Jen's Green Journal

Glendon Brown over at One Utah has a very revealing post about how much our Utah legislators were paid for their yea vote were given in contributions by "Parents" for Choice In Education. Glendon has listed who said yea and nay on the controversial voucher bill and how much they recieved in campaign contributions from PCE. How much does it cost to influence your rep? Find out here.

I love the book The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. I'm not expecially a tightwad, but I do like getting a lot of great ideas on how to be green. Dacyczyn says in her book (and I agree) that tightwadery and green living overlap about 90% of the time. The frugalist blog just posted a great post about the same thing -- where green and frugality meet. How to: Go Green AND Save a Boatload of Money - 57 Tips, Tutorials,  and Ideas .

. . . and so does the new project some friends of mine have taken up: Petroleum Peace Offering/No Drive Day

My post about the petroleum peace offering "What are we willing to sacrifice for peace?" made TreeHugger's Blog Love list. TreeHugger is the biggest and best green-living blog out there. I've been picked for their blog-love before, whenever I've hosted the Carnival of the Green -- this is the first post all my own to get that honor.

Congrats to Holly Mullen, who is the new editor of City Weekly, Salt Lake City's alt paper. Holly, for those who don't know, was a great columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune who quit a few months ago. She's been participating in the Utah Blogosphere on a regular basis ( mullentown ).

I read City Weekly, but I've been unhappy with it on many occasions because it felt like too there was too much testosterone. I'm hoping things will balance out a little bit with Holly at the helm.

I got under the previous editor's (Ben Fulton) skin a couple of years ago when I wrote a scathing letter in repsonse to Fulton's Hit and Miss column that claimed that  anti-war protesters and war supporters were equally wrong. In response to my letter, he wrote an editorial the following week called Dictatorial Protesters. The first (and probably last) time I'll be featured in an editorial . . .

Photo of Ralph Becker that I snapped at an ice cream party before Mayor Rocky Anderson's Global Warming presentation last July.

I haven't yet decided who I want to support for mayor of Salt Lake City, but I do like a lot of what I had to hear from Ralph Becker, who held a blogger's reception this evening at his campaign headquarters downtown. I was Ralph's constituent until 9 months ago, and I always thought he was a great representative in the Utah Legislature. He's the guy that always pushed for ethical reforms, like requiring the legislators to report all gifts they received from lobbyists.

We discussed a lot of different issues, from campaign strategies to what we thought would make Salt Lake City a great place to live. Some discussion on technology and adding free wireless internet access to more locations around the city, the predictable discussion on Utah's liquor laws, making downtown and Salt Lake City more walkable and livable. I appreciate Ralph Becker's commitment to the environment and education, and he was receptive to my suggestions to address the daycare situation in Salt Lake City, which I feel is very important if we want to keep families living here rather than moving to Sandy and places where daycare is easier to find.

I'm excited to follow this campaign.

About 15 bloggers were in attendance, some who I've already met, like Cliff from One Utah and Ethan from SLC Spin. I met some other bloggers from the Utah blogosphere that I only knew through their blogs, like Bob from The World According to Me, Rob from the Utah Amicus and "Oldenburg" from The Third Avenue. Some bloggers left before I had a chance to meet them and find out what blogs they write.



Cliff Lyon (left) makes a point at Ralph Becker's (center) blogger reception

 

From A Liberal Mormon:

"Pro-life shouldn’t simply be about forcing expectant mothers to carry their babies to term, but rather about ensuring they have the medical, financial, and emotional support which will help reduce the feelings of desperation and isolation which lead many women to seek abortions.

Pro-life means not merely fighting to provide every child the opportunity to draw breath outside the womb, but fighting just as diligently to provide them the food, shelter, clothing, and health care needed to maintain that life with some measure of dignity until its natural end.

Pro-life means working to provide every individual has access to a quality education and economic opportunities, so that they can find meaning in life and become contributing members of society.

Pro-life means promoting a penal system focused on rehabilitation and healing rather than punishment. How can one claim to be pro-life when they support the use of death by the state as a means of punishment and crime prevention, risking irrevocable tragedy when innocents are mistakenly convicted and executed and robbing the rightfully convicted of the opportunity of repentance and restitution to society?

Pro-life means promoting peace over war, actively and persistently pursuing alternatives to the violent taking of life in conflict resolution. Efforts to establish a U.S. Department of Peace show a creative and consistent commitment to life.

Pro-life means establishing a system by which we can provide the comfort and temporal support we owe our elders as they approach the end of their natural lives.

I’d be more inclined to support the efforts of self-described pro-life advocates if they seemed more genuinely interested in “the sanctity of life,” and less interested in punishing those who have sinned."

