Eastwooded

What imaginary Mitt Romney?

Looking like a cross between Charlton Heston and Doc Brown, Clint Eastwood came out at the Republican National convention in Tampa, for Mitt Romney. He began by pretending to have a conversation with an invisible President Obama sitting in a chair next to him. His unkempt hair made Eastwood look more like he was on some combination of anti-Alzheimer's meds and crack. Now that I think about it that pretty much sums up how I see all tea-party cranks ranting away out there. Enough of my ramblings. See for yourself...

Scandal in Colorado!

Secretary of State for Colorado, Scott Gessler.

Scott Gessler is a one-man sleeper-cell for the GOP in Colorado. Very quietly in 2010 he amassed vast sums of money from the Republican Party to ensure his victory as the Secretary of State in Colorado. When Michael Steele, then chairman of the Republican Party visited Fort Collins in 2010 I attended his rally at the GOP headquarters inside an out-of-business blockbuster video on College Avenue. During the rally I noticed particular attention being paid to Gesslar by Steele. Gessler was the only politician to position himself in close physical proximity to Steele who was a controversial figure at the time.

Why all the love and attention?  This was all part of a quiet campaign by Steele to Gerrymander congressional districts across the country in favor of the Republican Party.  If you are not familiar with what Gerrymandering  is let me tell you. It is the process by which a political group manipulates geographical boundaries of certain voting districts to favor their group overall.

This is precisely what has happened in Northern Colorado in 2012. To understand this you need to know about the liberal/conservative distribution in the State of Colorado. Though there are pockets of liberals in the western mountains there are just as many conservative families up there as well. Neither group really have the numbers to make a big difference in the congressional districts. Looking down on the front-range, Boulder Colorado has historically been a liberal hub. But, over the last decade there has been some spill over as intra-national transplants have discovered the other cool parts of Colorado. 

As with any liberalization of an area the seeds started growing from the the centers of higher learning.  In Colorado this is partly true but there is a bit of a catch.  Denver and Boulder are chocked full of University students and have traditionally voted more to the left. Whereas Colorado Springs to the south, does not have such a liberal contingent.  though there are some private Universities there The Air Force Academy, Focus on the Family and more mega-churches than you can shake a stick at pretty much dominate the political climate in those parts. Now we come to my town - Fort Collins the jewel of Northern Colorado. Smack between Denver and Laramie Wyoming, Fort Collins is balanced town with just as many patchouli-drenched organic farmers as there are wrangler wearing country folk. Home to Colorado State University it is not uncommon to see someone donning Carhartts and cashmere.

I have called Fort Collins home for seven years and have watched as droves of bicycle-riding artists and musicians have taken up residence in this high flat sunny place.  The scales of reason have tipped gradually toward the left since I moved here.  Alas, my new home has now been tainted by the schemes of the Secretary of State, Scott Gessler.  Before 2010 it used to be that Fort Collins was the only large University town in its congressional district. I thought this was great as it pulled our representatives more to the center as they had to compromise with the ranchers and farmers of the high plains for a balanced approach to taxes and government programs for the area. But now the congressional districts have been redrawn and Fort Collins is now in the same geographical voting-bloc as Boulder. The powers that be have corralled  all the liberal folks into one big pen. By doing so they have minimized the liberal voice in Colorado. Instead of two slots for potentially liberal congress men or women there is just one.

See for yourself below.       The 2010 districts...

And here are the 2012 congressional districts!!!

Conclusion? Gerrymandering! In my opinion this is unconstitutional discrimination. The repercussions of this redistricting don't just affect Colorado but the entire nation as the new batch of Federal congress people will not be representing a fair cross-section of the American people. Redistricting in order to confine either side of the political spectrum to one geographical area only feeds the negative feedback cycle of political polarization rampant in America these days.

I do not care that the one person, one vote dogma is being followed. The spirit of the constitution is being violated!!!

Colorado Republican "Obama is a N-word"

Ed Haynes spoke these words at a public opinion hearing at Colorado State University in September of 2007. Haynes was responding to a headline that appeared on a college newspaper's opinion page that read "Taser this... FUCK BUSH" I am posting this clip here and now as I saw Ed standing in the bike lane on campus at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO yesterday holding a pro-Romney sign outside the area where Barack Obama gave a speech. Ed Haynes is a member of the GOP in Colorado and I think the words he utters in this public video sum up the just-plain-racist attitudes of many Romney fans around the country right now.

