Green candidates in Alaska

So far I count three Green Party candidates:

Eva Ince, of Anchorage, a former combat medic and military wife, a mom, and longtime Green, is running against Don Young for U.S. House of Representatives.

Mark Ames, who only recently registered Green (in March), and is well known around Fairbanks for his concern about the change of the name of Alaskaland to Pioneer Park. Ames is running against Mike Kelly in District 7 for State House.

David Braun, who is running against Ralph Seekins in Senate District D. I don't know much about Braun, but he's from Healy.

First Friday Opening

The Old Post Office Espresso Publishing House, a.k.a. the New Ester Republic Press Office, will be open, with art, papers, books, and appetizers for the June First Friday. I'll be closing at 8, though, so I can go run and look at PhotoSynthesis and the Annex shows.

A bit of history: the building in which the Republic is soon to be housed was originally the Ester post office, and was built in 1971. Or thereabouts. It resided off the village square, or maybe next to Ruth Jasper's house (postmaster)--I'm not sure, gotta check--until the new, imported-log-cabin-style post office was built in 1986 or thereabouts. The building sat around for a while until Craig N. Buchanan purchased it, and sat around some more until he turned it into a gift shop/espresso house called the Ester Stash. The Stash was in the village square on the Kulp side of the parking lot.

Then Craig decided to turn it into a full-scale espresso shop, and it became Ester Espresso and moved to Berry, where the original Ester post office was located, to the Gold Hill parking lot. After a year, it was sold, and then after a bit more, sold again and moved across the street to the Chevron station parking lot, where it became Pioneer Espresso. A year and a half or two years ago, Hannah Hill bought it and it became The First Cup. And now it has returned to Ester, where the Ester post office (historical) belongs. Yay!

The corporate cat and the populist mouse

If you get enough people together, they can challenge a giant. And, according to the old story of David vs. Goliath, sometimes it only takes one person and a well-aimed stone. This time, it looks like a lot of people and a well-aimed initiative will be zapping the giants, at least in Humboldt County, California.

An article by David Cobb in the Progressive Populist describes an effort to pass some legislation that will change the legal definition of a corporation, and the legal rights that a corporation may have. Of course, it will only affect Humboldt County, but it would be a start. Here's an excerpt from his article:

The official ballot language includes a direct challenge to the ridiculous notion that a corporation is a "person" with vested constitutional rights. Specifically, the ordinance provides that "only natural human persons possess civil and political rights, and corporations are creations of state law and possess no legitimate civil or political rights."

There is the additional assertion that "courts have illegitimately defined corporations as 'persons' and this doctrine illegitimately denies the people of Humboldt County the ability to exercise our fundamental political rights." And to add teeth, the initiative provides that "no corporation shall be entitled to claim corporate constitutional rights or protections in an effort to overturn this law."

Somehow, however, I don't think this will be enough. A similar attempt was made in Pennsylvania in 2002, and the state overturned the local regulations (influenced, of course, by the businesses Clarion County, Pa., was fighting). Corporations, as my mother says, think like cats. They're predators, cute and fuzzy when it suits them, and at other times all talons and teeth, likewise when it suits them. But trustworthy? Never.

Still, the People's Sovereignty Movement is alive and kicking. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund says it succinctly: "The idea that communities by right may govern themselves is central to the notion of democracy."

New old office

The interior of the Old Post Office Espresso Publishing House is now Yellow. Yes, that's Yellow with a capital Y. The walls are yellow, the trim is a warm red, and last night Spencer (I got to hear all about his pug, Bandicoot) and I slapped on a first pale yellow coat onto the ceiling. Hannah had done the interior trim earlier, and came back (after practically NO sleep last night--woman's on a crazy schedule) and did the second coat on the trim.

Hans built the first window box for me last night: 72" long, 8" wide, and 6" deep. Or so. I have plans for my numerous sunflowers, nasturtiums, and lobelia. I'm starting to think about furniture.

The place is going to be GREAT.