My friend Shelly has finally taken the plunge and started blogging. His first post makes a great case for the 110th Congress to re-establish the rules before the game becomes meaningless.

Form Over Substance, Please

Imagine a football game in which one team scores repeatedly by running out of bounds, clipping, holding, face-masking, and refusing to turn over the ball after fourth down – moreover, they also bribe, impersonate, threaten, and eliminate referees.

Upon somehow gaining possession of the ball, the opposing team must not simply play with competence and integrity.  First, the rules must be restored, or else the brawl will continue, and there will be no game. That means Democrats must reestablish the core elements of democracy:  information must be accurate, corruption must be prevented, and elections must be fair. 

read the rest

Left Out Front writes about next year's Burning Man gathering, with a Green Man theme for next year. The best part is that all burners are incouraged to offset the CO2 footprint  they create by attending the event.

Voice of Utah discusses our wasteful legislature that would rather spend millions over lawsuits for trying to legislate our choices (in this case video games) than spend the same amount of money on dental care for the poor and homeless. There's also a head -> desk moment in the post about BYU switching from a free bus/paid parking to paid bus/free parking system.

Schreiner's Media Landscape announced today that he will be podcasting his solar power installation. Congrats to Ken for being such a good greenie!

There's quite a bit happening over at the One Utah blog -- there are now several contributors and it's hard to keep up with all the discusions. This is probably the most happenin' Utah political blog.

Deanna over at Dee's 'Dotes reminds us that November is Transgender Awareness month.

Over at the Third Avenue there's a Friday Roundup -- some fun tidbits, including a chuckler about the Conneticut for Lieberman party.

Voice of Utah is posting a series of  Jim Mattheson 'toons (actually photographs with cartoon dialogue balloons) that are very funny and clever.

Here's a sample, shamlessly ganked:



To see more you'll have to visit Voice of Utah's page.

I'm enjoying the new Utah political blog Voice of Utah. I'll be adding this blog to my Utah Blogosphere Page.

It's a bit of a mystery who is writing the blog, but it's a very good and often funny read.

I just found out that Al at City Hippy has been offered a fabulous new job and is going to be retiring the City Hippy blog.

City Hippy is a widely read green living blog from the U.K.

Al at City Hippy, along with Triple Pundit, founded the Carnival of the Green -- which will be taken over by Nick Aster of Treehugger.

I will also be sad to say goodbye to Al as we had teamed up for the Holiday Lights CFL campaign. I will continue the campaign along with the help of Penny at the eco-conscious/fair trade  goods company, TaraLuna, who will be giving out free CFLs with any purchase of $50 or more (you can also buy 75-watt equivelent CFLs on her site for $3 each -- a bargain over regular store prices).

Al, you and City Hippy will be missed. Best to you and your family.
Namaste,
Jen

Ryan Kummer at The New Citizenship Project has an interesting history lesson that we can all learn from in our current "War on Terror" -- it seems that the ancient Romans had a similar problem back in 68 B.C., and it further seems that we are dooming ourselves to follow in their footsteps:
"For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. . . <snip> By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned." Please read the whole post if you can -- you may know how true that those who "don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it".

Utah Peak Oil has also learned a bit of history -- the part where American car companies bought up rail companies so that we'd all be forced to buy cars and drive everywhere.

SLC Spin is posting a lot about the proposed 4th congressional seat. The World According to Me is having a Mention Mitt Romney Weekend (MMRW). Ed at Part of the Plan is posting a lot these days: from bribery in congress to polls that show that the Iraqis want us to leave yesterday. Deanna at Dee's 'Dotes is posting about corrupt military recruiters. Cliff at One Utah is hopeful that Chris Burridge can topple Chris Cannon.

I'm very honored to be featured in this week's blog love on TreeHugger for my post hosting the Carnival of the Green #33. TreeHugger is probably the most widely read environmental/green living blog in the blogiverse.

Deanna and I have been working on getting a Pom Pom not Bomb Bombs group blog going for the last couple of months. I envisioned something like the This Divided State blog, with several (if not all) of the radical cheerleaders posting at least occasionally. So far it's only been me and Deanna, but I'm hoping that will soon change. Once we get those other cheerleaders blogging they may get as adicted to it as we are!

Pom Poms not Bomb Bombs Blog

We set it up as an LJ community. Anyone on LJ is free to join the community or comment to posts, but it's set up right now to only let cheerleaders (that have registered) top post.

I enjoyed reading Part of the Plan's analysis on why conservatives are poor public "servants".

