tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37069006719404843212024-03-14T01:52:13.384-07:00Back to the GardenRegaining ParadiseEvan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-79876683475871568962018-04-26T21:27:00.003-07:002021-07-28T12:25:01.377-07:00Direct democracy in Colorado beats representative democracy anywhere<div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
I challenge anyone to find a State legislature whose record compares to what Coloradans have done with ballot initiatives, a form of direct democracy:<br />
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In 2000 Colorado voters passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Medical_Use_of_Marijuana,_Initiative_20_(2000)">Amendment 20</a>, legalizing medical marijuana, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Gun_Shows_Background_Checks,_Initiative_22_(2000)">Amendment 22</a>, closing the gun-show loophole and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Funding_for_Public_Schools,_Initiative_23_(2000)">Amendment 23</a>, raising K-12 spending. In 2002 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Campaign_Finance,_Initiative_27_(2002)">Amendment 27</a>, one of the country's strongest campaign finance limits. In 2004 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Renewable_Energy_Requirement,_Initiative_37_(2004)">Initiative 37</a>, the country's first voter-approved renewable energy mandate for utilities. In 2006 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Standards_of_Conduct_in_Government,_Initiative_41_(2006)">Amendment 41</a>, the country's strongest Ethics in Government law, and <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Minimum_Wage_Increase,_Initiative_42_(2006)">Initiative 42</a>, raising the minimum wage. In 2008 we passed <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Campaign_Contributions_from_Government_Contractors,_Initiative_54_(2008)">Amendment 54</a>, which prohibits government contractors from making campaign donations. In 2012 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Marijuana_Legalization_Initiative,_Amendment_64_(2012)">Amendment 64</a>, the country's first legal marijuana AND hemp, and we voted 3 to 1 for <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Corporate_Contributions_Amendment,_Amendment_65_(2012)">Amendment 65</a>, asking our Congressional Representatives to work to reverse Citizens United. (Only 1 of 7 did anything, showing how poorly they represent us.) In 2016 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_$12_Minimum_Wage,_Amendment_70_(2016)">Amendment 70</a> for a $12/hr. minimum wage, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_End_of_Life_Options_Act,_Proposition_106_(2016)">Proposition 106</a>, Medical Assistance in Dying for the terminally ill and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Presidential_Primary_Election,_Proposition_107_(2016)">Proposition 107</a>, for Open Presidential Primaries. In 2018, we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Proposition_111,_Limits_on_Payday_Loan_Charges_Initiative_(2018)">Proposition 111</a>, which restricts payday loan interest rates. In 2020, we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Proposition_114,_Gray_Wolf_Reintroduction_Initiative_(2020)">Proposition 114</a>, which reintroduces wolves into the state, and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Proposition_118,_Paid_Medical_and_Family_Leave_Initiative_(2020)">Proposition 118</a>, providing paid medical and family leave. <br />
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(You can find details of each at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://ballotpedia.org/&source=gmail&ust=1506200712233000&usg=AFQjCNFeLF4ibaCelcXEA6LT-wScrbfLRQ" href="http://ballotpedia.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">ballotpedia.org</a> by clicking on the names. )<br />
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During a similar time the <b>Colorado Legislature</b> has done much to prevent local communities from solving their own problems with <a href="https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/10580140">preemptive </a>laws, such as against local minimum wages, rent control, gun control, fracking control and cyanide mining control. </div>
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<b>The downside of initiatives is far less harmful than legislation as well. </b>Contrast a few ballot initiatives impeding gay rights and abortion with all 50 state legislatures criminalizing sodomy and abortion and jailing people for decades. Not to mention interning Japanese-Americans during World War II, persecuting communists, socialists and friends during the McCarthy era and imprisoning millions of marijuana smokers over the last 80 years. </div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><b>Media, not just in Colorado, have focused on the few problematic ballot initiatives</b>, like Colorado's 1992 Taxpayer Bill of Rights <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Taxpayer_Bill_of_Rights_Act_%281992%29" target="_blank">Amendment 1</a>, which voters gave a 5 year time out in 2005, by voting for <a href="http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_State_Spending_Act,_Referendum_C_%282005%29" target="_blank">Referendum C</a>. Rather than act to finally fix TABOR, the Colorado Legislature keeps trying to make the initiative process harder, including with 2008's defeated <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Citizen-Initiated_State_Laws,_Referendum_O_%282008%29" target="_blank">Referendum O</a>. The same forces finally succeeded with 2016's <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Imposition_of_Distribution_and_Supermajority_Requirements_for_Citizen-Initiated_Constitutional_Amendments,_Amendment_71_(2016)">Amendment 71</a>, by going the initiative route, to make it appear to be a grassroots effort, but it was funded mostly by oil and gas interests. 71 makes the process much more expensive for regular people, without inconveniencing wealthy users of the ballot initiative process.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><b>Oregon has instead <i>improved</i> its ballot initiative process with <a href="http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/" target="_blank">Citizen Initiative Review</a></b>. By having randomly-selected "citizen juries" deliberate each initiative, problems like TABOR's "<a href="http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadername2=Content-Type&blobheadervalue1=inline%3B+filename%3D%22Report+on+State+Spending+Limitations%3A+TABOR+and+Referendum+C.pdf%22&blobheadervalue2=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251714173819&ssbinary=true" target="_blank">racheting down provision</a>," hidden in its back pages unnoticed, would have been exposed <i>before</i> we voted on it. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Citizens in both Oregon and California have tried ballot initiatives to allow signing future ballot initiative petitions on the Secretary of State's voter registration website. This would open the process to groups without huge funds, save the SOS the expense of comparing physical signatures (ID would be by driver's license, etc., as with online registration in 37 states), reduce misrepresentation and harassment for signatures, get more voters to read more of the initiative texts before signing, and save gas, time and money.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I list four other improvements to the process in my article <a href="https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/2/1508657/-Why-Bernie-Sanders-should-put-Direct-Democracy-on-top-of-our-agenda">Why<b> Bernie Sanders should put Direct Democracy at the top of our Agenda</b></a></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The initiative and referendum process is the origin of most US reforms, from women's suffrage to sunshine laws to medical marijuana to term limits. See <a href="http://evanravitz.com/vote/initiatives" target="_blank">initiatives</a> for references and more examples.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="color: #888888;">"On most major issues we've dealt with in the past 50 years, the public was more likely to be right...based on the judgment of history...than the legislatures or Congress." -George Gallup, Sr.</span>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-26011480202859600702017-12-01T10:52:00.008-08:002022-12-19T13:28:54.497-08:00Why I Quest for Direct Democracy, What I learned<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7mW6gGBw3ao/WiWOXpx2RFI/AAAAAAAA7ww/VXsziXBrDjk1Og8yLQMQgdtioUtxiA7gQCLcBGAs/s1600/logo.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><img border="0" data-original-height="895" data-original-width="598" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7mW6gGBw3ao/WiWOXpx2RFI/AAAAAAAA7ww/VXsziXBrDjk1Og8yLQMQgdtioUtxiA7gQCLcBGAs/s320/logo.jpg" width="213" /></span></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">The brief story of how I, happy-go-lucky not-so-tight-rope artist </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Evan from Heaven</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">, was treated by Boulder, Colorado, how my Guatemalan friends were killed by US-supplied weapons, what I decided to do about it 33 years ago, and what's happened since.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">I performed on Boulder's famous Pearl St. Mall, but members of the Mall Commission who wanted to "curtail the circus atmosphere" shut me down repeatedly, in spite of our enormous popularity -and the Commission <b>only</b> having advisory power -as my volunteer lawyer Doug Thorburn later discovered. I later found <a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/dwcyQrQ8GkqFAgLX9" target="_blank">a letter</a> to the City Manager proving that Mall Commission Chair Richard Foy KNEW they had only advisory power!</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> Among others banned was mime </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shiner_%28clown%29" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>David Shiner</b> </a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">who was arrested at least twice for "impersonating an officer" and went on to be Ringmaster of Le Cirque du Soleil, had his own show on Broadway, and is one of the most famous clowns in the world. </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">When City Council, going against a petition of some 4000 supporting us (see below), gave the Commission licensing power, the Commission refused to license me.</span><br />
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</span><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wADrfIXJJtY/SOfUSbGG56I/AAAAAAAAwEQ/MnFG2qLnYA0zydYOCRyGZJlfnbxxmN4jgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Jesus.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><img alt="Evan as Jesus" border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="594" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wADrfIXJJtY/SOfUSbGG56I/AAAAAAAAwEQ/MnFG2qLnYA0zydYOCRyGZJlfnbxxmN4jgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Jesus.jpg" title="Evan as Jesus" width="211" /></span></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">I left Boulder, performed in Aspen and Key West, and then </span><a href="http://evanravitz.com/Yelapa" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Yelapa</b>, Mexico</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">. Arriving penniless in this fishing/tourist village, I was given a free hotel room with a view. The Mayor, known as Piri, fed me lunch daily at his restaurant at the foot of the town waterfall, where I entertained his diners by tightroping over the falls. What a contrast with Boulder! Doy gracias a la Dulce Morena y sus hijos. I made enough in tips to live there in paradise and in spring to travel back north. I was also honored to <a href="https://evanravitz.com/Yelapa/#:~:text=asked%20me%20to-,play%20Jesus,-for%20Holy%20Week" target="_blank">play Jesus</a></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> for Holy Week celebrations there in 1986.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">In 1985, my volunteer lawyer Doug Thorburn talked some sense into Boulder's oligarchs and I was able to resume my shows, which I did until an old injury forced my retirement in 1998. I continued to live in Mexico and Guatemala seasonally into the 90s.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">In </span><a href="http://evanravitz.com/Atitlan" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;">Guatemala</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">, I fell in love with </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Lake Atitlan</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">, which Aldous Huxley called "the most beautiful lake in the world." I started building a house on Maya artist friend Raul Velasquez Barrios' land (photo below, with 2 of the 3 volcanoes by the lake in the background), but abandoned it when 3 other Maya friends were killed by the Guatemalan Arm</span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">y</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> -with U.S.-supplied M-16s. Some </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_Civil_War" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">200,000 were killed, tens of thousands horribly tortured</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">, mostly in the '80s.</span><br />
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</span><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SZ-PygLwAjI/AAAAAAAAJA8/CAdc0dK6URs/s288/raul2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SZ-PygLwAjI/AAAAAAAAJA8/CAdc0dK6URs/s288/raul2.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left; height: 181px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 4px; width: 288px;" /></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">I gave up the house and returned to Boulder, depressed. I read in </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Howard Zinn's "People's History of the U.S</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">." that "polls showed by 1975 that</span><a href="http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnseven20.html#:~:text=Shortly%20after%20that%2C%20another%20Harris%20poll%20reported%20%2265%25%20of%20Americans%20oppose%20military%20aid%20abroad%20because%20they%20feel%20it%20allows%20dictatorships%20to%20maintain%20control%20over%20their%20population.%22" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> 65% of Americans were opposed to all foreign military aid</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">" -because it strengthened dictators. I realized if this was a binding vote and not just a poll my friends would still be alive -along with 200,000 other Guatemalans, and millions from Vietnam to the Americas. If we had real </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"government by the people</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">", our shows would not have been banned in Boulder. The world would be a much better place.</span><br />
