the lessons we might learn about how peoples have been misled by religious zealots and fundamentalists are many. In a lifetime in America we have witnessed substantial change in attitudes about black Americans, about women, and about the mentally ill. And, much earlier in time, issues such as whether the Earth is flat, whether the Earth is the center of the universe, and whether scientifically proven evolution is to even be considered, have been disputed – against the rhetoric and beliefs of fundamentalists.

The Bible is not the exclusive property of fundamentalists – and their interpretation is not necessarily the interpretation God intended. And when fundamentalists seize on a few scattered somewhat ambiguous verses out of context and possibly out of character of the overriding message of Jesus, then this is particularly suspect.

Scientific study accepts that perhaps five percent of the population – or one out of twenty – is exclusively homosexual. These people have been with us though this journey of civilization. They are our brothers and sisters, our children, our friends, neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances – often without us even knowing. This large population is subject to bias, discrimination, and prejudice, at least, and violence at worst. And as science now accepts, these people did not choose their sexual orientation any more than they did their other characteristics of chance – these are the varieties and variations that God created.

After slavery was abolished, most people came to realize how bad it had been. As women were given equality with men, most people came to realize how bad it had been. As mentally ill were treated humanely, most people came to realize how bad it had been. But the heroes to me were those who saw the evil when it was in place and took a stand against it then. Those are the ones in favor in my eyes and I would imagine in God’s. I think there will be a time in the future when two adults in a loving committed relationship will be celebrated whether that be a traditional husband-wife or a same sex couple. Enlightened peoples, enlightened countries, and in America, enlightened states and religions, are today seeing the truth to this.

From many American Protestant pulpits exhortations justifying slavery, deriding the equality of women, condemning interracial marriage – have been a mainstay until community good sense prevailed. And today many American pulpits decry homosexuality.

As an independent thinker, and as someone who questions that homosexuality is a sin, and as someone who sees the condemnation of homosexuals by fundamentalists as a conflict with my inner sense of God’s message, I have turned to the Bible to look at what it says on the matter. The following is extracted from Internet research but is largely attributed to the contribution of Dr. Rembert S. Truluck - Doctor of Theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, 1968. Southern Baptist Pastor from 1953 to 1973, Professor of Religion at Baptist College of Charleston, SC, 1973-1981.

“This incorrect rendering of malakoi and arsenokoites as references to gender orientation has been disastrous for millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual people. This mistaken translation has enlisted a mighty army of ignorant religious fanatics against homosexual people and has turned many Lesbians and Gays against the Bible, which holds for them as for all people the good news of God's love in Christ.

Three of the passages: Genesis 19:5; I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10 are incorrectly translated. The other three: Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27 are taken out of their original setting of condemning idolatrous religious practices and wrongly used to judge and condemn people of the same sex who love each other. None of these passages refer to people of the same sex who love each other. None originally were aimed at homosexuals.”

Not The Brightest Light In Virginia

2006-10-25T06:00:00.000-04:00

Vote for Jim Webb – Virginia deserves better – the problems require better.

Vote NO on the Marriage Amendment – Virginians don’t care to write discrimination into our Bill of Rights.

Virginia Marriage Amendment Debate at the University of Richmond

2006-10-24T00:01:00.000-04:00

The moot court room of the University of Richmond’s T. C. Williams Law School was filled to capacity last night as Delegate Robert Marshall, supporting the Virginia Marriage Amendment, debated Senator John Edwards. And I felt an apology was due to Delegate Marshall after all the eye rolling, audible sighs, looks of incredulity, and suppressed hissing that greeted his defense of his pet project – the proposed amendment to Virginia’s Bill of Rights to define marriage. More properly this measure might be called, after Marshall's opening statement, the amendment to stop the gay agenda.

In fairness to Delegate Marshall, the crowd, as I looked around, was stacked against him – they tended to be educated and/or young – and coincidentally the educated and the young are far more tolerant of the homosexuality that Marshall obviously finds immoral. Certainly he would have been more comfortable among authoritatively controlled rural evangelical fundamentalists. He even explained how after the Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, recently invalidated Virginia’s archaic sodomy law, that he saw it as his messianic duty to stop the homosexual agenda - and despite all the science and medical research of the past decades that overwhelmingly conclude that homosexuality is not a moral choice but is a state of being.

Perhaps the audience would have been more appreciative if they had had a better sense of history – here in their midst was a real anachronism, a throwback to the narrow minded, bigoted, personalities of the early black civil rights movement. Here was Delegate Marshall, as close as they would ever come to the legacy legislators of the likes of Orval Faubus, George Wallace, and Strom Thurmond. The only trouble was that Marshall intends to engrave this discrimination into our Bill of Rights and preclude perhaps a generation of more tolerate and enlightened citizenry from ever having equal rights – rights that are now guaranteed in The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, South Africa, Canada, Massachusetts - plus a myriad of other countries and states that permit homosexual civil unions.

