Archive for the 'Wednesday' Category
October 17th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
Credit Cards. Credit Scores. Credit Reports. Credit. If you're reading this you've probably got them, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, if you're like most Americans (including us, until we did this research), you understand very little about them. But if you're not careful, they can sneak up from behind you and take control of your life. In fact, more often than not, they can take control of your life while staring you right in the face.
How many times this week has Capital One offered you a 0% APR with no annual fee and up to a $50,000 credit limit? Or 5% cash back on purchases and double air miles. Seriously, how many? My wife and I usually get three or four a week. Last Tuesday we got two offers each in a single day. We are not alone. Credit Card companies mail out over 6 billion offers each year. 641 million of those offers have been taken up and are responsible for $1.5 trillion (that's right, ta-ta-trillion) in consumer spending.
To pile the numbers up a little more, here they are in list form:
- 115 million Americans carry a balance on their credit cards from one month to the next, paying interest rates, in some cases, as high as 40%. The industry calls these customers “revolvers.–
- These revolvers carry an average balance of nearly $9,000, with an average interest rate of almost 18%.
- The total outstanding credit card debt in the US is more than $800 billion, equaling $128 billion in interest paid.
- The minimum payment on most of these cards in 2%. If a person pays the minimum, they are often paying little more than they are spending in interest alone.
- There is no legal limit to the interest rate credit cards can charge, nor is there a limit on late fees, returned check fees, or over-limit fees. These fees have reached as high as $40.
- If a late payment is reported on any loan, most other creditors automatically raise their interest rates.
- The Better Business Bureau receives more complaints about the credit card industry than any other.
Rather sobering statistics, eh? Here's the good news: we're here to help.
Make Progress:
Watch
A few months ago I recorded PBS' Frontline documentary, “Secret History of the Credit Card– on my DVR. When we decided to cover “credit– as this Wednesday's topic, the first thing I did to research it was sit down and watch this program. Then I sat and stared at a blank TV screen for what seemed like hours after it ended, blown away by what I had just learned.
The winner of both the 2004-2005 Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 2006, this documentary will likely enrage you and possibly comfort you, both at the same time. The things that credit card companies are legally allowed to get away with will flash-boil your blood, and yet it was oddly calming to learn how many people are in even worse shape with the credit card companies. Oddly calming, yet highly motivating.
“Secret History of the Credit Card– is available online in five parts in either Windows Media or RealPlayer formats. There is also a collaborative website with tons of great tools to educate yourself and fight the fe-fi-fo-fumming credit card industry. Or to help out the good people at PBS you can order a copy of the DVD here. This might be good option; there's a copiousness of mind-numbing information packed into an hour's-worth of minutes. Plus, you'll want to show everyone you know. As the show points out at the end, we'll have to fight numbers with numbers.
Understand
In 1989, Fair Isaac Corporation began using an algorithm to create a score by which lenders could judge how big of a risk it will be to loan you money or issue you a credit card. By 1991, all three major United States credit reporting agencies made these FICO scores available, and in 1995 many mortgage companies began using them for evaluating applicants. Now anyone who has opened a bank account, applied for a credit card or taken out a loan has a score.
Now that you've memorized that bit of history (there's a quiz later on), you need to know how your FICO score can affect you, because affect you it can, deeply, and for a long time. Like the time you got stood up for your high school prom. That kind of affect. When you apply for a credit card, mortgage, auto loan, debt consolidation loan, etc., potential lenders look at your credit score to determine if you qualify for the loan, how much (if any) they are willing to loan you, and what interest rate they are going to charge you for the loan.
Your score is essentially all of your credit information boiled like a frog (but without the mess) down to a three-digit number, ranging from 300-850. The higher the better: this ain't golf. Someone applying for a $200,000 mortgage with a score of 780 would qualify for the best interest rates and have a payment of less than $1,200 per month. That same loan for someone with a score of 550 has a monthly payment of over $1,700 (check your payments here). So, it's 500-bucks-a-month-important to have a good FICO score and to understand why that number is what it is. Here's the breakdown, the elucidation, the “skinny– :
- 35% – Payment history: This guy's the biggest. Collections, unpaid bills, late payments, over-limit spending, bankruptcies, foreclosures– ¦. I know it's easier said then done, but avoid these at all cost. If you need help, we'll tell you how to get it later.
- 30% – Outstanding debt: This one's tricky. It's not necessarily the amount of debt you have that negatively affects your score, but rather, how close you are to your credit limits on your unsecured debt. In other words, try your best to keep your balance lower than 30% of your credit limit. Easier said than done, I know. Believe me, I know.
- 15% – Length of your credit history: How long have your accounts been open? The longer, the better. Between this and maintaining a low credit limit percentage, you might want to think twice before closing that card that you never use.
- 10% – Recent inquiries: Whenever you apply for credit, you create an inquiry which can negatively affect your score. But don't worry about shopping for the best mortgage rate or auto-loan. Inquiries of the same variety within 14 days of each other don't have a negative impact. The exception, of course, is credit cards.
- 10% – Types of credit in use: Having installment loans, like mortgage and education will help your score, while a lot of revolving accounts (credit cards) will hurt it.
That's what you need to know about how your credit score is derived. But how do you change it? Read on, dear friends.
Request
Your credit report is a record of your borrowing and repayment history made available to any potential lender. When you apply for a loan, they'll pull up this report containing everything you've borrowed, anything in collection, how much you owe, how often you're late with a payment, etc. In other words, all the things that are used to create a credit score. So in order to improve your credit score and make it easier to get a loan or a better interest rate, you have to know what's in that report.
Fortunately, on December 4, 2003, Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA). This law allows everyone with a credit history to access their credit report from each of the three main credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and Trans Union, once every twelve months at no charge.
There are hundreds of web sites that offer “free credit reports,– “instantly,– “hassle free,– “fast, free, and easy.– Beware of these sites. The last bit of information they ask for is a credit card number in order to enroll you in a monthly service. Don't do it, Daddy-o. The only web site that is authorized to fill orders for credit reports under FACTA is annualcreditreport.com. That's it. Fill out the information on that page and you will actually have a quick, easy, hassle-free, instant, yadda-yadda, credit report.
