Archive for Action
Let’s Change The World
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. – Google Fiber Initiative
I’ll post the whole thing here at some point, but for now take yourselves over to googleavl to read all about Asheville’s effort to invite Google to town.
“You all heard about the Information Superhighway of the internet back in the day. Compared to a superhighway, this network is like a teleportation device. It’s so far beyond what anyone else is using that it gives Asheville the opportunity to dream big.”
Domestic Partnership Benefits for City Employees
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On Feb. 9th your Asheville City Council will consider the question of whether to provide equal compensation for equal work. Domestic Partnership Benefits (DPB) for city employees with same-sex partners address a number of very important social and economic factors:
- Improve recruitment and retention of quality employees
- Provide equal compensation for equal work to our employees who are denied the option to marry
- Improve Asheville’s reputation as one friendly to our LGBT citizens
- Improve Asheville’s reputation as friendly to gay tourists
- Strengthen families through health, stability, and respect
- Compete with private sector employers
- Bolster Asheville’s reputation as a creative, accepting, diverse economic climate for entrepreneurs
Providing Domestic Partner Benefits to same-sex employees will also:
I’ve moved forward with this initiative now because City staff will be presenting an analysis of our health and benefits packages in a worksession on March 9th. Including our LGBT employees is crucial. Seven other government entities in North Carolina have already passed DPB. Three of them, including Mecklenburg County, passed same-sex only DPB. It’s perfectly legal, responsible, and just.
I’ll be offering a lot more on the subject between now and the Feb. 9th meeting. Stay tuned.
Follow me after the jump to learn more about how this simple step forward can benefit us all and how you can help make it a reality.
Help Haiti Heal
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David Holt, Kat Williams, Akira Satake, Nikki Talley, Sons of Ralph, Menage, Paco Shipp, Sirius.B, Ol’Hoopty, Taylor Martin’s Engine, Daniel Barber, RiYen Roots, Jesse Barry and Skinny Legs and All, Kimberly Hughes and Richard Inman,
and More.
Saturday Feb 6
Music starts at 7pm and goes until 11:30
Sunday Feb 7
Music starts at 2pm and goes until 6pm
Devise Your Conservation Strategy and Get a Cheap Energy Audit
Posted by: | CommentsFrom Mtn. X:
Administered by the Buncombe County Cooperative Extension, the program aims to help local residents stay warmer for less money — starting with a Thursday, Jan. 21, workshop that qualifies attendees for discounted home-energy audits.
Residents who complete the workshop qualify for a price cut: If your home is 2,000 square feet or less in size and more than 5 years old, you may be eligible for an audit that costs $100, normally a $350 service.
[...]
“You must attend the E-Conservation workshop to receive the subsidized energy audit. Pre-registration for the workshop is necessary, as space is limited. To register, call 255-5522. The extension office, part of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension, is located at 94 Coxe Avenue. The workshop starts at 5:30 p.m.”
A Holiday Hello from Patsy Keever
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The Hooligani received this lovely note today from our good friend Patsy Keever, who is running for the North Carolina House here in the 115th. To contribute some time or scratch to this amazing lady’s campaign (or even just to get on her email list) click here.
From Patsy:
Holiday greetings to all of you who have supported my venture into the political realm once again. As this is the time of year when we slow down a little (after we do all the shopping, of course!) to celebrate and enjoy our families and friends, I want to say thank you to each of you for the help you have given me already and the help I know you will give as the campaign goes on.
What I really appreciate is the help you give so many different people in so many different ways. Each of you supports causes which are near and dear to your hearts. Each of you gives your time and energy to make this world a better place. You are the kind of people who understand that we are all in this world together.
As the year draws to a close, let us hold each other in our hearts and reach out with our hands to help one another. And let’s never lose our optimism and our faith in the goodness of all people.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Feliz Navidad!
A Poisioned Primer on the Conference
Posted by: | CommentsA jaundiced look under the hood of the conference committee process from Matt Taibbi’s The Great Derangement:
The mechanism of the conference committee is a special voodoo all unto itself, a monstrously complex bureaucratic maze whose diabolical scheme is known to a select few congressional practitioners. But for the moment, only two facts are important.
The first is that the bill can again be completely rewritten here, rewritten from top to bottom, rewritten even so that it has a completely opposite meaning from the bills that passed the two houses – in a word, rewritten in such a fashion as to render the whole process up till now meaningless.
The second is that a majority vote of conference committee members, called “conferees,” is not even required for passage. Again, the conference committee chairs are the key players here. Whatever the top dogs from the House and Senate want generally occurs. They redo the bill according to whatever swinish commercial dynamic happens to govern this back-room deal (for the conference hearings are almost always conducted out of the public eye), then send the final version to a vote, again giving the members just a few hours’ notice before they make an essentially blind decision on the by-now completely revised legislation.
