My new hybrid!

Driving down to town today I averaged 80 miles per gallon!! (Ok, it dropped to 46 mpg on the uphill way home, but still....)


With gas prices the way they are, I stand to save OVER $1500 in gas between now and the end of the year!!

Override Douglas's Campaign Finance Veto!

Jim Douglas said himself that he doesn't care about the facts -- that this reform would help make our elections MORE competitive, not less. Hear for yourself:

Stop the escalation!

I couldn't be there with mom last weekend, but I'm with everyone in spirit, virtually.

We need your help to make this Virtual March on Washington really big. Can you sign up for a time to call your senator this Thursday? Here's the sign-up link:

http://pol.moveon.org/virtualmarch/?rc=iraq_moveon_bloggers

Stop Global Warming

Get out and vote!

Well, tomorrow is the big day...and I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Time for a change and I'm feeling BLUE! I can't wait to cast my vote for the sure win of Bernie Sanders to become the first self-proclaimed socialist elected to the US Senate. I'm also excited about voting for Peter Wlech to help turn the tide for Democrats to take over the US House. I am less confident that my vote for Scudder Parker will result in a truly pro-environment governor heading Vermont, but one can dream for a REAL upset. Sad, because it shouldn't be this way. If Scudder had better campaign management and a more active and well-funded campaign, I think he could have mounted more of a real challenge to Governor Scissorhands. I am more confident that the upset surprise for tomorrow will be a sharp and energetic Matt Dunne toppling the do-nothing Lieutentant Governorship of Brian Dubie. As for things on the national front, my prediction -- Dems pick up 26 seats in the House and 4-5 in the Senate.

On another front, it's also time to make another kind of choice for those in the football pool. Trade week is upon us. This is your chance to trade one team for one team of equal or lesser value. Time to try and land yourself a playoff team if you don't already have one. Get your trades in to me by Saturday night Nov. 11th.

FOR THOSE IN THE VALLEY: Football pool meet-up this FRIDAY @ 6:30pm at the Hyde Away. Meet others in the pool, make your trades, and talk some strategy... Hope to see you there!

35 Activists Turn Out to Support Internet Freedom in Vermont

Internet Freedom Petition Drop Event at Senator Jeffords Office
Montpelier, Vermont August 31, 2006

*** WATCH streaming video of today's event here ***

Statement of Colleen Thomas, Associate Director of VPIRG

My name is Colleen Thomas and I am the Associate Director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, VPIRG, the state’s largest nonprofit consumer and environmental advocacy group.

Imagine if one day you sat down to surf the Internet and it wasn’t all there… Whether you were going to catch up on the day’s news, research your vacation options, or listen to a podcast, it just wasn’t there, or it loaded so slowly it seemed like it wasn’t there.

Eventually, you’d grow frustrated. You’d give up. You’d log on to a bigger, more mainstream, ad-driven website linked directly from the homepage of your big media Internet provider. And Poof – their website loads immediately!

Think the scenario is far-fetched? Think again. That’s what an Internet without Internet Freedom will be like. That’s the Internet that telephone and cable company executives dream about.

And that’s why the SavetheInternet.com coalition is here today. We are here today to let Senator Jeffords know that over 3,200 Vermont citizens and small businesses want an Internet that works for everyone, not just for the big telecom companies.

The telephone and cable company backed bill –S. 2686 by Senator Stevens of Alaska that’s going to the Senate floor in September-- threatens Internet freedom. Unless it is amended it won’t guarantee what they call in Washington “net neutrality”, but what we know as the Internet’s founding principle of Internet Freedom.

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's – all data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. No fast lane or slow lane.

Network neutrality is the Internet's First Amendment and has existed for the entire history of the Internet.

If companies like Comcast and AT&T have their way, however, web sites will have to pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly or simply not working on your computer. We can't let the Internet become captive to large corporations.

From its beginnings, the Internet was built on a cooperative, democratic ideal. It has leveled the playing field so that everyday people can have their voices heard by thousands, even millions of people. Network neutrality has prevented gatekeepers from blocking or discriminating against new economic, political and social ideas. It leaves the consumer to be the decision-maker, not the media giants.

