if you're talking about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out... I share John Lennon's ambivalence about the revolution, but I think there are revolutions coming. Maybe a revolution doesn't have to include the choreography and armament to take the Bastille? How about a revolution in agriculture? We watched a video about colony collapse disorder last night: Vanishing of the Bees. Well done, sobering, broad review of the situation for our pollination partners. I used to keep bees. Most beekeepers develop a pretty strong connection to their hives, to the collective being that is a beehive. The beekeepers in this movie certainly showed that connection. I don't want to give the story away, so I will just say that I think the filmmakers are correct to identify bees as "canaries in the coal mine." I think we need a revolution in the way we approach agriculture and food. Global food. What should it look like? Also thinking about our global economic system. Tikkun has a piece by Leonardo Boff on the Crisis of Capitalism. This is an interesting read. I do have a sense that the current global economic crisis is qualitatively different from previous downturns. We face some pretty staggering demands from the natural world. We now live in a world of more extreme weather and the likelihood is that the trend to more extreme weather is just getting started, so the solution is a really major retooling of the world economy where sustainability rather than profit is the goal. Stabilizing the environment is going to require more than a game of three card monte based on cap and trade. The shell game has always been entertaining, but the game is fixed and the outcome is about fleecing the mark.

I got email from DOJ - civil rights division that two NO police officers were sentenced in the killing of Raymond Robair:

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Two Former New Orleans Police Officers Sentenced in Connection with the Death of Raymond Robair

WASHINGTON – Two former New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officers were sentenced today in relation to the beating death of Raymond Robair and subsequent cover-up, the Justice Department announced today.

 

U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon sentenced former NOPD Officer Melvin Williams to 262 months in prison for violating the civil rights of Robair by beating him to death, and for obstructing justice in the wake of that beating. Former NOPD Officer Matthew Dean Moore, who was working as Williams’ partner on the day of the beating, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for obstructing justice and for making false statements to the FBI during a federal investigation into Robair’s death. Williams was also ordered to pay $11,576 in restitution and Moore was sentenced to three years of supervised release.

 

Signed a petition this morning online through PDA to ask the super committee to save a trillion dollars by fixing Medicare Part D. The change requested would allow the Feds to negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma instead of the current model. I haven't studied this hard, but you don't have to study much to know that the ability to negotiate prices is a good idea. It's kind of free market stuff, isn't it? Doesn't the right love the power of the free market? Let's see how far this thing goes. Senator Kyl has jumped off talking about savings from attacking Medicare fraud, but the CBO guy told him point blank, this approach does not address the deficit and tax changes needed. I also responded to a request from the FCNL - Friends (quakers) Committee on National Legislation and sent the following letter to my Senator, Patty Murray:

I live in Chehalis, Wa and have been pleased to have you as my Senator.

In my lifetime I have watched the tax table leveled and it has had disastrous effects on the US economy and US politics. The well-to-do, the middle class, and the poor continue to pay their fair share. The "haves" and "have mores" as George Bush called them have had their tax burden greatly relieved and now we face a budget deficit that is a pretext for cutting essential government services that are important to the majority of Americans, but mean little or nothing to the have mores.

So, there is lots of discussion about how scary it is downtown. It's not just dirty, with houseless people urinating on the sidewalks, it's just downright scary!!

let's do the Downtown Oly two step. Let's tackle beauty first: Step 1: Holy smoke, there has been a lot discussion about how scary and disgusting it is to walk the street of downtown Olympia. The latest installment of this sad story ran in the Daily Zero on Sept 4th. It led with a line about drunks urinating on the sidewalks. Boy, is this a sad old story with an axe to grind. But, let's just take it straight. Do drunks urinate on sidewalks in downtown Olympia. I think that could happen. Probably mainly at night because there are so few bathrooms available in downtown Olympia after hours unless you have the bills to buy a plate of food to get bathroom access. I am downtown quite a bit and it just doesn't scare me or disgust me. I get asked for money, I give it. I am tied in to this really old and weird spiritual tradition that included some lunacy about "ask and it shall be given'" and "love your enemy," and relied on an economic model of trusting that when you need a coin or two, it will mysteriously pop out of the mouth or gut of a fish (apologies to my vegan friends, I don't fish anymore) or will appear from a tiny seed. I digress... Back to bathrooms. It seems to be a fact that if you have had the good fortune to be born into this world, it's just going to be a matter of time before you will need to find a bathroom. And not just once. and not just during daylight hours.

Thanks for the tunes and the soul, Joe Zawinul! I know there have been a lot of covers of this tune, but I like the Cannonball Adderly version with Joe at the keyboard. Knocks me off my feet.

The Young Turks have an entertaining video up from a town hall meeting with Representative Hultgren. It's short and tells the story. The woman asks the right question about the Bush tax cuts, prosperity and job creation. The same question could/should be asked in a broader time frame. Since 1980, the tax table has been flattened in the model that Reagan and his acolytes have wanted and if this model worked to create prosperity, where is the prosperity? Why don't we look at the tax model that existed in the time frame that created prosperity? The Eisenhower era tax table had tremendous incentives for businesses and the wealthy to invest in infrastructure instead of facing a top tax rate of 91% (essentially confiscatory at obscene income level). There is no incentive now for business leaders and planners to invest in their businesses when they can take huge bonuses instead and try to keep up with the Madoffs in a contest of conspicuous consumption. Fix the tax structure, fix the economy. Get the incentives right and things will turn around.

Haven't had time to look hard at this group - Climate Reality, but at first glance it appears to be an education campaign. I am down with that.

Global warming, big hurricanes. Any questions? Governor Rick Perry - please report to the North Carolina Coast to pray this huge storm away. For those of you hanging over on the right coast, move to high ground. Find a dry place and stay safe. Think about the long term impact of global warming and what you want to do about it.

and Washington CAN had a vision they wanted to share with Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Steve Balmer and a few others. Don Smith has the story at Washington Liberals