For you skeptics not comfortable filling in your information online, you can call 1-877-322-8228, or complete the Annual Credit Report Request Form, print it, and mail it to:
Annual Credit Report Request Service
P.O. Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281
Once the report is in your hands, check it over. You have the right to dispute any information on your report that is not accurate and up-to-date. You should contact both the creditor that is in error and each credit bureau that has the error on file. The bureaus are required to investigate each claim and if they cannot verify the negative information within “a reasonable amount of time– (usually 30 days), the negative entry must be dropped.
Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union all have online dispute forms (click on each), or you can write an old-fashioned “snail-mail– letter to each. The FTC has a great sample letter that can be copied to increase your chances of winning your dispute as well as a very detailed description of how to go about doing it. It's hard enough to have a good credit report without having those inaccuracies on there. So get your report, then fix those errors. You work too hard for your money to have a creditor or credit bureau let bad information slip through and cost you moolah.
Oh, yeah. Looking over your credit report is also a surefire way to detect identity theft. That's a hassle you want to avoid like a wounded, hungry puma.
Call
The first act of the new Congress following the 2004 Presidential and Congressional elections was to pass the Orwellian-named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. This law makes it much more difficult for consumers to file for protection from creditors, increased fees associated with bankruptcy protection, and made the consumer pay more to their creditors, while doing nothing to address the legal loopholes that allow multi-millionaires to protect their assets while they file for bankruptcy. All of this happened while most major bank and credit card companies were reporting record profits. 
There are no laws preventing credit card companies from raising interest rates on a whim. There are no limits to the interest rates they can charge, or the fees they can assess for going over your credit limit, making a late payment, or bouncing a check. It's time our representatives started legislating for the benefit of the middle and lower classes. So give your Senator or Representative (or both) a ring. You can find their numbers here. Need help with what to say? Try this:
“My name is (your name) and I am a voter from (your state and/or district) and I am outraged at the lack of consumer protection from credit card companies. If (your Senator or Congressperson) wants my support in their next election (he or she) will introduce legislation putting a cap on credit card interest rates, over-limit fees, and late fees. Thank you for your time.–
Get Help
Of course, you don't want to wait for politicians to solve this problem, so here I go again, sounding like a spam email or that annoying commercial that comes on at two o'clock in the morning while your blankly staring at a rerun of M.A.S.H., your credit card debt keeping you miles from sleep. But I'll say it anyway: Get some help now, before it's too late!
You may have considered using a credit-counseling agency before, but everything on “the tube– (or plasma, LCD, DLP, or projection) or online looked like a scam. Or maybe you haven't, but should. I know how confusing and difficult it is to sift through all the bogus ads to find a counselor that's too-legit-to-quit (sorry). But in my extensive, and I mean EXTENSIVE, research of this topic almost all of the reputable credit information sites point to The National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
The FTC suggests that if you can't develop a plan to rid yourself of unsecured debt in one year, you should seek credit help. The NFCC will point you to accredited and reputable services, either local or national, by phone, Internet, or in person. Some require a small fee or a monthly charge for their continued service, but they can save you a 50-gallon-drum's worth of cash in the long run.
If your debt is James-Earl-Jones’-voice deep they may suggest a Debt Management Plan (DMP). This is a way to pay down debt by making a monthly deposit to the agency, which negotiates with your creditors to reduce or eliminate fees and interest rates, and then uses the money to pay off your debt. In many cases, large debts can be paid off in as little as 36 months.
Whatever they suggest you do, it's worth a call. I recommend doing it sooner rather than later; each month that goes by that you're paying 25% interest rate buries you deeper and deeper. I speak from unfortunate experience: the smaller the debt, the less stressful it is.
October 3rd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
I have fired a gun once in my life. I was awkward, uncomfortable, and overwhelmed by the power that I had in my hands. While I was only shooting at a tin can (or, at least in the general direction of it) placed as far out of danger's way as possible, at that moment, I had the ability to take a life, human or otherwise.
That's what guns are for. I know that people collect them, shoot them at a bull's-eye, clay pigeon, or tin can, but when that gun comes off the manufacturing line, its purpose is to give its user a means to kill everything from people to pachyderms. A gun can be admired for its place in history, or even be intended for protection, but it can also accidentally kill someone, or at worst, be used to rob, rape, or murder.
I don't think that all guns should be banned. I just think that the laws governing the use of those guns should protect the innocent from the careless, violent, and unfit, regardless of the inconveniences to those who chose to own guns, even those who do it responsibly. As progressives and social libertarians we believe that one of the key roles of government is to help prevent us from harming each other.
Among the hoi polloi, there is strong leadership on both sides of the gun control issue, but they are as equally represented in the Federal Government as the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals are in the Major League All-Star game. According to OpenSecrets.org, since 1989, gun rights groups have given $17 million to pro-gun candidates, with the National Rifle Association leading the way with over $14 million. The NRA spent another $11 million lobbying those candidates. Gun control advocacy groups have given only $1.7 million (there's a decimal there) to like-minded candidates during that same time period.
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Make Progress:
Two months ago, Cho Seung-Hui walked into Norris Hall at Virginia Tech University and killed 29 people before turning the gun on himself. He cleared two background checks in spite of his mental health history. There was no waiting period in Virginia for purchasing a handgun and a permit or safety certificate is not required. He had no training. He bought his Glock 19 from a store that had four other homicides tied to guns that were purchased there. But until he pulled the trigger, Cho Seung-Hui had not broken a single law.
That needs to change. We all need to better understand the relationship between arms and the Constitution. We need to better understand the Constitutionally acceptable laws that do exist and those that should exist.
