Per today’s Rutland Herald, Gay marriage opponents regroup:

Several prominent opponents of gay marriage will announce at a Statehouse press conference this morning the formation of the Vermont Marriage Advisory Council, a group that will hold hearings on the benefits of traditional marriage.

Stephen Cable of Rutland, the founder of the conservative group Vermont Renewal, said the formation of this traditional marriage council is in response to the pro-gay marriage leanings of the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection.

Note: these people don’t like the public hearings that are going on, so they want their own.  More below the fold:

Traditional marriage group Take It to the People will also become more active in the debate this year. Craig Bensen of Cambridge, a member of the group, said he plans to launch an effort called Let Vermont Vote – a push to put a nonbinding referendum on gay marriage before the state’s voters in November.

[…]

“Voters have never had the opportunity to weigh in on this debate,” Bensen said. “All the decisions regarding same-sex couples have come from legislators and court justices.”

Now, here’s the fun part.  Note the part I emphasized in bold up there.  In the very next paragraph of the article (again, emphasis mine):

The news comes months after both groups vowed to tell their supporters to not attend the hearings held by the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection, the group formed by the Democratic leaders of the Vermont House and Senate last summer.

The commission, however, is just focused on doing their job:

“I’ll probably consult with the other members of the commission about this, but I think we’ll be focused on completing the public hearings we have scheduled,” responded Tom Little, the chair of the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection. “I have always encouraged one and all to come to these hearings.”

The people in the anti-same sex marriage groups have had every opportunity to speak to the legislature about this and let their feelings known.  They have refused to do so because it wasn’t a friendly environment for them, so they’re forming their own little groups to oppose same-sex marriage so they can control the agenda for their meetings and not have to face serious scrutiny from people who question their positions.  

Cowards, every one of them.

We took time to get over to Keene, NH, today to see John speak again.  We got there over an hour early and a crowd had already formed outside the venue.  By the time the event had started, the room was in overflow and the upper balcony had been opened.  I had a good seat, so I got to catch a lot of what was going on, for both discussion and photographs.  

You can see the full image set of the event here, and after the fold, I’ll give a brief summary, including some photos.

So here’s the thing:

For those of you who don’t know, Granny D. is the woman who, in her 90’s, walked across the country to support campaign finance reform.  She’s from New Hampshire and well-loved here.

Let me be perfectly clear about this: Granny D. is a big deal in New Hampshire, at least among progressives.  She ran a $20,000 campaign against Judd Greg a few years back and managed to get 37% of the vote with virtually no money.  She’s a hero in Southern NH especially.  When she entered the room, the room erupted with applause.  Then, when she endorsed John later in the event, she got a standing ovation.  Here she is doing her endorsement:

Senator Edwards explained how the endorsement came to be.  He was at an event and she just walked up to him and said “I’m going to endorse you.”

I love New England.

Edwards gave a great speech and interspersed it with special guests.  The best of those guests, aside from Granny D., was the mother of Nataline Sarkisyan.  Nataline, as you may know, died recently due to neglect, brought on in large part by her insurance company.  

Here’s her, speaking on behalf of Edwards:

There’s more about this specific woman’s history over at this excellent diary, outlining some of Clinton’s attacks on Edwards over this, so I won’t focus on them here.  I’m just going to say this: if you get the chance to see Edwards in person, especially from up close, do it.

This is a man who’s very committed to what he believes and you can see it in his eyes and in how he talks about it.  He doesn’t just give simplistic or simple answers to the people who question him.  His answers are in depth and complicated, without being inaccessible:

Now, the thing is, there’s no reason for you to believe me on this.  My impressions aren’t yours and my interpretation of human expressions are meaningless, as they should be.  Vague “you can see it in his eyes” statements don’t, and shouldn’t mean anything to you, especially not coming from me.

But here’s the deal: this man is incredible to see talking and interacting with these families.  He brought in people who had suffered tragic circumstances who talked about their experience with him and how much help he’d been.  He brought in his won experiences as well.  He’s an incredible speaker, and he’s bristling with energy, even after the incredible schedule he’s been on as of late.