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SbM8j3sUsjI/AAAAAAAAKIM/9JyxnnE-7dU/s400/scan0008-1.jpg" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://lh3.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SbM8j3sUsjI/AAAAAAAAKIM/9JyxnnE-7dU/s400/scan0008-1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: right; height: 400px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; padding: 4px; width: 318px;" /></a><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">So, I spearheaded Boulder's 1993 </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Voting by Phone </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">ballot initiative, hoping this would make more </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">direct democracy</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> practical. We made the CBS Evening News, the </span><a href="http://www.evanravitz.com/wsj.htm" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;">Wall St. Journal</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">, etc.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">With the City Council dishonestly attacking our initiative it was defeated 59-41%. I started </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Vote.org</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> in 1995 to promote citizen power via better and national ballot initiatives. I sold that domain in 2015 and that site is now at </span><a href="http://evanravitz.com/vote" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;">EvanRavitz.com/vote</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">(Initiatives are controversial, thanks to media dwelling on the few bad ones. But the </span><a href="http://vote.org/initiatives" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><i>full</i> record</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> shows the results are </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">far</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> better than what politicians do.</span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">Because it was until 2016 easier in Colorado than most states to get initiatives on the ballot, we have a </span><a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2012/01/case-for-ballot-initiatives-and.html" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">stellar record</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">. </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">When signing initiative petitions is allowed online, it will be even better.</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">)</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">I soon got a call from </span><a href="http://jaredpolis.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>Jared Polis</b></a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">, a Princeton student who'd enabled student voting by web. We've been friends ever since.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">Jared became the wealthiest and most philanthropic person in Boulder. He sponsored 2 Colorado ballot initiatives which passed becoming Amendment 23 (raising K-12 school spending) and Amendment 41 (the country's strongest prohibition on lobbyist "gifts" to politicians.) </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Jared became our <a href="http://polis.house.gov/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Congressman</a></b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">. He </span><a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;">said on radio</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> in 2008 that he would introduce a bill for national ballot initiatives in his first year. But he didn't realize it would take a constitutional amendment. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">In 2000 I devoted </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Vote.org</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> to famed former Sen. </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Mike Gravel</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">'s project for better and national initiatives. I solicited endorsements from prominent people. </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Howard Zinn</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> became one of the first, along with </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Patch Adams, <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2009/01/pete-seeger-endorses-national.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Pete Seeger</a>, Daniel Ellsberg, Julia Butterfly Hill, "Granny D," Michael Lerner, <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2009/04/ralph-nader-endorses-my-voteorg-project.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Ralph Nader</a></b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> etc. See the </span><a href="http://vote.org/endorsers" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;">complete list.</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;"> Gravel ran for President in 2008 and 2016 mainly to promote this project. But Mike is almost 90 and it has stalled.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">But <a href="https://spryeye.blogspot.com/2012/01/case-for-ballot-initiatives-and.html">time has proved Direct Democracy has a better record</a> than representatives, for the most part. Colorado is a relative paradise due to ballot initiatives, while "our" legislature does little but obstruct the process -they tried with Referendum O in 2010 and succeeded in 2016 with Amendment 71- and pass preemption laws to prevent localities from solving our own problems.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Boulder Colorado voted 71-29% in 2018 for Issue 2G which will allow the city to offer ONLINE petitions for future ballot initiatives, which we believe will be the biggest Improvement in direct democracy in its century in America. By a fluke, I was appointed to the city's Campaign Finance and Elections working group and our 11 members unanimously recommended it and Council unanimously put it on the ballot. Here is our <a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/guest-opinions/ci_32187489/campaign-finance-elections-working-group-issue-2g-brings">working group's editorial for issue 2 G. </a></span></span></span><div><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: black; color: white;">Unfortunately, greater powers, probably Big Oil and Gas, and now-Governor Polis, who is afraid of them, seem to have corrupted the implementation of online petitions in Boulder, as well as stop it moving to the state level, where they've talked about this for several years. Here's <a href="https://www.change.org/p/boulder-city-council-allow-online-petitioning-for-ballot-initiatives/u/25489431">my interview</a> at the 7th Annual Election Reform Symposium and a <a href="http://tinyurl.com/petitionstory">presentation</a> showing all the lying, cheating and defrauding taxpayers of $490,000, by City staff.</span><div><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The system is finally working, clunkily, at <a href="http://petitions.bouldercolorado.gov">petitions.bouldercolorado.gov</a>.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span>Here is my latest editorial, which brings us to early 2022. Taipei is now implementing online petitioning for initiatives, so it looks like they won't be able to kill it in its infancy <br /></span>
<br style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">Let my people VOTE!</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">-Evan 'from Heaven' Ravitz</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: white; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r5vzRxceBUM/WiLI1hs2gwI/AAAAAAAA7v0/LJ38uSoEj5of9m0J2QWIpHP2-q_en6e6QCKgBGAs/s1600/scan0010.jpg" style="background-color: black; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="804" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r5vzRxceBUM/WiLI1hs2gwI/AAAAAAAA7v0/LJ38uSoEj5of9m0J2QWIpHP2-q_en6e6QCKgBGAs/s640/scan0010.jpg" width="500" /></a></span></div>
</div></div></div>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-21192787508470727762015-03-20T16:52:00.001-07:002015-03-20T16:53:29.626-07:00WHY NOT NATIONAL BALLOT INITIATIVES?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Case for Direct Democracy <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">WHY NOT
NATIONAL BALLOT INITIATIVES?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Vincent
Campbell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Government is dysfunctional, many
are saying, meaning that it doesn’t work. Actually, it works quite
well---for the rich. They are making a lot of money, often with help from the
government, and are paying the lowest taxes in decades, while ordinary
Americans who still have jobs work harder than ever at about the same pay, or
less. We complain that government is serving the top 1% much better than
the other 99%, but we seem to be stymied at finding ways to do something about
it. Attempts to improve government have largely failed so far, to
wit: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Campaign finance reform laws---but Congress waters them down and
corporations find ways to work around them, now with the support of the
Supreme Court.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Term limits---but cushy
lobbying jobs follow anyway for those serving in Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ethics reform---big talk (shocked! shocked!), and a
slap on the wrist for ethical violators.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Public financing of Congressional campaigns---always
spurned by Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most
Americans want such reforms. They
consistently fail, nevertheless, because of the close ties between Congress and
big money. It’s not hard to fathom why many Congressmen cater to the
rich, when getting re-elected and later lobbying jobs depend on
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So
the 99% want a government that acts more in the public interest. At the
core this means making better laws. If Congress cannot do this, maybe the
people can. Half the states in the U.S. allow direct popular votes as one way
to make state laws. We could make federal laws by this initiative process as
well, if the mechanisms were put in place. A project led by former Senator Mike
Gravel would do this. (See </span><a href="http://vote.org/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">vote.org</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
for details. Disclosure: I have advised on it.) But the effort to
introduce direct democracy at the national level has had little success to
date. As it is now, with only representative democracy, citizens can beg
Congress to pass the laws they want, and Congress may do so, or may not.
Mendicant democracy, some call it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
would ordinary people make better laws for the 99% than Congress does? Those
who think elected leaders are better suited to legislate usually assert that
the common people have inadequate motivation, skills or knowledge for the task.
Social critic H. L. Mencken famously said that nobody ever went broke
underestimating the intelligence of the American public. And commentator Walter
Lippmann insisted that we must abandon the notion
that the people govern, and accept that their role is only to support or oppose
those individuals who actually govern. Alexander Hamilton and John Adams
would have agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the other side,
Theodore Roosevelt </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">claimed, “the majority of the plain
people will day in and day out make fewer mistakes in governing themselves than
any smaller body of men will make trying to govern them.” Thomas Jefferson said: “The will of the majority, the
natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.
Perhaps even this may sometimes err; but its errors are honest, solitary and
short-lived.” Pollster George Gallup adds, “On the most major
issues we’ve dealt with in the past 50 years, the public was more likely to be
right…based on the judgment of history…than the legislatures or Congress.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Social scientists have
recently provided some evidence bearing on the question. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of the more intriguing facts coming to light is that in
many situations the average judgment of many ordinary people is superior to the
judgment of almost any individual, however expert. This was found for
estimation tasks, such as judging livestock weights, and for predicting complex
events, such as election results, product sales, movie ticket sales, and stock
values. Writer James Surowiecki summarized this evidence in <i>The Wisdom of Crowds.</i> A few individuals
may do better than the average on one prediction, but the average judgment is
better over the course of several predictions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
The conditions of voting on an initiative are much like those found favorable
to crowd wisdom. That is, the group is diverse, and each voter makes an
independent judgment, usually after reviewing basic facts and arguments pro and
con. Voters may ignore these facts and arguments, but that is true of nearly
all situations in which the wisdom of crowds has been demonstrated. Ordinary
people, as a group, make amazingly accurate judgments in these conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
A limitation of the crowd-wisdom findings is that they usually involve
near-term predictions. Would people do as well in predicting the long-term
benefits of a social policy? How would they compare to elected leaders in this
skill? Perhaps elected leaders have more relevant expertise than ordinary
citizens in political, economic and social matters, expertise that might make
their long term forecasts and policy decisions better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
Social psychologist Philip Tetlock tested this proposition. He compared experts
of varying prominence and degrees of expertise to each other. What he examined
was how well they could predict future economic and political events over a
period of 15 years. He found that experts were on average no better than
“dilettantes” (professionals with less expertise on that topic) at predicting
the future. And experts did only slightly better than simply guessing that all
outcomes were equally likely. Another investigator, K.C. Green, found
that college undergraduates <i>playing the
role of experts</i> made more accurate forecasts than experts themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
If experts can’t predict much better than chance guessing, this does not give
us much confidence that leaders will make wise civic choices, whoever they may
consult, and whatever their own political and economic expertise.
In highly technical fields, such as engineering and biology, there is
little doubt that experts play a vital role in creating solutions to civic
problems, but in any field involving human behavior, expertise is quite
limited, and we should not be surprised if individual experts cannot predict
complex events better than the average judgment of a diverse group of lay
persons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
Accurate forecasting is only one indicator of decision skill, of course.
Another is the soundness of the logic used by the decider. Decision scientists
and psychologists have documented at length that most people make thinking
errors of several kinds. But experts appear to make such mistakes no less than
ordinary citizens. Take the vividness bias. In this error, a “Muslim terrorist
strike,” for example, is predicted to be more likely than a “terrorist strike,”
because the image is more vivid. Logically this is not possible. “Terrorist
strikes” is a larger set of events that includes “Muslim terrorist strikes.”
Yet experts make such errors just as lay persons do. No study has emerged of
the logic of politicians, but it is hard to imagine they would do better than
experts, who usually have more scientific training than politicians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
Thus, there is no clear evidence that elected representatives, or political
leaders of any kind, are superior to citizens in their decision skills. So if
their skills are no better, do leaders have any advantages over ordinary
citizens?<br />
<br />
A common assumption is that the politicians spend a good deal more time
studying the issue at hand than most citizens do, and so know more about it.