That’s how independent bloggers can now compete with CNN and USA Today for readers. It’s how Vermont small businesses can compete and thrive in today’s global economy. It’s how our kids learn about and contribute to the diverse world community. Without this freedom we all stand to lose.

Connecting to your office could take longer if you don't purchase your carrier's preferred applications. Sending family photos and videos could slow to a crawl. Web pages you always use for online banking, access to health care information, or communicating with friends and family could fall victim to pay-for-speed schemes.

Today we want to thank Senator Jeffords for coming out in support of net neutrality this week. It’s important to know that he has heard the voice of thousands of Vermonters on this issue.

Vermonters understand that the Internet is a critical engine for economic growth and democratic discourse, and they don’t want to be relegated to second class citizens on the Internet by big media corporations.

That’s why it’s crucial for Senator Jeffords to not just support the “concept” of net neutrality, but to use his vote in the Senate to protect it by voting for the Snowe-Durgan Amendment that will protect net neutrality and to vote against the Stevens telecom bill as a whole if it fails to protect our Internet freedom.

Senator Jeffords is headed in the right direction. We now need to make sure his vote is cast for Internet freedom and against corporate special interest.


See also today's media coverage:

WCAX-TV Web article

Additional pictures from today's events

Speak out for Internet Freedom Thursday in Montpelier!

*** News: Thursday, August 31, 12 noon, News Conference ***

Thousands of Vermont Residents To Deliver A Message To Sen. Jeffords: Defend Internet Freedom

THURSDAY: Local members of diverse SaveTheInternet.com Coalition will deliver over 3,200 petition signatures to Jeffords’s Montpelier Office

Montpelier - This Thursday at 12:00 pm at Senator James Jeffords’s Montpelier office, local members of the diverse SavetheInternet.com coalition will urge the senator to defend Internet freedom for small businesses and local families during an important upcoming Senate vote.

WHO: Local residents in SavetheInternet.com Coalition, including VPIRG, Small Dog Electronics, Project Harmony, Vermont Broadband Council, ACME and the Center for Media and Democracy

WHAT: Petition delivery to Sen. Jeffords – over 3,200 Vermont residents supporting Net Neutrality

WHERE: Sen. Jeffords’s office – 435 Stone Cutter’s Way, Montpelier, Vermont

WHEN: 12:00 Noon this Thursday, August 31, 2006

Big telephone and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are spending millions lobbying Congress to eliminate Net Neutrality. This rule, in place since the Internet was created, prevents Internet service providers from deciding which websites open quickly on people’s computers based on which sites pay them the most. The House already voted to eliminate Net Neutrality. In September, Sen. Jeffords could be the deciding vote in the Senate.

Over 750 diverse groups have come together as the SavetheInternet.com Coalition – including local small businesses, VPIRG and other leading consumer groups, MoveOn, the Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America, Craig from Craigslist, musicians REM and Moby, Free Press, and others. This coalition collected over 1 million petition signatures online, including over 3,200 in Vermont. Local residents will deliver these petitions to Jeffords’s offices Thursday.

“My phone or cable company should not be telling me which websites I can open on my computer,” said Lea Woods, a resident of Montpelier who signed the online petition to preserve Net Neutrality. “Senator Jeffords has a choice—he can take away Internet freedom by turning the Internet over to giant corporations or he can side with constituents by voting to preserve Net Neutrality.”

“Small businesses like mine depends on a neutral Internet, where the website of a small entrepreneur can be viewed just as easily as the site of a big corporation,” said Don Mayer, whose Waitsfield business Small Dog Electronics has become the largest Apple computers specialist in New England by relying on the Internet for over 80% of its sales. “Without net neutrality, I doubt that Small Dog Electronics would exist today. Net neutrality is essential to one of the most important and growing sectors of Vermont's economy, small businesses that operate on the internet to extend their reach outside of our state. We need Senator Jeffords to declare his support for Net Neutrality so that small businesses and everyday families have an equal right to communicate online as giant corporations.”