Read:
When I decided to tackle the ever-sensitive issue of gun control, I called a close friend of our family who owns many guns. He goes on hunting trips but does not shoot his rifle. He shoots his handguns at a range, and he keeps them safely secured when not in use. In other words, he is as responsible a gun owner as there is, though I'm pretty sure he only has them so that he can consider himself a “good conservative.–
We had the usual conversation about the meaning of the second amendment and the role guns play in the safe-keeping of our society and others, though I imagine our conversation was much more civil than many about this topic. I didn't change his mind, and he didn't change mine. Before we hung up the phone, I asked him if he knew what the second amendment was. His answer was straight out of the National Rifle Association's talking points booklet: “It gives us the right to keep and bear arms.–
That's true, but it's true in the way that President Clinton didn't have “sexual relations.– In other words, it's a half-truth. Here it is, the second amendment, straight from the brainpower of George Mason and James Madison themselves:
A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Let's parse this statement. We'll start at the end and work backwards. If left alone, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed– could be reasonably interpreted as, “anyone can have any weapon at anytime.– But when you include, “being necessary to the security of a free State,– it gets a bit fogged by the gun smoke. The key word here is “security.– Those charged with keeping citizens safe were small groups of civilians overseen by the state. Today we call them the police and members of the National Guard.
And so we arrive at the beginning of the second amendment. There is a great debate about the definition of the term “militia.– It's hard to know what the founders meant when they used it in this case. It could mean anything from any person of age not enlisted in the military to only those in the service of the United States. The Constitution gives us an idea of what they were thinking. Congress shall have the power to:
Article 1.8.15 – Provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
Article 1.8.16 – Provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.
By not mentioning any branch of the military, Article 1.8.15 seems to refer to National Guard while 1.8.16, “reserving to the States,– almost certainly refers to local law enforcement.
Yes, I've heard the argument that “calling forth the Militia– could reference a military draft. But in the 1918 Supreme Court case, Arver v. United States, when it was ruled that the WWI draft was constitutional, Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White stated in the Court Opinion:
The fallacy of the argument results from confounding the constitutional provisions concerning the militia with that conferring upon Congress the power to raise armies. It treats them as one while they are different.
So private citizens are clearly not considered to be part of the militia by the United States Constitution. When you add “well-regulated– to the equation, the argument that the second amendment guarantees everyone the right to keep and bear arms goes out the bulletproof window. The government has the right to keep certain people from getting guns and the right to ban certain guns from everybody. As progressives we applaud the genius of the Bill of Rights to grant us freedoms, but also to recognize that it is necessary for some freedoms to have limitations.
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Visit:
In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, a.k.a. “The Brady Bill,– named after Press Secretary Jim Brady, who was shot during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Brady's wife, Sarah, became active in the gun control lobby and was instrumental in getting the bill through Congress.
The primary effect of this law was to require a five-day waiting period in order to run a background check for all retail handgun purchasers. Only after the background check came back clean could the sale of the handgun take place. A year after the Brady Bill, a ban on assault weapons was passed, outlawing 19 semi-automatic firearms.
Did the legislation work? According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
Since the implementation of the Brady Act on February 29, 1994, through calendar year 2000, nearly 30 million firearm background checks were completed, resulting in 689,000 denials.
From 1993 to 1999, the number of firearm-related homicides decreased by an average rate of nearly 11% annually, for an overall decrease of 49%.
In 1998, the five-day waiting period was changed to an instant computerized background check and the assault weapons ban was allowed to expire in 2004. In the two years following, for the first time in over a decade, violent crime and murder went up almost 4%, while robbery increased almost 10%. Clearly these two pieces of legislation were a factor in reducing violent crime.
Thankfully, Sarah Brady has started the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence to continue the fight for sensible gun laws. Their website is filled with useful information as well as effective ways to get involved in that battle. You can get up-to-date information, watch videos, sign petitions, donate money, or get involved locally.
You can also visit their partners in “un-crime,– each of who approach the issue of gun control from a different angle. Here they are in bullet form, you know, for irony's sake:
Give them a look and get involved. You'll never know if gun control laws save the life of someone you love, but you'll most assuredly know if they don't.
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Oppose:
Here are some statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) on how frequently guns change hands and how frequently those guns are used in crimes.
- In 90% of gun crimes, the person who used the gun in the crime was not the person who originally bought the gun.
- 35% of crime guns were originally bought in one state and used in a crime in another.
- 35% of crime guns are less than 3 years old.
- 1% of the nation's gun stores are the source of 60% of the nation's crime guns (though they sell far less than 60% of the nation's guns).
- As many as 10% of crime guns are stolen and about 5% have obliterated serial numbers.
Usually we don't discuss politicians; we stick to the issue. But this one is a little difficult. Representative Todd Tiahrt, former Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman has included an amendment to the CJS spending bill that:
Limits law enforcement from sharing gun-tracing information and prevents it from being used in issuing warrants and prosecuting gun-related crimes.
More specifically, the amendment prevents law enforcement officials from having access to:
- A city's own aggregate crime gun data.
- Data from other cities and states.
- Gun trace data in order to hold dealers that break the law accountable.
- National Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reports.
It isn't just about numbers and data; it's about people. Here is a commercial, sponsored by ProtectPolice.org, of a woman who lost her husband, a police investigator, when he was shot and killed by an illegal gun in the line of duty.
We can all agree that we should be able to use information about guns that have already been used in crimes to convict those who used them.
90% of Americans think that the Tiahrt Amendment should be eliminated and the current CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski, has pulled it from the spending bill. But the Tiahrt Amendment can still be added before the Congress votes on it. So contact your Senator and Representative and tell them to start protecting cops and civilians instead of violent criminals. You can get their information here.
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Sell:
One of the most often-used arguments for keeping a firearm is for personal protection. Some parents feel safer if they keep a firearm in the house in case someone decides to break in and rob their home and/or murder their family. I even read an article where someone wrote that they wished just one person was carrying a firearm in order to stop the massacre at Virginia Tech.
On the surface these arguments might seem to hold a .50-bullet-shell full of water, but when you take a quick glance at those things we call statistics, it becomes harder to buy that argument than it is to buy an assault weapon, though that's not saying much. Here are some of those statistics from several different surveys and crime analysis with regards to armed break-ins, homicide, and children. Again, bullet point seems appropriately inappropriate.
- Keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one.
- People are 21 times more likely to be killed by someone they know than by a stranger.
- There is no forced entry into the home in 84.3 percent of domestic homicides.
- 96.4% of homicides are not in self-defense.
- The highest rate of gun-related murder of females by state were Alaska, New Mexico, Wyoming, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Tennessee respectively. Those states also have some of the weakest gun laws.
- In 1999, there were 3,385 firearms-related deaths for children ages 0– “19 years.