This is often true for members of the mark-up committee that creates a bill,
although more and more bills are drafted by lobbyists and accepted with little
change by such committees. Even when committees study the matter in
detail it is rare that their colleagues in the full legislative body give the
details much attention, especially in Congress. They rely instead on the advice
of their party leaders and friends, or make a deal to swap votes. They usually
devote very little time to one bill since there are so many bills, and since
they spend half their time trying to get re-elected. So time spent on the task
is at best a weak advantage for leaders when only five percent of Congress
marks up a bill and the other 95 percent of those voting spend so little time
on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
Yet surely they must know a bit more than ordinary people. Conventional wisdom
decries the general lack of information possessed by voters, who often cannot
name office-holders and other similar facts about government. The implication
is that they are therefore not fit to govern. But many of us doubt the
relevance of such knowledge to making good judgments on civic issues. As
discussed above, crowds can be wise without much information, and experts in
political and economic matters are not so wise even though they possess a great
deal of knowledge. So general factual knowledge <i>per se</i> seems to be overrated as a component of civic wisdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
Still, few doubt that whatever the political wisdom of the people, it would
likely be improved by more review of key assumptions and arguments on the
specific issue at hand. To this end, some state initiatives present arguments
pro and con. And political scientists have recently demonstrated new techniques for enhancing deliberation by
citizen groups before they vote on issues, such as letting them question
experts on the issue, followed by further discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
In trying out direct democracy in San Jose, California in 1973, for the
National Science Foundation we at the American Institutes for Research (AIR)
found that citizen participation in deciding policy issues increases their
knowledge of those issues, including greater awareness of arguments on both
sides of an issue. It appears that participation and knowledge of the issue at
hand are mutually reinforcing, so perhaps the more responsibility citizens have
for deciding civic matters, the better they will be at it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
In all, ordinary people appear to be approximately as competent as the elite
and the experts when it comes to judgment, fairness and the skills a civic
decider needs. So let’s look at the results of actual legislation by
voters and by state legislatures. Have ordinary citizens up to now done any
better than their leaders in deciding important civic issues at the state
level? Opponents of direct democracy frequently cite some state initiative
passed by the people that they think is disgraceful, such as California’s
Proposition 13 that cut property taxes but impoverished state and local
government. There is no doubt that occasionally initiatives produce results
that are regrettable, as do legislatures. What is rarely noted by opponents,
however, is that many good policies we now take for granted began as state
initiatives, including women’s suffrage, child labor laws, and the eight-hour
work day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
Some object to direct democracy because they fear ordinary people will abuse
minorities. In hard times, especially, people are sometimes hostile to
foreigners or those of a different race or religion. Aroused
mobs have done horrible things to minorities, it is true. But a street mob
is quite different from voters privately marking ballots. In the Mideast, for
example, Islamic extremists at emotional street rallies can arouse great
antipathy toward Westerners or minorities, but polls of a representative sample
in Muslim countries do not usually support the view that majorities there are
hostile to either minorities or Westerners. And in the U.S. popular acceptance
of diverse races, cultures and sexual orientations has increased markedly over
the last century. Prejudice remains, obviously, but laws against ethnic or religious
minorities have long been ruled unconstitutional by the courts, and the record
over a century of initiatives shows that the electorate is no more likely to
disadvantage minorities than are legislators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <br />
Elisabeth Gerber and other political scientists have compared states that
have popular initiatives with states that make laws only through
legislatures. These studies found that states with popular initiatives tend to
have policies more aligned with public values and preferences than states that
rely entirely on representative government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
Having ordinary people make laws to suit their values is only desirable if one
agrees with the values, of course. And we do agree, I submit, on most values
related to public policy. For example, in measuring citizenship
achievement for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, our team at
AIR found that a panel of Americans from all walks of life agreed on nearly all
behaviors and values (hundreds of them) proposed as criteria of good
citizenship. Criteria such as participating in the community, caring for
others, obeying the law, and thinking rationally about civic issues. Daily news
gives the opposite impression because the media tend to highlight controversy
rather than agreement, and clearly there are specific issues such as abortion
where we do not agree. But we do seem to agree on most of the fundamental
values and behaviors that are important in our civic lives. So perhaps Gerber’s
evidence reflects well on ordinary people as lawmakers, at least to the extent
of making laws that reflect their common values. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
By far the biggest weakness of leaders, compared to citizens, is their
corruption by power and money, as discussed earlier. Not that ordinary citizens
are less susceptible to temptation. Greed seems to well up in many of us when
we imagine we can indulge it secretly. It is doubtful that politicians as a
group are inferior to ordinary people in ethics or character. Ordinary citizens
are more likely to vote in the public interest, not because they are more
upright morally than Congresspersons, but because they are not wooed by
lobbyists. The role of leader invites corruption. The role of citizen does not.
This difference alone is the most significant
advantage citizens have over leaders in setting public policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
The usual rejoinder from defenders of the status quo is that voters are
influenced by big money too, through media campaigns to persuade people to vote
for or against an initiative. This argument, true on its face, has some major
weaknesses. First, at the national level it would cost corporations about a
thousand times as much to influence voters as it does to buy Congressmen.
Second, even after spending millions to persuade voters, the effort would often
fail. Gerber’s analysis showed that while powerful interests are sometimes
successful in <i>defeating</i> state
initiatives, they generally do <i>not</i>
persuade voters to <i>pass</i> initiatives.
Third, their campaign advertising is out in the open where lies and distortions
are more easily revealed, compared to the subtle ways in which lobbies
manipulate Congress. So the powerful find the initiative process much more
expensive and risky as a way to shape laws to their liking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is a strong case, then, for having direct democracy work
alongside representative democracy in making national laws, as it already does
in making laws in many states. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the
future, the key decisions of government will be made, for better or worse,
either by ordinary citizens acting in concert or by leaders and their wealthy
backers. Americans can go on searching for leaders who will make the federal
government work for all of us. Or, if they believe that ordinary people
will usually make good laws, national initiatives may become a reality. Most
politicians will object strenuously to such direct democracy, as they always
have, but they can be bypassed, just as they were in 1787 when we created our
constitution. Some think the Constitution forbids anyone but Congress from
making national laws. It does not, and even if it did, the people could change
it. But few people know this. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice
Walker said, “The most common way people give up
their power is by thinking they don't have any.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
It’s our choice. Maybe we are the
ones we have been waiting for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Vincent Campbell is a social
psychologist. He directed research on citizenship and democracy at the American
Institutes for Research. Email: vincecampbell@cableone.net</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-20008399700087314092013-10-17T09:34:00.003-07:002019-08-30T13:21:11.927-07:00Ballot Initiatives are what made Boulder, Colorado great<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-69nOuDh2GSA/S20SDVemQyI/AAAAAAAAiTg/373kVT005Ls/s640/P1010123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-69nOuDh2GSA/S20SDVemQyI/AAAAAAAAiTg/373kVT005Ls/s320/P1010123.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Boulder's famous Flatirons, unsullied by development, thanks to the Blue Line.</b><br />
<br />
Most of the great things about Boulder were voted in by citizens, after a ballot initiative petition, NOT by City Council! This includes keeping development off the mountains (the 1959 "<a href="http://www.boulderblueline.org/about/the-name/" target="_blank"><b>Blue Line</b></a>" which prevents City water from being supplied above 5800' elevation), <a href="https://bouldercolorado.gov/osmp/nature" target="_blank"><b>Open Space</b></a> ( the country's FIRST voter-approved open space, 1967), the <a href="http://www.boulderblueline.org/2014/12/09/blue-line-poll-is-the-sky-is-the-limit-in-boulder/" target="_blank"><b>55' Height Limit</b></a> for buildings (1971) Slow Growth so we wouldn't sprawl like Colorado Springs (The "<a href="http://www.bouldercoloradousa.com/about-boulder/green-lifestyle/" target="_blank"><b>Danish Plan</b></a>," 1976), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_in_LGBT_rights" target="_blank"><b>banning discrimination based on sexual orientation</b></a> (again, the country's FIRST, 1987) and <a href="https://bouldercolorado.gov/elections/campaign-finance-reform-initiative" target="_blank"><b>Public Campaign Financing</b></a> (1999). We also kept the Library downtown when the City wanted to move it East, and <a href="http://www.boulder.net/~mondo/forty.html" target="_blank"><b>put an end</b></a> to the practice of City Council members resigning at just the right time so they could help appoint their successors, instead of voters deciding. The City website often uses phrases like "Boulder adopted" to make it sound like THEY did these things, taking credit for what WE did, and which Council mostly opposed.Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-62202439651787014812012-11-14T18:50:00.000-08:002012-11-19T21:14:54.562-08:00National Ballot Initiative News<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Greetings, democracy fans. There's no recent news on national ballot initiative progress, but last week's state initiatives show that initiatives are where most reforms start, how initiatives need to be improved, and the need for national initiatives. To convince your friends who doubt that initiatives are the way to go, the proof is in the pudding:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">1. Initiatives are winding down the 75-year war on marijuana users. While Congress put an end to alcohol prohibition after 13 years of profits to the mafia and deaths by rotgut, it is now too beholden to the alcohol, prescription drug and other interests threatened by marijuana and hemp to act. Colorado's legalization Amendment 64 passed 54.9% to 45.1% as did Washington's Initiative 502 with a 55.3% to 44.7% vote. Medical marijuana also passed in Massachusetts with a stunning 63% to 37%, but Arkansas' medical marijuana and Oregon's legalization both failed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The Federal government will still prosecute marijuana users when they want, a demonstration of the need for national ballot initiatives like Senator Mike Gravel's project: http://Vote.org <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/legal-battle-looms-over-marijuana-initiatives/2012/11/07/cce5033e-28f5-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/legal-battle-looms-over-marijuana-initiatives/2012/11/07/cce5033e-28f5-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_story.html</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">2. Here in Colorado, the City of Longmont banned oil and gas "fracking" in town by 60% to 40%, in spite of the oil and gas companies outspending proponents by more than ten to one, becoming the first citizens to vote on this: <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_21943036">http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_21943036</a> Longmont is now facing off against the governor (a former petroleum geologist) the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission, and the fossil corps, who have filed suit. The people who organized this initiative are so juiced, they're talking about a similar Colorado initiative, and are enthused over the prospect of national ones.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">3. F<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">or the first time, same-sex marriage was legalized in states across the country using ballot initiatives rather than legislation. Maine, Maryland, and Washington all voted to allow same-sex couples the right to marry in their states. </span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Minnesota also became the first state to have voters reject a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This was all predicted by the prescient Nate Silver last year at </span><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/the-future-of-same-sex-marriage-ballot-measures/">http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/the-future-of-same-sex-marriage-ballot-measures/</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Having your personal life discussed in the media is no fun for gays, but this is how prejudice gets dispelled. I was raised in the '50s and '60s and never learned about gay people back then. My vague distaste for gays vanished in 1992 when Colorado was debating Amendment 1, which banned gay rights laws (and was overturned by all the courts including the Supreme Court.) During the debate I recalled hitch-hiking through San Francisco in 1970 at age 18 and getting rides from gay men who had their hands all over me. Once I realized where the distaste came from, and that most gays, like most straights, arent' like that, I gained many gay friends including my current Congressman Jared Polis, who happens to favor national ballot initiatives: <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html">http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">4. Californians, after enduring over $1 million a day of ads from major food companies, narrowly defeated Proposition 37, which would have mandated the labeling of GMO foods. The pro-GMO forces outspent the labeling advocates 5 to 1, defeating what polls show is nationwide an overwhelmingly popular idea.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">This shows that voters need the kind of objective information that legislators get from public hearings, expert testimony and deliberation. This is just what Oregon's Citizen Initiative Review has provided for three election cycles: http://HealthyDemocracyOregon.org Gravel's proposal also incorporates this, as Deliberative Committees. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 18 state legislatures have tried and failed to label GMO foods: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Biotech-food-measure-Prop-37-on-ballot-3788811.php">http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Biotech-food-measure-Prop-37-on-ballot-3788811.php</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial;">San Juan County, Washington DID pass Initiative Measure No. 2012-4, making it illegal to "propagate, cultivate, raise or grow plants, animals and other organisms which have been genetically modified." </span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial;"><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/washington-county-bans-gmo-cultivation.html">http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/washington-county-bans-gmo-cultivation.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">5. Two states and over 120 cities (including mine, Boulder) passed initiatives or referenda to call on Congress to over-ride the Supreme Court's notorious Citizens United decision: <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/12638-millions-of-voters-demand-constitutional-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united">http://truth-out.org/news/item/12638-millions-of-voters-demand-constitutional-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">To further convince people, you can show them the record of the last 20 years of initiatives in Colorado: <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2012/01/case-for-ballot-initiatives-and.html">http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2012/01/case-for-ballot-initiatives-and.html</a> and some national initiative history: <a href="http://vote.org/initiatives">http://Vote.org/initiatives</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">You can see the World-Wide Direct Democracy Newsletter at: </span><a href="http://www.elefant-studio.cz/download/newsletter3.pdf" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;" target="_blank">http://www.elefant-studio.<wbr></wbr>cz/download/newsletter3.pdf</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The 4th Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy just concluded in Montivideo, Uruguay: <a href="http://2012globalforum.com/">http://2012globalforum.com/</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"> I always say: "You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can buy most of Congress (and the legislatures) most of the time."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Happy Thanksgiving to all!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Evan</span></span></div>
Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-601821343163426832012-11-08T14:47:00.001-08:002012-11-08T15:52:44.793-08:00Country wakes up to Climate Change! For real.<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: red; font-size: x-small;">Wow, <a href="http://350.org/">350.org</a>'s <a href="http://math.350.org/">Do the Math Tour</a> to stop climate catastrophe starts with a triple bang. Here's what <a href="http://www.350.org/en/node/5600">Bill McKibben</a> just emailed me -Evan</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Off like a rocket.</span><strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I'd be lying if I said I'd expected it to start quite this well.</span></strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We launched the Do the Math tour in Seattle last night -- even though we had sold the out first venue and moved to a bigger one, we still had a hell of a time squeezing in the crowd. Check out the crowd of 2000 people with their fists in the air:</span><a href="http://act.350.org/go/2265?t=1&akid=2418.567207.eK3c8d" style="background-color: black; color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><img alt="" height="401" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.350.org/images/SeattleSmall.jpg" style="vertical-align: middle;" width="600" /></a></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://act.350.org/go/2265?t=1&akid=2418.567207.eK3c8d" style="background-color: black; color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The show was a nonstop high -- people on their feet again and again, pledging to cross the country to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. <strong>If you can still get a ticket near you you're going to want one: <a href="http://act.350.org/go/2265?t=2&akid=2418.567207.eK3c8d" target="_blank">dothemath-boulder.eventbrite.<wbr></wbr>com</a></strong></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But here are the day's two huge unexpected stories, the things that have us grinning ear to ear as we drive south in the biodiesel bus towards Portland and tonight's show:</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>1) Seattle mayor Mike McGinn took the stage to tell 2000 of his constituents that the city's treasurer has begun investigating divestment options for the city's money.</strong> I had lunch with him, and knew he was taking this seriously -- but this is the kind of forthright action that defines leadership, and he won huge cheers from the crowd when he made his announcement from the stage.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>2) Unity College in Maine just announced that they're divesting from fossil fuels -- the first college in the country!</strong> On the night this campaign begins! Here's what president Stephen Mulkey said at our press conference this morning: "I know from speaking with other presidents that many more colleges in America are already grappling with this." They won't all move this boldly and proudly -- but we're in business, folks. </span><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This is happening:<strong><a href="http://act.350.org/go/2265?t=3&akid=2418.567207.eK3c8d" target="_blank"><strong> dothemath-boulder.eventbrite.<wbr></wbr>com</strong></a></strong></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On to Oregon!</span><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Bill</span></blockquote>
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Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-14988116249554983612012-05-21T14:03:00.000-07:002012-05-21T14:03:30.440-07:00Cure Intestinal Parasies Naturally<div align="center">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>How to cure amoebic dysentery, giardia and worms with Quassia</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">People traveling in 3<sup>rd</sup>
world countries are often afraid of intestinal parasites, but, having
lived for 3 years in poorer areas of Mexico and 2 in Guatemala, I
learned there are easy solutions. I picked up amoebic dysentery several
times while on long bicycle trips, and knowing how to deal with them, I
was able to continue with no problems. <b>This method is for healthy people only!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Here's how I do it: If my gut hurts, I wait two days. If it's just a bacterial infection, you should start to feel better. <b>Coconut milk is very soothing. Definitely avoid alcohol and sweets</b>, which bacteria and other parasites love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">If after 2 days, you feel as bad or worse, you should start treatment with a “full-spectrum antibiotic” -or the herb <b>Quassia</b>,
which is used in much the same way -especially if there is mucus in
your feces and sulphur in the gas you pass. In most of Latin America,
just go to a Pharmacia and ask for <b>Flagyl</b> (or the generic </span><b>Metronidazole</b>), <span style="font-size: x-small;">the
cheap drug available everywhere, or say “tengo amebas” (“I have
amoebas”) and they'll almost certainly give you Flagyl. In the U.S. you
need a prescription, so <i>DON'T WAIT until you return</i> or you'll
have to pay for expensive tests to get treatment -while the amoebas are
eating your lunch, dinner and breakfast and you are getting weaker. If
you have a weak liver from drinking, etc. -or from continuing untreated
parasites- they can get inside, and you need a doctor, quick.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Quassia
won't make you feel as bad as Flagyl, but neither is fun. Both are
killing everything in your gut, so you need to replenish the beneficial
bacteria with <b>probiotics, like yoghurt, kefir, sauerkraut, miso</b>, etc., after the treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Often
people with amoebas will wait longer until they're really sick and go
to a doctor for a stool test. If they don't find the amoebas with a
microscope the first time (not a fun job), and you wait, it will take
weeks or more to recover your strength after you take the treatment.
That's why I <i>assume</i> I have them if I don't feel better in 2 days.
Neither treatment is pleasant, but you'll function fine, which is
nearly impossible with amoebas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Quassia
is available at herb and health food shops. It will be either shredded
or chopped. Take a large handful on your trip, which should cost a few
bucks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Procedure:</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>With either Flagyl or Quassia, take it </b><b>3 times a day about an hour before meals for 10 days</b>.
If you're traveling for an extended time in an area with poor
sanitation, where re-infection is likely, consider taking the treatment
for only 2 days -to control rather than eliminate the amoebas. They will
grow back in 20-24 days -and you will know it. Take the treatment
another 2 days and so forth, until you get back home -or to
civilization. <i>Then</i> take the full 10 day treatment to eliminate <i>all</i> the amoebas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">With
Flagyl you just pop a pill. With Quassia you make tea. If the herb is
shredded, just put a small palmful -about ½ ounce- in about a pint of
cold water, and wait 20 minutes. If it's coarsely chopped, you'll have
to boil it a bit -a minute should do it. Either way, it will taste quite
bitter. Drink it down. That will kill most of them, so when you eat
your meal, <i>you</i> will get most of the food, not them. The few that are left will recover somewhat, but after 30 doses, they will <i>all</i> be gone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Add
more water to the same wad of Quassia and drink it before the next
meal, and so forth, until the tea becomes weak after about 3 days; then
toss that wad and start another. So it will take about 3 wads or 1 ½
ounces for a complete 10-day treatment.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CUAwptzUUB8/T7qs5my1qzI/AAAAAAAAtiA/mTijY2vRtDs/s1600/quassia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CUAwptzUUB8/T7qs5my1qzI/AAAAAAAAtiA/mTijY2vRtDs/s320/quassia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <br /><b>Enough Quassia for 3 days treatment. This grind will make tea in cold water.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Worms & Giardia</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Once
when I was taking Quassia on a bike trip in Guatemala, I found a 9”
long white worm in my stool -I believe it was the common <b>Ascaria</b>
worm, which probably infects 25% of the world and 2% of Americans. I was
scared enough to also take Flagyl when I got to town, but nothing
further came out. So the Quassia killed that too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Flagyl and Quassia will also kill <b>Giardia</b>.
Doctors say to take only 1/3 the dose of Flagyl for Giardia as for
Amoebas, and for only 5 days, so you could reduce the Quassia treatment
accordingly. If you don't take enough, you will know 20-24 days later,
and can try again. I guess it was overkill to treat my only case of
Giardia the same as I did amoebas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Etc:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Quassia is on the FDA's Generally Regarded as Safe list, but probably should not be used during <b>pregnancy</b>. It is said to also be effective against malaria, pinworms and even lice. It contains the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">phytochemical <b>quassin, the bitterest substance found in nature</b>. To understand the seriousness of amoebas and their treatment I recommend you read at least this about <a href="http://www.drugs.com/flagyl.html">Flagyl</a>. If you've had amoebas for awhile they may lodge in your liver and treatment is harder.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><b>I am not a doctor and do not know your condition! Please discuss this treatment with your doctor before you go!</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-35219490412597242172012-04-20T08:49:00.001-07:002012-04-20T13:42:43.016-07:00The Grinch who tried to steal 4/20from the<a href="http://www.cannabistherapyinstitute.com/"> Cannabis Therapy Institute</a>: <br />
(Phil DiStefano is CU-Boulder's Chancellor, a repeat DUI offender who leads today's attempt to stop CU's famous 4/20 cannabis smoke-in/prohibition protest. They're posting hundreds of cops to stop anyone without a CU ID from coming on campus, and spreading smelly fish fertilizer where the celebration occurs. -Evan)<br />
<br />
Here's video from 2009:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/rk1nxm54FT4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<b> </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The Grinch who tried to steal 4/20</b></div>
<br />
"Pooh-Pooh to the Stoners!" Phil was grinch-ish-ly humming. "They're finding out now that no 4/20 is coming!"<br />
<br />
"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!"<br />
<br />
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two. Then the Stoners down in Boulder will all cry Boo-Hoo!"<br />
<br />
"That's a noise," grinned Phil, "That I simply MUST hear!" So he
paused. And DiStefano put his hand to his ear. And he did hear a sound
rising over the snow. It started real low. Then it started to grow...<br />
<br />
But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry! It couldn't be so! But boy was it merry! <br />
<br />
He stared down at Boulder! Out popped Phil's eyes! Then he shook: what he saw was a shocking surprise!<br />
<br />
Every Stoner in Boulder, the tall and the small, Was singing and smoking! With no permits at all!<br />
<br />
He HADN'T stopped 4/20 from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same!<br />
<br />
And DiStefano, with his feet ice-cold in the fish fertilizer, stood
puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?" "It came without permits!
It came without speeches!" "It came without Frisbees, or costumes or
bleachers!" And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then
DiStefano thought of something he hadn't before!<br />
<br />
"Maybe 4/20," he thought,"doesn't come from a permit." "Maybe 4/20...perhaps...means a little bit more!"<br />
<br />
And what happened then...? Well...in Boulder they say, DiStefano fired up a fatty and had a very nice day!<br />
<br />
<br />
YOU CAN'T STOP 4/20 from Coming!<br />
<br />
HAPPY 4/20!Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-25524077760722801632012-01-01T07:21:00.000-08:002018-03-05T18:18:23.108-08:00The case for ballot initiatives, and improving them<div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
I challenge anyone to find a State legislature whose record compares to what Coloradans have done with ballot initiatives, a form of direct democracy:<br />
<br />
In 2000 Colorado voters passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Medical_Use_of_Marijuana,_Initiative_20_(2000)">Amendment 20</a>, legalizing medical marijuana, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Gun_Shows_Background_Checks,_Initiative_22_(2000)">Amendment 22</a>, closing the gun-show loophole and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Funding_for_Public_Schools,_Initiative_23_(2000)">Amendment 23</a>, raising K-12 spending. In 2002 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Campaign_Finance,_Initiative_27_(2002)">Initiative 27</a>, one of the country's strongest campaign finance limits. In 2004 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Renewable_Energy_Requirement,_Initiative_37_(2004)">Initiative 37</a>, the country's first renewable energy mandate for utilities. In 2006 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Standards_of_Conduct_in_Government,_Initiative_41_(2006)">Amendment 41</a>, the country's strongest Ethics in Government law, and <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Minimum_Wage_Increase,_Initiative_42_(2006)">Initiative 42</a>, raising the minimum wage. In 2008 we passed <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Campaign_Contributions_from_Government_Contractors,_Initiative_54_(2008)">Amendment 54</a>, which prohibits government contractors from making campaign donations. In 2012 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Marijuana_Legalization_Initiative,_Amendment_64_(2012)">Amendment 64</a>, the country's first legal marijuana AND hemp, and we voted 3 to 1 for <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Corporate_Contributions_Amendment,_Amendment_65_(2012)">Amendment 65</a>, asking our Congressional Representatives to work to reverse Citizens United. (Only 1 of 7 did anything, showing how poorly they represent us.) And in 2016 we passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_$12_Minimum_Wage,_Amendment_70_(2016)">Amendment 70</a> for a $12/hr. minimum wage, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_End_of_Life_Options_Act,_Proposition_106_(2016)">Proposition 106</a>, Medical Assistance in Dying for the terminally ill and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Presidential_Primary_Election,_Proposition_107_(2016)">Proposition 107</a>, for Open Presidential Primaries. (You can find details of each at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://ballotpedia.org/&source=gmail&ust=1506200712233000&usg=AFQjCNFeLF4ibaCelcXEA6LT-wScrbfLRQ" href="http://ballotpedia.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">ballotpedia.org</a>. Just search for "Colorado Amendment [or Initiative or Proposition] X")<br />
<br />
During a similar time the Colorado legislature has done little but prevent local communities from solving their own problems with <a href="https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/10580140">preemptive </a>laws, such as against local minimum wages, rent control, gun control, and banning fracking. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
The downside of initiatives is far less harmful than legislation as well. Contrast a few ballot initiatives impeding gay rights and abortion with all 50 state legislatures criminalizing sodomy and abortion and jailing people for decades. Not to mention interning Japanese during World War II, persecuting communists, socialists and friends during the McCarthy era and imprisoning millions of marijuana smokers over the last 80 years. </div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Media, not just in Colorado, have focused on the few problematic
ballot initiatives like Colorado's 1992 Taxpayer Bill of Rights <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Taxpayer_Bill_of_Rights_Act_%281992%29" target="_blank">Amendment 1</a>, which voters gave a 5 year time out in 2005, by voting for <a href="http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_State_Spending_Act,_Referendum_C_%282005%29" target="_blank">Referendum C</a>.
