Thinking Outside the Box

Last Sunday, December 16, 2018, the Sunday New York Times published an inspiring story, which touches on many themes; you can read it at:  Retraining Workers for New Jobs and New Lives After Prison and Addiction What struck me about the article was: how the twin problems of drug addiction and doing prison time are a common, downward spiral in much of rural America how few public resources there are to deal with it the success of the hero of the story, Tony Simpson, exemplifies a winning strategy to deal with these twin problems that could be replicated elsewhere Basically, Mr Simpson, a local entrepreneur, already successful in another line of business, developed his own plan to help turn around his community: create a company that can export a product (trailers), train local people coming out of prison and/or drug rehab to work in it, and spend money and time -- a lot of money and time -- providing programs of assistance in doing just that. The goal of the program, which

In reference to this online article,   "Montana Becomes First State To Set Its Own Net Neutrality Rules"   it states that "An unidentified spokeswoman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and USTelecom, which represents the broadband industry, complained about the executive order..." My response in reaction to your response is: GET A CLUE! Destroying the principle of net neutrality is blatantly wrong, and the informed American public is well aware that this is nothing more than a power grab by a corrupt administration to privatize the Internet, which, in reality, is a public commons. The Internet was conceived, built and fostered through the use of public funds and academic institutions who freely shared the knowledge and skills to create it. (see  Where Wizards Stay Up Late , Simon & Schuster, 1999) It is the greatest commons ever created by humanity.  This attempt by a captured federal regulatory body, the FCC, to privati

Nature's Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age  (click the link for a reference to the book) is my latest discovery on the frontier of research into how we are going to fix our environmental problems.  What this book shows with authority is how environmental law has failed us, and has no illusions that correcting this will be a tough political battle against the One Percent and the Dark Money network. But what this book does do with scholarly precision and overwhelming documented research is what an absolute fraud the current pretense is that our regulatory framework is protecting us and the environment. If I find the time, I would like to examine this book as I am currently doing in my blog Examining Dark Money , because this book is that good...but until then I wanted to share this one description that I found so remarkably accurate about the "Remote Public", which is one of components of the regulatory framework that is supposedly working. Some back

Letter to the Lafayette City Council January 5, 2018 Re: A community rights legal strategy Dear Councilors: After attending the important Council meeting on Tuesday, January 2, 2018, I wanted to send you my public input on the issue of retaining CELDF as legal counsel, as I believe some significant facts and insights were omitted from the public comments. I hope you will find my remarks informative and helpful in the future public forum that was allow further public discussion on this matter of grave concern to our community. First, I want to thank you all for your service in holding this difficult public office, especially at this time. I have only attended a fraction of the meetings that have interest to me, but I can only imagine what patience and fortitude it must take to endure all the meetings and service which you do as part of your job. Though I sometimes disagree with the decisions reached, I do appreciate the hard work you do in reaching them.

I am listening to Nancy MacLean tonight for the first time, thanks to a broadcast on KGNU, through that great show, Alternative Radio by David Barsamian.  (By the way, if you're reading this before January 7, 2018, and live in the Boulder area, David will be speaking at Veterans For Peace this Sunday night, in a small, cozy setting. If you want to go, contact me.) Nancy MacLean is another powerful voice calling out the Radical Right, and I am glad to discover her own brand of activism, which is well grounded in deep academic knowledge of social movements. She is a history professor at Duke University, and has had a distinguished academic career, specializing in social movements in the US South.  I admire her courageous talks, and her determination to raise awareness among the public of the danger of the Radical Right's active hostility to democracy. Though I have only just discovered her, I think she is right on in calling attention to the dangerous ideas behind the Radical