Marshall was asked several times to divulge his motives – but I don’t question them, I believe he really does have an internal definition of marriage – the “Leave it to Beaver” type of the 1950’s. He seems to have little appreciation for the fact that marriage has changed - from women being mere chattel, the possession of men, and under their absolute control – to today, where in America women have the vote, equal rights, and equal status in relationships. And a realization that marriage is an equality between two people who are attracted to each other, who love each other, and who want to share a life together – whether they are heterosexual or homosexual.

And in recent decades, the status of gays and lesbians has also changed as the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and even the World Health Organization – all conclude that homosexuality is not chosen and that it is a normal and natural variation of the human sexual orientation.

But the 800 pound gorilla in the room was conveniently avoided – the ickyness of gay sex – the sodomy, the anal, the oral – uggg. But to educate those who may not know, heterosexual oral and/or anal sex is also sodomy – and our esteemed legislators have for years taken their oath of office to uphold the laws of Virginia, including the felony laws against heterosexual oral and/or anal sex – which according to Kinsey and many other studies, is rather prevalent in the heterosexual community. Either we have the most virtuous missionary position only set of legislators to ever exist – or we have a hell of a lot of hypocritical legislators – you chose.

Thanks to the university for providing this debate – it was actually longer than the actual hearing held earlier this year in Marshall’s committee on the marriage amendment – a hearing that was adroitly and suddenly called just as the Legislature convened and was spirited off to a full vote in the also Republican controlled House of Delegates, where to vote against marriage would have looked like voting against mom, flag, and apple pie – gee, the tyranny of the majority.

Vote NO on November 7th.

How Should a Christian Vote On the Virginia Marriage Amendment?

2006-10-22T02:18:00.000-04:00

Remember that Nazi Germany was a Christian country, that the KKK was a Christian organization, that the Spanish Inquisition was Christian, that our Christian Congress failed in fifty successive attempts to give women suffrage, that it was Christian preachers in our country that supported segregation and fought against interracial marriage.

Will the Christians of those times be able, before God, at their own judgment, be able to argue that they only did what they were told, what their leaders told them was defensible?

The Nazis used their anti Semitic laws as a political ploy to play on the fears and prejudices of the German people. Today, in America, more subdued, but in a similar vein, politicians are using fear and underlying prejudice to tap into the psyche of the electorate to enact anti homosexual laws that are sweeping across our country.

Just as Jews were held accountable for the failings in prewar Germany, homosexuals are today being blamed for the demise of marriage in America – where now half of all marriages end in divorce. Any rational person would fail to see the connection, but somehow this strategy is working – 20 states have amended their constitutions to forever prevent homosexual families from ever having the civil recognition, rights, and benefits routinely afforded to heterosexual couples.

This comes at a time when 70% of all young people support equal rights for gays and lesbians.

This comes at a time when medicine and science conclude that one’s sexual preference is as innate and as natural as being left handed or right handed – it is a part of the variation in the human species that God apparently imparted in His creation. In fact, science has now observed homosexuality in over 1500 species in nature.

At the age of 63 and being gay, I know that I never chose my sexual orientation – did you choose yours? And I also know that I, like you, want to be treated equally, live a decent and productive life, be law abiding, and make a positive difference in the world through my life. I am no different than you in these things. And I know that I would not wish the discrimination, bias, and prejudice that sexual orientation has brought to my life, to be extended to generations that follow.

I ask you to vote on November 7th, to exercise your civil right and responsibility, and to vote NO on the marriage amendment. I trust that you will make this decision out of your common sense, your God given rational thought, the facts, and out of a realization of accountability for your actions. It may seem unimportant to you – but it is immensely important to the approximately 250,000 gay and lesbians families, their children - and to those gay and lesbian Virginians of future generations. Please be informed before you enter the voting booth – please consider the implication that for the first time in our state’s history, that we in 2006 are about to amend our Bill of Rights – that we are for the first time about to amend our constitution to deliberately discriminate. On November 7th we Virginians can show we are a better people. Please vote NO.

In Defense of Mark Foley - Where to Draw the Line

2006-10-04T14:34:00.000-04:00

Maybe I’m just a bit thick, but I don’t quite get this Foley hoopla. Not from the right, not from the left, not from the media. Of course the actions of Foley were inappropriate. But compared to what? Tell me, why does this so catch the American imagination? Why is this something, like the Michael Jackson trial, seemingly titillating and magnetic, while at the same time intuitively abhorrent?