Rather than act to finally fix TABOR, the Colorado Legislature keeps
trying to make the initiative process harder, including with 2008's
defeated <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Citizen-Initiated_State_Laws,_Referendum_O_%282008%29" target="_blank">Referendum O</a>. The same forces finally succeeded with 2016's <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Imposition_of_Distribution_and_Supermajority_Requirements_for_Citizen-Initiated_Constitutional_Amendments,_Amendment_71_(2016)">Amendment 71</a>, by going the initiative route, to make it appear to be a grassroots effort. 71 makes the process much more expensive for regular people, without inconveniencing wealthy users of the ballot initiative process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oregon has instead <i>improved</i> its ballot initiative process with <a href="http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/" target="_blank">Citizen Initiative Review</a>. By having randomly-selected "citizen juries" deliberate each initiative, problems like TABOR's "<a href="http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadername2=Content-Type&blobheadervalue1=inline%3B+filename%3D%22Report+on+State+Spending+Limitations%3A+TABOR+and+Referendum+C.pdf%22&blobheadervalue2=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251714173819&ssbinary=true" target="_blank">racheting down provision</a>," hidden in its back pages unnoticed, would have been exposed <i>before</i> we voted on it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Citizens in both Oregon and California have tried, using ballot initiatives, to get their Secretaries of State to allow signing ballot initiative petitions on the SOS website. This would open the process to groups without huge funds, save the SOS the expense of comparing physical signatures (ID would be by driver's license, etc., as with online registration in over half the states), reduce misrepresentation and harassment for signatures, get more voters to read more of the initiative texts before signing, and save gas, time and money.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I list four other improvements to the process in my article <a href="https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/2/1508657/-Why-Bernie-Sanders-should-put-Direct-Democracy-on-top-of-our-agenda">Why Bernie Sanders should put Direct Democracy at the top of our Agenda</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The initiative and referendum process is the origin of most US reforms, from women's suffrage to sunshine laws to medical marijuana to
term limits. See <a href="http://evanravitz.com/vote/initiatives" target="_blank">initiatives</a> for references and more examples.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #888888; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"On most major issues we've
dealt with in the past 50 years, the public was more likely to be
right...based on the judgment of history...than the legislatures or
Congress." -George Gallup, Sr.</span>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-50702940435113923302011-12-21T14:44:00.000-08:002011-12-21T14:44:08.864-08:00 <strong>9/11 Truth-seeking made huge strides since September's 10th anniversary:</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>10/9/11</strong>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/science/10anthrax.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=ivins%20anthrax&st=cse&scp=2">NY Times</a>: Scientists’ Analysis Disputes F.B.I. Closing of Anthrax Case <br />
<br />
The
anthrax attack was just a secondary terror event.. But these doctors
say the FBI dropped a main forensic lead which points at the most
advanced US labs -and the FBI is actively trying to block a new
investigation. It's also the first crack in the NY Times subtly snide
propaganda against "truthers," and by implication, truth.<br />
<br />
<strong>9/15/11</strong>
Fmr Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chair [Democratic] Sen.
Bob Graham calls to re-investigate the Saudi role in 9/11 AND the
government's active cover up such as flying Saudis, including Bin
Ladens, out of the country while the rest of us were grounded right
after 9/11. [See <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvs11bFRF8g%20">DemocracyNow</a>]<br />
<br />
<strong>9/11/11</strong><a href="http://secrecykills/"> SecrecyKills</a> was set to release their expose podcast naming
some very critical names, but the CIA threatened them at the last
minute. They released it a couple of weeks later, in spite of the
threat. Their statement about the shut-down and fmr. FBI Director's
Tenet's response to them say plenty, even if you don't listen to the
whole podcast. For a summary it's quicker to view this video at FBI
whistleblower/translator Sibel Edmonds website Boiling Frogs:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/?s=secrecy+kills<br />
<br />
<strong>9/09/11</strong>
Release of "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW6mJOqRDI4">Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out</a>," the new
full-length documentary featuring 43 of the over 1600 Architects and
Engineers for 9/11 Truth members, including the lead electrical
engineer of the WTC, one of its structural engineers, Boulder structural
engineer Jonathan Smolens, etc. With Boulder psychologists Bob and
Marti Hopper and Denver psychologist Fran Shure in the epilog. <br />
<br />
The 43
engineers & architects merely expound High School level physics
showing that NIST's (changing!) explanation of what made THREE
buildings of the WTC fall down is a pack of violations of 1. The Law of
Conservation of Momentum and 2. Principles of Symmetry. Photos of WTC
buildings 3, 4, 5 and 6, which were completely burned and gutted by
thousands of tons of falling steel from the very close Twin Towers, show
they didn't collapse, just as much larger fires lasting many hours or
days have never made a steel-framed skyscraper fall. ONLY WTC 1, 2 and
7 fell in identical symmetrical fashioned, though all were damaged
VERY unsymmetrically and relatively slightly. Here are <a href="http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/gzpo1.html">photos</a> of 5
& 6.<br />
<br />
Better
science education is probably a big part of why <a href="http://www.911komplott.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=424&Itemid=2%20">89.5% of Germans</a> don't
think the US is telling the whole truth about 9/11: <br />
<br />
<strong>9/08/11-9/11/11</strong>
<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/20/the-pros-and-cons-of-the-toronto-hearings/">The International Hearings</a> on the Events of Sept. 11, 2001 concluded
with Sen. Mike Gravel explaining his tri-state ballot initiative
campaign for an independent investigation with grand jury powers. Then,
French actor/director Mathieu Kassovitz, who played the lead in
"Amelie," gave $50,000 to Sen. Gravel for the campaign. A DVD of this event will soon be <a href="http://torontohearings.org/%20">available.</a> <br />
<br />
Mike Gravel has noted that
the government will never really investigate itself. He's carefully
crafted the <a href="http://9-11cc.org/">Citizens 9/11 Commission</a> so any 1 state can convene it if
its initiative passes, but other states can join in, etc. He DEFINITELY
needs more money: <br />
<br />
Please everyone, circulate this widely. Thanks!<br />
<br />
Evan<br />
<br />
"There is no god higher than truth." -GandhiEvan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-34589948615509687712011-12-19T13:55:00.002-08:002021-07-13T18:08:01.288-07:00Boulder's Big Black Lie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gjBVoQvd07w/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gjBVoQvd07w?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<span style="text-align: center;">Boulder's former Deputy Mayor Lisa Morzel</span><br />
<br />
Here's part of the video of the May 3, 2011 Boulder, Colorado City Council meeting when
they gave up their longtime resistance to the proposed Jefferson Parkway and
gave their go-ahead to start plowing up the dirt at Rocky Flats, the former town-sized nuclear bomb factory 8 miles South of Boulder, in trade for a deal for more open space land.<br />
<br />
Then-Deputy Mayor Dr. Lisa Morzel, a volcanologist working for the USGS, misrepresents what
the background level of plutonium is in our area.<br />
<br />
Dr. Morzel says "Background levels are 35 picocuries [per
gram of soil]" It's easy to find online (or from any expert) that the real background level is .04
picocuries (for example, see <b><a href="http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/acidcanyon.html">here</a></b>, under 3. Rocky Flats.) She says this to misleadingly show that the federal government's claimed
cleanup level of 50 picocuries per gram is almost to
background level, when it is actually 1250 times higher! (50 divided by
.04) <div><br /></div><div>Both Dr. Harvey Nichols and Dr. Leroy Moore, likely the most knowledgeable people in the world about Rocky Flats, asked Dr. Morzel for a correction, but she refused to do anything until I made this webpage. She claims she finally made a correction late during a council meeting about a year after this lie, but angrily refused to tell us which meeting and at what time so that we can confirm that from video.<br />
<br />
The truth is crucial, because these plutonium particles are the optimum size (down to tenths of a micron, at least) to stay in
the air and be distributed beyond the weapons plant (even without the Flats' regular 80 MPH winds,
dust devils and occasional tornadoes) and to be possibly inhaled and retained in
people's lungs. Plowing through this dirt is a reckless gamble. Cancer would be a likely risk for many road workers, and possible downwind in the Denver metro area. <br />
<br />
It's impossible to detect Plutonium with a Geiger radiation meter under field conditions as compared to in the lab. See <a href="http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1418148/pg1" rel="nofollow">here.</a> So nobody can know what radiation levels exist where they're digging down.<br />
<br />
<i><b>It's not too late to stop this atrocity!</b></i> Just a few days ago the town of Superior, just downwind of Rocky Flats, <a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/superior-news/ci_19582594?IADID=Search-www.dailycamera.com-www.dailycamera.com">filed suit</a> for a real Environmental Impact Statement. I urge anyone in the world -as you are all potential victims- to contact the Boulder City Council and demand they redo their decision on the basis of actual science, not lies: council@bouldercolorado.gov Or call them:<br />
<br />
Mayor Matt Appelbaum- 303-499-8970<br />
Deputy Mayor Lisa Morzel- 303-815-6723<br />
Suzy Ageton- 303-442-5726<br />
Macon Cowles- 303-638-6884<br />
Suzanne Jones- 720-633-7388<br />
George Karakehian- 303-218-8612<br />
Tim Plass- 720-299-4518<br />
Ken Wilson- 303-999-1931<br />
<br />
The movie <a href="https://youtu.be/HKPntJqnrU4">No Water to Waste</a> is about the whole development plan, especially the water element. The Plutonium part starts 20 minutes in.<br />
<br />
For background here is the complete, uncensored <a href="http://evanravitz.com/flats">Rocky Flats Grand Jury Report</a><br />
<br />
Plutonium was a rare trace mineral on earth until it was first produced in quantity by mankind in 1945, expressly for more efficient atomic bombs. It can burst into flame on contact with air and is a heavy metal poison as well as being highly dangerous when in direct contact with mammalian tissue. A single particle lodged in the lungs will radiate the cells next to it for the rest of one's life; after decades cancer is likely.<br />
<br />
If the City Council wants to
make the same decision, with the deadly health implications, they should do it on the basis of facts, not ignorance or faith in federal misinformation. Remember that <b>far</b> less egregious lying in the so-called "Climategate" emails was a main factor in the public turning against climate science, and the US blocking a treaty to stop climate catastrophe. Millions will die as a result.<br />
<br />
This is just one reason why I've come to regard Boulder as a world center of greenwashing. More to come...<br />
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</div>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-21569811874163596222011-10-23T18:08:00.001-07:002012-11-16T16:48:41.535-08:00Evan's Pet/House-Sitting Service.Howdy.<br />
<br />
I´ve been house/cat/dog/bird/guinea pig/rabbit/turtle/chicken-sitting for 2 1/2 years. This has given me the freedom to explore some of North America's best wilderness-see my new movie at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56rffQHYVs" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56rffQHYVs</a> <br />
<br />
I've lived in Boulder 33 years and have great references. I've been pet-sitting twice for environmental lawyer Melinda Kassen's family and dog-sitting at the super-comfortable Net Zero Energy home of
Synergistic Building Technologies' Larry Kinney and Wyncia Clute. Awhile
back I stayed with longtime Boulder friend and Olympic Marathon
medalist Lorraine Moller and her builder husband Harlan Smith. I lived
twice in the '80s with Boulder's reknowned yoga master Richard Freeman. Many remember me as Evan from Heaven the not-so-tight-rope artist. More at my new website <a href="http://evanravitz.com/">EvanRavitz.com</a><br />
<br />
I always leave a place better than I entered it. I love animals and am
good with plants too. I don't usually charge unless you have more than one dog or there's some
difficulty like your place being far from town and you don't leave me a
car. (I sold mine 22 years ago and bike everywhere.)<br />
<br />
I´d also consider other situations like:<br />
<br />
I could be someone's personal trainer in trade for a room. I've<br />
practiced yoga daily for 30 years, taught in Guatemala, and recently<br />
completed Richard Freeman's month-long Teacher Intensive<br />
<a href="http://yogaworkshop.com/richards_teaching/2010_ti.php" rel="nofollow">http://yogaworkshop.com/richards_teaching/2010_ti.php</a> I lead serious<br />
backpacking trips <a href="http://evanravitz.com/paradise" rel="nofollow">http://evanravitz.com/paradise</a> in Mexico's difficult<br />
Copper Canyon. I've been going barefoot when possible since 1965 and<br />
have climbed the Arapahoe Peaks and 1st Flatiron that way, among others.<br />
<br />
I could also trade childcare. I've been teaching my friends' kids<br />
yoga and tightrope-walking. I worked at Homestar Preschool<br />
<a href="http://www.homestarcenter.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.homestarcenter.org/</a> in Boulder 2004-5 and loved it. I'd be a good<br />
"manny" especially for smart athletic kids. I know the hidden waterfalls & caves<br />
around Boulder almost nobody else does. I tutored math while at Colorado<br />
College.<br />
<br />
I could do elder or disabled care. I got a near-quadraplegic washed, dressed and fed every morning for a few of months back in the ´80s, until by force of<br />
