The Douglas administration has decided that Enron Entergy Louisiana can give birth to a new corporate entity that will take ownership of Entergy Yankee. Entergy says they need to do this because apparently their current business model doesn’t allow them to tend to the proper running of Entergy Yankee (State reaches deal with Yankee, Times Argus, 10/09/09) I’m absolutely positive the new spin off built on borrowed money will be sooooo different … maybe the new name can be Fairpoint? Oh, right, that’s already taken.
Down in our nation’s capitol the DC Dems of Senate Judiciary Committee (you know … Leahy) have helped keep us under constant police surveillance by passing on to the floor a “no changes” set of changes to the UNPATRIOTIC Act. The Dems claim to victory? The same weasel Dems who kowtowed away the cheney/bush years when it came to protecting the American people from a police state wannabe will be … well … protecting us. (Committee approves Patriot Act changes, Times Argus, 10/09/09)
On the front page of today’s Times Argus is a story about a young bear being hit on the interstate, and on the “Local & State” front page is a picture of a (apparently formerly imprisoned) goat standing on a rocky ledge overlooking route 2 in Berlin. Kind of a sad juxtaposition of modern man rushing ahead without concern for what we do to our fellow Earth travelers and what must have been a Papillon like escape from the clutches of this very same humanity.
Thankfully a judge agrees that Barre Town’s select board and police department violated Kathy Rubalcaba, her property and most senses of decency. The Barre Town military showed up at her property the other day to steal several hens (miss-identified as roosters by Barre Town’s chicken expert) along with one juvenile (really a) rooster. Yesterday Judge Geoffrey Crawford said uh-uh … give ’em back, do some arbitration and come back to me with the results. (Judge sends roosters back to coop, scolds town officials, Times Argus, 10/09/09)
And in closing I’m sure Vermont’s education commissioner Armando Vilaseca is a really nice guy dedicated to doing his job with a high level of informed professionalism. But he’s missing the point again: while it is absolutely true that some reasons for wanting to rid a district of a teacher or administrator should not under any circumstances be kept a secret; Vilaseca’s whole push to strangle our local education system with centralized command and control will only aggravate the situations he seeks to address. (Restoring trust after the Bryer case, Times Argus, 10/09/09) One of the reasons to push for continued local and empowered school boards is local accountability … folks want to know they can have concerns regarding their kids addressed by people known to them … and easily accessible … and responsive. Make sure we on the school boards have the information to act on and the authority to act on that information.
[Added as an after thought]
Talk about premature acclamation! Seems President Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize. ‘The Nobel Committee said he was awarded it for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.’ Me? I think I’ll wait on that sort of rhetorical ejaculate. Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran are still right where the cheney/bush administration put ’em … on the war list. Obama could prove himself up to this award, but he hasn’t yet … let’s let time help us make a sober judgement.
I wish Obama the best, but he’s walked into a mess, and, being a Harvard lawyer, I don’t think he’s that anxious to bring other Harvard grads to justice (Bush, MBA, and a thousand others).
We still need to do the basic work for him: holding hands with foreign kings doesn’t follow republican principles, doesn’t follow democratic principles, doesn’t follow American principles.
And, people who hold hands with foreign kings don’t follow free market principles. Bush is a poster child for that, too.
And, people who are monarchists and oligarchists always defict spend somewhere, to cover up. It can be environmental deficits, as in the US for 150 years, and in China today, or it can be in human life, as in the Bush administration’s fondness for war, or it can be simply funny accounting, like Enron, Entergy, Fairpoint, and the Republican war accounting.
Until the basic work is done, until there’s a new drumbeat that’s based in reality, the right wing noise machine will continue to spread illusion, and there won’t be any realistic discussion, just defensive reaction to the noise.
Arizona State University also took a wait and see attitude when they declined to award Obama an honorary degree when he served as commencement speaker last May. Although such recognition is customary, the University decided against awarding Obama the degree because the trustees said they would wait to assess his “lifetime achievement.” That pettiness didn’t serve any higher purpose, and didn’t inspire or motivate any constructive action. Can’t we just celebrate another voice for the creation of an improved international climate?