Code Neon Blue!

My list of things to get done before I take off on Friday for RootsCamp in Denver wasn’t cooperating today. My fault, really, because it’s hard to trim a list when you’re adding two new things for every one you finish.

Emailing back and forth with our county chair Randa about precinct caucus locations reminded me of yet ANOTHER thing to add. I had been planning to check with the local papers as to whether they had the info for an announcement of the deadline to register or change party affiliation, December 5th.

I guess in my mind the Lamar Ledger is still a 5 day a week paper. Imagine my dismay when the editor told me they were working on putting Friday’s edition to bed Right Then, Even As We Spoke. But IF I could get her something fast, MAYBE there was still a chance to run it Friday.

It was 3:50 and I was supposed to be somewhere at 4:00. Could I write a couple paras on the hows, whys and wheres of registering party affiliation in order to be eligible to vote at precinct caucuses on February 5th in that ten minute time frame?

Turns out I could. Huh.

I can’t resist a story like this, which shows that sensible but innovative government IS possible.

Two computer analysts for the county, Ryan Sneller and Kevin Rink, were pricing mobile radio uplink towers a few years ago. When they found the going rate was around $15-20K, they decided they could do better.

So they bought a trailer locally, bought the telescoping 45 foot antenna separately, and did the rest of the work themselves. They might pound keys for a living NOW, but they were both raised on the farm and know how to Make Stuff Work.

Final cost, about $5,500.

Now if there is an emergency that wipes out the usual communications network, this trailer can be hauled to a central location, and in about 30 minutes it will provide access to a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephone system, analog telephone lines, fax lines and county databases.

Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

(Photo from Lamar Ledger editor Mary Breslin)

Full story here at the Lamar Ledger

Here’s another post that recycles some of the content from the newsletter I just sent out to the Prowers County Dems. See, not cheating. Recycling. Which is a virtue.

This link will take you to a page where you can see all four of the ads being tested in a few TV markets by Center for American Progress.

The one with the start screen that says “Progressive. And proud of it.” is my favorite. (My nickname for the singer is I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Dylan.) I highly recommend that you bookmark it for re-watching on the days you are feeling a little discouraged about how far we have to go. It’s a good reminder that we have COME a long ways, and it’s progressive principles that have helped make the changes happen!

Here I am back from my not-exactly-planned holiday break. You know how it is, I bet, so I won’t go on and on….

I ran across this today, a cute little runabout electric car called the Solar Bug.

“…for city dwellers or those people living in small towns, whose primary need is local transportation to and from work and local errands, it offers a trendy and environmentally friendly way to get around.”

By my rough figures, at current gas/electricity prices, this would get me around on errands at 1/10th or less of what Dreamcloud costs to run!

The specs are right here.

Not that I am LIKELY to have a spare $15,000 next year when they go on the market…but if I did, I would sure think about buying one!

Once you’re all done with football for the day, and you’re looking for something new and interesting to browse, try this site:

A List Of Over 250 Women Blogging On Politics

I’m on it now, and the nice person running the page is still taking names, if you have anyone to suggest!

Enjoy! I’m going to go nibble a little more stuffing….

I’m not the insightfulest page in the blogosphere tonight. Had to get up too early because of a little car problem, which has promoted itself to a ‘going to cost actual $$’ medium car problem. However, that’s not political, so let’s have some content, eh?

With 10 days to go in Votes for Coats and Cans Prowers County primary, Hillary is in the lead with 17 points. Richardson is close behind with 14 points, and Obama is a distant third with 5 points.

Thanks to the ‘Mikes sticking together’ vote, Mike Gravel is making a small showing with 3 points. None of the other candidates have yet to break out of the starting gate!

I’ll be pushing this again in my newsletter tomorrow, and we’ll see how things look at the end of the month!

Last weekend, a whole bunch of people got together and proved that it IS possible to do a huge, multi-agency exercise on the public dime, AND do it efficiently, AND do it so the general public gets real-time benefits.

No, I am not being sarcastic.

Colorado had a Full Scale Mass Vaccination Exercise, and I was a volunteer here in Prowers County. The idea was to pretend a flu pandemic, similar to the one in 1918, has hit the US.

Nine million people have the flu now, in the exercise scenario (which means roughly five million of them have no health insurance coverage, by my rough figurings. But that’s a rant for another day), and that’s just the tip of the second wave iceberg.