To think that carrying or having a gun in the house for protection makes a few hefty assumptions: that the person using the gun would, in the heat of the moment, think to use it, be able to fire the weapon accurately, not hitting any innocent bystanders, and that the benefit would outweigh the negative impact that having those weapons would have on the crime rate.
My daughter will never be accidentally shot while in my home and my wife will never shoot me in a dispute because she has access to guns (and hopefully for other reasons, too). What I'll ask you to do only applies to those who have guns in their homes. Consider a gun buyback program. You can find one in you area by doing an Internet search for “gun buyback– and (your city), or by calling your local law enforcement agency. Usually, these programs are run every year and will offer money in exchange for any gun, no questions asked. If there are no guns in the home, a gun crime can't be committed.
Photo c/o this photographer
September 26th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
What's better than an ear of sweet corn rolled in butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper on a warm summer evening, your whole family celebrating the beautiful day by eating dinner on the back deck? Okay, some of you might not like the seemingly endless flossing that must succeed this indulgence if you don't want that stuff stuck between your teeth, or the flies buzzing around the cobs tossed on the ground, or the “slurp-chomp-smack– sound that Uncle Billy makes while getting half in his mouth and half in his beard, but it tastes good and has become a staple of the American summer diet.
And that's all right. An ear or two each week during the summer isn't going to make you fat by itself or destroy our air, water, soil, economy or politics. It's the corn you don't know about that will.
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Make Progress:
Corn is everywhere. If you walk into a grocery store and pull something off the shelf at random, there is about a 70% chance that it will have corn or a corn derivative in it. The plastic bag they put it in when you leave is made from corn. The carpet on the floor as you walk out? Yep, corn. The tires, spark plugs, and fuel in your car? Made from the same thing you eat at the movie theater.
Corn advocates love to flaunt the list of products made from corn. And don’t get me wrong; I’m all for using every bit of the plant in order to minimize waste. But we don’t grow so much corn because it can be used for so many things; we use it for so many things because we grow so much corn. The government subsidizes corn more than any other crop, so people grow a lot of it. So we find new uses for it. So we need more, subsidize more, and grow more. It’s a vicious (and, to some, delicious) cycle.
But there are things that the government and the growers of this miracle crop aren’t telling us.
Photo by this corn-loving picture clicker.
Learn:
With most issues, progressive or otherwise, people usually realize that a problem exists or at least that improvements can be made. We squabble over whether or not it's worth fixing, how to go about doing that, how important the issue is, what side effects our actions might have, etc. But at least we know that there is a problem. Not so with corn. Here are some of the impacts the over subsidizing and overproduction of corn has on our society, in bullet form for your convenience:
- Corn is the most subsidized crop in our country. From 1995-2005, over 51 billion dollars were given to farmers in the US of A, more than twice that of the next closest crop.
- Cows are ruminants whose stomachs are designed to eat grass, not corn. They are given antibiotics to stave off infection until they go off to slaughter. This promotes antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can be transmitted to humans that eat corn-fed beef.
- Corn strips the soil of more nutrients than any other mainstream crop and therefore requires much more fertilizer and pesticides, and consequently, more gas and oil to produce.
- Hormones and antibiotics given to cows to make them grow faster and bigger end up in our meat, soil, and water.
- Corn acidifies a cow's stomach, providing a haven for bacteria like E. Coli. Most of these animals are raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) where these diseases are easily spread.
- Compared to 1970, farms (which grow corn) today produce 500 more calories per person each day. We pack away an average of 200 of those calories.
- By many formulas, ethanol made from corn burns nearly as much fossil fuel, if not more to produce the crop as it would to just burn it in our car. Ethanol made from other plants such as sugar beets is much more efficient. Making ethanol is good; making it good is better.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is the most common sweetener in the country. It is cheaper and easier to make than sugar from beets or sugar cane. But (there's always a “but– ), it doesn't stimulate the pancreas to make insulin or leptin to let us know when we are satisfied. The result? We crave more, eat more, get fatter, and get sicker. We are literally subsidizing obesity.
- Many scientists are now attributing the latest honeybee die-off to chemical pesticides used in fields of sweet corn.
- Corn is Iowa’s number one crop. Iowa has the earliest Presidential Primary. Need I say more?
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Eat:
We won't tell you to stop eating food with corn or corn derivatives in it; that wouldn't be reasonable. But a few changes in our eating habits would certainly lower the need for corn. This site has a list of additives, preservatives, etc. that are made from corn. There are about 600, and the list is not exhaustive. It would be tough to cut these out completely (imagine being allergic to corn), but just knowing how much corn is in your ice cream might make you think differently the next time you're at the grocery store.
This horse is so dead that it's totally decomposed, but we're gonna beat its bones anyway. Buy organic food. Being organic doesn't necessarily mean that there is no corn in it (corn can be grown organically), but generally there is much less corn used to process organic food. Plus, organic food tends to have ingredients spelled out more fully, making it easier to sidestep corn products. For more info on the benefits of organics, click here.
There are 38 ingredients in McDonald's Chicken McNuggets. That's scary enough, but 13 of them are directly derived from corn, and a dozen or so more are processed with corn products. A Big Mac contains corn-fed beef and has high fructose corn syrup in the bun and sauce. And that large Coke has 310 calories from corn. Another reason to stay away from fast food.
Finally, consider buying grass-fed meat. It's leaner, free of antibiotics and hormones, and much less likely to contain E. Coli, fungus, or other contaminants. Here is a list of suppliers in your state, or you can have it shipped to your home. Supporting businesses that go against the grain (pardon the pun) to provide a product that is ethically superior is a big part of progressivism.
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Install:
I've been going on and on about how bad corn is for our economy, our bodies, our land, our air, our water, and even our politics. Hopefully it isn't all starting to taste like corn-fed chicken by now, but in case it is, I'll offer up a good thing that corn can be used for: heating your house. 
Corn stoves and furnaces are becoming increasingly popular because they are cheap to run, clean burning, and über-efficient. Unlike with ethanol, the energy you save with a corn stove vastly outweighs the energy used to make that small amount of corn. In term of dollars and cents, a corn furnace can save you over $1,000 bucks a year, depending on where you live. But does it get hot enough? Well, they're controlled by a thermostat, just like any other modern heater, and if you turn it up high enough it'll get as cozy as a sauna.