Don Young, quack scientist

Our amazingly arrogant representative has once again shown that sheer chutzpah on the part of one well-placed man can outweigh the considered opinion and solid research of thousands of scientists and years (decades!) of studies. Young, who has been working to prevent legislation that would finally have us taking some responsibility for global warming, managed to strike the (to him) offending line from a House bill that would recognize that yes, global warming is a problem, and yes, fossil fuel burning is contributing to this, and yep, it's humans burning the stuff that are causing a bit of a problem. Not only that, but Young thinks that Greenland is cooling (that'll be news to all those shrinking glaciers) and that somehow, the United States is not the chief culprit in this. Says Rep. Young, plaintively: "It is never the fault of the bigger countries that burn as many barrels of oil as we are doing today -- not per capita, but as many barrels of oil. It is never their fault." Problem is, of course, there AREN'T any other countries that burn more fossil fuels. We use the most gas and the most oil, not only per capita, but in total as well. As the Anchorage Daily News pointed out,

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States burned 20.6 million barrels of oil a day last year. The second biggest consumer, China, burned just under 7 million.

So he's right. It ISN'T their fault.
Don Young has never been one to let facts get in the way of his opinions, however. Remember, his uninformed opinion is worth just as much as years of research and thousands of scientists. Just ask him--he's said so in public before.

Painting and plants

Yesterday I went to Anne's Greenhouse and picked up a basket and a bunch of flowers for the Republic office, went home, put 'em in baskets (I still have a bunch of lobelia left), and carried them down to the office. Then I went over to the library and removed the Ester Republic sign and went back and hung it on the side of the building. A cheer went up from the other side of the street: Hillary and Kate gave me a yahoo.

I finished up the prepping, and then Hannah came and the Painting Commenced. White primer coat #1 went on, then we took a break for dinner. I found my Jocasta Innes decoration techniques books, brought 'em down, and Hannah and I pored over them for ideas. Then we put on primer coat #2, telling each other about crazy people we have known, family members, friends, etc. She got to hear all about my aunts and cousins and wacko ex-boyfriends, and I heard about her grandfather and parents and miscellaneous zingy friends (at least one of whom is my friend too). A wonderful yak and the painting went fast. And the place looks SO much better.

So today--ta dah--we start painting with Sunnyside yellow.

Old Post Office Espresso Publishing House

The building is in the village square! Yesterday Hans and Hannah (the owner) and I spent many hours spackling and sanding and mopping (and mopping) and scraping and removing weird bits of wire and staples and peculiar chunks of plywood apparently stuck on the wall for no particular reason. And we did some mopping.

Foam Man made his appearence also, foaming leaky holes in the walls, around the windows and electrical conduits and oil line and whatnot. You could tell he was a superhero (saving energy through insulation! keeping BTUs inside with a single foamy squirt!) because of the tell-tale superhero sound he kept making: FWOOOOOOSH! capital letters and everything.

Oh yes, and did I mention, we did a lot of mopping?

Ted Stevens vs. net neutrality

Senator Stevens' telecom bill will change internet regulation such that internet servers can distort what appears on a search or limit content posted according to what you can pay--or perhaps, what they don't want you to see. Here's what Buzzflash has to say about it:

The United States Congress is currently drafting a bill known as “The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Efficiency Act of 2006”, known as “COPE.” This means privatizing the Internet, by allowing such private corporations as AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon and others to actually own it, and, in the process operate the Internet and other digital communications services as private networks. The bill very, very clearly states that “certain classes of Internet providers may-- not unreasonably-- impair, interfere, restrict or limit applications or services such as Web sites or voice-over IP phone connections.”

So the public will no longer have open access to the web. We'll only have what the big guys want us to see (unless we already know exactly where the information is, or the info provider happens to find a free and open service provider). Read Josh Silver's discussion of the regulations and net neutrality--and the megabucks these companies are trying to make off us.

And this bill is all very chummy, as Jason Lee Miller points out in his Webpronews.com column: Stevens' biggest campaign contributors include those who would benefit most by this legislation--News Corp., Verizon, Viacom, AT&T, Sprint...are we surprised that our senator is apparently bought and paid for?

The San Francisco Chronicle describes how this works, and how the House dropped net neutrality. In the Senate, in an example of typical Democrat thought inversion, Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye agreed to cosponsor Stevens' version of the bill: "My co-sponsorship...is not a demonstration of support for the bill itself." Uh, isn't co-sponsorship supposed to BE support for what you sponsor? It sure functions that way...

Stevens' rationale is that the FCC should monitor the market over a five-year period and then figure out what to do, which sounds reasonable, except that, of course, his bill will already establish or allow certain reprehensible practices, as per above.

Save the Internet.com has more on this, as does Free Press.net.

The full committee hearing statements and webcast are here.

