By Tom on 7/29/2008 8:29 PM

CHAPTER 1 – Transportation

Eco-Commuting is Walk-to-Work. Significant reduction of commuting car traffic will not happen as long as it is necessary to commute. What minor reductions are possible should by all means be done if only because of the logic of doing something, but the priority should be on taking the first step toward significant reduction. That step is to produce a charter for the City of Vashon-Maury. That will serve ad-hoc while I explain what I mean. Getting out of cars is to end car culture. That means undoing a hundred years of incorporation of cars into every aspect of life. That means total re-organization of employment and that’s the same as re-making society. For a bedroom island that means make a living here, or leave. By any similar line of reasoning the result is that untrammeled mobility must be terminated. The goal is a cohesive community. Such a community is able to take a responsible stand on matters of world survival. Life on Vashon-Maury presently limited by rainfall will then...

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By Tom on 7/23/2008 8:39 PM

Color is defining. It let slavers get away with dehumanizing Africans. It was Jesse Jackson’s coalition cry. Purple was Alice Walker’s metaphor for love. And it is color, bright, vibrant, color that may have jump-started the Green Party. McKinney and Clemente embody the spirit of those Americans who cannot afford to play-act in politics, those for whom the ten key values mean not choice but survival.

Americans of color could “jump-start” the Green Party because they have survived more oppression than the US police state will ever be able to visit on the comfortable.  In surviving they have become brothers and sisters. Survivors, they can teach “us” a few things.

Menwomen, we have become divided, men from women by power, men from men by money, and women from women by Hillary. Some of that is true, but the whole truth is that cars and couch potato electronics have fragmented old-fashioned towns into morsels readily digested by corporate greed. Fragmented, we have yielded control to the likes of Clear...

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By Tom on 7/23/2008 7:58 PM

All this talk about reality television makes me wonder if I believe reports that purport to be true. Reports that the US was conned into occupying Iraq, reports that homeowners have been conned into bad mortages, reports that Guantanimo’s purpose had nothing to do with countering terrorism. I hear, but do I believe? Well, today I learned of three purports so close to home I have to believe something is going on: Oregon vineyards are trying new heat-resistant grapes because the alcohol content is getting too high, the Boeing Credit Union has felt it necessary to reassure us it is financially strong, and my brother is buying a Prius. If the purports get any closer I may have to readjust my life style, practice a different breath maybe.