I would include a link to the Chevrolet Silverado High Country pickup truck commercial I posted yesterday, but Chevrolet has put the brakes on the ad. Chevrolet replied to the comment and link I posted on their Facebook page yesterday saying they “paused” the ad (the same response was posted to other comments about the commercial).
I really don’t want offensive advertising to drive me away (no pun intended) from another Chevrolet purchase in the future. There is a Chevrolet Equinox in my driveway, and before that there was a Malibu.
My dealer, like many across the country, works hard to build good relationships with their customers. Chevrolet could best serve their dealers and vehicle owners with marketing that celebrates and respects our diversity.
West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources can’t seem to get warnings right in regards to the coal chemical contamination that continues to leave citizens looking for a glass of fresh water. Georgians should be aware that neither our state’s Environmental Protection Division or Department of Community Health issued warnings about health risks during the largest fish kill in our state’s history on the Ogeechee River in May 2011. That was left up to the counties.
Speaking of unpermitted dumping and our rivers, U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood signed an order yesterday approving the settlement between the Ogeechee Riverkeeper and King America Finishing over the fish kill referenced above. The Savannah Morning News says, “Wood’s order ends that legal dispute while allowing King America to deny culpability.” A handful of private citizens are still pursuing the company in other legal action.
Week One and Republican legislators under the Gold Dome are considering giving Federal gun control the finger and with legislation that would provide a “hall pass” to violate laws and regs. Creative Loafing covers it.
The Peach Pundit said yesterday that a possible restoration of funds for “charity hospitals” in Georgia might be in the works. The Pundit wrote, “making sure that charity hospitals–especially in rural Georgia–don’t close due to lack of funding could complete the hat trick that lets Deal remain in the governor’s mansion for another four years.” Serving patients who require Medicaid does not make a facility a “charity hospital.” And FYI, hospitals in Atlanta, Athens, and Savannah are not rural hospitals. They may serve rural patients, but they are urban/metro providers.
Restoring the backbone of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 might happen with a bipartisan bill introduced by yesterday. And yes, it would apply to Georgia.
I may be jumping on the bandwagon, but I am thinking about adding links to things that are worth a read and posting them here (some will also be Tweeted). With the Gold Dome buzzing again, there is a lot of ground to cover in addition to national politics and happenings (and I’m just one rural resident who needs another cup of coffee).
I can check the stats and see if people are visiting my site and clicking on links, but that may not tell me the full story. If you have a suggestion (or want to send me things to include) please comment below.
Here’s what I’ve read this morning:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Georgia House Rep Jason Carter delivered the Democrat’s response to Gov Deal’s State of the State and simultaneous campaign speech yesterday. Maureen Downey at the AJC covers it today.
I don’t like guns. I’ve never fired one and I don’t care if I ever do.
I can appreciate the hand and eye coordination in shooting a target because some days I can barely thread a needle when wearing my readers.
I get the issues around hunting to provide food for families (Hunting is violent, but I don’t think Contained Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, are any more humane than killing an animal with a single shot.)
What I don’t get is why AT LEAST 194 children have died in our country since Newtown. One hundred ninety-four. 10 x 19 +4. AT LEAST that many.
We don’t keep good data on gun deaths and children, so 194 is on the conservative side. Why don’t we have uniform reporting on children who die because they are shot? Who doesn’t want us to know how many children are dying because of guns in the country we say is the greatest in the world?
A year ago today we were stunned into silence as a nation while we waited for the students and teachers to emerge from Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Yesterday we waited for the body count at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado.
Shame on us for waiting to learn the body count at another school shooting.
Shame on us.
It took 10 years to get the Brady Bill passed after Jim Brady and Ronald Reagan were shot. 10 years.
Using the conservative data we have, are we willing, as Americans, to let 1,940 more children die while the NRA, the members of Congress that they own, chest-thumping state’s rights legislators, and gun waving citizens, prevent background checks and bans on assault weapons?