I don’t know what’s going to happen on Tuesday.  I think Obama’s wowed a lot of people and is a strong candidate.  But there’s something about his energy post-debate that makes me think that he’s going to do better than people expect.  It’s hard to tell where it will all go.  Obama’s clearly got a strong advantage at this point but Edwards beat Clinton in Iowa and I am convinced he’ll do so again two nights from now.  If this turns into a two-person race, it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen with it.

In the meantime, I’m really glad I saw this speech today, and amazed that he managed to get an endorsement from Granny D., even if he didn’t actively go seeking it out.

This is primarily a photo blog: a group of Vermonters (including a not paltry contingent from Vermont’s Green Mountain Daily) showed up in Lebanon, New Hampshire this morning to help out with the canvassing.  Later, we got to see John Edwards speak, and had a real treat shortly after.  

It was a day much colder than expected, and canvassing was fun.  Everyone was incredibly polite to one another.  We crossed a few paths with an Obama canvasser and wished each other good luck.  Everyone we spoke to while canvassing was polite as well, and the common theme, even for people who weren’t supporting Edwards was how nice it was to have a good set of choices this time around.  

After the fold, I’ll post about the speakers we had at the pre-canvassing as well as the treat we got with seeing Edwards, but first, probably one of the best portrait shots I’ve ever taken:

The whole photoset of photos from today can be seen here.  I’m just posting a select few for the blog itself.

First, David Zucker, who was coordinating the volunteers in Lebanon:

People who do this sort of work are often overworked and overtired, but he was great.

After David, we got a cool speech from Matt Dunne, who ran for Lt. Governor in Vermont last time around and is an awesome progressive:

After Matt, we got Kevin Leahy, which was a treat:

Then, we got the fairly manic Ben Cohen (from Ben & Jerry’s fame):

The idea was simple after this: we canvass for a bit and then we had reserved seats in the auditorium in front.

Here’s what ended up happening though: the Fire Marshal shut us, and a large number of other Edwards supporters, out of the auditorium.  So this was really disheartening; we had expected to have reserved seats, but no such luck.  They were going to have us stand outside and meet with Edwards briefly but no one seemed to like that plan.  Then they figured out that we could have an overflow room, and that as a thank you, we’d get to see Edwards speak briefly in the overflow room.  They brought us in, we waited a bit, and then the candidate appeared, walking into the center of this gymnasium and standing on a chair to talk to us:

He spoke briefly, off the cuff, thanked everyone for coming and apologized for the overflow room, and then left again.  I positioned myself to get the picture up top on his way out– came out far better than I expected.  We were all milling about, getting ready to head out, thinking it wasn’t worth sticking around just to hear his speech pumped in through speakers.

Then something really surprising happened.  He came running back into the room, without his jacket, and someone tossed him a basketball:

This was a real treat.  We got to watch a presidential candidate just hang out before his speech, and have some fun, the afternoon before probably the most important debate of his political career:

He didn’t seem to mind that he’d missed a few baskets, and he was as relaxed as I’d ever seen him.

So really, that’s it.  We headed back to quiet Vermont and over the next few days we’ll be doing more campaigning, canvassing, etc.  This was a real treat.  I’ve worked for campaigns before but never got to see the candidate from this close.  

I’m glad we did it and it was really fun, once you got over the bitter freezing (“Can I still feel my fingers? No, I can’t!) cold.   Yikes.  Oh well.  All for a good cause.

Anyway, one last photo, of three of our bloggers.  John Odum is in the middle.  The one to the right of John is, I think, bvt and the one to his left is greenvermonster.

Much to my surprise, there’s an extensive iBrattleboro post on pharmacy fishing.

Someone sent the following question to the state police:

“Would you please check the veracity of the allegation that the State Police have the right to force pharmacies to release their entire class 2 prescription histories, or, exactly what it was they were doing as referred to in the very recent post here on ibratt. Also, does the Brattleboro police dept have that power? If so, has it exercised it?”

Excerpts from the Brattleboro police department’s response after the fold.