will he learned to do without me.<br />
<br />
Do you have a shed or garage I could clean out? I'm good at organizing, selling and giving stuff away via Craigslist, etc. I did janitorial work for the Boulder International Hostel <a href="http://boulderinternationalhostel.com/" rel="nofollow">http://boulderinternationalhostel.com/</a> for a couple of years.<br />
<br />
I've been earning my living for 3 years as a freelance editor<br />
<a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2010/02/evans-editing-service-gets-kudos.html" rel="nofollow">http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2010/02/evans-editing-service-gets-kudos.html</a><br />
and am seeking more work. I've done a huge variety of things including computer programming, not-so-tight-rope artistry, photography, solar research, growing organic vegetables, tree trimming, wilderness guiding, moving and construction. More at <a href="http://evanravitz.com/" rel="nofollow">http://evanravitz.com</a><br />
<br />
I'll consider all offers. Please resend this to other Boulder folks. My email is evan (at) vote.org and phone is 303-923-5918<br />
<br />
Thanks and have a great day.<br />
<br />
EvanEvan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-23445640425139343852010-11-10T15:15:00.001-08:002011-12-21T06:40:20.171-08:00Peer-reviewed 9/11 scientific papers<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>"Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” by Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, published in 2008 in the <a href="http://www.bentham.org/open/tociej/articles/V002/35TOCIEJ.pdf"><i>Open Civil Engineering Journal</i></a>.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3706900671940484321&postID=2344564042513934385" name="r141" send="true"></a></li>
<li>“Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” by Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, published in 2009 in <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/fulltext.html"><i>The Environmentalist</i></a>.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3706900671940484321&postID=2344564042513934385" name="r142" send="true"></a> </li>
<li>“Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” by University of Copenhagen chemistry professor Niels Harrit and eight colleagues (including Jones, Ryan, Legge, and Gourley), published in 2009 in <a href="http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm"><i>The Open Chemical Physics Journal</i></a>.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3706900671940484321&postID=2344564042513934385" name="r143" send="true"></a> </li>
<li> “Discussion of ‘Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis’ by K.A. Seffen,” by physicist Crockett Grabbe, published in 2010 in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/%28ASCE%29EM.1943-7889.0000025"><i>Journal of Engineering Mechanics</i></a>, which is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3706900671940484321&postID=2344564042513934385" name="r144" send="true"></a> </li>
<li> “Discussion of ’Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions’ by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure,” by chemical engineer James R. Gourley, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/%28ASCE%290733-9399%282008%29134:10%28915%29"><i>Journal of Engineering</i></a><i><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/%28ASCE%290733-9399%282008%29134:10%28915%29"> Mechanics</a>.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3706900671940484321&postID=2344564042513934385" name="r145" send="true"></a> </li>
<li> "Discussion of ‘What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York’ by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening, and David B. Benson," by Anders Björkman, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s <i><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/%28ASCE%29EM.1943-7889.0000090">Journal of Engineering Mechanics</a>.</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3706900671940484321&postID=2344564042513934385" name="r146" send="true"></a></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-68799132848143276622010-11-10T15:00:00.000-08:002011-12-21T06:44:15.016-08:009/11 Commissioners, Congressmen and former FBI head doubt 9/11 story!<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western">
<blockquote>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">9/11 Commissioners</span> have their doubts:<br />
<ul>
<li>The 9/11 Commission’s co-chairs said that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101300.html?sub=new" target="_blank">the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements</a> (free subscription required)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070108233707/http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911hamilton.html">“I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/02/9-11panel.pentagon/index.html" target="_blank">“We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: <a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/11/21/cleland/index.html?pn=1" target="_blank">“It is a national scandal”</a>; <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/11/13/911_panel_to_get_access_to_withheld_data/" target="_blank">“This investigation is now compromised”</a>; and <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/23/1546256" target="_blank">“One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that <a href="http://salon.com/ent/feature/2006/06/27/911_conspiracies/index4.html" target="_blank">“There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .”</a> He also <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2009/03/13/the-9-11-commission-and-torture.html">said</a> that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>And the Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) – who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry – recently <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/senior-counsel-to-911-commission-at.html">said</a> “At some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened”. He also <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101300.html" target="_blank">said</a> “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.” And he <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1921659,00.html">said</a>: “It’s almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA’s New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened”</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Senators & Congressman have their doubts<br />
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>According to the Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham, <a href="http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/11/con05439.html" target="_blank">an FBI informant had hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House</a> (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/08graham.html">confirmed here</a>)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Current Democratic U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/150254" target="_blank">“The two questions that the congress will not ask . . . is why did 9/11 happen on George Bush’s watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen?”</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Current Republican Congressman Ron Paul <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OumAnh8oWbU">calls for a new 9/11 investigation</a> and states that <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070121184445/http://www.prisonplanet.tv/audio/170107paul.mp3" target="_blank">“we see the [9/11] investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on”</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Current Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich <a href="http://www.911blogger.com/node/5854" target="_blank">hints that we aren’t being told the truth about 9/11</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Current Republican Congressman Jason Chafetz says that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRj3r0fBppI&feature=player_embedded">we need to be vigilant and continue to investigate 9/11</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel states that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6XLYfAhG0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2F911blogger%2Ecom%2Fnode%2F10561" target="_blank">he supports a new 9/11 investigation and that we don’t know the truth about 9/11</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee <a href="http://patriotsquestion911.com/#Chafee">endorses a new 9/11 investigation</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Former U.S. Democratic Congressman Dan Hamburg <a href="http://prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/022208_congressman_involved.htm">doesn’t believe the official version of events</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Former U.S. Republican Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and who served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee Curt Weldon has shown that the <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050917&articleId=965" target="_blank">U.S. tracked hijackers before 9/11</a>, is open to hearing information about explosives in the Twin Towers, and is open to the possibility that <a href="http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10365" target="_blank">9/11 was an inside job</a></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Former FBI director Louis Freeh called the 9/11 investigation a coverup:<br />
<blockquote style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>“No wonder the 9/11 families were outraged by these revelations and called for a ‘new’ commission to investigate.”</i></b></blockquote>
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Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-27246273643374186132010-02-09T14:08:00.000-08:002012-08-22T13:29:58.805-07:00The Boulder, CO Origin of "Will Work for Food"Itinerant bicycle mechanic James Bush, an acquaintance of mine, ran out of money while in Boulder during the summer of 1988. He held the original "Will Work for Food" sign on Boulder's famed Pearl St. Mall. Even though many beg for money on the Mall, he was arrested for soliciting without a permit. It took months for City Attorney Joseph Napoleon DeRaismes III (actual name!) to drop the charges. Here's a Boulder Daily Camera news article about a demonstration against this "only in Boulder" smallness and meanness, held October 7, 1988, using photocopies of James' original sign:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3HfmixjB9I/AAAAAAAAifc/q86BqqEApY0/s1600-h/WorkForFood.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436372078475544530" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3HfmixjB9I/AAAAAAAAifc/q86BqqEApY0/s800/WorkForFood.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 414px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 800px;" /></a><br />
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Here are some of hundreds of cartoons -and photos- from the last 22 years from this incident:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MlIxhOd5I/AAAAAAAAikM/HFDzVxI2p18/s1600-h/work4.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436730007828199314" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MlIxhOd5I/AAAAAAAAikM/HFDzVxI2p18/s800/work4.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 800px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 750px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MkJz5A2TI/AAAAAAAAij8/8jKXjYhwHC8/s1600-h/work2.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436728926133082418" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MkJz5A2TI/AAAAAAAAij8/8jKXjYhwHC8/s800/work2.bmp" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 800px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 646px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3Mjic8oHaI/AAAAAAAAij0/2jufIHbJq38/s1600-h/Work1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436728249959325090" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3Mjic8oHaI/AAAAAAAAij0/2jufIHbJq38/s800/Work1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 616px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 800px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MkbR0vxeI/AAAAAAAAikE/LJHUm6et4vQ/s1600-h/work3.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436729226226025954" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MkbR0vxeI/AAAAAAAAikE/LJHUm6et4vQ/s800/work3.bmp" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 582px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 800px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MrCUpY8rI/AAAAAAAAikc/jqMXLZHjU2s/s1600-h/work5.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436736494068363954" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/S3MrCUpY8rI/AAAAAAAAikc/jqMXLZHjU2s/s800/work5.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 800px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 774px;" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GnY1cx3XN0Q/T47Rn4FcLQI/AAAAAAAAs5Y/alJQM3j6JHU/s1600/WillKillForOil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GnY1cx3XN0Q/T47Rn4FcLQI/AAAAAAAAs5Y/alJQM3j6JHU/s320/WillKillForOil.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
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<br />Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-37316502555975925952009-12-31T16:34:00.000-08:002018-04-29T15:53:47.861-07:00"My" Sen. Mark Udall: environmmentalist or puppet?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; float: left;">
<a href="http://www.bendegrow.com/images/UdallStreisand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://www.bendegrow.com/images/UdallStreisand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://www.bendegrow.com/images/UdallStreisand.jpg" height="320" width="243"></a></div>
Udall with Barbra Streisand<br />
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Colorado Sen. Mark Udall was elected as an environmentalist Congressman from Boulder in 1998. When told his race for Senator was close in 2008, he caved to big oil:<br />
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<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/senate08/ci_10194734">Denver Post, 8/14/08</a><br />
<blockquote>
"Udall calling for more domestic drilling and reversing his long-standing opposition to drilling off America's shores."</blockquote>
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He must have made enough "friends" who showed him a good enough time that although he's safely a Senator until 2014, he's sold out completely:<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13681307">Denver Post, 10/31/09</a><br />
<blockquote>
"Udall widens push for nuclear plants"</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-12-fourteen-democratic-senators-stick-up-for-coal/">Grist, 11/12/09</a><br />
<blockquote>