I am asking my fellow rural Americans who own guns and think enough children have died just since Newtown to do something about it.
The next time you buy bullets for hunting, put 194 individual bullets on the counter.
194 bullets
Ask the people standing there with you if they think 194 children shot and killed since Newtown is enough. Ask them why we need to be able to buy assault weapons and rigorous background checks aren’t the law. If they say “because of the Second Amendment,” ask them about the last time their home was invaded by an entire Army division. Owning an assault weapon is over-kill. No pun intended.
If you think speaking up for gun control isn’t “your thing,” ask any one of the 194 families who won’t open birthday presents with their daughter, son, sister, or brother, in 2014, why speaking up shouldn’t be “your thing.”
Gov. Nathan Deal is no stranger to ethics investigations.
In fact, he’s earned the nickname “Teflon Deal” for his ability to duck responsibility for his unethical conduct as a Congressman and as Governor.
But Gov. Nathan Deal’s ethics problems just got much, much more serious.
New reports reveal the FBI and a federal grand jury want to examine documents and witnesses related to Gov. Deal’s ethics violations and an alleged cover-up at the state ethics commission.
WSB-TV and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are reporting that at least five current and former state ethics officials have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.
Make no mistake; this is no longer an ethics investigation.
This is a criminal investigation.
The governor and his team want you to believe this is nothing more than an intra-office skirmish. They want you to believe that because Gov. Deal paid a small fine this is now a “closed” investigation. They want you to believe there’s nothing more to discover.
But we’re not fooled.
We know the governor has financial documents he’s worked hard to keep hidden for the past three years.
We know current and former ethics commission employees have accused Gov. Deal’s hand-picked ethics chief of ordering documents removed from the governor’s ethics file while an ethics probe was ongoing.
P.S. Calling will make a difference. No matter how Gov. Deal responds, we will be able to say he knows exactly what voters want. We’ve provided a script and a feedback form. Call now.
Who’s coming to Thanksgiving and what will you serve? Two keen pieces on families and Thanksgiving (FYI Sullivan uses strong language in his post. He’s spot on).
The perfect argument for higher minimum wages captured in one photo.
And Andrew Sullivan on the Cheney sisters, “Christian compassion,” and equality.
I wrote this a few weeks ago and left it to marinate. Yesterday as cold weather arrived in Georgia I decided to have a sale on my handmade items. This post is a little about self-promotion. It is also about a company that bends words to boost its bottom line.
Last year on Etsy, the largest online site for buying and selling handmade and vintage items, I had two shops, one selling moderately priced felted wool accessories and another featuring cashmere and fine wools. It was a crowded place with plenty of competition, but being in the crowd is often the best way to be noticed by customers.
cashmere scarf made with a repurposed thrift store sweater
I sold scarves, fingerless gloves, iPad sleeves, and cozies for cold drinks (o.k., most of them were made to fit a beer bottle, because beer is good). If a buyer searched cell phone covers, they could end up with results that placed a handmade phone cover like the felted ones I make one at a time, next to a plastic case made in China. Often the plastic stuff kept showing up in greater numbers on a site “devoted” to handmade goods.
Last summer I worked on combining my two stores, got a local artist to create a fabulous logo, and began to build a new Etsy shop for The Sassy Gal.
The day I opened The Sassy Gal, Etsy announced a radical change in their policies for shop owners, one that includes a definition of “handmade” that exists in a special dictionary only available to the Etsy owners and CEO.
Now, for Etsy, “handmade” includes outsourcing the manufacturing of items. In short, if the shop owner/artisan designs it, the item can be made anywhere, in any manner, and still be “handmade.” There’s some gobbledygoop about transparency on how things are made with the onus being on the seller to disclose and the buyer to find that disclosure. Etsy says they will require ethical manufacturing (manufacturing just doesn’t fit with handmade). Does Etsy think it or its shop owners can police working conditions for overseas sweatshops and factories?