Telephone and cable companies have already made clear what they would do to the Internet if Net Neutrality is eliminated. On December 1, 2005, the Washington Post reported: “William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.”
(Link: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1902)

Jon Stewart informed millions of his viewers about this issue (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2015). MoveOn and the Christian Coalition wrote a joint op-ed (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1884). For more information, check out www.SavetheInternet.com.

Goodbye PH, Farewell

So today, after nearly a decade of work, I officially ended my tenure with Project Harmony. It's not without some sadness, and a lot of good memories and deep reflection that I close this chapter of my life -- a chapter that was not only professional, but very personally defining for me.

When I joined PH on September 9, 1996, I had just spend the past two months of my life sitting on the beach in New Jersey, recuperating from the 6 months in Rostov-on-Don, Russia that was one of the most challenging experiences one could expect for a first job out of graduate school. After the "Murphy's Law / Worst Case Scenario Experience" that was my time in Rostov, I had mentally and emotionally recovered (and gotten the best tan I had in years!) that summer. I came to PH not quite sure what to expect, still uncertain that I even wanted to remain involved in work dealing with Russia. But I thought, heck, I'll take a year, see what this is like, and get a lot of snowboarding in while doing it!

And that's just what I did. I was the Director of the Internet School Linkage Program, Project Harmony's first technology-related program. That year, I traveled over to Russia several times, confirmed for myself that I had too much invested in this whole Russian thing to give it up, and learned that life in Vermont was pretty good. Soon I fell in love with this place I now call home, and it made it so much easier to see a future for myself here in the Valley and with PH. Luckily, PH had the same kind of growth and development in mind for me. My writing background was quickly put to use on writing grants and, well, from there the rest is history. $45+ million in grants history...something I'm damn proud of.

Through all the ups and downs, hard times and successes, PH was and is a family. People matter at PH, and that's why so many people have called this organization home. Like any family, it's got its "issues". Did I want to leave? Probably not. But there comes a time in any relationship where you realize that for both parties, it's best to separate. For me, on a personal level, I needed professional and emotional space from PH in order to let all the lessons I've learned turn into wisdom to guide me forward. For PH, some fresh blood and new perspective is well-timed and needed. And so I think we part on good terms, wishing each other the best and not ruling out that our paths will cross again.

On a personal level, I am looking forward to letting go, no matter how hard that actually is. I have others parts of me I need to develop and new challenges I need to tackle. My dogs, my husband, my writing...all stand to get more of me now. Their generosity in past years has been so understanding and giving. It's time I gave more of myself to them now. In not doing grant writing for a while, perhaps my creative, non-fiction writing skills will actually come back! (Yes, a little know fact is that when you do grant writing for a living, the "grant-speak" is such a prolific part of your language that it's hard to let more creative language flow freely).

I have new horizons before me. And although I have some fears and hesitancy about the unknown, I am once again excited about the "what might be". That part of the story is yet to be written.

Save the Internet!

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites--including Google, eBay, and iTunes--must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to Gun Owners of America, are opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.

You can do your part today--can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet

I signed this petition, along with 250,000 others so far. This petiton will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's...Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to iTunes either pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can't let the Internet--this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech--become captive to large corporations.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Together, we do care about preserving the free and open Internet.

Please sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Internet freedom.

My next career move

So, after a decade of working for Project Harmony, I will finish on May 12th. Beginning June 1st, I will start my new job as the Associate Director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group in Montpelier, Vermont. It's been nearly a six month process leaving PH and I do so not without sadness, but now I have an exciting new future to look forward to that will get me back into activist mode working on local and state issues including environmental protection, energy policy, campaign finance reform, and health care reform. The best part about it -- no need to move and only an hour commuting time each day. More updates to come as the transition continues!

A Leader and Inspiration for All

In his words:
"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

In the words of U2, from the song MLK"

Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, rain down on he.
So let it be.
So let it be.

Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, let it rain
Rain down on he.