And why is this destined to become a footnote of history? It is a three to four week media feeding frenzy in the making.

And it detracts from far more important actual real time news, such as: the war (both of them), illegal immigration, social security and tax reform, jobs, environment, health care and education.

But how in our hypocritical national psyche are we immune to any of the other following real news events that also happened today – and just about every day?

➢ The barely nineteen year old American soldier in Iraq who is gunned down today by a 16 year old Sunni kid hiding behind a stone wall?

➢ The 14-year-old girl in Darfur who is raped today – for the ninth time?

➢ The 15 year old working a 12-hour day in an Asian factory where he makes pennies a day, turning out crap that is sold at Wal-Mart?

➢ The three year old who won’t get adopted today by a screened responsible loving gay couple, or ever have the opportunity of loving parents and a sense of family, because homophobia prevents this adoption?

➢ The nine year old in a Pakistani Islamic madrassa reciting over and over, to memory, the entire Koran … in an environment of indoctrination of hate for things Western, the materialism, the arrogance of power, the perverse excesses, the corrupt leaders of the West.

➢ The six-year-old Nicaraguan whose father works long and hard days picking coffee beans to support his family of four at a subsistence level, so you could have your $4.00 cafe latte each morning?

➢ The eleven year old boy who is hacked by machete to death by roaming militias in the Congo – just one more in the millions that have so far died in this the “out of sight” genocide of this generation. “The United Nations recounts three to four million victims. People are dying because of deprivation and violence. Pregnant women are cut open and the fetuses are stabbed with bayonets. Young women are raped, their vaginas filled with pigment and then they are buried alive. Girls become pregnant, are infected with AIDS and are forced to bear the child of the aggressor. Men are tortured and killed. Babies and small children end up in the latrines. Youngsters die in the flames of villages burnt to the ground. Hospitals and schools are demolished with intent. A completely innocent civilian population lives and suffers under a monstrous terror and the world keeps silent.”

I just must be thick; I just don’t get it. Not defending Foley; just questioning America, and what seems to grab our common attention..

Senator, What About The Separation of Church and State?

2006-09-25T18:10:00.000-04:00

How it not a violation of law for a dozen or so black ministers to call a press conference today at Brown’s Island, and with Senator George Allen, both endorse the upcoming marriage amendment vote AND stand before the press and endorse Senator George Allen in his senate race against Jim Webb?

How blatant does this have to become before the tax-exempt status of these churches are at risk?

I follow some Virginia conservative blogs, and because of that I got wind of George Allen’s news conference this morning at Brown’s Island.

It was scheduled for 10:00AM and I got there early. I went out of curiosity, I had seen Allen in person only twice before and as this was to be a news event following a prayer breakfast, I was wondering if this was to be about the marriage amendment. There were four TV stations and half dozen reporters, but except for me; I was not able to identify a single individual citizen who was at the event.

Allen arrived with about a dozen or so ministers all with Vote “YES” brightly posted on their lapels. All except two of the ministers were black. After the introductions, George Allen spoke about his support for his four “F’s” and his support of family values and the need for this amendment.

As he ended his remarks, and not knowing if there was going to be an opportunity for questions, I called out from the midst of reporters, “Senator, what about the separation of church and state?”

Senator Allen turned to me and for some minutes professionally gave his talking points about how this wasn’t contradictory to separation of church and state, while I stood there stiffened by my rising sense of the right of freedom of speech. Two of the ministers stepped in and were more defensive and outraged.

The press was noticeably irritated at me. And although I stayed around for some time after Allen had left, not one reporter asked me who I was or what my issue was.

I stood on the edge of the circle of reporters after the event and overheard their questions and his response. At one point he threw out a few names of football players from his father’s former Redskins team. I caught the name of Jerry Smith, celebrated tight end back in the 70’s.

I smiled to myself as I had dated a young man in Philadelphia at the same time Jerry Smith was also dating him. Jerry later died of AIDS after living a duplicitous double life and never admitting he was gay.

I walked up to two of the ministers and told them I too was a Christian and we had a heated discussion where I was essentially told I would go to hell. I kept my cool and told them that with my God given mind, I could interpret the Bible by myself, keeping in mind the times and context in which it was written, and still not lose the essential message of love and non judgmental behavior. I said how could they explain to St. Peter that some orphans were not able to have the opportunity of loving caring parents because of their homophobia. I was told that I need to worry about St. Peter myself.

My sense was that using their pastoral advice, as justification, would hardly be a pass for me into the pearly gates.

And leaving I was wishing I had asked the question to George Allen that was really on mind.