Etsy charges shop owners for listings. The more we list, the louder the cash register rings for Etsy. If shops can outsource the manufacturing of their inventory they can list more. More listings = more revenue for Etsy. Handmade? Buyers should check their dictionary.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been late to the party, but I arrived just as the discussion section provided to sellers and buyers exploded. And amazingly, I made a sale just days after opening my shop with very little inventory listed.
But the changes are dramatic.
When I search Etsy for cashmere infinity scarves (a scarf that is a circle of fabric one loops around the neck) hundreds come up. Last year at this time there were thousands. Now my listings show up readily among similar items. That may help me, but fewer choices may also mean fewer shoppers.
After asking some folks and doing some research, I opened a second Sassy Gal shop on another site. Zibbet is a distant second to Etsy, but I think the gap may be closing.
Visit The Sassy Gal at Zibbet
And the exodus of artisans to Zibbet, just on October 1, when Etsy redefined handmade, caused the Zibbet servers to crash. Zibbet is rebuilding its search capacity to handle the influx of new listings as shop owners leave Etsy altogether or duplicate their listings with Zibbet.
Zibbet’s owners say they will only allow artists and craftspeople making items one at a time by hand to sell with them. They went so far as to post a “pledge” for sellers and customers to sign (It’s a little overboard, pledging not to buy “mass produced,” because the computer I’m using now was mass produced. And remember, the uproar at Etsy started with how “handmade” is now defined by Etsy’s CEO Chad Dickerson and the private shareholders of the company).
I don’t know where most of my online sales will happen. There’s a lot of time left between now and the beginning of the year, my busiest time of year. I’m curious to see which site has more traffic and which one has more actual sales.
There are lots of ways to define sales success. In a few months I’ll know if it is spelled
E T S Y or Z I B B E T.
Yesterday, the team formerly known as the Atlanta Braves, became the Cobb County White Flight. The team web site included this as critical to their reasoning for leaving downtown Atlanta: “There is a lack of consistent mass transportation, a lack of sufficient parking and a lack of direct access to interstates.”
I’ve been to some games and as I recall, I exited directly from I-20, turned left at the top of the ramp, and drove about 1/4 mile to the parking lot directly outside the stadium. Does Braves management not know that I-20 stretches over 1,500 miles from Texas into South Carolina (making it an easy interstate for fans to use when coming from the east or the west).
The Downtown Connector isn’t much further past the stadium exit on I-20, which means fans traveling on I-75 or I-85 have easy access to The Ted.
For those who take MARTA to the game, an easy access station is about half a mile from the stadium. When I ‘ve been to a game the sidewalks are crowded with people walking from nearby Underground (with lots of parking) or the train station.
Jay Bookman has a short column today on how Cobb County’s GOP Chair Joe Dendy couches his support of the team’s new location. Bookman quotes Dendy saying, “It is absolutely necessary the (transportation) solution is all about moving cars in and around Cobb and surrounding counties from our north and east where most Braves fans travel from, and not moving people into Cobb by rail from Atlanta.”
Nevermind the “moving cars” issue because clearly the current stadium’s location near three major interstates isn’t the problem.
The real dilemma for Cobb County Conservatives is exactly who might choose to go to an MLB game in the suburbs by rail. And that’s a foul ball.
Guest Post by Rob Teilhet, former state legislator
and Executive Director of Georgia Conservation Voters.
He works as a private practice attorney at The Teilhet Firm.
Any community is made better when it is served by quality public officials. And in order to have quality public officials, we need quality political candidates. Whether Senator Jason Carter wins next year or not, the State of Georgia isalready better because he is a candidate. Governor Deal will be a better candidate for having to face him. And we as Georgians will be well-served by an election that is competitive, as opposed to a foregone conclusion.