Industry lobbyists figured out long ago, Taibbi writes, that it’s cheaper to buy a couple of key conferees than a majority of the Congress. Don’t expect Matt’s Bush-era description of the process to change when the health care bills go to conference.
Read More→
Your Asheville
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Applications to serve on one of Asheville’s many Boards and Commissions are due no later than January 6th. The community builders over at Green Drinks are inviting you to come find out how you can bring your enthusiasm and expertise to shaping the future of Asheville. Friday from 6 – 7:30pm at Bobo Gallery on Lexington Ave – From their website:
December 11th: “Becoming a member of an Asheville City Commission”
Panel Members:
Hanna Raskin, Transportation Commission member
Sasha Vrtunski, Sustainability Commission member
Other panelists TBD
Moderator, Jim BartonAsheville’s city commissions are an opportunity for ordinary citizens to shape city policy.
Commissioners are appointed by city council, and the next deadline for applications to council are coming up on Wed, Jan. 6th, 2010.
TEN commissions have openings, including sustainability, transit, and river redevelopment.
Listen to citizens and staff who have served on and with commissions to learn what is involved, and why or why not you might want to apply; and ask them questions.
To find out what’s what, spend time with this savvy crowd on Friday. Asheville needs you.
Media Arts Project and Asheville Affiliates
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(Important note: In order for the Media Arts Project to get the booty, you must enter The Media Arts Project into the “Nonprofit Affiliation” line in the online order form.)
The Media Arts Project is a local nonprofit dedicated to promoting media arts and artists in western North Carolina. I’m on the Board. If you haven’t been to the website to check ‘em out, you’re missing a great hub for some amazing artists and art-loving businesses.
Another wonderful local group is the Asheville Affiliates. “The Asheville Affiliates is a community of more than 3,000 individuals who are invited to attend fundraising events hosted by and supporting Asheville-area nonprofit organizations.”
On December 3rd, The Asheville Affiliates are hosting a bang-up party, and you ought to be there. When you buy a ticket you’ll be getting a guaranteed good time while helping out a lot of non-profits here in Asheville. As a past beneficiary, The Media Arts Project has the chance to win a portion of the proceeds from the event – estimated at $3,000. In order for us to qualify, we only have to sell 10 tickets. They are $30 each and you can purchase them online at www.wncap.org (WNC AIDS Project is partnering with the Affiliates to produce this event). From the Facebook Event:
Please join us for the Asheville Affiliates 10th Anniversary Event “Party Like its 1999”, presented by Charlotte Street Computers at The Venue in downtown Asheville.
We invite all our past nonprofit beneficiaries, board members, sponsors, attendees and the general public to celebrate our 10th year of serving non-profits in Western North Carolina. Since our inception in 1999, we have partnered with 40 WNC non-profits to raise an estimated $150,000!
Asheville Jazz Orchestra will get the party started, then we’ll party to great hits from the 90’s and even Prince’s iconic “Party Like its 1999”!
As our producing partner, Western North Carolina AIDS Project (WNCAP) will receive a portion of the proceeds from the event. The remainder will then be pooled into a lump sum, and during the evening’s festivities three participating non-profits will be randomly selected to split the remaining proceeds – estimated at $3,000 each!
Please come and Party Like It’s 1999! When you purchase your ticket, type The Media Arts Project into the “nonprofit affiliation” line to benefit all of our Asheville media artists!
Asheville Needs You
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In addition to the thousand-plus employees and seven City Councilcritters, the future of our city is planned and implemented by a multitude of Boards and Commissions. Most everything that comes before City Council first makes its way through one or more of these citizen-led bodies. If you’ve wanted to get involved in a way that makes an enormous difference, then have a look at taking on the nuts’n'bolts. You’ll meet oodles of talented, energetic people. You’ll be shaping Asheville. Deadline for applications is January 6th. Email the magnetic Maggie Burleson (MBurleson@ashevillenc.gov) at City Hall to get started, or click here to download a .pdf of the application.
After the jump read about vacancies on these Board and Commissions:
Is Red a Primary Color?
Posted by: | CommentsEver since August, when we all got an earful of what Heath Shuler thought about health care reform (he was pretty much against any proposed Democratic legislation, and had so few concrete suggestions for what he would support you kind of got the impression that reform wasn’t high on his “to do” list), I have been wondering: does Shuler deserve a primary challenge?
I can’t believe I’m the only progressive to think along these lines. (And if Shuler votes against the House health care bill tomorrow, I’m sure quite a few more will join our ranks.) But I’m guessing we’ve all faced the reality of the situation – that Shuler would win the primary, and that he’s almost certain to retain the seat for the Democrats next November. If that’s the case, then is there anything to be gained by a sacrificial lamb challenging Shuler from the left in a primary? Would such a challenge accomplish anything that could not be accomplished by other means?
What I’m really asking is this: given that Shuler’s progressive constituents probably want him to vote more often with the majority of the Democratic caucus, would a primary challenge help or hinder the other means at their disposal to influence his vote? Read More→
