I found this, part of an old public service comic book ad, on a blog called Polite Dissent which, despite the name, isn't usually particularly political. More like the intersection of comic books and media with medicine.



The ad (you can see the whole thing by clicking the link) is from 1952. The statement is still true and relevant, and there are still crotchety old men arguing for strict individual independence because they're cheap and want to hang onto every "red cent" they own.

Personally, I think when it comes to matters of patriotic duty, you rarely go wrong siding with Superman.

Past Posts (Personal, not Political) can be found at The Neon Nurse's Charting This past week it was mostly about car stuff and the dog's operation, although today I shared some thoughts about racism.

As you probably already know, Republican State Senator Dave Schultheis shocked the public last week by accidentally saying something he really meant out loud.

He explained he could not vote in favor (a second time) of a bill that would require HIV testing for pregnant women, because it would help them escape from the consequences of their sexual promiscuity. Well, it wouldn't help them so much as their BABIES, but see, dealing with a sick and probably dying child would teach the mother and her family valuable lessons about the right way to act.

What Sen. Schultheis has done, aside from earning the scorn and contempt of anyone with even a modicum of decent human feeling, is give us a sterling example of why separation of church and state is such a good idea.   Read More »

No, no one I know is getting married. I just ran across an interesting link to a page for some people who want to re-start the Whig party. Interesting stuff!

http://modernwhig.org/

This could be an idea whose time has come. I've seen quite a few online laments in the past few days from Republicans who feel that the Radical Right has swiped the party they thought they knew out from under them. I can understand them not feeling ready to switch over to the Dem side. So maybe a new centrist party is the answer.

What would be needed to make that work, of course, is a radical change in how elections are run (and good luck with THAT). It could be done, though. Ken Gordon from here in Colorado proposed a change only a few years ago that would work well. It's called run-off balloting.

What that means is that voters could add a second choice to their ballot. Let's say in a pretend race we have the A, B, C, D and E parties represented by candidates.

We'll call A and B the long-time traditional parties, who used to be the only games in town. But the new C, D and E parties have strong core groups of supporters and a lot of fresh ideas, plus it's something new so they are getting a lot of media coverage.

So when the votes are tallied, wow, shock! NO ONE got over 50%, which is the minimum required to win outright. It came out like this A: 30%, B: 29%, C: 9%, D: 12% and E: 20%.

The lowest number of votes were for the C candidate, so he's out. Now the second choice votes of that candidate's supporters come into play. They are added to the totals of the votes for the other four candidates. Now the count is A: 31%, B: 30%, D: 12% and E: 27%.

Still no 50%, so we go again, now taking off the D candidate and counting the second choice votes. That brings us to A: 34%, B: 32% and E: 34%. Wow, getting exciting now, eh?

B is now eliminated. (Let me pause a second to say this is an over-simplified explanation, because some of the D 2nd votes might have been for the C candidate in the second round, and some of the B's 2nd votes might have been for Ds and Cs. So it would take a lot of figuring and rules to work out the details, and probably computers as well, and...yeah. Plus it would come down to individual votes rather than percentages. But let's press on, shall we?)

Basically whichever candidate, A or E, gets at least 16% of B's voters 2nd choice votes gets boosted to the magic 50% number and wins the election. Since A and B have historically been rivals, E stands a very good chance of being the winner!

Like I said, a highly simplified version of the process. I probably won't see it in my lifetime, but who knows? Fun to think about!

Wow, Betsy Markey, our new CD-4 rep, is really maximizing her Colorado time while Congress is on break. During her visit here to Lamar today, she said she'd been in La Junta the day before, and in Campo this morning. Next up were Eads, Kit Carson, and Fort either-Collins-or-Morgan...and that's all TODAY! Seriously, if you notice a crowd forming in your town, wander over there. It could well be Betsy holding a meeting!

There was a good-sized, varied crowd in attendance here today. Our local elected officials were hoping to hear good news about stimulus funds coming our way. Betsy did know of one big chunk of change, $1.3mil for the four Prowers County school districts, mainly for Title 1 and special ed. That sum is in addition to $$ to be named later for school construction and upgrade projects! Other subjects discussed included credit card regulation for both consumers and small businesses, the Farm Bill, our county museum expansion project, water (always!), and whether the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) will be renewed. People pointed out that in some places around here on Tuesday, when the wind was blowing 40-50mph, there were blackout conditions near acreage that had been recently plowed. If farmers and ranchers can't afford to keep their land unplowed and in grass, we could see a quick return to the bad old days of the Dust Bowl.

