Robo-Stith tries to drum up fear in Durham.

Thoughtful analysis on Stith's campaign here and here.

Posted by nicomachus at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It is little wonder that the United States lags behind Europe and east Asia in the development of real cycling networks and bike-specific infrastructure. Bicycles are vehicles, yet the national Transportation Secretary can go on thinking (and saying) the bikes are not transportation.

In a PBS NewsHour interview last week, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters lamented that transportation funds are being spent on such frivolous earmarks as bike paths.

GWEN IFILL: Explain what you mean when you say earmarks.

MARY PETERS: Well, an earmark is a project that's designated by a member of Congress specifically to a project generally in his or her district or state. And the level of earmarking has increased substantially over the last couple of decades in terms of the highway bill. The last highway bill that was passed, in the summer of 2005, contained over 6,000 of those marks, those specially designated projects. And the cost of those projects just in that bill alone was $24 billion, almost a tenth of the bill.

GWEN IFILL: Aren't many of those projects, even though they're special interest projects, aren't they roads and bridges, often?

MARY PETERS: Gwen, some of them are, but many of them are not. There are museums that are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure.

...

GWEN IFILL: Who is spending the money inappropriately?

MARY PETERS: Well, there's about probably some 10 percent to 20 percent of the current spending that is going to projects that really are not transportation, directly transportation-related. Some of that money is being spent on things, as I said earlier, like bike paths or trails. Some is being spent on museums, on restoring lighthouses, as I indicated.

I guess after the bridge collapse in Minneapolis someone has to shoulder the blame for our aging highway infrastructure. Why not blame those weirdos who ride bicycles to work?

By the way -- the American Tobacco Trail, a transportation corridor for bicycle commuters in Durham, was built with federal transportation earmarks.

Posted by nicomachus at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This slide accompanied McHenry's speech

Because of a provision for bicycle commuters in the most recent Energy bill, Representative Patrick McHenry (NC) took the floor to belittle the bill's Democratic authors and supporters. According to Congressman Earl Blumenaur (Oregon), the provision's author, "the Commuter Benefit for bikers amends section 132(f) of the IRS

McHenry

code to include "bicycles" in the definition of transportation covered by fringe benefits. Included in the Ways and Means energy bill is a benefit of $20/month for those employees who bike to work, which is a clean, healthy and efficient mode of transportation."

McHenry is so proud of his performance that he's posted a video clip of it on his website: Congressman McHenry Slams Democrats' Antiquated Energy Plan 08/04/2007 McHenry: Returning To The 19th Century Won't Solve Our 21st Century Energy Crisis.

When I type my zip-code into the Send a Message to Congressman McHenry webpage so that I can give him some feedback on his speech in opposition to the Energy Bill, the automatic response generated by the website is Sorry, that zip-code is for another district. I'm not allowed to send him my comments, because he doesn't represent me directly. And that's how open, transparent government works in the digital age.

I can call (and I will). I can write a letter (I might). But I can't send an email, because opening up electronic communications to members of Congress would flood their inboxes with feedback from citizens. Imagine that. In a democracy no less.

Representative McHenry,

I am writing to express my disappointment with your August 4th speech made in opposition to the most recent Energy Bill. I didn't hear any substance in your critique; only ridicule and a continuation of the kind of partisan politics that prevents finding real solutions to pressing problems.

It is disappointing that such childish rhetoric passes muster as governance and representation. I expect more from an elected member of government in one of the most sophisticated countries on earth.

As a citizen of North Carolina and a frequent visitor of the areas you represent, I hope that you will find a way to rise above party politics and represent the interests of North Carolinians without relying on juvenile tactics.

The good news is that the energy bill passed anyway. Thank you Congressman Price for endorsing it.

Now, how do I go about getting my $20/month?

Posted by nicomachus at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Less than a week after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals employees in North Carolina faced charges of cruelty for performing anesthetized euthanasia on unwanted animals, then tossing them in dumpsters, the state's council of commissioners had to vote on whether North Carolina's method for disposing of unwanted citizens is properly antiseptic. While PETA's employees were cleared of cruel and unusual behavior, it's not clear whether the State's death penalty will be.

Photo courtesy of the Socialist Party of North Carolina

For a state that condones such agricultural practices as crating pigs during breeding, forced insemination of dairy cattle to keep them lactating and debeaking chickens to bring charges of cruelty against PETA rings hollow. Nonetheless, the case focused unusual attention on an organization that sees itself as the champion of animal rights. While democratic governments ought to be the champions of their citizens' right, the charges against the State of North Carolina aren't flavored with the same twist of irony. Perhaps that's because the State government has demonstrated its investment in cruelty, to both animals and people.

The singularity of the human species is ingrained in our minds from birth. One thing on which creationists and scientists can agree is that in the chain of being there is nothing else like us. Whether we descended from apes or gods, we're special. Because of the implicit self-importance in that claim (that we, humans, are either the pinnacle of evolution or the chosen few), there is room in human consciousness (and conscience) for hierarchy. The room for hierarchy among species is what makes room for hierarchies within human society.

Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. We could interpret our uniqueness as just a collection of attributes which says nothing about our relationship to other species. Or, if we are the pinnacle of evolution, we might see our place in the chain of being as benevolent care-takers of the earth. Instead, we interpret our phylogenetic achievements as the basis of a ranking system where we come out on top. We see ourselves as masters with dominion over all other species. Instead, we are superior, and our superiority justifies the degree to which we discount the interests of non-human animals.

The stratification of species with which we're so comfortable creates room in our consciousness for treating people disparately based on their behavior. If people behave a certain way, if they violate norms or act objectionably, then those people forfeit their place in the chain of being, leaving them worthy only of the respect due to lesser animals.

Murder is unacceptable, whether it is carried out by an individual or the state. In either case, murders are often derivative of human imperfection. We refuse to accept that frustration, helplessness, panic, and other common feelings sometimes precipitate the most egregious interpersonal violence. And we refuse to admit that the death penalty is merely a legitimized form of retribution. Instead we say that the state is balancing the scales of justice while the incarcerated murderer is a deviant whose aberrant conduct is less than human. The state relies on its claim to superiority, which in this context is called authority, to distinguish its acts of killing as legitimate. Murderers are worthy only of our disrespect, marginalization, and dismissal. Since murderers have acted like animals, so the thinking goes, we can treat them like animals -- locked in pens, waiting for slaughter.

Every way that the criminal justice system is unethical is mirrored in our industrial agricultural practices. Prisons are overcrowded places filled with penned-in, drugged-up, poorly treated people whose executions are often botched. Factory farms are overcrowded places filled with penned-in, drugged-up, poorly treated animals whose slaughters are often botched.

Some will resist the comparison between the prison industrial complex and the agro-industrial complex, but rejecting the comparison is premised on unfamiliarity with one or both of the industries. That we allow ourselves to be unfamiliar with our past and present industries of cruelty characterizes the limits of our compassion.

We would rather not know how hamburger is made, so not many of us visit factory farms. We would rather not know that we, a civilized people, have a death penalty, so we hold our executions at night and bury them deep in the bowels of labyrinthine cinder block structures.

Some say it's time to move on and bury our sullied past in the wake of our progress. But the wake of progress smells more like diesel fumes in the wake of inmate transfer buses and is as blinding as the wake of feathers swirling behind poultry trucks.

The change has to begin somewhere. It's exciting to see Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation spend time on bestseller lists. Perhaps these books can change our conception of food, challenge some of the policies that make factory farming profitable, or turn some hearts. They won't do it alone, however. Our investments in cruelty are too tangled for any meaningful change to result from tackling symptoms instead of causes. We have to see that we will never treat cattle or hogs or chickens any better until we see that there's something objectionable about the way we imprison people.

As these ideas percolate, perhaps we will be as discomforted by our habit or throwing away people and non-domestic animals as we were by PETA employees throwing away dogs and cats.

This piece originally appeared at OpEdNews.com and was published as an Op-Ed in the Herald Sun under the title "Institutionalizing Cruelty to Animals."

Posted by nicomachus at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 15, 2007

Dear Legislators of the 110th Congress:

Through election, the people of the United States have given you our consent to govern our nation. We expect you to execute this grant, in all matters domestic and foreign, as follows:

1. work vigorously to solve problems of local, national, and international importance; do not merely restate them and prolong them;

2. prioritize the fundamental common good over the demands of party relationships, however strong or weak; do not mistake “what can be done” for “what should be done,” abandoning the people’s will and replacing it with the shallow goals of idle, centrist political partnerships;

3. act with motivation, determination, and public interest; do not fear political reprisal when, as political careers come and go, our broader interests are perpetually at stake and constitute the only purpose your employment serves;

4. engineer a tense relationship between democracy and capitalism; do not allow the demands for profit to saturate our civic institutions, which are dedicated to supporting quality of life for all persons;

5. create meaningful options for financial stability for all people; do not succumb to tradition and convenience by ignoring the basic fact that our nation’s strength is measured by the standard of living of most, not a few;

6. learn a lesson in effective group decision-making; no group can function without trust, commitment, and action; Congress is not an exception – it is the patent example of the losses at stake when basic leadership skills are disabled by the mix of widespread apathy and the irresistible urge to dominate others;

7. be creative; do not cloud your judgment with ambition, arrogance, and false assumptions that paralyze the mission of getting real work done;

8. do something and avoid the tendency to do nothing; do not play it safe and put our collective well-being at risk;

9. recognize that your pursuit of legitimate political gains in 2008 is tied inextricably to the protection of our general welfare and genuine security; do not yield to self-interest, stubbornness, egoism, and corruption; and

10. recall, at all times, your role as an empowered servant of the people of this, and only this, nation; do not misunderstand the scope and limits of your power or impose the nature of it on those whom you do not represent.

In November, some of you announced, prematurely, an agenda identifying the very serious concerns of our country and the role of the national government to address them. If on nothing else, let us agree on this: the origins of your power rest with the people. The agenda, then, belongs to us. Any use of power which is not consistent with our expectations is an abuse of power, the exercise of which will no longer be authorized, pursuant to an enduring American constitutional mandate. While your duty is certainly a noble one, it is, at its core, a simple and practical task. We ask you to govern and, by this, we mean to govern responsibly -- or not at all.

Thank you.

Nancy O. Gallman & Phillip Barron
Durham, NC

Posted by nicomachus at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)