I'm not just getting this information from the endless loop of internet articles with as much credibility as an Exxon-Mobile representative talking about the effects of fossil fuels on global warming. Our photo editor, James B. Robinson, swears by his corn stove. And he doesn't exactly live in Texas. Try Lake Placid. My wife and I honeymooned there. It's cold.
Here's a good site with lots of information on corn stoves and furnaces, how much they cost, where you can get them, how much you'll save, where you can get the corn– ¦ the whole nine yards acres. If we are going to contribute to the endless cycle of overproduction begets over-subsidization begets overproduction, we should at least do so in the smallest, most energy-efficient, and most progressive way.
Oh, I almost forgot. Installing that corn stove will get you a tax rebate, if that pushes you off the fence and into the corn field.
September 19th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
I’m not going write this Wednesday without making a confession: there have been two times in my life when I regularly smoked cigarettes (between 1/2 a pack and 1 1/2 packs a day). Each time was brief (don’t worry, Mom), and both times I quit, quickly and cold, though not without struggles.
My buddy Pete, a former 15-year smoker, put it to me this way: “After a couple of days the nicotine is out of your body, then it’s just whether or not you’re a pansy.”
Even though it was mainly easy (but not-so breezy) for me to put out my last butt, I can see how people get hooked and hold onto the habit: it ain’t just chemical. It gets hard-wired in our brains in association with food, work, sex, travel, socializing, and escape. And those are six pretty damned good things.
But (you knew there was one coming, right?) none of those are a good enough reason to start or continue. Is there a good one? Of course not. Every smoker and non-smoker knows this. Should you be allowed to smoke? Probably Maybe. But should you? No $%&@*!^ way.
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Make Progress:
There are three ways to make progress this week: stop smoking; help someone else stop smoking (just email the post to your pals); educate yourself on smoking for your own sake and the sake of others.
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Quit:
In case you or yours actually need to know why quitting would be a good idea, here goes:
- According to the American Cancer Society, “smoking is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States.”
- And it ain’t just lung, larynx, and mouth cancer staring us down, my people. Smoking is directly linked to cancers of the pancreas, cervix, kidney, stomach, pharynx, esophagus, and bladder.
- Of course, cigarettes don’t only bring about cancer. Smoking is a major or contributing cause of (in alphabetical order): aneurysms, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, heart disease, pneumonia, and stroke.
- There’s more: smoking increases your odds of bone thinning, hip fractures, peptic ulcers, and (get this) cataracts.
- In the year 2000, 8.6 million Americans were suffering from “at least one chronic disease due to current or former smoking.” Says who? Says the Centers for Disease Control. Just for comparison’s sake, let me just mention that there are 8.1 million people living in New York City.
- How many known carcinogens are in cigarette smoke? 43.
- And as if we needed to know another reason why the tobacco behemoths dump nicotine in cigs, there’s this: “nicotine, when inhaled in cigarette smoke, reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously.” We’re all about sticking it to these companies whose goal it is, quite literally, to addict us and destroy us.
- And on top of all that, cigarettes are freaking expensive.
- Oh, and they make your breath stink like a burning tire.
But quitting, as I know, is easier typed than done. And why is it so damned difficult? Because, according to the U.S. Surgeon General, “the pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.” You read that right: cigarettes are like heroin and cocaine.
Look, I’ve quit myself, and I’ve fired up again. I’ve watched my friends struggle through this addiction. There ain’t nothing wrong with asking for some help, so here’s some from:
Or just call this number: 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
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Watch:
Need more umph for you or a pal? Give these pair of thetruth.com videos a whirl.
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Look:
Look, friends, we were going to post three or four or five pictures here of diseased lungs, gangrenous legs, cases of mouth cancer, and laryngectomies, but… well, two things:
- These photos are so peel-your-eyelids-back gruesome, we didn’t think it would be appropriate for a place we consider to be rather PG, maybe PG-13.
- These photos made us want to power-puke.
So, our advice to you is this: check it out for yourselves if you want to. If you smoke, it’s a must. I’ll wager dollars to donuts (and I really dig donuts) that you’ll seriously consider a self-imposed cease and desist order for cigarettes (or your tobacco product of choice). And if you don’t smoke, well, hell, these photos will do two things: keep you from ever, ever, ever, ever smoking; convince you to get your friends who stink like old ashtrays to kick the habit before they kick ye old can.
And where might you find some of these not-so-fun photos? Here, here, here, here, and here. Please, please, please don’t say we didn’t warn you. We did. In fact, we’ll warn you one more time: this stuff is messed up, kids.
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Protect:
This sucker is threefold, but we’ll focus on the most unusual of the three:
- Do yourself a favor and steer clear of bars and restaurants that still allow smoking. (There are only 22 states that allow the former and 20 the latter.) Secondhand smoke kills ya. You’ve made it to adulthood and still need proof? Just click here.
- Try to keep your kids away from secondhand smoke. Wanna know why? Read this, baby.
- Protect your pets.
If you’re not worried about yourself and you don’t have kids, at least consider your furry and feathered friends, because besides saving your own hide from cancer, emphysema, and breath that smells like a cadaver, here’s another reason to leave Marlboro country:
“There have been a number of scientific papers recently that have reported the significant health threat secondhand smoke poses to pets,” said veterinarian Carolynn MacAllister of Oklahoma State University. “Secondhand smoke has been associated with oral cancer and lymphoma in cats, lung and nasal cancer in dogs, as well as lung cancer in birds.”
Cats living with smokers are also twice as likely to develop malignant lymphoma, a cancer that occurs in the lymph nodes and that is fatal to three out of four cats within 12 months of developing it.
Studies have also shown that dogs living in a smoking household are susceptible to cancers of the nose and sinus area, particularly if they are a long-nosed breed, because their noses have a greater surface area that is exposed to carcinogens and a greater area for them to accumulate. Dogs affected with nasal cancer normally don’t survive for more than one year.
Birds are also at risk for lung cancer, as well as pneumonia, because their respiratory systems are hypersensitive to any type of air pollutant.