Betsy was only flummoxed by one question --- mine, and that was only for a moment. Being well-acquainted with the 'only so many hours in a day' problem, and guessing that every meeting Betsy has attended and will attend would just keep the requests piling up, what I wanted to know was how those of us who want to see progress happen could best join in the effort. What could WE do to help HER?

"No one has asked me that before," Betsy said. But she's a quick-thinker, and came up with some suggestions. We can provide information on the problems we want to see addressed, by sending it in to her office in DC by email, OR by visiting one of the new regional offices she is setting up around CD-4. Due to Federal rules they can't accept volunteer help from the general public, BUT if high school or college students want to come help at the offices for school credit, that's a possibility.

After the meeting some of us went over to check out where Betsy's new Lamar office is going to be. It's a good space, right across the street from the Post Office and the SE Colorado Enterprise Development offices. I'm thinking this visit from Betsy is going to turn out to be the first of many!

Before he left for the bus to school this morning, MrMike woke me to remind me that Obama was going to be in Denver today. He was almost as excited about it as if he was going to be there himself.

When I (eventually) got up and turned on my computer, I checked Twitter, as I always do. One of the first things I noticed was @DenverChannel (7, The Denver Channel) tweeting that @speakercarroll (Colorado's Speaker of the House, Terrance Carroll) was livetweeting from the museum. So I jumped on to add him to my Following list.

DenverChannel also mentioned they had a live feed going at their site. For some reason, a live feed fascinates me like bubblewrap fascinates our cat Sandy. Not just because it comes in more reliably than regular TV on a day when the wind is blowing 40-50 mph. Yes, like today. But there is something about sitting here in my personal home spot with LIVE unfiltered camera feed RIGHT HERE on my personal screen that makes my inner geek squee uncontrollably. I almost feel like I could go outside and find a flying car parked in my driveway!

Not that I would flive it on a windy day like today.

So I sat here gawking and marveling at the shots of Air Force One (?) on the ground at Buckley, and the motorcade rolling off across the flat prairie like a modern wagon train. When they cut over to them getting onto Colorado Blvd near the I-70 exchange, I trilled to The Clone how amazing it was that the Prez and his crew were driving on the SAME STREETS I myself have driven on many, many times. I recognized the scenery, see?

OK, I'll try to calm down.

Of course there were a lot of speeches once it started. The text of those are posted all over already, so you can easily find them if you want to. I'll just hit some highlights.

MrMike will be very happy when I tell him one of the things VP Biden emphasized most was various kinds of rail improvements he hopes we will see come from the stimulus bill.

When it was finally Obama's turn to speak, he thanked all the Colorado pols. I thought it was funny when he said, "Mark Udall -- he's not here, but give him a big round of applause anyway."

Obama has good comedy instincts. He said it was nice to be back in Denver and deadpanned, "I was here last summer. We had a good time." The crowd didn't seem to be sure whether that was a joke or not. Obama had paused a little, as if waiting, but when there was no strong response he just smoothly moved on and got into his speech.

It probably won't get the play it deserves, for something that I think is pretty ground-breaking in terms of how We the People can interact with government, but Obama said we can expect to be able to hold our elected officials accountable at all levels by seeing exactly where all this money will be going, through the new link at Recovery.gov. I for one am bookmarking it. We'll see.

Again using the miracle of COMPUTERS!YAY! I watched the actual signing up close and personal. Obama wrote with one, picked up another from a tray, and grinned at the cameras, saying something about using ten pens. And he did. I'm kind of curious how that works. Does he just write a few letters with each one, or what? Must Google.

Afterwards we got to see him and Joe work the crowd a bit. I recognized Betsy Markey, our CD4 Congresswoman, and Gov. Bill Ritter, and maybe Jared Polis if that was him standing beside Betsy. There were several others I glimpsed that I think might know, but my doubt proves I am really not THAT much of a player in the big political picture.

OK, I have to get back to work trying to stimulate our personal economy now. These books won't wrap and mail themselves.

Just about the only thing in the news, seems like, is the caterwauling in Congress about what should or shouldn't be in the stimulus package they might or might not pass.