“Senator Allen – I know your position on gay marriage, civil unions, gay adoption, even gays serving openly in the military. What I want to know is what is your vision for gays in Virginia in the future. Should they go through conversion therapy? Should they flee the state to places where their equality is guaranteed and where they are equally accepted? Or should they just slink further back into the closets of anonymity and personal pain?”

But I guess I was lucky to have gotten out my nine-word question at all.

Come On America – Where Is Your Common Sense?

2006-09-23T12:33:00.000-04:00

Just watched a news segment on CNN about bio terrorism possibilities on our food crop farms. An “expert” feigns concern over the accessibility of spinach fields from a public road and has the temerity to recommend that such fields be fenced and monitored by camera. And he then turns to a heftily chained and padlocked irrigation pump, frets over how easy it would be to bypass this security and contaminate a whole field.

For heavens’ sake – how alarmist can the media get? How disruptive of our free and open society will events, less threatening to the average American than a lightning strike, become? Can anyone in their 60’s, as I am, not look back to the good ole days when we never even locked our front door, had no idea where our kids were roaming (and learning about life and about risk taking), and certainly not concerned that someone was about to steal our identity, or put anthrax in our junk mail.

We all know that good news is not news – only the horrific, scandalous, and shocking can claim the attention and ratings that “news” is now required in order to compete.

The result? Well part of the result is a world more and more becoming a world of “us” and “them”. A world divided between good and evil, between liberal and conservative, between Christian and Muslim, between red states and blue states. Moderation is an increasingly muffled call crowded out by strident yelling from opposing extremes. And we are all the less for it.

And creating two terrorists for every one we kill doesn’t seem to be an answer either. Until we as a people begin to have more understanding, more facts, more empathy, more tolerance – then we just continue to coalesce into extremes. We will not deal with causes but with results, not with symptoms but with full-blown conflict. My two cents worth.

George W. Wants To Eliminate Inheritance Taxes

2006-09-23T08:31:00.000-04:00

It seems that George Bush believes that taking away the privilege of passing on great wealth from generation to generation -- that to somehow impinge on this fortunate one percent of our wealthiest -- would bring a halt to investment in new enterprise, stifle entrepreneurship, and disturb the foundations of capitalism. And that he believes that this billionaire class is the wellspring of the American economy

It is significant that billionaires such as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and George Soros disagree and oppose the elimination of the death tax.

I say Mr. Bush is merely catering to his patrician roots and to his moneyed supporters, and has not an iota of interest in the fairness to all Americans or to the growing divide between rich and poor.

And the Karl Rove type of disingenuous propaganda that says that elimination of the ”death tax” or the reinstatement of the inheritance tax, would destroy small business, destroy sub chapter “S” corporations, destroy family farms, has somehow become more universally accepted mantra. The truth is, passing a few million dollars to the next generation is not what this is about, and such inheritance is protected now and in the future. What George Bush wants is to protect the passing of billions from one generation to another within a family.

His argument that businesses need to know into the future, what are to be the tax policies of government, is correct. Businesses do need to know this to plan properly – as they have the foresight, apparently that government does not, to look far ahead and to plan for a spectrum of possible scenarios. Yet they, and we, need fair and transparent and user friendly taxes as well – and the Bush administration, in six years, seems not to have made a step towards an overhaul of our mess of a tax system, and its attendant bureaucracy, inefficiency, and complexity.

The continued passing of obscene amounts of inherited family fortunes into perpetuity is unwise, unfair, and is unhealthy to the concepts of individual equality and opportunity in America.

Individuals born into inordinate wealth have little incentive to rise to their own potential, and are too tempted to live lives of self-indulgence, and to develop misguided attitudes of superiority.

Wealth equates to power and the networking of power, in which rest the seeds of corruption and abuse of power, with the attendant denial of freedoms to those of considerably less wealth.

Society might be better served and grow towards a more universal health by a tilt towards egalitarianism rather than away from it.

Continued drift of the wealthy away from the poor can not be sustained in the long run and will inevitably lead to unrest, social disturbance, diminished motivation and individual satisfaction, and finally to revolution - possibly violent.

Individual and family wealth can only occur in America due to the benefits and opportunities this democracy offers, and to the free enterprise system that has been put in place. Thus those who accumulate great wealth under this system can be argued to owe the government a disproportionate tax for this privilege. Great wealth is only made on the backs of many, many individuals who have worked no less, sacrificed no less, and struggled no less than the wealthy individuals who benefit from those efforts. No wealth is created in a vacuum but in the context of a complex and interdependent society. A compassionate and fair society recognizes that the good fortune of some is to an extent the effect of good fortune, special privilege, the accident of birth, and the contributions of others much less rewarded. Certainly at death, an individual so fortunate in wealth should have that wealth largely distributed back to the community.