While I’ve heard some interesting arguments for banning smoking outright, I still fall on the libertarian side: as long as you’re not harming me (which means no smoking in public places, thank you), you should be allowed to do, for the most part, whatever you please. This study, though, complicates things: where does a person’s right to harm themselves end and the rights of an animal begin? The same goes, even more so, for kids.
So, will I smoke a cigar the next time one of my buddies gets hitched? Despite my better judgment, I probably will. But ask me this: Will you smoke that stogy in front of Weasley, Eric’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel? No sir, I won’t. Why? Not just because I don’t want to harm the poor thing, but because what in the hell is his puppy doing at a wedding reception? That’s just not right.
September 12th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
Yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Like nearly every American that day too far away to help, I sat glued to Peter Jennings' and Tom Brokaw's continuous broadcasts of that day's horrifying attacks well into the night, until weariness finally took hold.
As a nation, we swore that day never to forget the victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. We swore that we would honor their sacrifice by taking care of the families of those killed, by focusing our military and foreign policy on finding those responsible and preventing them from causing further harm to our country, and by providing the best medical care to those who were injured, both physically and psychologically, on that worst of days.
We have not done that–at least not to the extent that we should.
Make Progress:
Six years later there are still people suffering from the effects of the collapsing towers, Osama bin Laden has not been “smoked out– as promised, and others responsible are regaining strength in Afghanistan while our forces are tied up in Iraq, a war that was sold to the American people partly with a fabricated connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th.
Fortunately, there are still ways in which we, as individuals, can help. Here's how.
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Mail:
As I'm quite sure you know, Osama bin Laden, well, he's still out there: not because of our service men and women, not because they don't want to hunt him down and catch him, but because our federal government has let us down, focusing the bulk of our military and (in all likelihood) intelligence agencies on Iraq and its surrounding countries.
At Progressive Wednesday, we believe there is, not only a strategic need to capture the maniac behind 9/11, but a moral obligation as well. In other words, we owe it to all Americans living and all Americans who died six years ago yesterday to find him.
So, we're asking that you ship this letter, or some variation if it, to your local newspaper.
Dear Editor:
The sixth anniversary of September 11 has come and passed, and as I'm sure all readers of this newspaper know, Osama bin Laden, the maniac behind that horrific day, remains free.
I believe there is, not only a strategic need to capture this man, but a moral obligation as well. We owe it to all Americans living and to all Americans who died six years ago yesterday to capture bin Laden.
What can we do? We can call our Senators and Representatives in Congress to do what's right: demand that the executive branch redouble its efforts to hunt down bin Laden, bringing at least some sense of justice to the victims of 9/11.
Sincerely,
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Sign:
For nearly six years the official death toll at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was 2,749. More than half a decade later, that number has started to climb. According to CNN.com:
The death of U.S. Department of Education attorney Felicia Dunn-Jones, 42, five months after she became trapped in dust caused by the collapse of the first World Trade Center tower, is now being considered a homicide and her name has been added to the official list of World Trade Center victims.
There have been a few local efforts in New York and New Jersey to help people who are suffering as Ms. Dunn-Jones did. In September 2003, the World Trade Center Health Registry was created to obtain as much information as possible about the health of those who were in lower Manhattan when the towers came down, especially those valiant souls who were digging for days in the rubble. 30,000 have already signed up and regularly give updates to their condition so that health professionals can get a clearer picture of the consequences of exposure as well as what to do about it. (If you were there and haven't registered, you can do so here.)
Still, while the Federal Government has falsely used the September 11th attacks to sell a war in Iraq that has cost Americans nearly half a trillion bucks, not a single Jefferson, neither coin nor paper (he's on the two-dollar bill), has been spent to help the estimated 150,000 rescuers and civilians who may have need of medical attention due to the effects of toxins released when the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
Here is a petition, sponsored by 9/11 Environmental Action, urging the President and Health and Human Services Secretary, Michael O. Leavitt to:
Create a federally funded program to screen, track and treat 9/11-related illnesses for all those who lived, worked and attended school in Lower Manhattan and other affected neighborhoods.
James Zadroga, 34, was the most recent to die due to toxic dust. Please take a minute, no, 30 seconds, to add your name to the list, or, as James father said, “They’re going to be adding to that (WTC Memorial) wall for the next 20 years.–
Photo credit goes here.
Call:
Now that you've signed the petition, your voice has been heard with the masses. Now I'll ask you to make it heard by itself. Last week, Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Congressman Vito Fossella (R-NY) took the first step toward providing that health care to those still affected by Ground Zero toxins. According to their press release, the bill would do the following:
- Ensure that everyone exposed to the toxins of Ground Zero has a right to be medically monitored and anyone who is sick as a result has a right to treatment.
- Expand care to the whole exposed community, including residents, area workers and students, and to the thousands of people who came from across the country to respond to the 9/11 attacks.
- Provide compensation for economic damages and losses by reopening the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.
- Build on the expertise of the Centers of Excellence, which are providing high-quality health care to thousands of responders.
- Require the federal government to collect data about and research the extent and severity of WTC-related illnesses.
- Establish and fund Coordinating Centers of Excellence to collect and analyze data, coordinate outreach, and develop medical monitoring and treatment protocols.
- Require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to conduct or support research, diagnose, and treat WTC-related conditions.
If you don't think that the United States government should provide these medical benefits for those who were there, whose lives were in danger, who spent weeks digging through the debris at Ground Zero, all while breathing in toxic fumes, then, well… do nothing.
But if, like us, you think that the government has a responsibility to protect its people from terrorism, whether the danger is immediate or long term, please call your congressperson and tell them to support the Maloney-Nadler-Fossella 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. You can find their contact information here.
Oh, and here's some help, in case you need it. It can be a bit nerve-racking to call your Representative.
- I'm a voter from [name your state], and I am calling to voice my strong support for the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The United States has an obligation to help all of those who risked their lives helping others on September 11th and in the days following. If Congressman/woman [last name] wants my support in future elections, [he or she] must support this legislation. Thank you for your time.
Photo credit goes here.