 

Obama visits Colorado State University (Photos)

Power to the people!!! Photo by Kristopher Hite. Creative commons license - feel free to use any of these photos but please give credit to www.tompainesghost.com

President Barack Obama

I took these photos yesterday as I watched President Obama speak to a crowd of 13,000 people on the Monfort quad in the center of the campus at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. He talked a lot about expanding grants and tax credits for college students, not being discriminated against for who you love, and the dangers of a "Romney Doesn't Care" health plan. It made me happy that Obama mentioned the solar and wind industries in Colorado and how we need to re-elect him because "we have a lot more renewable energy to make!"

Photos by Kristopher Hite

Creative Commons license - feel free to use any of these photos but please give credit to www.tompainesghost.com

Ken Salazar - Secretary of the Department of the Interior and former Senator of Colorado

Ken Salazar - Photo by Kristopher Hite

John Hickenlooper - Current Governor of Colorado - I do not like him because of his stance on FRACKing. Thus the photo I choose looks like he is going to the bathroom.

Photo by Kristopher Hite PhD

Photo by Kristopher Hite PhD

Photo by Kristopher Hite PhD

Richard Feynman lectures at Cornell 1964

Big thanks to fellow blogger Jennifer Ouellette for sharing this wonderful lecture on gravity by Richard Feynman at Cornell University recorded in 1964. The preservation of the spirit of great teaching displayed by Feynman is, in my opinion, a testament to the archival value of YouTube.

A Cure for Homeopathy: Critical Thinking

Creationist Cousins

Just discovered this part of the rap guide to evolution by Baba Brinkman. Love the funky back-beat. Bobbed my head the whole time :)

Gay Marriage: Dan Savage debates Brian Brown

Tesla Museum!

Nikola Tesla is one of the most unsung heroes in history. But this week Tesla is finally getting the vindication he deserves through an outpouring of public support. An internet Über-site called The Oatmeal run by a young man named Matthew Inman has raised over $1 million to buy the land where the Tesla's old laboratory once stood. Inman partnered with the non-profit organization Indiegogo, and the State of New York to raise the funds to buy the land in just nine days. The plan is to build a kick-ass museum on the site commemorating Tesla's contributions to science and technology.

But who is Nikola Tesla you may ask? 

Born a subject of the Austrian Empire in 1856 Tesla came to the United States from present-day Croatia in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison. A slender man with a well-kept mustache Tesla brought with him his wild eyes and sharp mind filled with ideas that would change the world. Michael Faraday had only recently formalized the concepts of electromagnetism while Tesla used these ideas to build motors that could generate alternating electric current from any kind of turbine. 

Though it was his early investigations into wireless energy transfer that began his career-long mission to bring free electricity to every household on the planet. 

Tesla tried to usher in the age of alternating current, radio, and television with fanfare. However his showmanship as a scientist often made skeptics of his colleagues. When presenting his new concepts he insisted one of his coils be spouting off the visual manifestations of electricity, popping and fizzling so loudly as to make his words inaudible. If his contemporaries could have heard his voice they would see he had an infectious obsession with progress and the idea that the hidden powers of electricity and magnetism could be unlocked to allow humanity to live more easily. 

 

His efforts to realize this vision were thwarted by J. P. Morgan and other financial backers who caught wind of Tesla's scheme to deliver free electricity wirelessly to the public through Tesla's giant telecommunications tower at Wardenclyffe. There was no profit to be made by giving people what the needed freely.

Tesla spent the last years of his life spiraling into madness and obscurity. He did not marry or have any long-term companionship save for the pigeons he fed from his hotel window. He became so obsessed with the number three that all aspects of his life somehow revolved around that number including his chosen place of residence.

Between January 5th and January 8th 1943 Nikola Tesla, like an electron popping out of an uncertain orbital, passed out of earthly existence in room 3327 on the 33rd floor in the Hotel New Yorker.  

The story of this man's life is more magical because of its truth than the most fantastic fiction ever written. I imagine his life as a heavenly existence spent in reality passing time with some of history's brightest stars - Mark Twain, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Edison. His vision for free and equitable POWER (in all philosophical and practical definitions of the word) for every man woman and child on earth has still not been fully realized. But as the internet gains depth and gravity this vision is pieced together slowly and perhaps one day will be complete.

I would like to thanks Matthew Inman for his efforts in raising funds for the Tesla Museum. I hope to bring my grandchildren there one day and I will think back to this particular entry on Tom Paine's Ghost.

Social Injustice: Chris Hedges talks with Bill Moyers