Quite a lot of the fuss seems to be coming from the R side of the aisle. Short version: They hate everything about Obama's version like poison, and anyone else who doesn't hate it just as much is failing to be bi-partisan.

As I have said before, I'm not an economist by any stretch of the imagination. But with my average grasp of simple logic, I can see that if, say, $16 mil is made available to SE Colorado to continue work on Highway 287, then there are going to be new jobs available for doing that work. There will be payments made to companies that sell concrete mix, and highway signs, and machinery. Those companies can pay their workers. Those folks, and the highway workers, and everyone else putting a hand to the task, can buy groceries for their families, and tires for their vehicles, and hard hats. And beer. The money will go spreading around and around that way, helping everybody. What does a tax cut do besides make people who are already in good shape smile even bigger? Beats me.   Read More »

Due to popular demand (WeatherDem, that means YOU!), I thought I would give a more detailed report on what I learned at the Rocky Mountain RootsCamp 2009 breakout session given by a representative of the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority. Whose name I foolishly did not write down. My bad.

   Read More »

I don't know why going away for a one day meeting wipes me out so much. I mean, it's mostly sitting, and I didn't even undersleep hardly at all. Yet here I am dragging through the day like a slugged slug.

It's lucky I did decide to go through my 'paper brain' and make lists of what I should be doing this week, or I would have TOTALLY forgotten that I am supposed to go to an interview tonight! I volunteered to be on the board of the Lamar Housing Authority when I read an article in the local paper lamenting that it couldn't even do business right now because someone moved away, leaving only two members of a five person board. Can't make quorum from that no matter what you do. So since I have SO MUCH Copious Spare Time, I filled out an application. Happily it seems like a fair number of others have too, so whether I get on or not, it will be okay.

The event I went up to Denver for was called Rocky Mountain RootsCamp, which is exactly what it sounds like, a daycamp for grass roots progressives. Unlike the day camp I remember attending as a Brownie, I did not come home with cash totaling twice my weekly allowance because some of the older Girl Scouts actually sleeping over paid me to collect them a bunch of caterpillars. Ahem. But I did come home with lots of interesting info and ideas. Got to learn about a new youth outreach video project, hear the report from the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority, which is doing a study on feasibility and costs for developing passenger rail in Colorado, and a bunch more. People can also spontaneously suggest sessions, and I was asked to help with one on how to use Twitter, which was gratifying but alarming. No one's phone caught fire or anything, though, so that was okay.

All in all, it was fun and informative, plus I got to catch up with a bunch of friends I don't get to see very often. I have a few pics, which I will try to process and post soon.

In national news, I was impressed all over the place today by getting an email from MyBarackObama.com. I am guessing they sent it out to everyone on the whole DNC mailing list, and theirs too. They want people to set up house parties this weekend to inform folks about what the Economic Stimulus Plan will be doing in their region. I did a little looking around, and found some Colorado groups were setting up theirs to be a part of their mandated county party Re-organizational meeting. That seemed like a heck of a good idea to me, so I set Prowers County up that way too.

It's just, WOW, you know? An administration that not only knows HOW to use modern communication venues, but is trying its best to use them to get the American Public active and involved in making things better! Pinch me, I gotta be dreamin' here!

Past Posts (Personal, not Political): This week on The Neon Nurse's Charting there...isn't much. Mainly those 25 Random Things everyone is probably sick of by now. But stop by if you want to.

One of the (few) things I've gotten done this morning so far today is to set up our county re-org meeting, something the state Dem party rules says must happen between Feb 1-15. This is where they elect officers and such. So if you have a hankering to get involved in your county party and encourage more leftward motion, it would be a good idea to go here and see when the meeting is scheduled that is relevant to your interests.   Read More »

I saw this great chart in a diary from Meteor Blades at Daily Kos:



Colorado tops the nation (at 39%) for number of women legislators (state level)!

Yes, we can do better. But for now, yay us!

Full story here.

As a mom and grandma, I try to set a good example for our young people by aspiring to the Responsible Adult Way in most if not all things. (And sometimes not quite getting there lets one show the good example of trying, trying again.) But I have to admit, this cartoon appeals to me.



Past Posts (Personal, not Political): This week on The Neon Nurse's Charting I painted my son's bed, saw my doc for routine jazz, put up a link to the German weathercat and got knocked down by Not-Our-Pup. Feel free to drop by and read, if you like.