I’m not going to comment on this much for now.  I’ll think about whether or not I have anything to add.  Instead, I’m just going to put together what I think is a fair excerpt and discuss it more when I have time.  I did not edit much, because I think it’s important to keep this in its full context.  

I… can not comment on what the Vermont State Police do and do not request from pharmacies or medical care providers.  However, I will certainly write about the law you mention as well as what the Brattleboro Police do. We are not lawyers here but we do regularly interpret laws to guide our behavior…

The VT law that governs the above issue is Title 18, Chapter 84A – Vermont Prescription Monitoring System (VPMS). The legislative intent of this law is explicitly written into the law… that intent specifically states:

“…to promote the public health through enhanced opportunities for treatment for and prevention of abuse of controlled substances, without interfering with the legal medical use of those substances.”

It is worth noting that law enforcement, prosecution, and similar words do not appear anywhere in the description of the legislature’s intent in passing this law.

Chapter 84A goes on to specifically address the role of law enforcement in its application. First, the only law enforcement officers able to work within it are “Trained law enforcement officer(s).” This is defined in the law as:

“… any officer designated by the department of public safety who has completed a training program established by rule by the department of health, which is designed to ensure that officers have the training necessary to use responsibly and properly any information that they receive from VPMS.”

Again, back to the intent of this law. Our representatives obviously want to make sure the police use the information properly.

…The law allows state licensing authorities to gather prescription information as part of licensing and monitoring health care workers. The law allows these licensing bodies to tell “trained law enforcement officers” if they suspect fraudulent or illegal activity by a health care provider. This section of the law (4282) states nothing about suspected criminal activity by patients.

According to section “e” of 4282, trained law enforcement officers are expressly forbidden from having access to VPMS except for the specific information provided to the officer by the licensing authority, as described above.

All of the above makes it pretty clear that the legislature wants to address public health concerns, but does not want the cops pawing through people’s medical records. However, it is important to note one final mention of police access to prescription records in this law… I think this is where the controversy you mention comes up.

There is an advisory committee set up under this law to help coordinate the efforts that it authorizes… this committee is allowed to determine under what circumstances, if any, the health department can give VPMS data to law enforcement. This would be set up as an administrative rule and seems to be the main concern of most people on this issue. I do not know the status of this committee and whether or not they have made a rule granting the police blanket access to pharmacy records. I can tell you that we (BPD) have not been told by anyone that we now have access to such information.

Now on to the Brattleboro Police. We do not make requests of the health department or pharmacies for VPMS information. However, we do aggressively investigate prescription drug crimes, to include fraudulent attempts to get or distribute pills. When these crimes are investigated it is necessary to access, to some extent, people’s medical records.

When a crime like this is committed, there are many investigative tools available to access medical records. Search warrants, subpoenas, and other methods of accessing information are allowed under VT law Title 18 (Health). These are used on a regular basis to investigate individuals for criminal offenses related to prescription drugs. The Brattleboro Police Department certainly does utilize all of these investigative tools to conduct investigations.

The difference between the actions in the above paragraph and accessing VPMS is what the police might be looking at. VPMS is a database of information on many people. It is maintained by the department of health for purposes that satisfy their mission of maintaining public health. If they become aware of a criminal act they may refer it to the police. The process in the paragraph above this one is different than that. It is designed to give police information on a particular crime and on a particular person who may be committing drug crimes.

To address your final question, The Brattleboro Police Department has not made any requests of pharmacies or the department of health to mine all of their prescription drug data. Requests for information on a particular person, for a particular period, suspected of a particular crime, has occurred and continues to occur.

So, what do you think?

For those of you who don’t know, there was a bit of a hostile thread over at Daily Kos today which discusses an Obama line:

Making an argument for his electability, Obama said, “I don’t want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats — we’ve done that in 2004, 2000,” according to a person at the event (rush transcript).

In a later discussion in another thread, people were wondering why the thread was so angry.  I wrote a response, which in retrospect was almost long enough to be its own diary.  So, after the fold, if you want to hear why I understand some of the raw anger at Obama’s comments, it’s all there, exactly as I posted it on Kos.

