I have been asked to read to a class of upper-class (read: republican) 5th graders for 20 minutes. The book is of my choosing, and I want to make my short time there count, so I have written this diary to get suggestions for an appropriate book.

The themes I would like to focus on would be environmentalism, the value of helping those that have less, and possibly anti-materialism.

This is a heavily R town, and so the book I bring in would have to not be by a big name (I know, I know, my first thought was to read An Inconvenient Truth too). It also needs to be in story form, I believe, and generally be interesting enough to hold attention.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear some good ideas for turning some misguided young minds blue.

It appears that in the effort to turn our internet into another version of cable TV, the telecom companies have found themselves making some powerful enemies.

I just got an email from Meg Whitman today, CEO of eBay. In it she sets up a call to action, in support of all of us that want the net to be equal for everyone.

What I like about this campaign, as opposed to just funding a large amount of lobbyists like the telecoms have, is that it gets the millions of people involved in eBay to do something progressive, in a people powered way. I know I'll be sending this along to people I know, whether they use eBay or not, because it frames this issue very nicely into "non-geek" terms.

In her own words:
"The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net.

The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road."

The main body of the email is in extended...

And a call for LTEs from me, to start.

Time Magazine, last night sent out an issue in which the 2nd largest story was about how Walmart is taking its "low-price" way of life to China.

Click here to read the whole article, or for a small dose of outrage, and some observations, there's more below...

I have been thinking about this issue for quite a while now, back when some Dem rep proposed it back in 2002.

The problem is this. We aren't a democracy. Simple. The founding fathers saw problems with mob rule then, and I can see how it can be a problem today. Quite a few things we hold near and dear, as the minority party, are based on the rules of a republic, not on a democracy.

Take the filibuster. That is inherently undemocratic, along with voting for Representatives of any sort. Democracy (big D) means the people do the governing directly. Given an informed society without too many people, not a problem. Once things get spun every which way, and you have something more complicated than what socks the nation should wear, it becomes nessicary  to give yourself a proxy, whose interest is the common good.

More below.

No, really. I, in the singular, embody everything the Dem Party should stand for. I am pro-choice, pro-gun, anti-WTO, pro-union, pro-tax, anti-war.

This means the rest of you should fall in line. No more supporting those anti-women pro-life politicians. No more speaking against gun ownership, no matter how big and pointless the guns may be. All you that don't mind businesses here competing in the global economy, step aside. Same for you that think that unions were too powerful, and should be tossed. And don't get me started on taxes. If you think that deficits are OK, don't let the door hit you in the ass as you go. Any hawks in here, get the fuck out or I'll throw you out myself.

Do I really think all that? Find out below.

If you've perused the diaries, I'm sure you have noticed that Kos is no longer a solely online community. Maryscott has written on this, as well as others less well known. There are real-life Kossaks meeting eachother in real life maybe as we speak.

I think it's our turn. If you live near Allentown, or Philly, or somewhere in between, I think it's time we got to know eachother.

Repeating a lie enough does not make it truth.

In his flip-flopping "column" in Time, he first bashes Bush on holding the hand of a Saudi Prince, then takes a turn bashing Social Security by promoting means testing as a viable option, then chideds Dems on not having their own plan.

My letter to him is below.

Ap News reports here that Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez will have no consequences for those under his command in the Abu Gharib scandal.

This comes despite a past report that their "action and inaction did indirectly contribute" to some of the abuses.

Their excuse? They were short of officers, and he was under a lot of pressure to get Saddam.

Is it just me or does that seem like a pretty shitty excuse for torture and general debauchery in that scale? It's like Bush declaring "hard work" as the reason why the country's going to shit.

If you haven't read Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff, and I recommend you do, one of the oft-repeated principles is that we as Progressive Democrats revolve around issues, when we need to focus on values. It is the empathy of these values which brings people to see our issues. There is no greater way to generate that empathy than through a story. Humans have done this since language first developed. As most here know, a good story will cause your heart to race when "your character" is in trouble, and whenever you close the book, you wonder and even worry about how it will end.

When I see news, I try to make myself see it from another person's perspective. So many times, the victim's point of view is the only one shown. While that may make for good news, it can't and won't show you the true event. It may very well be that our side is being shown, but not accented (and turned into a story)that it will evoke the empathy that draws minds to our issues.

For the purposes of example, I found a story in Time Magazine that I think we could expand on to push a few of our values.

Listening to Air America, I heard David Nestor (I think, probably spelled wrong) give the best reason so far for why we should really wait and hold our filibuster card. It deals with timing...

A chronicle of a Dean Doubters' thoughts before, and after, his first DFA meeting.

Over the past few days, I've seen a few inklings of things I think are to come here, if not now, maybe after the 06 cycle. Sprinkled within the usual `me too' "thinking", there have been a few seeds of truth that IMHO have been in general ignored. After a rousing night of work thinking about it, I come home to read my usual list of sites, Kos included. One thought on Rude Pundit led to an epiphany of sorts.

"The people don't want leaders who identify with them. They want leaders who they identify with."

How this ties into reality TV and what I think is a valid discussion, after this commercial break... umm I mean below the fold.