I happened upon THIS very interesting story today.



The call has gone forth to those friends of mine likely to have access to a comix shop, and I hope to acquire one for my very own.

Yes, I am just that geeky.

Good luck finding one of YOUR own!

*sneaks in like a certain other fat, jolly old personage*

Sharing these just for fun:



I made that ornament at a Christmas Craft event.



Last panel of today's Derf-toon, but it says it all.

*sneaks away again*

Les MisObamas!



This video was the capper on a really good day. I bought a new t-shirt:



I got a lot of organizing done for our local New Voter Reg/Switch to Vote By Mail project, and in the mail I got two BIG packets of voter application forms from the SoS office!

I am prepared to be Unstoppable come Monday.

Wow, I really need to order some of those special days with the extra hours...I keep falling behind as new deadlines erupt!

Here's a bit of cool news I ran across today. A rancher from the endangered Pinon Canyon region, Cathy Mullins, has donated an acre of land on her historic ranch to help raise funds to keep fighting the threatened expansion of the Army's Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. If you don't recall the details on this horrible plan, no worries. Just click through HERE and browse through the tabs that explain what's at stake.

Then go buy your square inch of land, a bargain at only $10! Hey, maybe you will get one near mine!

I'm still working on pics I took in Denver. There is one mental image in particular that has stayed with me from the speech at Mile High Thursday night, but unfortunately it's not a moment I also captured with my camera.

You'll probably remember the one I mean, though, because it seems to have caught a lot of people's attention. I've seen it described as 'patio doors', and the clone said it made her think of the stained glass windows at a church. I'm talking about the part where Michelle and the girls join Obama on stage. They were standing outside a frame of panes, which was lit from the inside with a warm, golden glow.

I have no way of knowing if that look was part of the design plan or not, but I bet it was, because it worked so superbly well. We all know subconsciously what it would be like, to be inside the place that light is shining from. It would be cozy and warm. It would make us feel secure, happy and welcome.

It gives us the feeling that we don't have to worry any more. Everything will be all right now.

Daddy's home.

Hop on over to http://CodeNeonBlue.net to see!

It's a blast being here in The Big Tent!

I thought I would write a little clarifying post about what exactly I am doing up here in Denver during the DNC.

I'm not an actual Delegate -- I don't even play one on TV. I'm not one of the Official Credentialed State Bloggers, either. (For Colorado, that would be Square State, a site really worth your time if you are into Colorado-flavored political stuff.)

Where I AM credentialed is as a blogging member of The Big Tent. This is a HUGE two-story tent set up in the parking lot of the Alliance Center in Denver. Hundreds of bloggers from all over are going to use this as a base of operations, from the giant and world famous Daily Kos (also a Big Tent sponsor) to the tiny and unknown (like me). This is also the place I am volunteering. Happily, we have that all straightened out now....

Part of the reason the ProgressNow people decided to make The Big Tent is that they didn't want to see this going on in the streets of Denver:



From what I saw on Wednesday, I think they've got that action covered and then some.

(Very, very x-posted)

Turnout was huge here in Lamar for the "T. Boone Town Hall". The doors were to open at 11:30, but when I arrived at 11:40 I found disappointed townsfolk trudging away. The Elks Lodge was already full!

Knowing there is no such thing as no room for the media, I went on up the drive anyway, and attached myself to some other press folks heading in. Success!



Part of the reason it was so crowded is that word HAD gotten around, and people traveled in from Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico, as well as all over Colorado. Many of our elected officials showed up: Mark Udall, Wes McKinley, Buffie McFadyen, plus John Stulp (Colorado Ag Sec and a local boy), and a bunch of local politicians and candidates for office.


T. Boone Pickens and Mark Udall

Mr. Pickens' presentation was well-received by the crowd. Buffie McFadyen joked later that we should mark this day down in history because a crowd in Lamar applauded for Al Gore. It seemed to me that there was a sincere effort towards bipartisanship coming from both the podium and the audience, and for that alone I would give this new Pickens Plan tentative approval.

I will post more later tonight. I took a ton of pictures and notes because I want to do a good job recapping the pros and cons of this project. But today is also the last day to register Mike for high school, and later we're having our last meeting to finalize plans for the Sand and Sage Fair parade, which is happening Saturday. So I have to do a fade to black for now....