I think I can explain some of that anger.

And really, this isn’t to attack anyone, even though I’m sure someone will take it that way.

I’m deeply concerned about tactics I’ve seen coming from both Obama and Clinton.  I’ll give the example from today as a specific: when Obama claims that in prior elections, 50% of the population doesn’t want to vote for a Democrat, he’s creating a talking point to be used against Clinton down the line.

I’m angered because this buys into the right-wing talking point that the country is not, as a whole, on the side of the Democrats.  They are, without question.  The country wants Democrats to stand up and be Democrats and would gladly have gotten behind the Gore of 2000 had he shown the courage and fire of the Gore of 2006.  

I totally get people saying we should all be positive, but from my POV that doesn’t mean being silent when our front runners do something we think is really dangerous to our chances down the line.

I will probably end up supporting whomever the Democratic nominee is, but I won’t be able to do it with real enthusiasm if it’s someone who seems more eager to court Republicans than Democrats or someone who’s more into corporate America than corporate oversight.

So, yeah, sorry to be negative.  This is just my perspective.  I have no problem with anyone supporting Obama, Clinton, etc.  I don’t agree, but I respect the choice, just as I respect reasonable criticisms of Edwards– I agree that the public financing issue is a concern, and I agree with Laura that his interaction with the media isn’t as strong as other candidates.  But I’m not going to attack people for disliking that about him; we all have our priorities.  

So, that said, for my money, I could happily get behind Edwards or Dodd, and I could sigh and accept Obama.  I don’t know what I’ll do if Clinton is the nominee.  I hope I don’t have to face that.

I’m thinking that, being New Year’s Eve, it’s time to take a look back at some of the things that happened in 2007 and whack ourselves over the head repeatedly in order to avoid some prior mistakes.

So this post is simple: things I’m glad about for 2007, things I’m angry about for 2007, things I’m looking forward to in 2008, and things I dread about 2008.

But first, once again, I have done more  light drawings:

As usual, clicking on the images gives you a larger version with details about the photos.

So let’s start with the bad, from 2007.  Put simply, I am pissed off about:

FISA, S-Chip, Dems in Congress, Dems in the Senate, Harry Reid’s crap, Nancy Pelosi’s crap, Joe Lieberman’s sanctimony, Kent Jones getting canned, every single thing the Bush administration has ever done, thought about doing, or come close to doing, lead in toys, talk about a wall across the border, the fact that the only Republican candidate who’s willing to speak out against the occupation of Iraq seems to be getting support from white supremacists, rising costs of health insurance, rising costs of gasoline, rising costs of, well, everything, global warming, species of fish dying out, Blue America Democrats who turned out to be Bluedogs, big media, big media going after their writers, Vermont state police collecting personal medical data, corporate greed overriding common sense, the pardoning of Scooter Libby, and probably a whole hell of a lot more.

I’m also just sad that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer’s.

I am, on the other hand, quite happy about:

Chris Dodd standing up to Harry Reid, Daily Kos, Green Mountain Daily, Keith Olbermann, Futurama’s return, the end of the Bush administration (in theory), pretty much the whole Republican field (for comic relief), The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, the fact that we caught the Vermont state police collecting personal medical data, that Gonzales was forced to resign, the outcry over the pardoning of Scooter Libby, the fact that even though we can’t change things quite yet, the country seems to finally be fully on board with the slogan for the occupation of Iraq I’ve wanted us to adopt (“Come on!  WTF?”).  Actually, that slogan can apply to the whole Bush administration.  I’m happy that John Kerry isn’t running and that John Edwards is.  I’m happy that I took many awesome pictures this year.

I’m happy that I’m a lot healthier than I was a month ago and I’m happy that my work, for the time being, is prosperous and I’m happy that even though some of my camera equipment got stolen this year, and some of it got broken, that I was able to recover quickly (though expensively) from both.  I’m glad that clear thinking about global warming has entered the mainstream.

I’m happy for Parker River.