Prowers and the other 20 counties taking part in this exercise got their shares of flu shots flown in by the National Guard. It seemed to me the various agencies involved were trying to test every step of the plan as realistically as possible. Not in a way that would freak the public out, of course. It was well publicized around here as a practice run, with FREE flu shots as the reward for being a good citizen and helping test out the plan.

Ours was a drive-through set-up. People in cars (and a couple of motorcycles) lined up at the gates of the county fairgrounds, where they were given forms to fill out. (That’s where I was stationed.) Then they were directed to the next station and guided into one of three lanes, depending on how many were in a car and whether there were children to vaccinate.

The last stage was the observation area, where people waited to make sure they didn’t have a reaction to the shot, which is standard medical procedure.

I think it went very smoothly, especially when you consider that the top of the command chain is FEMA. (!) There was a long wait in line for the early birds, but once they got their forms, people were out in 20 minutes or less. Coming in cars DID use up gas, but on the other hand, people were not crowded into buildings to share germs, which would be a big concern in a real pandemic. Also, no one had to stand in line for hours, as happened with the flu shot exercise our county participated in two years ago.

The exercise ran from 8:30 to 12:00, and in that time 582 people, from babies to seniors, got flu shots!

After we shut down at noon and put all the stuff away, we had what is called a “hotwash". You might think this was something fun to help us relax, like a communal shower or soak in a big hot tub. But sadly not. All we did was talk about our observations and make suggestions to improve the exercise. I went home dusty, sore, and with unfulfilled curiosity about the derivation of the term “hotwash". Does it ever come with a hotwax? Is there also a coldwash?

No one ever tells me anything.

I have a neat thing to tell about, but I want to do a really good job, so I’m putting it off one more day.

Here’s a sort of hint. This picture from 1914 is about disease control. So was the public health exercise that I got to help with on Saturday.

You can read more about the bathouse HERE!

This is the overview of my take on the Neighborhood Leader program, which I wrote up for our Prowers Dems e-newsletter yesterday:

The One Year Out House Party we held last weekend was one of many just like it being hosted all over the US this month. This presentation of the Neighborhood Leader program was my third exposure in some form or other, and I have to say, it’s growing on me!

We all know how tough it is to schedule time in our busy lives where we can meet together as a group. That’s one of the pluses of the Neighborhood Leader program – you don’t have to try to do that!

Signing up as a Neighborhood Leader doesn’t mean you are expected to host meetings or work at scheduled events. (Not that you can’t, if you want – it’s just not a requirement.) You are just saying you will try to talk to at least 25 people about Dem stuff at least three times each in the next year.

What makes it easy is that when you sign on, you will be given a list of people in your neighborhood, maybe even in your block or on your street, who are already registered to vote as Democrats. You don’t have to confront hard-core Republicans and argue with them, or go around on what salesmen refer to as “cold calls", hoping to get lucky and find a friendly face at the door.

All you have to do is go to the houses of the people on your list and let them know they are not alone. There are other people who care about the serious problems our country is facing, who want to join together to help fix things. You will ask them about what concerns them most. This info will be added to their entry in the voters’ database, so future contact can be focused to what they really care about.

A lot of people don’t get active and do things simply because they don’t know how to get started. Getting in touch with them, one on one, is the first step. And that’s what the Neighborhood Leader program shows you how to do!

We actually had more than four at our house party (really a Randa’s office party) on Saturday! The full total was a whopping seven! The good part, though, was that we had Tom Florez, Alex Netherton and Robin Van Ausdall, all from other counties. It’s always fun to get a chance to talk with Dems we don’t see often.

I have to say I think the group call with Udall didn’t quite come off as advertised. I thought it was going to be an hour long Q & A. It only lasted about half an hour, and the first 10 minutes of that was canned music and muffled prep noises in the background. The rest was three pretty good personal stories, with responses from Udall. I expect the campaign will improve with practice.

The DNC DVD (say that three times fast!) was pretty good, though. I’m always glad to see Howard Dean, and as a bonus they threw in Parag Mehta, too! This was the third time I’d been exposed to the concept of the new “Neighborhood Leader” program, and I find I’m warming up to it. I think it has potential, if it can find its feet…those feet being at the ends of the legs of people willing to give it a shot.

So that’s one thing off my To Do list and about five added on…. Counts as a win, I say.

According to a story in Wednesday’s Lamar Ledger, we had a 55% turnout in the election. Not bad for an off-year.

The hottest race was for the Ward 2 City Council seat. The unofficial tally has the incumbent, “Skip” Ruedeman, holding his place by ONE vote. Just another anecdote to relate when people try to beg off voting because they say their vote doesn’t matter.

