Archive for February 3rd, 2007
February 3rd, 2007 by Eric
General Motors has long been criticized for being slow-footed in creating alternative fuel vehicles, falling well behind Toyota and even Ford in new sales because of it and taking a huge hit in their stock price, from $55/share in January 2004 to $33/share today. Late last year a new documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?– dissected the way that GM, the oils companies, consumers, and the federal government helped to derail the EV1 (GMs first electric vehicle).
But there has been progress. Recently, Chevy announced that it has created the Concept Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid car that runs for 40 miles without using a drop of gas. And when it does, the engine is capable of running on E85, a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. This new technology would allow most workers to get to work and back every day without spending a nickel on gas and without putting a single CO2 molecule into the atmosphere. According to autobloggreen.com:
For a customer driving about 40 miles a day or about 15,000 miles a year, compared to a 30 mpg car, the Volt would save about 500 gallons of gasoline per year. If the car is charged every night, the driver should be able to achieve that mileage using virtually no gasoline. That same example would also save 4.4 metric tonnes of CO2 every year from each car. Another example of a driver commuting 60 miles a day would achieve an equivalent mileage of 150 mpg based on the engine running for the last 20 miles in a charge sustaining mode.
So great! That's it. Nothing left for the consumers to do but wait for it to become available and affordable, right? Well, I suggest that we all fill out this survey to let them know much we want it, and how quickly. They are a Corporation after all, and they'll do what's best for the bottom line. So let's put a little pressure on them. And in the meantime, we can all do a few things to increase our gas mileage. And that's progress.
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February 3rd, 2007 by Matt
I’m a big, big fan o’ llamas, everybody’s favorite ruminant. And I’m a bigger fan of the creative ways average folks decide to help out their communities. I mean, seriously, there are folks out there thinking, not outside the box, but outside the double-helix.
Case in point, this AP article from Nibley, Utah:
A Cache County farmer persuaded city leaders to rezone his property. Another guy who wants to grow houses?
Wrong.
About 40 acres owned by Boyd and Sheri Schiess were changed to agricultural from residential in this fast-growing city, south of Logan.
They plan to turn part of the land into wildlife habitat and also use it for a riding program for disabled children. Llamas and longhorns graze there.
According to the article, the Schiess family could have earned over a cool million if they used this acreage a different way. Talk about a lack of hubris. Land preservation over “development,” the worst euphemism going. Children over cashola. All this in state too often mocked for its political leanings.
You’ve really got to read the whole article to see the spirit of these fantastic folks.
To me, the most important part of the article is the way it draws attention to the benefits of animals in the lives of the disabled. A recent article by Gene Marrano of Main Street Newspapers discusses Didlake Inc., a company that actively employs folks with disabilities and helps these same people get training, education, and jobs. The company will bring in animals, such as llamas, as part of therapy programs because, according to Monica Samms, an occupational therapist, “the gentle nature of llamas makes them less frightening to disabled adults (and others) and has helped empower them.”
And you thought llamas were just good for their humming, guard skills, and near-continuous ability to get preggers.
To learn more about Progressive Wednesday, just click here, here, or here.
February 3rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Welcome to Progressive Wednesday, and a hearty and happy Groundhog's Day to you. Phil didn’t see his shadow, which has only happend 13 times in the 111 years of Punxsutawney's celebration of this odd holiday, which claims that marmots have meteorological premonitions. (They, of course, do not.)
But enough about woodchucks, we're here to talk turkey about the launch of the first website by Model City Media, founded by Eric Ruest and Matt Zambito. Progressive Wednesday, with your help, will be an interactive community of progressive folks looking to make change through ideas, art, and action. Why? Because we believe the end of big problems starts with small solutions, and we believe in a gradual and continuous progressive shift in this country. We think we're not alone.
Every Wednesday, we'll provide a brief explanation of a problem in our culture– ”say Wal-Mart, the lack of true support for Iraq War vets, the destruction of the coral reefs. These problems are so large they tend to overwhelm folks. So, we'll offer up five simple actions (a to-do list of sorts) you can take that day to help make progress. Our belief is that progressive actions are contagious, and once people get active in small ways, their activism grows.
But our content isn't limited to Wednesdays. We're also going to toss the following your way: podcasts; reviews of progressive books, magazines, movies; daily entries on progressive topics as well as commentary on news items, both demonstrating progress made and places where we might want more progress; daily photographs of “our beautiful world”; an art gallery; “How-to” tools; conversations with significant progressives; photo essays; original video; and guest columns.
