So much common sense has been lost. Here’s an effort to restore a touch of equilibrium: FREE RANGE KIDS.

I live two blocks from an elementary school, and I NEVER see a child walking past my house on his or her way to school. Every last kid is driven by parents. Parents who are so consumed by fear (well, it IS a Catholic school, so this makes sense) that their precious Pat may be whisked away by a bad guy. In Healdsburg? Find me a whiter, yuppier, more NIMBY-fied town than Healdsburg (outside of Marin County, of course), I dare you. Absolutely no reason to have fear, yet their children are not allowed to leave the YARD, let alone walk to school.

Was it like this when you were a child? Were you so strictly confined? I’m betting not. STOP THE MADNESS! FREE THE CHILDREN!!

Okay, a pretty weak post, but check the site out. We’re (including this father of a five year old) being totally anal, paranoid parents. Time to pull the sticks out of our asses and let our kids live a little.

I met him once, briefly. We talked politics, of all things. Camejo was one of the few greats swimming in political waters in the United States.

From Ralph Nader:

Peter Miguel Camejo, a civil rights leader, socially responsible investment pioneer, and magnanimo caballero for third party politics in the US, peacefully passed away early Saturday morning at his home in Folsom, CA with his wife Morella at his side — only days after completing his autobiography.

The 68-year-old justice fighter had been battling a reoccurrence of lymphoma cancer, and his condition had rapidly deteriorated over the past few days.

Peter was a student leader, civil rights advocate, leader in the socially responsible investment industry with his own investment firm, Progressive Asset Management, Inc., and author of books on investment and history including Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877, The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction, California Under Corporate Rule, and his recent book, The SRI Advantage: Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially.

Peter used his eloquence, sharp wit, and barnstorming bravado to blaze Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite political blogger (and good friend), Gail Jonas’ blog can be found at THINKING OUT LOUD. Click the link, bookmark the page. You’ll be happy you did. Unlike Salon and the big poli-blogs, Gail’s voice is reasoned, passionate and individual…you won’t find her spewing the same old party lines.

Today, Gail posted on two of my favorite people, Howard Zinn and Ralph Nader. If you’re a Nader hater (I know you are and also know you don’t have a reasoned reason for being one.), do read on.

ZINN, NADER TEAM UP TO HOLD DEMOCRATS’ FEET TO THE FIRE by Gail Jonas

Full disclosure: Zinn and Nader are only teamed up in this post because I think joining together their ideas on how to get the frontrunning Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to address crucial issues makes sense.

On February 23rd, Howard Zinn’s article, “Election Madness” was posted at Information Clearing House. Zinn describes election madness that seizes the country every four years: I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth. But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice¦.

Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, Read the rest of this entry »

Just when you thought that democracy was absolutely DEAD in the United States (Clinton and Obama paying off superdelegates with millions of dollars in cash money = bye bye democracy, hello pay to play!), Ralph Nader comes along to remind people that ANYONE can actually run for President. Even someone with lofty ideals and concern for the wellbeing of the global citizenry.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the consumer advocate said great changes in U.S. history have come “through little parties that never won any national election.”

“Dissent is the mother of ascent,” he said. “And in that context I’ve decided to run for president.”

Of course, if you haven’t heard of Eugene Debs or how his candidacies brought us social security, child labor laws, some small level of corporate oversight, minimum wage and much more, you’re not that tapped into the history of U.S. politics and Nader’s words fall on deaf ears (fancy that, a U.S. citizenry that isn’t well-versed in U.S. history or the actions of their own parties!)
On how his candidacy impacts the Democrats: “If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form.”

Of course, we all know the Dems are really, really good at handing elections to the Republicans (Remember that sad sap, Al Gore, who handed Bush victory? Why aren’t more people upset at him for the last 8 years?) so nobody should be surprised if Hillary somehow steals the nomination from Obama, then gets her ass handed to her by McCain.

[tags]obama, clinton, nader, president, election[/tags]