Code Neon Blue!

Yes, I realize that sentence makes no logical sense in Latin, or any other language. It’s fun to say, though.

What caused that phrase to spring forth from my brain (other than the slightly twisted brainwaves that apparently came standard with my particular model) is the current push from the DNC for all us good solid citizens to get it in gear for 2008.

First let me say, I DO think that’s a good idea. Today is not too soon to get started. Well, okay, it’s almost 10:30 here. So, tomorrow is not too soon to get started….

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t think I am personally acquainted with any slackers. Everyone I know is busy as blazes with work, family and many very splendid and worthwhile causes.

The DNC and the various progressive groups want us to re-prioritize our lives and find as much time as we can squeeze out to donate to electing folks who will (we hope) end up wearing that good old -D (Somewhere) after their name.

What I want is for those who we help elect with our precious donated time to have the time of day for US once they take office.

Sound fair?

Yeah, to me too. Which means it’s also not too soon to start working on how to make sure that’s how it turns out post the 2008 elections.

It is highly possible I am an idiot.

Our DNC Field Liason Annajo sent me an email invite to a “webinar” tonight. I managed the online RSVP sign-up okay, which got me several more confirming instructive emails. I made a note of the time and got the program downloaded and installed without any exceptional difficulty. Since this my first webinar, I was nervous I would do something wrong. The pics soon started rolling, though, and I relaxed and sat back to enjoy the show.

But after a few minutes, I began to think the timing of the slides was odd. Sometimes screens with only a few words would stay up a long time, and yet complex screens whisked by after just a few seconds. And sometimes I could see a cursor moving around, which felt weird since I wasn’t the one moving it.

I recognized some of the pages from Pat Waak’s recent visit in Las Animas, although a few had new captions. I particularly wish I had done a screen capture of the one that said in big red letters: Remove Hard Core Republicans. (Oh, if only….)

I was also intrigued by the promise: New Activists Get Their Own Universe. Man, they spoil these new kids! *I* certainly wasn’t offered my own universe when I was getting started!

About 40 minutes in, I found a thingie to click which revealed a second chat window! I had made a few remarks on the more obvious one, and gotten a reply, but I hadn’t known there was more to it. I ALSO had not understood that YES, there was an audio component to go with the visual, and I ought to have phoned in as well as logged on. As soon as I found out, I dialed in…just as the webinar was ending.

So, um…house parties next weekend. We are going to be getting people to go out talking to people and getting them to talk to more people. All joking aside, it seems like a good plan.

But I am probably not the number one choice to try to explain it to anyone. Try the website instead Democrats.org/OneYearOut

Woo, my blog is now officially a BLOG – I’ve gotten four spamments this evening!

I took advantage of the lovely fall weather to do some yard work, which means my brain has now copied my body and slowed to a crawl. So how about a jolly trip to my Handy-dandy Link Locker for today’s post?

I like quizzes, even when I’m not very good at them. This one asks you to name as many presidents as you can in ten minutes. You even get a ‘gimme’ for presidents with the same last names!

I hadn’t played it in a while, so from a cold start I got 34 out of 43. I am good with the 1920s to today, but am made of fail re the 19th century.

Are you among the 27.55% of people who can name them all? Click here to find out!

I don’t necessarily dislike them, but they tend to throw me off schedule, and then it’s hard getting back on. Another reason I am not cut out for any political stuff that’s not behind the scenes.

On Thursday our Prowers County Dem board got together to try to get our heads around a timeline for the next year. Lots of stuff on that list now, after only one short meeting!

At this point in time I still have one free weekend (not counting Thanksgiving) in November and a couple in December. :/ I am finishing off October by celebrating Free Dump Weekend. Yeah, I know, woo hoo.

So that this post will have SOME content, I will share an interesting story from our local paper, the Lamar Ledger. (That’s the one that changed to a three-issues-per-week venue, which meant they could not longer be called the Lamar Daily News. Which ruined one of my favorite jokes, where I fondly referred to them as the Daily Snooze.)

ANYWAY, it seems the Corgi company wants to make and market a collectible model of one of our fire trucks, because it has an interesting history. “It was originally owned by the Arlington, Va. Fire Department and used at the scene of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001,” according to the online article.

The full link is here if you want to see more!

(Sorry, I accidentally deleted this post while killing a spamment, and I can’t seem to get it to go back to its proper place in line….)

Why, yes, I DO have a 15 year old who was on my last nerve today. How could you tell?

It’s a good thing that stuff comes along in life to keep us humble, right?