"They [14 Democratic Senators including Udall] call for the free allocation of pollution permits to electric utilities to be distributed 'fully based on emissions'"</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.summitdaily.com/news/udall-calls-fracking-safe-technology/">Summit Daily 8/11/11</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Udall calls fracking ‘safe technology'"</blockquote>
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The world's foremost energy expert, Colorado's own Amory Lovins, founder of <a href="http://rmi.org/">Rocky Mountain Institute</a>, says all 4 are inferior to renewables.<br />
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Udall was born on 3rd base to a prominent political family that made their reputation as environmentalists. Why is he hitting a home run for oil, coal gas and nukes??<br />
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Mark Udall is also profoundly dishonest. Read in my "<a href="http://vote.org/udall">Tale of 4 Udalls</a>" how he repeatedly lies about a project I've worked 20 years on, which <b>both</b> his own brothers have endorsed!<br />
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Remember who Mark Udall really is when he runs for re-election in 2014. He suckered me for my vote in 1998. Never again.Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-22429527569451545282009-09-23T14:18:00.000-07:002009-09-24T08:08:16.140-07:00Unearthly beautiful music this Saturday in Boulder!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SruKeOcB5kI/AAAAAAAAUjk/OdPcyBXJOQ0/s1600-h/Beth+Quist.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SruKeOcB5kI/AAAAAAAAUjk/OdPcyBXJOQ0/s320/Beth+Quist.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385050031327929922" /></a><br />Beth Quist was the lead singer for Cirque du Soleil. She's from Boulder, has a 4-octave range, and sang with Bobby McFerrin's Voicestra. Jesse and James are both superb musicians.<br />Saturday, September 26, 2009 8-11pm $12.00 <br /><br />Location: Immersive Studio No.7, Boulder, CO <br />3063 Sterling Circle East, No. 7 (E. on Valmont, almost, but not quite to the post office @ 55th, left on Sterling; right around the circle; first left in the back)<br /><br />Watch Jesse & James with Zahara on drums at Boulder favorite Trident Bookcafe Sept. 12. With hand dancers...<br /><br /><object width="800" height="470"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xiTXMVzOhTA&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xiTXMVzOhTA&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="853" height="505"></embed></object><br /><br />Details:<br /><br />A quite rare trio performance of James Hoskins, Jesse Manno, and Beth Quist is happening this Sat. Sept. 26th at Immersive studios in Boulder!<br />-----------------------------<br />Saturday, September 26, 2009<br />Time: 8:00pm - 11:00pm<br />Cost: $12.00 (such a deal!) {or More $$ if generosity permits!}<br />Location: Immersive Studio No.7<br />Street: 3063 Sterling Circle East, No. 7 (E. on Valmont, almost,<br />but not quite to the post ofc. @ 55th, left on Sterling; <br />right around the circle; first left in the back)<br />City/Town: Boulder, CO 80301<br />Phone: 303.413.1131 or me, James: 303.817.8828<br />Emails: quistian@earthlink.net; james@cellohoskins.com<br />-----------------------------<br />Personnel and show info:<br /><br />Jesse Manno:<br />vocals, saz, bouzouki, drums/percussion, flutes, oud<br /><br />James Hoskins:<br />vocals, cello, gadulka, percussion<br /><br />Beth Quist:<br />vocals, keyboards, guitar, hammered dulcimer, percussion<br /><br />We might also all be trading off between each others instruments... you never <br />know. This is an evening focusing on our love of improvisation with a few <br />structured pieces thrown in for energetic bookending.<br /><br />We will also be joined by 2 wonderful improvisational dancers, Cortney McGuire & Josselyn Levinson. and wonderful lighting & photomedia by Joe Shepard. This is getting more fun by the minute.Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-66838233187754634322009-05-29T20:32:00.000-07:002012-11-09T09:13:21.968-08:00"Homework Kills Trees" T-shirts "Stop the Madness"<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SiCorA5tJfI/AAAAAAAAPSw/n-3iT2r7lcY/s800/P1010295.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SiCorA5tJfI/AAAAAAAAPSw/n-3iT2r7lcY/s800/P1010295.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: center; height: 800px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 535px;" /></a><br />
Tonite at the Neko Case/Calexico concert at Boulder's Chautauqua, I met Elijah. She said she'd worn it to school, with no resulting decrease in homework. The madness continues.Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-87854942398606649642009-05-06T21:22:00.000-07:002009-05-06T21:47:44.393-07:00Spectacular Iridescent Clouds with Panasonic LX3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SgJghCGqCdI/AAAAAAAAN-A/uqnTHGGCO3U/s800/P1010189.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 800px; height: 535px;" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SgJghCGqCdI/AAAAAAAAN-A/uqnTHGGCO3U/s800/P1010189.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />These are the first really good iridescent clouds I've captured with what people are calling the highest quality compact digital camera, the <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicDMCLX3/">Panasonic LX3</a> with an excellent f2.0 Leica lens and a larger sensor than most compacts. This camera is so popular with discriminating photographers that the price is above list price and <span style="font-style:italic;">rising</span> 10 months after introduction, unlike almost all other cameras whose prices fall rapidly...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SgJgi4ssFLI/AAAAAAAAN-I/X18tiq-awAQ/s800/P1010190.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 535px; height: 800px;" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SgJgi4ssFLI/AAAAAAAAN-I/X18tiq-awAQ/s800/P1010190.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Iridescent clouds occur when most water droplets are the same size. These were taken from Boulder's Chautauqua Park. Lots more <a href="http://evanravitz.com/photos">here</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SgJgkny7GfI/AAAAAAAAN9k/tGhXxaTwzuA/s800/P1010192.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 800px; height: 535px;" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SgJgkny7GfI/AAAAAAAAN9k/tGhXxaTwzuA/s800/P1010192.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-10019219609866821432009-04-18T08:23:00.000-07:002009-04-29T07:43:05.514-07:00Ralph Nader endorses our Vote.org project!<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4G4Dv-6RNLc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4G4Dv-6RNLc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />One symptom of America's increasing inequality is the "<span style="font-weight:bold;">star system</span>." Normally, it would be almost impossible for a nobody like me to meet someone like Ralph Nader, America's foremost citizen advocate for over 40 years. I've tried several times over the last year to contact him via his nonprofit Public Citizen. No dice.<br /><br />Yesterday, because of a Colorado snow/slush blizzard, only 50 attended a talk Ralph gave at CU-Boulder, about Single-Payer Health Care. So I was able to talk to him several times at the small reception following. He was enthusiastic about former Senator Mike Gravel's project for better and national ballot initiatives, which I promote at <a href="http://Vote.org/"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Vote.org</span></a> And he recognized that "<span style="font-weight:bold;">Vote at Vote.org</span>" was way easier to spread than "Vote at ni4d.us"(Gravel's site) and promised to do so! <br /><br />Having national ballot initiatives will make Congress more humble, as they've done with Switzerland's Parliament since 1848. When they don't represent us, we'll just make law ourselves. This will lessen the <span style="font-weight:bold;">star system</span> -and you can bet The People will reduce income inequality too!<br /><br />Ralph asked about Mike, who's had a hard time since his glory days, when he single-handedly filibustered until the Vietnam draft was ended, reading the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Pentagon Papers</span> into the national record. Mike was targeted for defeat by the military/industrial complex and has been out of office since 1981. I told him Mike's considering moving to Switzerland or Korea to promote the National Initiative, since the media ignores or marginalizes him here, even though he sacrificed his retirement to run for President.<br /><br />Ralph <span style="font-weight:bold;">does</span> have a sense of humor, and curiosity. He wanted to know about my Panasonic Lumix LX3, which is supposed to be the best-quality compact digital camera, and does a decent job of video, as you can see if you click the "<span style="font-weight:bold;">HD</span>" for high-definition.<br /><br />You can see <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2009/04/newspapers-digging-their-own-graves-and.html">here</a> how the media can make a "nobody" out of a popular entertainer who was voted "Best Activist" by Boulderites. You can see why I've devoted 20 years to this project <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-ive-devoted-20-years-to-better-and.html">here</a>.<br /><br />YOU can help bring government BY the people to the U.S., help restore my reputation, and re-balance inequality some by linking here or sharing this story on social networks:Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-44742929377919140602009-04-11T08:16:00.000-07:002009-04-11T08:28:10.437-07:00Newspapers digging their own graves -and ours.My letter to the editors of the Boulder Daily Camera and Colorado Daily: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/newspapers.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 305px; height: 400px;" src="http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/newspapers.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Editor,<br /><br />As newspapers wring their hands over their declining readership, they should remember the old dictum: "The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." In so many ways, from the expected rejection of this letter, to editorials to news "slant," we now usually get the opposite, political dictum: "Kiss up and (defecate) down."<br /><br />My experience: In 1992 I was voted "Best Activist" by readers of the Boulder Daily Camera, for several reasons which annoyed the rulers of "our" town. So, in 1995, after I'd criticized the Mayor at a City Council meeting, the editor of the Camera falsely wrote "Ravitz virtually suggested the Mayor deserved the cancer she was fighting." The official City video of the 6/6/95 meeting, available at the Carnegie Library, proves this false. Or read the actual <a href="http://evanravitz.com/truth/hartman.html">transcript</a>. The editor repeated his falsehood a week later.<br /><br />A month later the editor of the Colorado Daily fired me from the columnist post I'd held for 5 years, for another easily-disproven falsehood: that I'd disrupted a meeting on the future of the University of Colorado. Prof. Estevan Flores, who ran the meeting, wrote in a published letter that I'd instead made a "valuable contribution" to the meeting. Prof. Martin Walter wrote that if anyone had disrupted the meeting it was he, when he rose to passionately second my suggestion that CU "democratize." Chancellor Rod Park was also a witness.<br /><br />When media thus make inconvenient truth-tellers into non-persons they leave only yes-men and women in the pool of leaders. You can see the results. Happy devolution!<br /><br />Evan RavitzEvan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-67861881521198804782009-02-20T21:11:00.000-08:002017-12-01T10:35:14.552-08:00A New Door opens to Direct Democracy -and how I got there<a href="http://www.evanravitz.com/evan.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.evanravitz.com/evan.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 321px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 211px;" /></a><br />
This is the brief story of how I, formerly happy-go-lucky not-so-tight-rope artist <b>Evan from Heaven</b>, was treated by Boulder, Colorado's government, how Guatemalan friends were treated by the US government, and what I've been doing for 28 years about it, finally making progress now that things "fall apart," as Yeats prophesied.<br />
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I worked as Evan from Heaven on Boulder's famous Pearl St. Mall, but members of the Mall Commission who wanted to "curtail the circus atmosphere" shut me down repeatedly, in spite of our enormous popularity and the Commission only having advisory power -as my volunteer lawyer later discovered. When City Council, going against a petition of some 4000 supporting me (see it below), gave the Commission licensing power, they refused to license me.<br />
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Among others banned was mime <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shiner_%28clown%29"><b>David Shiner</b> </a>who was arrested at least twice for impersonating a policeman and went on to be Ringmaster of Le Cirque du Soleil, had his own show on Broadway, was on Jay Leno's show at least twice and is one of the most famous clowns in the world.<br />
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I left Boulder, performed in Aspen and Key West, and then <a href="http://evanravitz.com/Yelapa"><b>Yelapa</b>, Mexico</a>. Arriving penniless in this fishing/tourist village, I was given a free hotel room with a view. The Mayor, known as Piri, fed me lunch daily at his restaurant at the foot of the town waterfall, where I entertained his diners by tightroping over the falls -see photo below. What a change from Boulder! I made enough in tips to live there in paradise and in spring to travel back north. I was also honored to play <a href="http://evanravitz.com/Yelapa/stations3.jpg" target="_blank">Jesus</a> for Holy Week celebrations there in 1986.<br />
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In 1985, my volunteer lawyer Doug Thorburn had talked some sense into Boulder's oligarchs and I was able to resume my shows, which I did until an old injury forced my retirement in 1998. I continued to live in Mexico and Guatemala seasonally.<br />
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In <a href="http://evanravitz.com/Atitlan">Guatemala</a>, I fell in love with <b>Lake Atitlan</b>, which Aldous Huxley called "the most beautiful lake in the world." I started building a house on Maya artist friend Raul Velasquez Barrios' land (photo below, with 2 of the 3 volcanoes by the lake in the background), but abandoned it when 3 other Maya friends were killed by the Guatemalan Arm<b>y</b> -with U.S.-supplied M-16s. Some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_Civil_War" target="_blank">200,000 were killed, tens of thousands horribly tortured</a>, mostly in the '80s.<br />