September 5th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
PROBLEM:
Okay, we’ve got a two-parter for you this week, and it’s got everything to do with that stuff giving our hearts a practical purpose (though I suppose you could argue that its other “purpose” is nearly as practical, nearly as required). Anyhow, I’m talkin’ ’bout blood. My fellow Potter fans, I’m not referring to the “Half-Blood Prince.” Though I’m pumped for that book to make it to film, I’m writing this Wednesday about the ten pints we all have pulsing through our Muggle bodies.
So here’s the problem: we don’t have enough of it in our hospitals; we don’t offer enough help to those with deadly and painful disorders. That’s it. It’s that black, it’s that white. Let’s do something.
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MAKE PROGRESS:
We’re going to ask you to do the same thing twice: give, baby, give.
- Donate, Part I
- Donate, Part II
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DONATE, PART I:
So, we need you to bleed. Though not for a vampire or a voodoo ceremony, but rather for, you know, your fellow humans. Why? Here's why:
- According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, every year in the United States, almost 5 million people are saved by blood transfusions. That's more than the populations of Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont combined.
- Someone needs blood in the United States every two seconds. Put another way — three gallons of the stuff is used every minute here in the Red, White, and Blue.
- Approximately 20% of all patients entering hospitals require blood.
- 38,000 blood donations are needed every day to maintain our supply.
- Giving blood just once can save the lives of three people. I'm pretty sure that throws the “I don't like needles– excuse out the proverbial window.
- It's not just people in car accidents who need your blood. People with sickle-cell anemia, cancer, and leukemia require large amounts of transfusions. Severe burn victims need transfusions, as do folks undergoing organ transplants and many premature infants.
- Here's a final troubling statistic: only five percent of those who could donate blood do so (yours truly included… though that will change, and I mean pronto).
In case you’re at all concerned, you can't get an infectious disease from donating blood, and the process won't decrease your strength. And how often can you give blood? Every 56 days, baby. Just click this sentence for the blood donation eligibility guidelines from the Red Cross.
So give. And don't give until it hurts, because, if you're not a complete pansy, it really won't. If you'd like to donate blood through the Red Cross, just click this sentence. You can even watch an online presentation of the process. But if donating cabbage is more your speed, click right here, yo..
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DONATE, PART II:
Here we're going to tackle three blood diseases that tend to fly under the radar but are serious nonetheless, or maybe they're still serious because we let them fly under the aforementioned radar. (Please Note: I don't really think we've all got some sort of mythical and magical radar pulsing in our brains, though it might be cool if we did.) So, what illnesses?
– ¢ Malaria
- The World Health Organization estimates that “every year more than 500 million people become severely ill with malaria.” To give that a little perspective, that’s more people than live in Canada (33 million), Mexico (103 million), and the United States (303 million) combined.
- According to the Centers for Disease Control, “over one million people die [each year from malaria],” and most of them are infants, young children, and pregnant women.
- While we’re facing a resurgence of the disease, it remains preventable (since we can whack the mosquitoes who transmit it) and treatable.
If you’ve got a fiver burning a hole in your pocket, consider donating it to the Malaria Foundation International.
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– ¢ Sickle cell disease
- Lest I forget to mention it since I just learned it myself, this broader illness is frequently (and incorrectly) referred to as “sickle cell anemia.” So what is it? In brief, it’s an inherited blood disorder: sufferers have an abundance of an abnormal hemoglobin. Hemoglobin, for those of you keeping score, helps our bodies transfer oxygen to our various parts. Sickle cell hemoglobin dies sooner than normal hemoglobin, and it also doesn’t travel well through blood vessels, and you know, that’s kind of important.
- A sufferer faces infection, severe pain episodes, hand and foot swelling, stroke, acute chest syndrome, and vision problems.
- And here’s one of the biggest problems when it comes to the funding of new treatments and the possibility of a cure: racism. According to the NIH, most U.S. cases occur with African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, and “about one in every 500 African-Americans has sickle cell disease.”
Since we can’t count on the racists raging in our culture, let’s do something ourselves. Please consider a donation to the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America.
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– ¢ Hemophilia
- First, let’s clear up what we’re dealing with here. According to the National Institutes of Health, “hemophilia is [an] inherited bleeding disorder in which blood doesn't clot normally.” 18,000 Americans have inherited hemophilia. When you grow up in the boondocks like I did, you realize that 18,000 is a surprisingly large number of people (it’s about 12 times the population of my old hometown).
- But the NIH also points out that “hemophilia also can be acquired… if your body forms antibodies to the clotting factors in your bloodstream.”
- I realize that only 1 in 10,000 are born with hemophilia A and 1 in 50,000 are born with hemophilia B, but this rare disease bends my heart a bit because one of my favorite writers, Tom Andrews, died from complications from hemophilia when he was only 40.
So, please consider making a small donation (Who needs that Big Mac Value Meal today?) to the National Hemophilia Foundation.
August 8th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
As the polls closed on Election Day 2004, I watched the state-by-state results eek in from the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Columbus with a thousand other volunteers, including Jerry Springer, the former mayor of Cincinnati, and Eric, who'd road-raged his way down from Rochester, New York, in his rusty and rust-colored – ˜86 Monte Carlo, to lend a hand for the final few days. I bit my nails to the quick and pulled and twisted at my goatee. The news seemed grim.
And so, the war would rage on. And the poor would increasingly fight it. And our broken health care system would cause more bankruptcies. And monolithic business would rule instead of wise environmental stewardship. And I felt too guilty to sleep. But it was that night, and deep into the morning, that Eric and I came up with the idea of Progressive Wednesday, a new way to empower people when there weren't elections, and hell, even when there were. And it was that night we decided that helping to fix the election process would be at the top of our Wednesday list.
Two weeks later, I attended a public hearing with sworn testimony by Franklin County residents reporting voter suppression, fraud, and the inequitable distribution of voting machines in both poor and predominately African-American districts, which made 2004 Ohio seem a little too much like 1960 Mississippi.
Since I'm not a Democrat, I now deeply question why I didn't just support a so-called “third-party– candidate like Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate, or David Cobb, the Green candidate. But my experience helped me question, even more, the process by which we select our elected officials and the ways we decide whom to give our vote. I imagine I'm not alone.