As far as 2008 goes:

I have no idea what to expect.  I both dread and look forward to it.  I look forward to whomever the Republican nominee is, because I don’t think it will be that difficult to beat him (though I think McCain and Huckabee would be major challenges).  I dread Clinton being nominated (feel free to flame me) but I look forward to working for Edwards in New Hampshire this weekend, because I think he’ll do better than Clinton in Iowa and that will make NH really interesting.

I look forward to more music, more photography, better health.  I look forward to the last throes of the Bush administration and I look forward to seeing better people elected in 2008.

I look forward to more writing, more thoughts, a little peace and quiet, and a lot of damned fine music.

So how about the rest of you?  What are your best lessons from 2007?  What do you expect to do differently in 2008?

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For the holiday, I thought I’d do something a little different.  I wrote this piece some time ago and have posted variations on it in multiple places.  This version was set up primarily on the weekend prior to Christmas day and scheduled to go up Christmas morning; I don’t know if I (or anyone else, for that matter) will be around or not during the time it’s posted.

So, with that in mind: the pictures here are all “Light Drawings.”   The short version of this is that they are all photographs which use long exposures to capture light in motion.  Appearances vary due to a variety of factors.  Those factors boil down to a few primary aspects:

1. exposure time, often referred to as shutter speed;


2. film speed (“ISO”), which is how much light is needed to render an exposure on the film;


3. size of opening in lens (f-stop), which is how big the hole allowing light to reach the film is;


4. ambient light in the scene;


5. how much light is emitted by the objects being photographed;

After the fold, I’ll talk about some basic photographic techniques and then apply them specifically to light drawings.   But first, one more photo:

Clicking on photos brings you to a larger image with data about exposure length, camera settings, etc.

So let’s look at those items I mentioned in turn:

1. exposure time:
   The longer the exposure time, the more light gets in from the surroundings.  This can be good or bad, depending on what you want to do.  I’ve found that longer exposure times can be quite nice, as long as you don’t have too much surrounding light (in which case everything can be overexposed.


2. film speed (“ISO”):
   The lower your film speed, the better an image you tend to get.  Higher speeds tend to produce pictures with more “noise” to them and the effect is not as nice as you’d like.  You, however, don’t want to choose a film speed which is too low for your desired effect.  If your speed settings are too low, you’ll find it difficult to get a proper exposure.  You’ll need to experiment some to get this right.


3. F-stop:
   this can make a really big difference.  Wider openings in the lens (lower-numbered f-stops) can produce much brighter images, but in doing so, they sacrifice depth of field, which is how much of your field of view remains in focus.  Wider openings (F 3.5) allow for more light, but less of the photo is in focus.  Smaller openings (F 22) provide for much darker pictures but almost the entire shot will remain in crisp focus.  This makes for difficult choices sometimes, especially if the light source you’re using is not very bright.  


4. how much light is emitted by the objects:
   This takes some getting used to.  I’ve got a bunch of different objects I use to generate images and some are much brighter than others.  In some cases, I have to move the objects VERY slowly in order to get the same effect I would with others.  Below I’ll provide some examples.

So let’s take a look at this photo:

| f/9.0 | exposure: 3m, 10s | ISO: 100 | 10mm |

I was working with 100 speed film so I know I needed to emit a lot of light from the light objects in question.  So I stood a distance from the camera and started spinning this light around (it’s a color-changing light).  I spun about 20 times, walked a step forward, counted 20 spins, and repeated until I was very close to the lens.  This is a good picture, but it’s not my favorite– the F-stop of 9.0 didn’t produce as strong a depth of field as I would have liked, so you can see that the background is slightly hazy as is the snow in the foreground.  At a tighter f-stop, those would have all been in crisp, clear, focus.

In this one, on the other hand:

| f/13.0 | exposure: 4m, 14s | ISO: 250 | 17mm |

I went with a higher film speed so I could use a tighter f-stop instead.  I also had a much longer exposure and didn’t use a spinning light object but instead one that I was moving slowly across the shot.  It’s a crisper and cleaner picture, using the same light source, but in a very different fashion.