Internet update: recent largesse for Stevens

Forwarded to me by Tom Macchia via the Alaska Greens listserve, an article on just how much cash Uncle Ted got from those media mavens:

Stevens received $130,750 from the industry during the period covering 2005 and the first third of 2006 — substantially more than he garnered from any other sector, according to the nonpartisan PoliticalMoneyLine. Top corporate benefactors included AT&T with $10,000 in donations, Time Warner with $8,000 and Sony Pictures with $8,000, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine.

Obviously they like him. But he's not the most popular guy in Congress right now--the telecom industry gave Senator George Allen, R-Va., $237,032. But then, Allen is up for re-election this year, whereas Stevens isn't until 2008.

What we're traveling in to get where we're going

I have just discovered a wonderful local blog (see link above) by somebody who also understands that we're going to hell in a handbasket, and in glorious, flagrant style, too. Wait'll Cabin Dweller sees my 49 Reasons To Throw Ted Stevens Out of Office! (alas, still in composition, but I've enumerated a few here already: voting gegen wind power, cute little junkets paid for by private interests, hasty, pork-barrel bridges, blocking bills to prevent torture, and actually coming out in FAVOR of torture (only for certain subhumans, of course, like those people who are Muslim and from Other Countries, or maybe Muslims from this country, too, lemme think about that...)

Faugh!

More on the new office

So the word is that the move will finally actually happen this weekend. Yahoo! It feels like an upward move toward professional publication, albeit a minor step. Now I've just got to round up enough advertising to pay for the rent! I'm hoping this will also improve sales, but we'll see.

Dang! I'm going to have to figure office hours and all that sort of thing, too. Probably Mondays and Fridays and every other Wednesdays, plus one day on the weekends.

Ted Stevens & Don Young: foes of wind power or champions of states' rights?

The Anchorage Daily News has picked up on a story about Kennedy and Stevens' backroom bargain to block a wind farm of the coast of Massachusetts. Young is also involved in the attempt. The main opposition to the farm is from residents of the area, Nantucket and Cape Cod, who are concerned about noise, the view, and possible navigation hazards. The NIMBY question is a real one: these are the people who will be most affected by the project. But this country desperately needs to get off oil and onto renewable sources. Nantucket Sound is great for this kind of power generation. Conservative and liberal commentators alike are annoyed by Kennedy's hypocrisy.

Groups like Save Our Sound strongly oppose the project, while others, like the Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Power Now support it. Clean Power has an interesting discussion of the impact on birds. Governor Romney is adamantly opposed.

While I think it is important for states to have a say in what goes on in their offshore waters, this little deal stinks. I don't see that smog and derricks and drill rigs are all that aesthetically pleasing—windmills are one heck of a lot better looking—or particularly environmentally sound. Again, wind farms are better. I'm not sure about the noise problem, but I do know that when I was in Hannover (Germany) the noise from the windmills all over the place was pretty neglible, especially in comparison with the Autobahn.

The question is, what do Stevens and Young expect from Kennedy in return for this favor? (Although it appears to be blowing up in their faces: even the White House is against this provision to block the wind farm.) Perhaps help in fighting the feds on some other issue, such as drilling in ANWR?

Opening night

Hoo! what an opening! scads of people showed up, I sold a couple of pieces and Amy sold six. Hans did marvelous things with the lighting, so everything glowed. Kate has a great red handbag in the show that I covet--still unsold, so I have a chance at purchase (if we ever have enough spare cash).

Naturally, none of us got to any other openings, except for Monique's studio. Since she stayed open late and is right on the village square, we got a chance to see her photos of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge juxtaposed with those of Prudhoe Bay. She had little plaques with each set that talked about various aspects of the refuge and of oil development. One thing I hadn't realized was that Prudhoe has smog—and you can see it from a hundred miles away.

And they say we can develop an oil extraction industry up there without harming the environment. Yeah, right.

Vanishment approacheth

Well, the opening is on Friday, Cinco de Mayo, and I've been trying to upload another photo of artwork to this blog, but Blogger is stubbornly refusing to let me post any images (and has ever since my previous post about this show). So you'll just have to come see it in person. Nancy, proprietor of the Annex, is promising Mexican hors d'oeuvres.

I've got my pieces almost ready, except for the carpentry part, which Hans is doing. He had the flu, and so is now having to work on them during the week instead of last weekend as he had planned...the man is earning brownie points up the wazoo, and I'm going to have to think up something extra nice for him for this.