I should have known this was coming when Annajo Sanchez asked me last week about upcoming elections in Lamar, and all I could say was “Durr?” My feeble excuse was that I don’t actually live IN Lamar, and therefore since I am not eligible to vote for city issues, I hadn’t paid too much attention to it. (I KNOW. Bad activist. No biscuit. Or pizza.)

Then the mail-in ballots came to our house. “Huh,” I said, wondering what was up with that. Oh. School board posts. Okay, should be within my capabilities, I thought.

But no. The ballots had candidates listed for four different districts. Do we live in four different districts? No wonder I’m always so tired….

I had to call the courthouse to ask. The very kind and patient clerk explained to me that school districts are not the same as precincts, and we were in fact entitled to cast votes in all four on our ballot.

Told you I am still a New Bee about a lot of this political stuff. But, live and learn!

From Thers, writing at FireDogLake.com, speaking to the Dems currently holding congressional office:

“If you concede on habeas corpus, if you concede on ending the war, if you concede on bringing troops home, if you concede on FISA, if you concede on waterboarding, if you concede on holding this misbegotten failure of an administration accountable for their abuses, if you give one more goddamn inch —

Come 2008, I aim to misbehave.

Maybe that’s just me. But I doubt it.”

Read the whole thing here.

And may I add, speaking for myself…2008 will just be the start of my rumpus upkicking.

It’s a vocabulary quiz, and it’s not easy, either! For every word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice through United Nations World Food Program. (Hmm, maybe that should be the United Nations WORD Food Program!) Ten grains might not seem like much, but if you are a game nut like me, trust me, you’ll be donating a LOT of rice as you play over and over and over and over….

Top level is 50. Can you get there? Can you STAY there more than a question or two? *rubs hands and cackles evilly*

Click here to play!

Democracy For America has a great page here. They asked candidates to submit videos giving their opinions on some of the issues. You can watch them first, and then vote for your top three favorites, or, if you’ve been playing along at home and already know your preferences, just jump in and vote.

Kind of amazing how fast it can change. When I was there earlier this evening, Edwards was in the top spot, but it looks like a BUNCH of write-in votes have placed Gore in first!

Worth a vote and then bookmarking to watch the horse race!

Vote by clicking here!

A friend on LiveJournal found me this pic for my birthday, and I just had to show it off.

It’s not very political, though, so here’s a little something to cover that.

Monday evening some of us from Prowers County attended a meeting in Las Animas, hosted by Alex Netherton and the Bent County Democrats. (Wouldn’t that make a good name for a band?) There had been plans for a representative from Mark Udall’s campaign to visit with everyone beforehand, but that fell through. Since I’d needed to go to Las Animas early for personal reasons, I didn’t get the cancellation call, and wound up wandering around by myself at the Bent’s Fort Inn. I didn’t know they had a birding trail behind there! Next time I will go even earlier, in better shoes!

Luckily for me, Annajo Sanchez, one of our Colorado DNC party promotion worker bees (no, that’s not their real job title. I’m blanking on the actual title) had ALSO left home before she got the call. So we were able to just relax and talk over a plate of the (not-so) famous Bent’s Fort Inn sushi until everyone else arrived.

Pat Waak, our state chair, gave a well-organized talk and slide show, zooming us through it in time for local people to get home to watch the Rockies game! She’s been traveling around to try to contact as many county Dem groups as possible. We had people from five counties in attendance this time, which is pretty good considering how spread out all the towns are down here.

Pat started out with the “state of the State", showing how voting percentages and opinion poll numbers are changing in the Dems’ favor. Rural areas are where a LOT of this change is happening, which is nice for us, as it means candidates and office holders can’t just take us for granted like they used to. Well, not as much, anyway.

This happy overview of good things to come led into a look at the timeline for the 2008 caucuses and how it all works. I know everyone reading CodeNeonBlue knows how to look that data up at coloradodems.org, so I won’t go into details here.

Next up was how to be chosen as a Colorado delegate to the National Convention in 2008. Short answer: It’s hard. Lots and lots and lots of other people are interested.

Slightly longer answer: There are still 55 slots available. Of those, 36 will be elected from the Congressional Districts. Here in CD-4 they need to choose 3 males, 2 females and 1 female alternate. For all the people who don’t make that cut, there will be an open election at the State convention for 12 At Large delegates.

(Disclosure: I’m not angling to be a DNC delegate, so that’s one less person competing, if you’re already planning how to make your move. What I want to do is be there blogging it!)

The final topic of the evening was the Jerome Project. I could tell you about it, but then I’d have to recruit you. Just trust me when I say it’s a good plan for getting out the vote in 2008!

(Rocktober TM Gov. Bill Ritter, in honor of the Colorado Rockies best season ever!)