When the outcome of a political campaign is known before it even takes place, the quality of public service plummets. If you doubt that, look at the Unites States Congress. With few exceptions, incumbents in Congress easily dispatch only token opposition, and return to Washington with their minds not on their constituents or their districts or the impact of public policy, but rather on the nonsense that passes for debate in DC these days. If they had to compete for our support, and were held accountable for their results, we would be better served.
I couldn’t care less who his grandfather is. What matters to me is that in the decade I spent in Georgia politics, Jason Carter proved to be one of the smartest and most genuine people I came to know, with real concern for how decisions made in Atlanta impact people and their families. As they get to know him, the people of Georgia are going to like him. And they will listen to him. And the quality of the campaign and its impact on all of us will be better as a result.
Proverbs 27:17 says that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. No matter the outcome, Georgia’s political iron will be a lot sharper next year as a result of today’s announcement.
For that, we will all be better off. And for that, I am thankful.
The story behind the long lingering proposed coal project Plant Washington reads much like a Southern Gothic novel. We’ve often been told that the work a handful of local citizens took up almost six years ago would make a great movie in the style of Erin Brockovich.
In an article published today by The New Republic, the plot line is laid out with layers of intrigue including family ties, political appointments, criminal charges, thousands of acres of land, money lost, and money to be made. I don’t think it spoils the end of this movie to say Plant Washington has been all about power, just not the kind that turns the lights on.
The best part of a film adaptation of our coal fighting adventures is that it allows for a generous cast of “seasoned” actors. I’m thinking Meryl Streep, Hal Holbrook, Sally Fields, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, and Samuel L. Jackson would do us justice in a Robert Altman ensemble style film directed by Steven Spielberg. Pass the popcorn.
The EPA held two public listening sessions in Atlanta yesterday concerning carbon pollution (greenhouse gas) and regulations which will be announced for existing coal power plants next year. At the last minute I wasn’t able to go to Atlanta to share mine in person. My three minutes of comments are below, which I will submit to the EPA by email.
I want to thank you for holding a public listening session in Atlanta, just miles from the country’s largest carbon emitting power plant, Plant Scherer. I live in rural Washington County, in Middle Georgia, about 2.5 hours southeast of Atlanta. My family and community are downwind about 60 miles from Scherer, and 30 miles from another coal plant, Plant Branch. After almost six years since it was announced, my community remains opposed to Plant Washington, an 850 MW coal plant that would be about eight miles from my front door in the eastern part of my county.
As a rural resident who relies on a well as our only source of water, we already know and live with the impact of uncontrolled carbon pollution in our country. Years of drought affect our ability to do basic things like run two loads of laundry in one day, even with a high-efficiency washing machine. Last summer, in 2012, my husband, who loves planting and taking care of his small garden, had to let his garden go. We had no captured rainwater to use and had to decide between having household water and fresh vegetables picked just minutes before dinner.
This past summer we had the other extreme. Our gardens drowned and our creeks and rivers overflowed.
At the end of the summer a year ago, I sadly realized I had not had nearly enough fresh locally grown tomatoes. There just weren’t any to be had. This past summer drug on with the rain gauge overflowing and the tomatoes suffering from root rot or bursting on the vines from too much water.
There is a very real connection between Plant Scherer, Plant Branch, the proposed Plant Washington, and carbon pollution. Kids missed out on spitting watermelon seeds in the backyard. And it is a crime for parents to not be able to say, “Eat those tomatoes and quit picking at your green beans. I grew them and you have to eat them.”
The damage done by unregulated carbon pollution in our country is here and we can see it at our dinner tables every night.
I urge the EPA to adopt strict carbon emission limits for existing power plants, and to require even stricter limits for Plant Washington, Plant Holcomb, and Plant Wolverine.
Ted Cruz finally managed to come clean on why he drove us to the brink of economic collapse, locked federal employees out of their offices (except the ones who had to work without pay), threatened our veterans’ benefits, and closed our national parks.