I just discovered another female progressive political blogger here in Utah: RedStateBlues . We are still outnumbered by the guys, though. I'm adding this blog to my Utah Blogosphere resource page.

Bryan at the "This Divided State" blog shares my frustrations with Democratic politicians. He wrote a great post with suggestions for those Democrats:

"1) Offer viable alternatives to Bush policies that you disagree with, particularly the war. Get the entire party behind a reasonable and strategic solution to Bush's tentpole issues and take that to the American people. If I hear one more Democratic Strategist say, "It's not our job to offer alternative solutions, we're the minority party," I'm going to pull my hair out and never vote for another Democratic Candidate again. I'll go completely third party. Saying you don't need to offer solutions because you're the minority party is a good way of saying that you plan on staying the minority party."

More common sense solutions for the Dems at http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2006/03/message-to-democrats.html

Dee's 'Dotes is writing a lot about her political campaign for Salt Lake County Council. The World According to Bob Aagard is madder than hell and Part of the Plan discusses the angry left vs. the imperial right both of these posts in response to LaVarr Webb's editorial on Utah Policy Daily today ( see below -I've got something to say about how far off LaVarr is as well, but I'll save that for tomorrow). Ed Firmage, Jr. at One Utah says that Bush isn't the problem. Utah True Blue has a funny of photo of Rove thumbing his nose. SLC Spin posts about the Iron County Clerk's office changing voter party affiliations.   Conservative blog Oblogotory Anecdotes writes about Bush's policy of pre-emption -- whatever happened to war as a last resort?

Just a bit of LaVarr Webb's analysis of the left from today's Utah Daily Policy:

"Let’s keep those wild-eyed liberal bloggers writing, the George Soros money flowing, and the Michael Moore “documentaries” coming. The Angry Left is the best friend the beleaguered Republicans have these days."

SLC Spin has some new acronyms which seem really at home in Utah. Part of the Plan humorously pokes fun at Utah's slogans. One Utah asks if we are making progress in Iraq and reports on Sandra Day O'Connor's warning to the GOP of the beginning of a dictatorship. Utah True Blue posts about true morality from religious leader Jim Wallis. The Third Avenue speculates on who has the most political capital to gain on port security. Democracy for Utah reports that Maryland has done their homework and voted 137 to 0 to ban Diebold voting machines -- Go Maryland! The World According to Bob Aagard posts about the meeting between Pete Ashdown and Orrin Hatch at the capitol to file their papers. This Divided State complains about Rep. Mattheson giving in to Bush (again). Dee's 'Dotes has photos of Friday's Free Tibet Rally in downtown SLC. (Deanna's blog is the best blog to go to for local events photos, by the way). The Green Party of Utah has a new name and Outraged Moderates blasts Bush's "values" gimmick. Oblogatory Anecdotes complains of the "liberal media's" publishing of the Cheney Retire photo. Utah Policy's Friday Buzz is all about deciding if you are ready to run for office -- LaVarr Webb asks, "Do you have enough fire in the belly?"

This from Afganistan -- a country we bombed in order to (as was claimed) get Osama -- a teacher murdered for teaching girls. Didn't Madame Bush attempt to convince us that one of the benefits of going to war there would be to restore basic rights to women? Just more Bush era smoke and mirrors.

115 people from progressive Christian groups got arrested recently for protesting the the inhumane and un-Christ-like tax cuts in DC, but you may not have heard about this massive arrest action as it's being ignored by the corporate (and conservative supporting) media.

Ms. Magazine's Top Ten News Stories for Women in 2005 has a good sum up. Scariest story: Birth Control is named most endangered -- there's nothing like anti-progress as only the so called "conservatives" can do it. It's almost as good as building a time machine to take all of society back kicking and screaming to the time when women were property and bore at least a dozen children whether they wanted to or not (if they lived long enough).

I've been reading various commentary and articles regarding Bush playing Big Brother. A few folks from various countries can't believe that there aren't massive protests over this. Well it's hard to explain to people not living here how a significant chunk of our population believe that if Bush does something, it will be a direct order from God and can therefore can only be holy. I'm all for protesting this -- just let me know where and when, and in the meantime:

Mr. Bush -- it is wrong and treasonous to spy on peace-loving Americans. You are not a dictator and this is not a dictatorship.You are to cease all illegal activities and learn to uphold the constitution as you have sworn to do. (P.S.  God does not speak to you, and if you truly believe He/She does, you need some professional help from someone in the psychiatric field. ) 

On a lighter note, if talking about not having enough vaccine in case of a bird flu epidemic can be talked of lightly -- there just may be enough people that won't want the vaccine as it goes against their belief that evolution is a crock. It may just be the perfect solution to the projected shortage . . .