Media, politics and the search for truth

Taking an evening to do some reflecting on the world around me tonight. Seems as though when you work for a non-profit, it's hard to find time to step back and reflect on the world in which you are engaged on a daily basis. There is an emotional trade-off for having a job you feel good about at the end of the day -- you are totally emotionally and mentally drained. So the last thing you have the energy to do is to come home and write about how the world is going wrong.

I miss doing that. Seems as though when you are in high school and college (at least for me) you had hours each day to sit in your room, listen to rebel rock, and talk with friends about how the world would be better if they listened to what you had to say. I don't seem to have that time anymore. When I do squirrel away a few moments to reflect, though, my perspective is pretty harsh.


I have a few sources that I count on to help de-spin the news. It really does take a lot of effort to find REAL news anymore. What I find more interesting is the real news about how fake so much of our news really is. The PR machine and spin factories that create news products for us to consume...it's quite a business. A reliable source I'd recommend to keep you in check is the Center for Media and Democracy, who puts out PR watch and SourceWatch. You've got to respect a source that accepts NO GOVERNMENT or CORPORATE money. How rare is that?!?

Speaking of taking money from the government, this administration has pushed me to my limits. Having worked for a small international non-profit that has historically been 99% funded by the US Department of State, I have had to straddle the divide between what the government has wanted to fund and the real needs of communities where we work. That was my job -- spin the real need so it sounds like the public diplomacy work priorities. In many cases, we've had great partners in overseas embassies who were closer to the source who "got it" and gave us more room than DC would have to innovate and be responsive in our programming. But with this administration, there has been a marked change. Never have I felt the pressure to be the mouthpiece of the administration pushing policy, rather than a representative of the American people doing good and helping others. I didn't get into this field to spew rhetoric and coopt potential enemies. And for that matter, Congress is no better. They just want to know about the numbers -- make it quantitative and look good on paper so they can have something to show.

Somewhere between the Berlin wall coming down and 9/11, US public diplomacy lost its way. I need to get back into the non-government-funded realm of real assistance and real activism. More time doing what I do for Amnesty International and other groups whose moral compass hasn't gone totally askew.

Bono chosen as Time Magazine's Person of the Year

For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year.

Read the whole story.

U2 - Ambassadors of Conscience

U2 have been awarded the ‘Ambassador of Conscience’ Award for 2005 by Amnesty International. Speaking of the award, Nobel Literature Laureate Seamus Heaney said that ‘U2 have sung themselves to where great singing comes from, that place where art and ardency meet in the light of conscience.’

The award was made to band members and manager Paul McGuinness. Irene Khan, Amnesty International Secretary General, praised U2 for doing arguably ‘more than any other band to highlight the cause of global human rights in general and Amnesty International's work in particular.’‘

Their leadership in linking music to the struggle for human rights and human dignity worldwide has been ground-breaking and unwavering. They have inspired and empowered millions with their music and by speaking out on behalf of the poor, the powerless and the oppressed.’

Previously won by Vaclav Havel and UN Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, the award ‘recognises exceptional individual leadership and witness in the fight to protect and promote human rights.’ It is made on a day when human rights are being celebrated around the world and Amnesty International launches a global music venture ‘Make Some Noise’.

The award cites U2’s work with Amnesty since the mid-1980’s, the Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986, Live Aid to Live 8 and the way the band have promoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the Vertigo Tour.Bill Shipsey, founder of Art for Amnesty -- the global artist support network that organises the Award -- said that through songs like Pride (In The Name of Love), MLK, Miss Sarajevo, Mothers of the Disappeared, Walk On and One, U2 has helped spread the human rights message of Amnesty International to a global audience.

‘But U2 is, and always has been, about much more than just music. Band members have used their music and celebrity to champion countless human rights causes. Through their more recent involvement with DATA and The One Campaign they have brought the issues of debt, aid and trade -- particularly as they affect Africa -- to the world’s attention. They have shown that it is not enough to leave it to the politicians and ‘traditional’ world leaders to change the world. They have empowered and inspired millions of people with their music, their example and their action.’

Check out Amnesty’s Make Some Noise here http://www.amnesty.org/noise