Join the One-Minute Boycott

From MoveOn.org:

This Sunday, during the Super Bowl half time show, join us in changing channels on CBS. At 8:10pm and 8:35pm EST, switch over to CNN to watch "Child's Pay" on a channel which doesn't censor its ads. We'd like to keep a tally of the number of people who participate -- you can sign up here:

http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/

More on the controversy (from an L.A. Times op-ed piece by MoveOn.org's Eli Pariser):

...even though we were willing to pony up the $1.6 million to pay for it, CBS refused to sell us the time, citing what it says is a 50-year-old policy prohibiting ads that take stands on controversial public policy issues.

CBS claims its policy is designed to keep the Citibanks and Microsofts of the world from buying time to tell Americans how to think. "It is designed to prevent those with means to produce and purchase network advertising from having undue influence on 'controversial issues of public importance,' " the network said this week.

Sounds fair, doesn't it? But what it really means is that if McDonald's buys an ad promoting its tasty Big Mac, no one can run an ad that says Big Macs are full of fat and unhealthful. Pfizer can run a spot saying it's "helping people in need" get medicine, but we can't air an ad saying that Pfizer lobbied to weaken the new Medicare bill to prop up drug prices. Halliburton has slick ads that stress its role supporting the troops in Iraq. But CBS would reject an ad that pointed to Halliburton's profiteering

[full piece]

And remember to cheer for the Panthers!

Posted by Me at 23:45 link

Your Good Deed For Today

The Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area (CCNCA) is a collage of natural wonders, a place where the Colorado Plateau is sculpted into rugged sandstone canyons, natural arches, spires, and alcoves. Winding through this enchanted landscape are 24 scenic miles of the Colorado River. The river separates the 75,550-acre Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness from the NCA's non-wilderness lands.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is now writing a management plan for this new NCA. We need your help to make sure the plan protects the resources and remarkable values the NCA was established to preserve. The deadline for comments is Saturday, January 31, 2004. You can take immediate action at:
http://ga1.org/ct/p71Vnp617prB/ColoradoCanyons

Party at Howard's — everyone's invited!

First, to clarify: we'll take the country back, not from George W. Bush, the person, or even from George W. Bush, the President — but from the George W. Bush administration. His may be the hand that signs the paper, but his is not the brain that decides he should sign it. Bush the person seems like a decent man at heart, an amiable fellow, a man who, by accident of birth and the will of powerful people, has been elevated to a position of power far beyond his ablities.

Bush is merely the spokesperson, the figurehead — the Tool — of the powerful people that made him President. Those people are using Bush to advance their beliefs, to line their pockets with our money, and to reshape America into a country more favorable to their interests, not the interests of ordinary Americans.

Check out the Project for the New American Century. Feel free to buy me a tin foil hat, but first notice what they believe, and how many of them hold important positions in the Bush administration. They're on a mission, a stolen car mission. They couldn't do it without Bush (or someone like him), but he woudn't know what to do without them.

Bush per se may not have lied, I'll admit it. Like a naïve used car salesman at a criminally dishonest dealership, he unwittingly sells us the lies of people who certainly know they're lying, and that endangers us even more than if Bush were telling his own lies.

We do need to take back America for ordinary Americans, NOW, or Bush's "advisors" will keep using him to take more of it for themselves.

I agree 100% with the statement "we need to bring in someone who can lead us in a direction that will make us safer and stronger," and as I said yesterday, I'll gladly (and enthusiastically) support the eventual Democratic nominee. But "everyone" hasn't voted yet, only folks in a couple of small (albeit wonderful) states.

If everyone does decide they'd rather have the party at Kerry's house, or Edwards', I'll go to that party and I'll dance until the music stops. I vote to have the party at Dean's house. He threw a totally excellent party in Vermont: everyone was invited and made to feel welcome (even those who couldn't afford to chip in), everyone had a good time and he even had money left over at the end.

Bush's party, on the other hand, sucks. You and I have to pay for it, though we aren't even invited, only rich white guys are truly welcome, bullies are allowed to beat up the weak kids, the valets steal cars, the whole thing's way over budget and the entire neighborhood's outraged about the noise and the mess.

Let's pull the plug on it.

Posted by Me at 21:52 link

Unnamed Democrat for President, 2004

In New Hampshire today, John Kerry scored a big win in the first official Democratic Presidential primary. Howard Dean finished second. How important is New Hampshire? Just ask Paul Tsongas and John McCain, who won there in 1992 and 2000, respectively.

I'd happily support John Kerry for President, or John Edwards, but Howard Dean is the best candidate in the Democratic field. He's the only major candidate who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, and his positions are consistent with mine on all issues I consider important. Howard Dean is also the only major candidate to have governed a State—which provides more relevant experience for the Presidency than does serving in the Senate—and he can roll out a long list of his successes as Vermont's governor. The next few weeks will show how much these things matter to American voters. Dean supporters: keep the faith! The doctor is still very much IN.

Howard Dean himself has said that the most important thing in this election is to replace Bush with someone better. Whoever you support now, I hope you'll join with Dean (and me) in support of whomever the voters choose as the Democratic nominee. Together, we can take back the White House, and our country.

Posted by Me at 23:40 link

Rideabout

Weary of sitting around, I tried my bike on packed powder, and found it handled extremely well. In over eight miles of riding, I didn't fall down once. My "combination" tires (smooth in the middle, knobs on the outsides) roll through this stuff with ease and good traction. I never spun my wheels, and fishtailed only a little.

Of course, a number of motorists shot me odd looks! Several kids asked me about the bike: "What kind of lights are those?", "What kind of tires are those?", and "How do you keep from falling over?".

I took a few more photos. You can see that conditions remain much the same as yesterday.

Music In My Head

• Janet Jackson — "Escapade"
• Edgar Winter Group — "Free Ride"
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — "Woodstock"
• U2 — "Beautiful Day"

With school cancelled again tomorrow, I anticipate another beautiful day! I hope you have one, too.

Posted by Me at 23:45 link

Snowy Statesville

2.5 inches of fluffy powder would hardly be noticed in the Northeast, but here, it's a Big Deal. Historically, Statesville averages 12 inches of snow a year; over the past 20 years or so, I think we've averaged something like 6 or 8 inches. Most of our snow falls wet and either gets washed away the same day in cold rain or else gets immediately glazed over with ice. Powder snow comes less often than Christmas.

This evening, the dogs and I took a long stroll around the quiet town.

Probably not much will happen tomorrow, either. School officials have already cancelled classes. Unfortunately, I may not get to enjoy my snow day much: the forecast calls for freezing rain with "damaging ice accumulations likely." If that comes true, I'll spend tomorrow sitting inside, listening to a serenade of cracking and falling tree limbs, waiting for the power to go out. I think that experience is a less intense version of riding out a storm on a wooden ship at sea, listening to the creaking timbers and wondering if something's about to give way.

At the moment though, it's just timelessly beautiful and still.

Wish us luck!

Posted by Me at 23:53 link