Thoughts From a Recovering Southern Baptist

2006-09-23T05:08:00.000-04:00

There is an interesting snippet and comments from Richard Dawkins new book The God Delusion on the BBC website, and I highly recommend that you give it the two or three minutes it takes to read. It follows a growing concern about religious fundamentalism in the world – in Muslim countries and in Christian countries -- and is certainly worth considering in these times where disparate religious armies again arise to spread terror or abuse in the name of God.

The Internal Inconsistency of the Righteous Religious Right

2006-09-21T07:11:00.000-04:00

With the increased intrusion of the religious right into civic government, now is the time to ask who these people are. I suggest that they are authoritatively controlled conservatives who are basically hypocrites.

Hypocrisy: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion

Is a Christian someone who tries to model their life after Jesus and who asks when making their choices in life, “What choice do I believe Jesus would make”? Should a Christian use their belief in the example of Jesus as a guide to how to live their life?

I ask the readers and posters visiting this blog to respond to the following hypothetical situations and answer as to how they believe Jesus would have them respond.

1) Would you, just after marriage, but before choosing to procreate, choose instead to adopt one of the millions of children in the world who otherwise would not have a chance at a healthy and happy life, with loving supportive Christian parents?

2) You are at a Starbucks and buying a five-dollar café latte, when you see a starving five year old lying on the sidewalk outside the window, who could be saved from starving by just one dollar of the money you spend each day on a latte? Is the fact that this child isn’t on the sidewalk but is out of sight of you and your gated community materialistic life, sufficient for you to not consider all the children who have starved to death that you, by making simple and easy spending choices, could have saved?

3) You support your government and its practice of dropping massive bombs from 30,000 feet in Iraq, where collateral civilian damage is probable and expected. Such that tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children are horribly killed.

4) What if the final choice of executing someone in your state were your personal decision. The prisoner is someone who is caged and is reasonably prevented from ever harming anyone for the rest of their life, and who may find redemption and come to Christ and save his soul should he not be executed

5) Children are born with a blank slate – they learn as they grow and are educated and experience life. Public education is a way our society insures that all children are exposed to and taught, such that they will be good and prepared citizens, and equipped to reasonably handle the life they will be confronted with as an adult. At what point should this growing child discover the facts and realities of human sexuality and reproduction? And where should this information come from?

6) A carefully screened gay Christian couple wants to adopt an orphan from Darfur who otherwise would not be adopted and would probably die horribly. Would you prevent this adoption and the opportunity to have the love and support of Christian parents?

I would hope that these narrow-minded and judgmental and arrogant hypocrites back off from crossing the bright line between religion and government, that earlier wiser Virginians were so instrumental in creating in our state and federal constitutions, and instead, start questioning their own leadership -- and begin to instead take responsibility for their own spiritual path. After all, I don’t think St. Peter will accept your argument that James Dobson, or Jerry Falwell told you to do it.

That’s what I believe Jesus would have you do.

Allen Vs. Webb Debate In Fairfax

2006-09-20T11:20:00.000-04:00

The debate between George Allen and Jim Webb moderated on last Monday in Fairfax, Virginia by George Stephanopoulos is available for viewing on this LINK.

A Call To Moderate and Tolerant Christians

2006-09-19T12:54:00.000-04:00

Learned, scholarly, contemplative, and qualified Christian theologians have differing interpretations, even today, of various parts of the Bible. However, the overriding and foundation message that came from Jesus is more readily held in congruence. To imagine that the Bible, some text written a considerable time after Jesus, is inerrant and inspired, while not considering that God has continued to inspire men as to his will, is to diminish and second guess God.

And it would seem hypocritical to so attack homosexuality, using one’s interpretation of rigid reading, while at the same time not rigidly adhere to ALL of scripture (many examples are available, may I only give Sabbath laws as one). I suggest Matthew 7:1-3 be considered.

“Biblical scholarship can also be "critical" of the New Testament texts themselves in ways that the "historical-critical" model did not allow. It can be challenged morally, religiously, and theologically for its adequacy, consistency, and cogency. Do the texts of the New Testament, when taken at face value, support a structure of society in which women are oppressed? Such texts can best be criticized, not by constructing an imaginary, alternative history of early Christianity in which women enjoyed equality, but on the basis of theological convictions that God's Spirit has brought to maturity within the church. Does the New Testament's inherited monotheism bring with it a virus of intolerance toward diversity that has infected Christian attitudes and behavior? These texts can best be criticized, not by inventing a history of Christianity that was non-Jewish, but by invoking other moral and religious principles within the text to counter the virus of intolerance.”

Personal interpretation of scripture, in conflict with other theologians, may influence people in their civic sphere, to further marginalization and discrimination of gays and lesbians by our government. And I do not see it as helpful in our democracy to have matters of civil rights decided on this basis.