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Make Progress:
We'll definitely be returning to this topic time and time again, because it's intensely complicated and similarly significant to not just our rights as Americans, but to what we value as a human right. What follows, then, is a beginning. Consider the starter's pistol fired.
- – - – -
Bookmark:
It's a little bit difficult to describe Project Vote Smart in 304 words, but here goes:
- This non-profit uses oodles of volunteers (from the right and the left) to examine “voting records, campaign contributions, public statements, biographical data (including their work history) and evaluations of them generated by over 100 competing special interest groups.–
- In addition, they “test each candidate’s willingness to provide citizens with their positions on the issues they will most likely face if elected through the National Political Awareness Test.– In other words, they see if candidates will openly, directly explain what they stand for — a tall order in some instances.
- You can also use Project Vote Smart to learn about judges, congressional legislation, voter registration, polling locales, ballot measures, and lots and lots of accurate et cetera.
- The Project also offers up a Voter's Self-Defense Manual, a must-read for progressives of any political ilk. The booklet can be downloaded as an Acrobat file, or you can order one by giving them a jingle: 1-888-868-3762.
- They are truly bipartisan: “No one can join the Project’s board without a political opposite.– And whose served on the board? Carter, Ford, Dukakis, McCain, McGovern, and Goldwater, to name a few.
- They don't take cash money from special interests. To quote: “We do not accept contributions from any corporations, labor unions, or other organizations that lobby, support or oppose candidates or issues.” The money comes only in the form of donations by individuals (70%) and philanthropic foundation grants (30%). Plus, 83% of their funds go directly into their programs and content.
- U.S. News and World Report has this to say: “Project Vote Smart would make the Founders weep with joy.– The New York Times pointed out that the Project kicks so much tail that “even the Federal Government recommends it.–
- This service — this wonderful, wonderful service — is completely free.
Want to read more? Go check it out for yourself. Then bookmark it. You'll want it down the road: we guarantee it.
We'd also like to ask you to give some love in the form of greenbacks to this incredibly worthy, dare we say essential (okay, we dare), this essential cause. Even if giving means three bucks. Here's the beauty of your generosity: not only do you help out this organization whose sole purpose is to help you as a voter, but your gift is tax-deductible, and you can choose how the money is spent. So give a little and have them spend it wisely.
But remember to bookmark it, baby, remember to bookmark it.
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Call:
This sucker might come as a shock, but the Constitution does not guarantee American citizens the right to vote.
We'll give you a second to reread that sentence. Okay, now that we've got your attention we'll give you all the support we need to prove it to you. In the Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, the Court ruled: “The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.– We think, well, we think this is a load of crap, and not cute little rabbit pellets– ¦ no, we're talking a dump truck full of nasty elephant waste.
We'd like you to take five minutes right now, immediately after reading this, and call your Senators (take a peek and make sure your boss ain't lingering around). Just click this sentence to find a list of all the Senators with phone numbers for each. Here's what we'd recommend saying:
- “I'm a voter from [name your state], and I'm outraged that there's no Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing my right to vote. If Senator [last name] wants my vote the next time [he or she] is up for reelection, then [he or she] will introduce or support legislation that would guarantee this basic American right.–
Be sure to thank them for their time.
If such an Amendment existed, folks could sue states for voter fraud, suppression, a lack of equal protection, and faulty machines or a lack of functioning ones. There are 7,800 different election jurisdictions. This adds a lot of variables. If there was a Constitutional Amendment, there could be a universal voting system for all elections. Fairness. That's what we're talking about here. Accountability. Equality. A more perfect union.
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Write:
Even though we're far, far away from the next national elections, we think it’s more apropos to deal with this topic well before November, which is, of course, National Pomegranate Month.
Okay, here's the main idea of our letter-to-the-editor campaign: Our fellow Americans, Election Day should be a national holiday.
Now, it's hard to argue with a day off (though we're sure the workaholics out there could give it a shot). But we think for the sake of the U.S. of A., voters deserve a greater opportunity to choose what goes down.
Here are some talking points for ya to use and morph and personalize and localize to your heart's content:
- Election Day is an excellent way to emphasize the importance of community.
- As a holiday, we'd be reaffirming the cultural significance of voting.
- Voting was a central catalyst behind the founding of the country.
- Voter turnout in the United State for presidential elections ranks 65th in the world. Democracy deserves better. Common sense dictates that a holiday would raise voter turnout.
- Most workers paid hourly can't afford to take time off work to vote.
- Polls in some states close as early as 7 p.m., further limiting turnout.
- Long lines wouldn't seem as daunting since folks wouldn't need to hustle back to work.
- Election Day is already a holiday in Puerto Rico.
Here's a link to the newspapers throughout the country to help you find the address and specific requirements to the daily “Extra, extra, read all about it!” in your community. You can always check out our How to Read Newspapers tool. Also, you might want to take a gander at our How to Write Letters to the Editor tool, both in brief and in full.
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Read:
Adopting Election Day as a national holiday and banging out a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote seem like two it's-about-time steps in the right direction.
There's got to be more we can do to help out so-called “third parties– and their very qualified candidates. Third parties deserve a greater voice in our country, and having more voices, more opinions, and options seems incredibly American to us. Two-party domination seems a bit archaic, a bit undemocratic.
There are several suggestions out there for ways to change the ways we vote and the ways third party candidates get treated on ballots. These ideas include:
We'll be returning to the topic of election fixes in the future, and we're curious what your thoughts are about each of the various options. After you read about each, let us know what you think by leaving a comment or by contacting us. Let us know which you prefer, which you have questions about. Your comments will help us decide which ones to support down ye ole road. So, thanks in advance.
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Wear:
Okay, this one's easy enough. We'd like to encourage you to plunk down a few bucks, snag yourself this t-shirt, and wear it around all year long (taking it off occasionally to shower, make the love, and maybe even wash it here and there). Sport it when you head to the grocery, the gym, the Grand Canyon. (Speaking of the Grand Canyon– ¦.)
This is a way to send an honest and constant message. Plus the word “vote– is bad-ass as Mr. T and drop-dead gorgeous as Rita Hayworth. Since you're reading Progressive Wednesday, we're confident you're a little bit of both, too.
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