It’s amazing how many factors can affect the shots you get.  The picture above has a lens flare in it, which I didn’t expect at all.  This picture…

…has a bunch of sparkles throughout.  That’s because it was snowing at the time and even though the snow didn’t come out clear, it reflected light from the laser pen I used to make the shape below.  That gave me the inspiration to do more work with that laser pen once it snows again.  I may create mirror ball type effects using it, if I can pull them off.  One more picture, then some thoughts, and then a few more to close out:

Here are a few things I’ve learned:

1. every camera is different in terms of how it processes artificial light and what light frequencies expose best;


2. furthermore, every camera works a little differently at different ISO levels as well;


3. every lens is different.  My 17-70mm lens creates a different look and feel than my 10-20mm, even if they’re both set to 20mm;


4. how fast or slow you move an object can make a major difference in how well exposed it is.  If you move it very quickly, it may not show up in the shot at all.  If you leave it still for too long, it may just appear to be a blob of light.  Experiment and learn;


5. Different frequencies of light create different effects and different light sources work differently;


6. flashing lights create a dramatically different effect from continuous lights;


7. the further away a light is from the camera, the less light reaches the camera;


8. ambient light has a dramatic effect on the light you manipulate.  Doing these pictures shortly after dusk leaves sunlight still visible in the sky.  Doing them in an area with street lights produces a different effect than doing them in areas surrounded by darkness;


9. nights with full moons are dramatically different from nights with new moons or cloudy nights;


10. snow reflects almost all visible light and multiplies it.  Same goes for any light-colored, reflective substance;

And remember: most of all, have fun.

A few quick notes:  All these pictures were taken using a Pentax K10D camera, but the technique applies to many varieties of camera.  They were all taken with Sigma lenses, either a 10-20mm or a 17-70mm.

And I will once again mention that clicking on the pictures brings you to larger versions with more details, as well as the ability to rate the photos, if you feel so inclined.

I hope you all have enjoyed this diary as a well-deserved break from political diaries.

(This one still has some mojo, as evidenced by the comments.   – promoted by JDRyan)

I’ve cross-posted this to Daily Kos, so some of the info is a bit redundant to anyone who is familiar with Vermont politics

So here’s the situation: in Vermont, we have a Republican Governor who is not unpopular, but also could be vulnerable.

We also have a member of the Progressive Party who has run for the governor’s seat before, but never came close to winning.  In 2000, a three-way election between Howard Dean (D), Anthony Pollina (P) and Ruth Dwyer (R) was a close call: Dean won with 50.4% of the vote.  Dwyer got 37.9% and Pollina got 9.5%.  

That doesn’t sound like a close call, but in Vermont, if a governor doesn’t receive 50% of the vote, the legislature gets to chose the outcome of the race, and at in that election, Republicans took over the legislature.  In other words, we came very close to having a Republican hold the seat with more than 10% less of the vote than the Democratic candidate.

So now we’re in a similar position, but possibly reversed: our current Republican governor, Republican Governor is running for re-election.  Pollina is showing a strong interest in running.  We are likely to have a Democratic candidate (if not a primary) but do not have one yet.

The question, in short, is How do you solve a problem like Pollina?I will state up front: my primary interest here is seeing a left-winger in the governor’s seat.  If we can successfully do that with a progressive, I’m okay with that, but I don’t see that as likely.  I think it’s much more likely that if anyone can win that seat, it’s going to be a Democrat.  My allegiance with the Democratic party is a pragmatic one.  I like the theory of third parties, but I don’t like the idea of losing races because of them.  

So for me, I think it’s important that we make this a genuine two-person race, and we make it a realistic one, one that actually has a chance of putting someone in the governor’s office who’s not a Republican.  But I also don’t want to be telling progressives that they have no business running a candidate.  I’d like 1-2-3 voting as an option, but we don’t have that for now.  In the meantime, we’ve got a statewide political party (the Progressive party) which has fielded candidates on multiple occasions, and while never winning statewide office, has successfully won several legislative seats.  

They’re a good party and upholding ideals that Democrats should be upholding, and I think they have every right to run a governor’s candidate.  And yet, I can’t help but think that I’d rather they didn’t run a candidate this time around.