I thought this bit from the Oct 16 Rocky Mountain News about the post game fun downtown deserved to be preserved:

“By 1 a.m., the crowds are dwindling and the cops are still smiling. No tear gas has been dispersed; skulls have not been cracked.

“The World Series should be nothing,” jokes one of the officers. “But at least it’ll be a good warmup for the DNC.”

That’s going to be a WHOLE NOTHER ballgame.

But the steam must have deleted my mental files. Dang.

I remember the basic stuff, of course. I was taking an opening bang or two on a drum I will probably be pounding quite a lot as I blog along: are we so sucked in by the idea of “winning” to beat our “enemies” in the GOP that we don’t care at all what kind of candidate we end up backing?

Later on, as I was looking through my Firefox bookmarks, I ran across one with a similar theme. What if Gore hadn’t been shafted by the Supreme Court and had taken office in 2000, but then something had happened to him? Do the words “President Lieberman” make your blood run cold? If I’d thought about that while I was still in the bath, the water probably would have iced over!

Obviously we DO have to win elections if we want to have a say in creating a decent future for everyone. But it’s just as obvious to me that if we adopt the “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” mentality too fully, well…we might score a lot of points. But we won’t win much worth having.

So that was basically it. Tell me what you think. Maybe I will write it up better on my next try. In the meantime, I’m going to go check eBay for a waterproof notepad.

There’s a great YouTube video at this site

http://www.pcrm.org/childhoodobesity/

which parodies the Larry Craig bathroom scandal. It’s funny/sadly true on several levels.

Their point:

“It may surprise you to learn that the federal government buys up millions of dollars worth of bacon, burgers, and fatty meat and dairy products and dumps them in our schools and food assistance programs. This practice persists, in part, because companies making these unhealthy products give millions of dollars to members of Congress through political action committees. Until these practices end, stopping childhood obesity will remain a difficult challenge.”

Being from ranching country, and not averse to a nice bit of beef now and then, I should say I’m not against the regular folks in the cattle industry. What I’m against is giving huge handouts to giant agri-businesses that use their wealth and power to buy up and take over the small farms that the government subsidies were designed to help.

I attended the Blue Ribbon Commission’s meeting in Lamar on October 4th because I wanted to know what it was all about. This is the Cliff Notes version of what I came away with. If you want the big picture with all the details, you might want to go to their website at www.colorado.gov/208commission .

They are accepting written comments until October 22. That is your shot at getting your input included in the major report they will be giving to the state legislature in January. The email for that is 208outreach@coloradofoundation.org

The Story So Far: Four groups got together to come up with proposals for reforming health care in Colorado, per a legislative order. Then officials from both sides of the aisle nominated people to serve on the Commission and assess the proposals. The Commission then created what they call the Fifth Proposal, taking the best ideas from the original four. Next, they went touring around the state to give the general population a chance to weigh in with yet MORE ideas.

Obviously, with so many different (often conflicting) suggestions going into the mix, it would be a miracle if the final report was pleasing to everyone. (And that’s BEFORE the legislature goes to work on it!) I have to say, I thought they put on a good, clear presentation, with handouts, a slide show, AND a lovely sandwich buffet!

(Disclosure–Yes, I did have a lovely sandwich. I don’t think it affected my opinion, but you never know.)

Highlights of the Fifth Proposal:

Everyone will be required to have insurance, but there will be subsidies for people according to their income. Anyone from a family of 4 earning under $82,700 a year would qualify for premium help in some degree. This would also count for catastrophic care. Employers would not have to provide health insurance, but WOULD have to set up pre-tax payroll deduction plans to help people make their payments affordably.

One of the biggies (in my opinion) is a call to reform the individual insurance market.

They also suggest combining Medicaid and CHP+ under one administration (which would save a lot of money by eliminating duplication of paperwork, etc.) and then expanding both programs so that families of 4 earning $41,300 qualify for care.

So, to recap: Not perfect. Subject to yet more argument and revision, and then even more once it goes to the State House and Senate.

And yet (again in my opinion) something even half this good would be better than what a lot of people have now, which is nothing at all….

I’ve lived in southeastern Colorado for over 25 years, but I’ve only been active in politics since 2003, so I’m still a New Bee in many ways.

I’m the Communications Director (actually 2nd Vice Chair) for the Prowers County Dems. We have a web page and everything, but I had to make some changes when I started experimenting with setting up this new blog on the web servers I also use for my business, so it’s down for the moment. When I get it online again, I’ll let you know.

I’m easy to spot in a crowd at events, because of the blue hair. If you ever see me, c’mon over and say Hi!