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<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SZ-PygLwAjI/AAAAAAAAJA8/CAdc0dK6URs/s288/raul2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://lh6.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SZ-PygLwAjI/AAAAAAAAJA8/CAdc0dK6URs/s288/raul2.jpg" style="float: left; height: 181px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 288px;" /></a> <br />
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I returned to Boulder, depressed. I read in <b>Howard Zinn's "People's History of the U.S</b>." that "polls showed by 1975 that<a href="http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnseven20.html" target="_blank"> 65% of Americans were opposed to all foreign military aid</a>" -because it strengthened dictators. I realized if this was a binding vote and not just a poll my friends would still be alive -along with 200,000 other Guatemalans, and millions from Vietnam to the Americas. If we had real <b>"government by the people</b>", our shows would not have been banned in Boulder. The world would be a much better place.<br />
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SbM8j3sUsjI/AAAAAAAAKIM/9JyxnnE-7dU/s400/scan0008-1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://lh3.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SbM8j3sUsjI/AAAAAAAAKIM/9JyxnnE-7dU/s400/scan0008-1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 400px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 318px;" /></a><br />
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So, I spearheaded Boulder's 1993 <b>Voting by Phone </b>ballot initiative, hoping this would make more <b>direct democracy</b> practical. We made the CBS Evening News, the <a href="http://www.evanravitz.com/wsj.htm">Wall St. Journal</a>, etc.<br />
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With the City Council dishonestly attacking our initiative it was defeated 59-41%. I started <b>Vote.org</b> in 1995 to promote citizen power via better and national ballot initiatives. I sold that domain in 2015 and that site is now at <a href="http://evanravitz.com/vote">EvanRavitz.com/vote</a>.<br />
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(Initiatives are controversial, thanks to media dwelling on the few bad ones. But the <a href="http://vote.org/initiatives" target="_blank"><i>full</i> record</a> shows the results are <i>far</i> better than what politicians do.<b> </b>Because it was until 2016 easier in Colorado than most states to get initiatives on the ballot, we have a <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2012/01/case-for-ballot-initiatives-and.html" target="_blank">stellar record</a>. <b>When signing initiative petitions is allowed online, it will be even better.</b>)<br />
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I soon got a call from <a href="http://jaredpolis.com/" target="_blank"><b>Jared Polis</b></a>, a Princeton student who'd enabled student voting by web. We've been friends ever since.<br />
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Jared became the wealthiest and most philanthropic person in Boulder. He sponsored 2 Colorado ballot initiatives which passed becoming Amendment 23 (raising K-12 school spending) and Amendment 41 (the country's strongest prohibition on lobbyist "gifts" to politicians.) <b>Jared is now our <a href="http://polis.house.gov/">Congressman</a></b>. He <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html">said on radio</a> in 2008 that he would introduce a bill for national ballot initiatives in his first year. But he didn't realize it would take a constitutional amendment. Please encourage him: jared (at) jaredpolis.com.<br />
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In 2000 I devoted <b>Vote.org</b> to famed former Sen. <b>Mike Gravel</b>'s project for better and national initiatives. I solicited endorsements from prominent people. <b>Howard Zinn</b> became one of the first, along with <b>Patch Adams, <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2009/01/pete-seeger-endorses-national.html">Pete Seeger</a>, Daniel Ellsberg, Julia Butterfly Hill, "Granny D," Michael Lerner, <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2009/04/ralph-nader-endorses-my-voteorg-project.html">Ralph Nader</a></b> etc. See the <a href="http://vote.org/endorsers">complete list.</a> Gravel ran for President in 2008 mainly to promote this project. But the project has stalled.<br />
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We now see 2 other ways we could get national ballot initiatives:<br />
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1. We're hoping <b>Bernie Sanders </b>becomes the next President and that we can interest him in this. There are several ways initiatives can be made more deliberative and available to those without a lot of money that would make them more like New England town meetings. If you know Bernie or how we can contact him or his wife Jane, please let me know: eravitz@gmail.com.<br />
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<b>2.</b> My friend<b> </b>Dan Marks somehow managed to get <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/memorials.aspx" target="_blank">Congress to count</a> the backlog of state requests for a <b>US "convention to propose amendments"</b> under <a href="http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html" target="_blank">Article V</a>. We, along with attorney Bill Walker, got <b>Congressman Polis</b> to do some preparatory work with the House Parliamentarian. Now we know how Congress has avoided their duty to call a convention. But Polis won't do more: He's running for Governor of Colorado and doesn't want to confuse his message.<br />
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<b>The Young Turks</b> did a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlEc4bYfUVo" target="_blank">fine video story</a>.We have an <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/occupyarticleV/" target="_blank">Article V</a> </b>Facebook group you can follow.<br />
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National ballot initiatives should be #1 priority as constitutional amendment because it would make future amendments and laws doable by citizens without waiting another 200+ years for an Article V convention.<br />
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3. <b>Elon Musk</b> has been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5ECz1YK30M">promoting direct democracy</a>. I bet I can convince him to help get it via an Article V convention, or to fund a Colorado ballot initiative to allow signing future ballot initiative petitions on the Secretary of State's website. This would open the process to groups without huge funds, save the Secretary of State the expense of comparing physical signatures, get more people to read more of the initiative text before signing the petition, reduce harassment and misrepresentation to get signatures, and save time, gas, paper and money for petitioners.<br />
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If anyone can help me get the attention of the most productive man in the world, let me know!<br />
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Many people have told me that this story should be a dramatic film, along the lines of the 1998 hit <b>Patch Adams</b>, about my old friend who has been building a free hospital in the poorest part of Appalachia and spreading laughter and clown therapy around the world.<br />
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I think <b>Matt Damon</b> would be interested because of his childhood friendship with our inspiration Howard Zinn, who Matt talks about in Good Will Hunting, and whose book sent me on this quest. If anyone knows how I can get Matt's attention, please do.<br />
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We need help. <b>Almost all politicians and the people who buy their votes are opposed to government by the people.</b> Read what "my" former <b><a href="http://vote.org/udall">Senator Mark Udal</a>l</b> and other prominent Colorado "Democrats" said about our project to try to kill it.<br />
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Let my people VOTE!<br />
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Evan 'from Heaven' Ravitz<br />
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SbM8WxnYScI/AAAAAAAAKIE/LI29u69_tZo/s800/scan0010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://lh3.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SbM8WxnYScI/AAAAAAAAKIE/LI29u69_tZo/s800/scan0010.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 800px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 628px;" /></a>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-19075380948541935362009-02-11T15:07:00.000-08:002009-02-12T07:20:07.853-08:00Transport that's fun and follows the laws of physics!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SZNa_SqAPsI/AAAAAAAAImQ/jfiVJjz3IFA/s1600-h/WOMAN+STANDING+ON+BIKE.GIF"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SZNa_SqAPsI/AAAAAAAAImQ/jfiVJjz3IFA/s320/WOMAN+STANDING+ON+BIKE.GIF" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301681229731479234" /></a><br />We all learned in school that bikes are the most efficient transportation, in both the artificial and animal worlds. But how can humans be more efficient than, say, antelope? Because of all the "embedded" energy already invested to smooth and pave the roads, which makes skinny wheels way more efficient than any legs. (Animals can't coast, for one thing.)<br /><br />Cycling's also fun and keeps you healthy. In my 30s I rode across Mexico among other long rides. At 56 I still do all my local travel by bike. Bikes should be our first choice when practical. Bikes are, or can be, easy to take on public transportation, a great combination.<br /><br />People talk about "transit" as if it were all good. But as the standard text Principles of Pavement Design or any pavement engineer will tell you, road damage increases as the FOURTH power of vehicle weight (assuming the same number of axles). This means that a bus weighing about ten times the average car does TEN THOUSAND times more damage! So buses and heavy trucks do almost all the damage to our highways and major roads.<br /><br />Pounding our roads and highways, the most expensive infrastructure in the U.S., is just not "sustainable." Heavy transport should where possible run on steel rails, far cheaper and more durable than roads. Rail transport is also the 2nd most efficient, after the bicycle.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Portland_streetcar.jpg/800px-Portland_streetcar.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Portland_streetcar.jpg/800px-Portland_streetcar.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Until the 1940s, most urbanites commuted on streetcars -running on rails. Some of our "stimulus" money should go to rebuild them. Some should go to improve long-distance rail lines. And some should go to develop and produce an affordable electric car -especially since car companies are getting bailed out.<br /><br />Electric cars don't pollute and go much further per dollar than internal combustion vehicles. Having far fewer moving parts and no explosions inside, they are far more durable and require far less maintenance. Soon, many will be charging them from solar panels on their homes, and their batteries will be tied into the electric grid, providing storage to even out the intermittent production of solar and wind energy, and uneven usage.<br /><br />Hybrid cars save gas, but there's evidence the "embodied" extra energy involved in producing TWO engines -electric and gas- may outweigh that savings, unless, like cabbies, you drive a lot. The gas engine still requires lots of maintenance.<br /><br />Once economics and physics force much transportion back to streetcars and trains, America's huge road and highway network will be much safer and more fun for cycling again. And the roads will last: A cyclist on a bike weighing (at most) ten times less than a car does TEN THOUSAND times less road damage, 100 MILLION times less than a bus!Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-65303728716587645612009-02-06T16:13:00.000-08:002009-02-06T16:25:19.434-08:00Latest Iridescent (or nacreous) Clouds<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SYzRmOuDytI/AAAAAAAAIOU/cxoqpITYxwQ/s800/P1000837.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 800px; height: 638px;" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_X_zs5jbJhMA/SYzRmOuDytI/AAAAAAAAIOU/cxoqpITYxwQ/s800/P1000837.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I've been lucky to see and photograph these sublime clouds often. They occur when most water droplets are the same size, refracting the sun in a collimated way. You can see all my best iridescent and other cloud photos <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/Evan.Ravitz/Clouds#slideshow">here</a>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3706900671940484321.post-64290662223836196722009-01-26T16:28:00.000-08:002009-01-27T20:21:56.229-08:00NOAA: Climate Change to last 40 (de)generations<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://weehaggis.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/lastpolarbear.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 378px; height: 560px;" src="http://weehaggis.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/lastpolarbear.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The <a href="http://www.real-dream-catchers.com/Ojibwe_culture_and_language/ojibwe_honor_creation_elders_future_generations.htm">Ojibwe</a> and other American Indians did their "deciding" considering seven generations to come. <p>Now says Boulder's NOAA: <a href="http://ases.org/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=NOAA-Climate-change-effects-irreversible.html&Itemid=27">Climate change effects irreversible</a> based on a study in the January 26 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Over 1000 years isn't really irreversible, but it is for us and everyone we'll ever know.<br /><br />During his campaign my new <a href="http://polis.house.gov/">Congressman Jared Polis</a> quoted this <a href="http://vote.org/initiatives?q=node/1272">1997 poll</a> showing 65% of Americans wanted to cut greenhouse gases no matter what other nations did. Yet, 12 years later, with Congress "deciding," greenhouse gases keep increasing. Jared has since <a href="http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html">declared</a> that he will introduce a bill so that Americans can have a Plan B: National ballot initiatives!<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br />White bear swims in water<br />Where's my ice, dude?</p>Evan Ravitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14342152859071613438noreply@blogger.com0