I should also note: Vermont always has multiple candidates running, but that usually includes two different marijuana legalization candidates because, apparently, there was some sort of schism there.  Among the Governor’s debates here, there’s sometimes one that includes all the candidates, many of whom seem to be busily outdoing one another for the “craziest person in the room” award, which almost always ends with the woman who likes to talk about government cover-up of UFOs and reminds me of the woman on the Simpsons with all the cats.

So the thing is, if Pollina runs, it’s probably going to end up costing the Democratic contender some votes, and probably enough to cost the election.  And in theory, I want him to be able to run just like any other candidate, but in practice, I just don’t see it working to anyone’s advantage but the incumbent.  

Has anyone else had similar problems in their own states?  How do you handle it without presenting it as though you have the right to run candidates for the sole virtue of being a Democrat and other people from other parties don’t?  Pollina’s a threat to the Democrats because his party is strong enough to cost them votes but not strong enough to win on his own.  It’s to their credit that their party is that strong, but it doesn’t actually help us get a leftie into the Governor’s office.

I’m really torn here about how best to approach this without being elitist and without being patronizing towards Progressives.  

Thoughts?  Comments?  Suggestions?

1. Pollina has yet to declare his candidacy.  Just because he’s considering running doesn’t make him a candidate;





2. Douglas’ incumbency is both an advantage and a disadvantage.  The advantage is primarily inertia.  the disadvantage is that when you run against a man who’s been doing his job for seven years, you’ve got a lot more ammunition to do against him than if he’s a new candidate;




3. Doug Racine is a gifted public speaker and has a real sense of humor that makes him a much stronger candidate than the last two challengers for Douglas;

I’m not advocating for or against Pollina entering the race, but if he’s serious about courting Democrats, why doesn’t he run in the Democratic primary?  Let’s have a two person race for the top slot, but take some time to do some vetting of the candidates before the general election.  That will take care of spoiler concerns, but also give us a chance to see how he is as a candidate this time around and see if he can get support beyond his own party?  

One final note: I’m writing about Racine here, because he’s the candidate I favor, but I’m not suggesting no other Democrats enter.  I don’t see any problem with a 2- or 3-way primary.

Last week, I urged you all to Fight Back against the war on solstice.

Today is your final day to do battle.  I gave a list of ways you can fight against the anti-solstice forces and ended with the traditional pagan litany:

Never give up.  

Never surrender.

Today, I will give you your final orders.  You have a mere twenty-one hours to make this happen until the official time of solstice.

Your task is now simple.  

It is to fight for the solstice and to achieve final solstice victory by any means necessary.

The time for letter-writing is past.

The time for picketing is past.

Now, it is merely war.

To go into battle, you merely need three things:

The wisdom of righteousness

Remember: you are the only people who are right on this.  Everyone else is either a heathen, a blasphemer, or otherwise unsuitable.  You are not wrong.  You can do no wrong.  As long as the gods tell you what to do, you can do no wrong, and will be held harmless for all acts you conduct in the name of Solstice.

This, of course, applies to the right gods.  Make sure you don’t pick the wrong ones, or we’re all screwed.  And really, there’s a whole lot of them.  So be careful.  But once you’re sure you’ve got it right, pursue your goals with all due zealotry and obliviousness to any belief but your own.

The power of numbers

Get your neighbors, your friends, your postal workers and your UPS delivery person to help you out with this.  And trust me, once you tell those last two that that you’re fighting back against Christmas, they’ll be right on board.  No one hates Christmas more than UPS unless its the US Post Office.  If anyone seems skeptical, tell them you’re going out caroling.  Sometimes the best way to fight Christmas is to pretend to support it, and then go in for the kill.

Torches

Remember the snowmen?  Torches are great for repelling the forces of the turncoat snow traitors.  They’re also good for burning down manger scenes, non-chemically treated wreaths, non-artificial “Christmas” trees and the vehicles of the anti-pagan forces.  Plus, there’s nothing more exciting than an angry mob with torches.  Gets the solstice blood flowing.

You are now equipped to fight back against the war on solstice.  

Attack.

Attaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!