Thinking Outside the Box

 Initiative 177/Amendment 83 is a stalking horse caption:  Huntsman using a stalking horse to hunt game If you were not aware, Initiative 177 (which has become proposed Amendment 83) is a ballot initiative that will be voted on in Colorado during the mid-term elections in November 2026. On file with the Colorado legislature , it would make powering your home or business using methane ("natural gas") a legal right guaranteed by the Constitution of the State of Colorado. Amending the state constitution can done in three ways, one of which is the citizen-initiated route, which requires 5% of the votes cast for Secretary of State in the previous general election, and signatures from at least 2% of the registered voters in each of Colorado's 35 Senate districts. This has been done, which occurred with little fanfare, since that is exactly the strategy its backers, Advance Colorado , wanted. If 55 percent of Colorado voters vote 'Yes' in November, it will become a state...

  Why has journalism collapsed in the United States and what should be done about it? This overriding and urgent public issue is the central question of this book. The author, Victor Pickard, makes a convincing case of both why public journalism has failed, and how it can be fixed. It would be hard to dismiss Mr Pickard's arguments and the policy recommendations that he makes.  For an in-depth description of Mr Pickard, see  victorpickard.com . His academic credentials on this topic are impeccable, and his writing style exactly fits the topic: concise, pointed and convincing because it rings true to life.  Personally, reading this book provided a welcomed emotional catharsis from my own frustration over what has happened to the internet since I earned a master degree in telecommunications in the late 1990s, when optimism about the potentials of the Internet were rising like a weather balloon. The fate of the Internet and journalism are, of course, deeply interconnect...