One must ask how Christian is it for political opportunists to use an amendment proposal against a minority, but not aggressively address the divorces that rip apart half of our families and cause untold damage to their children? I submit they do it because they can and for political gain, and not for rational or honorable reasons.

Why I Won’t Vote For George Allen

2006-09-19T06:24:00.000-04:00

Not too long ago I returned from 8 ½ years overseas and back to Virginia where I grew up, went to college, and where I hadn’t lived since 1968. It was like returning to a foreign country and there is still a bit of acclimation going on with me. But with far too much time on my hands, and a growing interest in the political dynamics of the region, I began a tentative journey into Virginia’s politics.

I went to the Shad Planking in Wakefield to see George Allen and Jim Webb in person, I attended local town hall meetings, I went to our local high school to see George Allen speak, I went to a local college to both see Jim Webb and to stand up and pose a question to him, I watched far too much C-SPAN, and my TV is routinely turned to any political pundit show that happens to be on – and I began to follow the emerging array of Virginia political blogs.

When I left the states for assignment abroad I was basically aligned to the Republican philosophy. I tended to vote Republican, had started and run a small manufacturing business, and considered myself fiscally conservative and moderate on social issues. I had worked in the community on several boards, volunteered in the African-American community, and assisted to establish primary care in black neighborhoods in Delaware where I was living and working after grad school. My neighbor was then Republican governor Mike Castle and I volunteered in his campaign.

I’m obviously not a knee-jerk liberal Democrat. However, I do not think George Allen is the better choice in November for our senator and these are my reasons:

• I fail to see the qualities of leadership or the wisdom and broad perspective that I associate with the qualities of a U.S. Senator to be characteristic of Allen. I believe Virginia deserves better. I am not at all uncomfortable with Republican Senator John Warner, although we differ on many issues, he is a statesman and a man of uncommon wisdom and integrity, someone I believe is in the tradition of great Virginia senators. Allen is no Warner. And our country’s problems require better.

• In person, my impression of Allen is that he is a consummate retail politician who has a practiced, almost slick style, and who is often condescending or patronizing to any opposition. I feel he is good at appealing to the lower common denominator of the electorate.

• I am not so disturbed by his “macaca” slip, or his youthful attachment to the Confederate flag – but these isolated associations are troubling in that they buttress a sense I intuit of him from observing him on the two occasions I saw him in public. I also heard from a local convenience store employee an anecdotal story of his treatment of his daughter while in the store. One can only make a composite picture of someone from what information one has, and I would dismiss it all if it didn’t just become reinforcing.

• I am beginning to learn a little about the good ole’ boy Republican political machine in Virginia, and see Allen as just too cozy with them, and with his appearing to be just a rubber stamp for the Republican Party, rather than an independent thinker with the best interests of the nation and Virginia at heart. And it is crystal clear that he sees himself as grooming for the 2008 Presidential candidacy, more than looking forward to another term in the Senate.

• I am concerned about the drift of rather righteous religious groups into the machinery of politics, the use of church pulpits to encourage political agenda, and the crossing of the bright line between religion and government. And to see that George Allen is being showcased as one of the featured speakers at the upcoming religious right wing Family Research Council convention along side James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Anne Coulter, is particularly disturbing. Either he is catering to these people or he is actually aligned with their policies - - and I find either to be far too uncomfortable.

• And as to Jim Webb: This is a humble renaissance man of uncommon experience and qualifications. He served courageously in war, and admirably in peace. He has the introspection of an author and journalist, and the empathy and insight that implies. He is moderate and thoughtful, intelligent and pragmatic. And he genuinely has his roots in the soil of Virginia’s middle class. I believe he is more attuned to the common sense, realistic approach to problems that represent most Virginians.

I am but a layman and a naïve political observer, but I truly see a marked difference between these two candidates. And given the opportunity to make a similar comparison, I believe most Virginians would agree with me.

Monday's Debate in Fairfax - Allen vs. Webb and Moderated by George Stephanopoulos

2006-09-19T02:41:00.000-04:00

For those who missed it -- the third debate between George Allen and Jim Webb, that was held yesterday (Monday) in Fairfax and moderated by George Stephanopoulos, will be rebroadcast today (Tuesday) at 5:52PM on C-SPAN.

Besides you political Junkies, all Virginians have a civic duty to know the candidates before the November election.

A Conversation With The Religious Right

2006-09-18T02:21:00.000-04:00

As we, Virginia voters, approach the November marriage amendment ballot issue, I have attempted to have a discussion in my postings online with the religious right.

I’ve offered, time and again, to have a conversation that might lead to a mutual understanding – and time after time they only repeat mantra, like being stuck in a groove of an old vinyl record.

