Excuse me there is an elephant pooping on your head.

If Obama is truly for change - real change - change that he says has to be brought TO Washington why has he not discussed or even acknowledged the rather large elephant in the room. This country has become a corporatocracy. Campaign finance and big money influence has rendered Washington so dysfunctional one can hear our forefathers all rolling in their graves. Our democratic system of government in broken -  all but dead in the water - and yet - silence. No one is talking about it in Washington - not even Obama.
Silence is complicity.

Our Government is the Best Money Can Buy

In this day and age members of congress must begin fund raising for their next election cycle on their first day of office. Big money then clearly has the advantage and greatest influence over them.

Members who play ball get re-elected – but perhaps even more enticing they get the multi-million dollar salaries at the largest lobbying firms or corporations upon leaving congress.

Imagine a political system where candidates for congress and the US Presidency are limited to 6 month campaigns and defined pots of money given to them solely by the taxpayers. Say 5 million for the presidential campaign, proportionally less for the senate and congress.

And imagine that only candidates could run political advertising in the media during an election cycle – no one else.

Imagine what Washington would look like if anyone who served in congress or as President could not accept lobbying positions for at least 10 years after serving or accept positions with any organization or corporation that their voting record had aided for at least 10 years.  

Might we then see people in the government interested in governing?

Might we then see people in the government held accountable only to their constituents?

Might we then not see what our forefathers intended - a democracy and not a thoroughly corrupt corporatocracy?

Professionalism at the Oregonian

I think people and editorial boards need to wait until they get ALL the facts as regards the Mohamed Osman Mohamud sting at Pioneer Courthouse Square before rushing to defend or criticize the FBI or the man. Too late for the editorial board of the Oregonian - too bad for them.

Tax Breaks for the Ultra-wealthy Letter

Published: Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 8:02 PM

Letters to the editor  


The Republican leadership keeps talking about how the Democrats want to take away tax breaks from Americans during a recession. When pressed that it is really only the top 2 percent wealthiest Americans that the Democrats want to take tax breaks from, the Republicans start referring to these ultra-rich as the "job makers." We can't take away tax breaks from the "job makers" during a recession.

But the vast majority of these top 2 percent are not job makers; they are corporate executives, corporate attorneys, investment bankers, Wall Street moguls, real estate tycoons. These are the exact same people whose greed in great part contributed to causing this recession. Of course, the Republican leadership knows this. They are trying to protect their major supporters -- the ultra-wealthy -- and just don't care. Their irresponsibility and greed during the Bush years is what set the stage for this recession, and this is just more of the same.

Fear and Civil Liberties

Airport 'security' and it's intrusiveness and abuse of civil liberties reminds me of a Henry David Thoreau quote -  "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it"  
Lets put this terrorist threat in perspective.
Your one year odds of dying in a car accident are about one out of 6500. Your lifetime odds of dying in a car accident are about one in 83.
Your one year odds of being struck and killed by lightning  - one in 6.2 million with a lifetime odds of one in 80,000.
Your odds for being killed by terrorists in a any given year - one in 30 million; lifetime odds of one in 400,000.
That is roughly the same risk as getting cancer from the full body x-ray scanners at airport security checkpoints.

Living in fear is exactly what the terrorists want. Doing so unnecessarily while relinquishing your civil liberties is what some in government want.
Millions have died in wars precisely to protect the civil liberties we now so causally relinquish for a false sense of security against exaggerated threats.

It is time to buck up, toughen up and get on with the business of living without giving into irrational fear and without giving up dignity, privacy and our basic civil liberties.

Embarrassment is Usually the Fault of the Red Cheeked

A Letter to the  US Government

If you don't want to be embarrassed by wikileaks stop doing things to be embarrassed about. If you have to do ugly things on our behalf - explain to us what you are doing and why - stop lying and hiding behind 'national security" concerns because it’s easier. We can take it.

If you're going to torture, abuse power, and disregard international law, then you create in your actions the very need for a wikileaks.Wikileaks may prove to be very inconvenient for you, but in this age of the internet, it or something like it,  is going to exist from now on. I would say to you, get used to it.

Your outrage at wikileaks is, at least in part, a reflection of your own arrogance and testimony that you've gotten used to getting away with clumsiness, inefficiency, lying, cheating and cutting corners. If you've got secrets to keep - keep them. You can't expect the media to keep your secrets for you - stop blaming them. It is time to change the way you do business - less of the way you've been doing it and more of the way you've always told us you were.

Our Digital Selves

Published: Friday, November 26, 2010, 6:38 AM

Letters to the editor

Technological growth is exponential. After centuries of what seemed to be linear growth, we are now on the cusp of massive expansion. The growth curve is about to go nearly vertical. The assumption is that we will eventually need to replace our biological brains just to keep up. When that occurs, humans will have evolved into something else. I think this is inevitable.

What we will look like is difficult to say. For along with expansion of technology will come an exponential expansion of intelligence. Intelligence a million, a billion, a billion billion times our present level in the next 100 years is likely to evolve, but is simply something we can't comprehend, making speculation about it difficult. But between now and then will first come some very interesting adaptations. For not only will we begin to incorporate non-biologic enhancement, but our brains themselves will attempt to adapt.

Today's teenagers are the world's first digital generation. "The average teenager sends hundreds of text messages a day. Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task, but for jumping to the next thing. The worry is we are raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently," says Michael Rich, executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston.

I would take it one step further. Even adult brains are plastic and we now know we continue to make new neurons and to develop new neural nets our entire lives. All of us who are constantly surfing the net, texting and/or interacting with digital media are already rewiring our brains, making us a little more like our computers and digital devices and a little less "human." Not necessarily a bad thing.

Imagine where this could go.