The Tea Baggers must really have their underwear in a twist today. In the end, it took a combination of their greatest nightmares to clean up the colossal mess they made: the Democrats in Congress, a bi-partisan group of women Senators, and a second term black President.
During the dark years of the Bush/Cheney Presidency, I began to think that one outcome would be a fundamental social and economic revolution in our country. I think, and hope, the whispers are getting louder.
The Million Vet March folks aren’t happy about being hijacked by Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and the Confederate flag waving Tea Party wahoos during their march Sunday. Their Face Book page includes this:
Official Stance of the Million Vet March on the Memorials:
The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC yesterday was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle was and remains about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner. Our love for and our dedication to remains with Veterans, regardless of party affiliation or political leanings.
I wonder if the Tea Party standard-bearers raced home to their Faux News dictionaries to look up the multi-syllabic words used by other protesters who were also out on Sunday.
There was a Tea Party/Veterans march yesterday from the World War II Monument to the White House yesterday that, once again, gets at the truth of the opposition to “all things President Obama.”
Veterans were joined by Tea Party faithfuls worshipping two United States Senators, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, who have never served in the military, and Alaska’s former governor, Sarah Palin, who quit when the political and legal scrutiny got tough. Freedom Watch racist/Bible-thumping fact denier Larry Klayman didn’t miss the march either (Klayman continues to claim Obama is a Muslim and isn’t the President of “we the people”). They marched to demand a cherry-pick process to decide what is open and what isn’t (note that they weren’t marching from the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial or National Museum of the American Indian).
Let me be clear here: I am not saying all veterans support Cruz, Palin, Lee, Klayman, or anyone else at the march yesterday. Some of the veterans were glad to have these Tea Partiers with them, but that doesn’t mean the few marching in DC yesterday represent the views of all veterans. I do think these Tea Party extremists latched onto a ready-made event to get some easy press coverage.
But the march gave some people an opportunity to literally fly their racist flags under the guise of supporting veterans.
Photos from both national and social media, don’t include any people of color participating. That is both telling and damning about who the Tea Party and extremists will prey on as an easy way to get some media coverage.
And while this type of thing has been pointed out after other Tea Party and über Conservative rallies, you folks might want to run spell check on your signs before you set out with the burning torches. Show some R E S P E C T for your cause.
Cancer sucks. It doesn’t matter which “cancer of the month” it is, because all cancers suck.
I’m all for walks, races, bike rides, and bake sales to support patients and their caregivers as well as cancer research. But it isn’t even the middle of October and I’ve seen enough pink stuff to last me for the rest of the year.
Mammograms are great. Early detection rocks. My cancer was found very early as a result.
What we don’t hear enough of any time of the year, is the fact that we can’t “cure” cancer until we quit poisoning our air, water, and food with cancer causing agents like mercury, cadmium, and lead.
Of course each of us can impact our health status by exercising, eating as well as our pocketbooks allow, sleeping enough, taking meds as they are prescribed, blah blah blah. We’ve all heard it.
Do our doctors really understand that if the water they encourage us to drink is loaded with cancer causing agents, we’ll never outpace the risks of cancer by adding another mile to our daily run?
It’s October. Let’s get serious about what’s missing in the discussions about preventing breast cancer.
Designate the Republican party a terrorist organization
for repeatedly threatening the full faith & credit of the U.S.A. Designate the Republican party a terrorist organization, since repeatedly
threatening to default on the full faith and credit of the United States
over and over again every time you don’t get what you want is essentially
economic terrorism.
Guest Post by Rob Teilhet, former state legislator
The EPA held two public listening sessions in Atlanta yesterday concerning carbon pollution (greenhouse gas) and regulations which will be announced for existing coal power plants next year. At the last minute I wasn’t able to go to Atlanta to share mine in person. My three minutes of comments are below, which I will submit to the EPA by email.
Conservative rallies, you folks might want to run spell check on your signs before you set out with the burning torches. Show some R E S P E C T for your cause.