Yes, I do hear God’s voice in the Bible. And I also hear God’s voice outside the Bible -- to not would be to diminish God, to suggest that prayer is only a communication without a reply, that there are no other places in experience where God’s voice would not resonate with my moral fiber.

1 Corinthians 13:11-12 "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

To live my life in the context of my childhood understanding, and, now as a man, continue to look unquestioning to authoritative parent figures for my choices, would be to deny my responsibility for finding my own way in life, and in the finding of God’s truth that resonates with my own God given reason and moral compass. And, for me, discoverable truth is also God’s truth.

This is why my acceptance of scientifically proven fact trumps superstition and pseudo science. This is why I defer to scientific and medical conclusion over tradition, over speculation, over bias.

For me this does not conflict with God’s will, it only increases my love and amazement for Him and what He has created.

Allen and Webb on Meet the Press

2006-09-17T10:22:00.000-04:00

This morning George Allen and Jim Webb, in their run for U.S. Senator from Virginia, debated on Meet the Press.

This debate will be rebroadcast, and for those Virginia voters who missed it, I strongly recommend that you catch this rebroadcast tonight at 10:00PM on NBC – regardless of your political persuasion.

George Allen mentioned in the debate that Iraqis have had four national elections with 70% turnout and in the face of the personal threat that such participation entailed. At our last Virginia election we had an embarrassing turnout of 3 ½% of registered voters (and as an aside, administering this election cost my county of Chesterfield $80,000 – and only 3,000 votes were cast).

I did disagree with Allen’s remark that the Iraqis are “like babies” in that they must be nurtured into democracy and in the running of their country. Iraq is part of a civilization that goes back thousands of years, and until our invasion, had administrative professionals who were capable of managing the infrastructure of the country. I submit that the issue is resolution of internecine violence and hatred that has also existed over a long period of time and which will most likely exist for a long time into the future. And which will have to eventually be settled regionally.

In the high minded remarks both candidates made to their commitment to women’s rights and African-American rights, as a gay person I kept substituting “gay and lesbian rights” in my mind for every assertion they made, and wonder how far these candidates are actually willing to go to support gay civil rights -- such statements, that bias towards women is “demeaning, and disrespectful”, and that we are "the land of opportunity” and that all should be included as “part of team America”. Webb does support civil unions and does oppose the marriage amendment, as opposed to Allen who supports the amendment and does not support even civil unions or gay marriage. One area where Allen seems to differ from George Bush who has indicated he could support civil unions.

Virginia Marriage Amendment

2006-09-16T03:05:00.000-04:00

If two people have an authentic and mutual and deep and abiding genuine love for each other, such that they wish to commit to each other and care and love each other “until death do they part”. Then that is wonderful and welcomed and sanctified by the church and afforded special rights and benefits by the state.

Unless those two individuals happen to be of the same sex.

This is a subject that intelligent and fair and thoughtful, and even good people of faith, are wrestling with in many western countries. And in some, civil unions and same sex marriage has been adopted – for example, countries in Europe, Canada, and in Massachusetts in our country.

Good and reasonable, even deeply religious people, are divided on this. There are good and reasonable and deeply religious people who can and do fall on both sides of this issue.

This, in a way, is a confluence of several very basic and deeply held feelings – the idea that although individuals are inherently different, that they are to be treated equally; that individuals have reasonable rights to live their lives without interference by others’ religious beliefs; that there are long held community traditions about marriage; that the desire to be bonded together in a loving mutually committed relationship is a characteristic of being human.

And perhaps overlying all of this is that in recent times there is a new realization and new information about sexuality.

With this in mind, can we ask each other how appropriate is it to decide now, in the midst of this flux, and emerging understanding, to make such a long standing and fundamentally basic change to our agreement among one another – our Bill of Rights?

I have asked this many times and I ask it again now. Try and compose an explanation in the simplest and clearest of language, such that it could easily be communicated to the average Virginia high school student who will be living under this community policy, just why is this amendment so important now and what common good will it produce for Virginia?

A Fun Test - Are You Liberal Or Conservative?

2006-09-15T07:13:00.000-04:00

Click on the above image and it will expand to a large grid. And from top to bottom are gradations of AUTHORITARIAN to LIBERTARIAN personalities and left to right are LEFT leaning to RIGHT leaning personalities, or perhaps better phased, liberal to conservative. On the grid are 66 fairly well known individuals that I have attempted to place on the grid relative to each other and relative to these two dimensions of personality.

Now there is an online test where you can (for free) test where you land on a similar type grid. It only takes a few minutes and is easy to do and I think pretty interesting. So, if you are curious about how you might score, I recommend you try it.