We're pumped, stoked, revved and generally jazzed about this project, so thanks for stopping by. Please do tool around. We're looking forward to making sweet, sweet progress with you.
February 3rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Eric Ruest was born in our nation's capital and raised in upstate New York, less than a mile from our neighbors to the North. Since graduating from the SUNY Fredonia, he has held a wide range of jobs, from the whitest of white collar (A/V Specialist at an online testing center) to the bluest of blue (day laborer for 10 years). 
It took less than a month of the oppressive heat of Florida for Eric to start pining for the blizzards of Buffalo, but he stuck it out for four years as his wife finished her schooling. The day she graduated they hopped in their car with their nine (count'em, nine) animals, and left their mobile home. (Yes, they lived in a real mobile home.)
While his wife is at work taking care of sick puppies, Eric is at home taking care of their beautiful daughter. Take that 1950s! During her naptimes, he's worked on a handful of local and national campaigns. Don't talk to him while his Buffalo Sabres are beating up on their unlucky opponent, and watch your fingers when you reach into the bowl of Buffalo wings: he might bite them off.
February 3rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Matt Zambito hails from Niagara Falls, and for the last seven years has lived in Columbus, Ohio, where he taught English and creative writing at Ohio State University. Back in the day, he was a sports stringer for the Niagara Gazette, and covered politics, business, and technology as a freelancer for the Livingston County News. He's published poems (yes, poems) in literary journals such as the North American Review, Poetry International, Another Chicago Magazine, The Minnesota Review, and the Columbia Journal, amongst others. He's received grants and fellowships from Ohio State, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Greater Columbus Council for the Arts. In 2000, he received an Academy of American Poets Prize. These days he's reading and writing for Model City Media, which he owns with Eric Ruest.
He beats the daylight out of his drums for the band Furlough. Three Halloweens ago, he dressed as a sumo wrestler, his favorite costume to date. Other people's dogs? He digs – ˜em. Serve him pancakes slathered with real maple syrup, and he's a happy, happy man.
He wants a country he can continue to sleep with and still respect himself in the morning.
February 3rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
James Bristol Robinson (Bris to those who have met him more than once) was born and named during Western New York's infamous Blizzard of '77. 13 years later, during JV cross country practice, Coach Goldstein pulled him aside. “Hey Robinson,– he said, “anyone ever tell you your parents named you after a circumcision?– Turns out, Bris did not know this– ”but he took the news in stride.
He completed his final college exam a decade later, skipping the graduation ceremony for his trusty Dodge Spirit and the open road. He lived in the back of a friend's Ford Bronco in Longmont, Colorado for six months to avoid rent expenses (call him cheap if you want) while exploring the Rockies. The following year, he returned to the East, adding 700 Appalachian-Trail miles to his favorite pair of Merrell hiking boots in just less than two months. Despite a white-collar degree, he's held mostly blue-collar jobs, including gas station attendant, roofer, lighting technician, and bathroom partition installer. He currently works from home as a business consultant for the American Poolplayers Association.
His wife Jill, the Adirondack Mountains, his camera, and his dog Bailey sustain him. During the summer of 2006, he combined the first two in a photograph selected by the band Wilco to appear on their official website. In January of 2007, he was awarded the Grand Prize in Aquascape's Annual Photo Contest for 2006; a second submission also earned him an honorable mention. His photography spans a range of subjects within the natural world in an attempt to spark emotions we sometimes forget we own.
February 3rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Born into a semi-nomadic family that lived in nine states in eleven years, Melissa Brannen moved from Cleveland to Denver and finally to Youngstown, New York, all before she was 2. This last moved ended the itinerant existence and here they stayed, spending a dozen years in the same house, only to move a ½ mile away (round trip, that is).
After nearly flunking out of a prestigious prep school, she moved on to her rowdy college years at the University of Tampa. A few years “studying– history and she moved back home, settled down (relatively speaking), had a daughter, and started the 8-5 gig. Facing the issues most single moms and working families faces, she finally decided to get off her ass and get involved. The high price and low availability of quality child care, health care and family/sick leave encouraged her to become socially active in women's, civil, and family rights causes and organizations.
She still does the 40-hours-a-week shtick for a bunch of lawyers, and now calls Buffalo home, mainly because her daughter loves to yell “Go Bills!– at the top of her lungs. Oh, and the low taxes don't hurt.
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