In the school board elections, the President and Vice-P were both replaced by new bees. You’d almost be tempted to take it as a sign the public is in the mood for regime change….

Come on 2008!

Well, our One Year Out House Party will be happening in just a few more days. Right now I am thinking all four of us who come will have a great time…but hey, we power on, right?

I had a few cans to take in for the Votes for Coats and Cans Primary. Mike helped carry stuff, so I gave him some of my stars. I was going to ask if he wanted me to tell him about the various candidates, but he had his mind made up before I could. For a second, I thought he was going for Obama, but then he chose to give his stars to Mike Gravel.

I guess Mikes have to stick together. :)

A BREAKING NEWS email came through last night just after midnight. Because my mail program only shows part of the subject line, this is what I saw:

BREAKING NEWS: Denver calls in SWAT

Yow, right?

Actually, not so much. Here’s the whole text.

“Denver has called in the SWAT team and other city workers to finish counting ballots tonight.

About 20 on-call SWAT officers are arriving at the election offices now. The election volunteers who had counted ballots all day were sent home.

The votes have been counted at a snail’s pace all evening, and election officials weren’t sure whether they would finish.”

Way to psych us out, RMN. Although, I guess it’s good we live in a society where they call the heavy duty guys in to HELP with the counting, not to STOP the counting….

It was the type that is productive, yet kinda boring to tell about in any detail. Basically, I was doing the background work for a project we are kicking off this week. It was inspired by the Coats and Cans Primary from http://democratswork.org/ . Our primary will be a straw poll for the Dem presidential candidates - one vote for a can of food for the local food bank, five votes for a coat for the homeless shelter!

And when people come in to donate, we will have a brochure to give them that explains how they can support their candidate for reals via the precinct caucus system!

So this weekend I was doing the research, writing the brochure, and printing out the pics and things I will need for making the sign and ballot board.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

A friend of mine was sharing an excellent quote around from Making Light, a personal blog that often touches on the political.

Zander, speaking in comments, said in part:

“If good and evil matter to us at all, then we are obliged to be good above all. If that means we lose, then we lose. If that means we die, then we die. If we sacrifice our goodness even for one moment for the sake of winning, the victory is pointless, and we are damned. Especially if we continue then to talk about good and evil as if they mattered to us.

We cannot, we dare not, lay aside our goodness on the grounds that it is “necessary,” because next time it will be “advisable” and the time after that it will be “expedient” and then “convenient” and by that time we are in pitch up to our necks. If we pretend to be on the side of the light, then we can do nothing in shadow, because even if God is not watching us, history is.”

You can read more comments on the topic HERE.

That’s what some people would do if I said it was sometimes hard for me to think of something to say here.

That is seldom a problem for me in Real Life.

But take today, just for example. I was fairly busy with political related stuff for a good chunk of it, but the actual activity was phone calls and research, which aren’t all that interesting to tell about.

Here’s one of the things I looked up today – the number of delegates our southeastern Colorado counties can send to the state convention:

Baca 4
Bent 5
Kiowa 4
Otero 19
Prowers 9

If you want to know the numbers for YOUR county, you can find them here on Dan Slater’s blog:

http://www.demnotes.com/wp-content/DelegateCalcs08dft3.pdf

A weird thing happened today. I was exploring the VAN site (Voter Access Network) because we are going to be using it tomorrow. We have some precincts here in Prowers County where former captains have moved away or whatever, so we need new victims candidates.

I was looking up a friend because I was going to ask if she wanted to be on the mailing list for the Prowers Dems email newsletter. I figured she was registered as a Dem because I really like her, I deeply respect her tremendous contributions to our community, and she is one of a very TINY subset of people I think of as real, genuine Christians living their faith as the Lord intended. But she MIGHT have been an Independent. So I checked.

She’s a registered Republican.

I have to admit it, I was freaked out. And then I felt guilty for feeling that way. Because in theory I believe no one should be judged as a stereotype, but “on the content of their character", etc.

Part of the reason I feel weird is because, well, I think of myself as a tolerant, non-judgmental person. After all, some of my relatives are…you know, elephant-friendly. It’s not so hard to tolerate THEM. Maybe because they are tolerating me right back….

It’s just kind of easy to fall into the Us v. Them mindset, especially when a person spends so much time online keeping up with current events and goings-on in the political arena.

Maybe this discovery will help me do a better job of being open-minded and fair.

I hope so. If it does, it’s yet another fine public service my friend has rendered.