Ever since this red/blue political divide came into focus, and especially since it has become a part of the poplar lexicon, I’ve been captivated by the question of, ”What Is the underlying causation that steers one person to be an authoritarian right winger and another to become a left leaning libertarian” – often within the same family?

And I was further spurred in my interest when recently John Dean, the former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, came out with his book, “Conservatives Without Conscience”. An unsettling notion is that perhaps some 27% of the population are identified as “authoritatively controlled conservatives” who for yet to be understood psychological reasons, even as adults, look to “father figures” they trust and respect to lead them to life choices and conclusions. There is actually an emerging field of scholarly study devoted to this area of psychology.

With a layman’s interest in history I tend to analogize what is happening today in America, in American politics, and in the ascendancy of the religious right into politics, to other social and political movements in other places and other times – and the comparison in unsettling. It suggests to me that, particularly in times where people begin to feel less secure (e.g. fear of no Social Security safety net, increased personal debt, attacks on our homeland, a tilt in power to the executive, soaring energy and medical costs, exporting of jobs, etc., etc.) that a drift to a charismatic alpha male is more probable – especially for “authoritatively controlled conservatives”. And energized by socially explosive issues such as illegal immigration, gay rights, reproduction rights, and similar other socially conservative hot buttons, this electorate might be marched lock step to the polls.

Well similar things have happened before – by the way, I’d love to hear back if you disagree with my placements on the above grid or have any suggestions for other inclusions.

Hooray –The Marriage Amendment Is Going To Pass!!

2006-09-14T02:20:00.000-04:00

Check out the most recent Survey USA poll showing the amendment expected to pass by an overwhelming margin. So with that in mind I thought I’d suggest some of the benefits that will now accrue to the Old Dominion on the verge of it’s 400th year celebration.

What are the possible long-term implications to the State of Virginia?

• Some elderly gays may not get survivor benefits

• Some people or property may be injured in hate crimes, as fringe groups misconstrue this as permission

• Some hospital visitation may be more difficult

• Some estate fights may result in decisions against a life long same sex spouse

• This may signal permission for increased pressure for the religious right's social agendas

• Some gays may leave the state and break their ties to family and community

• Some businesses may leave and some may not arrive

• Some children may not get adopted or ever know loving parents

• Some negative effect on statistics on gay health may happen such as suicide, increase in STD’s, as gays feel pushed more into the closet and less towards monogamous relationships

• Some gay partners will be excluded from health care or other benefits – particularly those associated with public sector jobs

• Lawyers may benefit over an increase in lawsuits and an increase in contract preparation fees, in an attempt to legally afford gay couples the benefits and protections of marriage, which coincidentally and hypocritically the change in the Bill of Rights will now say explicitly is prohibited.

Now of course this is just a lot of what-ifing, and Virginia will look the same on November 8th that it looked like on November 6th.

But, I’m, curious, and I ask the religious right advocates of this amendment, after you quit gloating, tell me – what exactly have you won? Will this make you more popular in Heaven? Will God give a special medal for your achievement? How will your life and the lives of average Virginians be better off in such a way that this amendment was required in the public common good? Give me your list of the expected or even possible benefits that this will have achieved for Virginia?

Other than energizing authoritatively controlled conservatives to lock step to the polls to vote for George Allen.

p.s. – I don’t mean to discourage the courageous opponents of this amendment – I do hope though that this is a wake up call that you better have a better strategy for the next eight weeks than you’ve had to date.

When Do The Attack Ads Begin?

2006-09-13T08:55:00.000-04:00

As we approach the November election, isn’t it time for a Rove type attack ad or smear campaign to start against Jim Webb? How are Republicans going to retain their hold on government without this tried and true strategy?

Remember these classics?

A whisper campaign about how Ann Richards was a lesbian and trying to stage a covert takeover of the Texas government by appointing "hundreds" of gays and lesbians into government.

Bush wins the Texas governorship

Ads attacking Max Cleland’s patriotism – check out this attack ad

Cleland lost

Whisper campaign in South Carolina during the primaries that John McCain was mentally ill from Vietnam and that he had illegitimate black children.

Bush wins the Republican nomination

Smear tactics against John Kerry attacking Kerry’s Vietnam War record.

Bush wins his second presidential term

Now Allen should be a shoo-in as only 3 ½ percent of the eligible voters even turned out for this year's Virginia Democratic primary.

After all, the electorate is far too apathetic and stupid to actually navigate their way through the issues and the positions, policies, and character of all the political candidates, as that would take away from their “American Idol” TV time.

Still, in the spirit of fully successful high school type politics, I look forward to the focus group tested TV ads that Allen is certain to run (gee he has almost 12 million to spend, and less need to save any for a dimming presidential run).