Blogger Barbecue This Saturday
You may have heard that the Annual Vermont Blogger Barbecue is this Saturday.
Many of you are asking yourself, will Charity Tensel be at that blogger barbecue?
The answer to this question is yes, yes she will.
Hopefully, you will be, too. If you are, be sure to say hello.
It’s this Saturday, July 9, 1-5 PM, at North Beach in Burlington.
Philip has more details and, as always, lots of pics from years past.
Taking a Blogging Break (Here, Anyway)
Today, I received an email about my video in the previous post.
You really sounded very unsure of everything you said on that show, like you don’t necessarily believe what you’re saying (unlike a few years ago).
I was glad to hear this observation because it confirmed my own realization that I had over the weekend. I am not sure of what I am saying like I used to be, and I need to really take some time figuring out where I stand.
I used to have a very thoroughly thought out political ideology, which was always consistent. Even though I faced plenty of opposition and challenges to my points-of-view, the one thing I was never accused of being was inconsistent.
I knew what I believed and those principles guided my views on every issue.
Well, that is no longer the case. I have found holes in my old ideology and I have not taken the time to really flesh out my new ideology. I have just been kind of winging it, and that doesn’t feel right. It also makes it hard to blog and doesn’t really contribute much to the discussion, in many ways.
What I need to do is figure out where I am at, politically.
The problem is that I have too much on my plate right now to do that. I am currently in a coach training program and I have a lot to learn and do, as I start to build my coaching practice.
Part of being a good coach is managing your own life and “walking the walk.” In that regard, I am working on making my life the way I want it, including prioritizing and getting rid of unnecessary sources of stress.
Having this blog out there, but not spending the time to bring it up to the standard of quality I think it should have – and I think you deserve as a reader – has been a source of stress.
So, to get to the point, I am going to put this blog on hold for the summer, while I focus on my coaching and coaching website (still under construction) and Shatter Nicely, my religion blog.
I still want to do political blogging, especially with an election year coming up, but I feel that I owe it to myself and to you to do a good job at it. I just don’t have the time for that right now.
My only regret is that it took doing a crappy job hosting a live show to make me see that! 
Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your support!
Last Friday, I guest hosted a local government access TV show. I talked about a libertarian argument against nuclear power. It was not my most articulate and well-presented local TV appearance, but I just watched the video and it wasn’t as bad as it felt at the time. (I got off track with a couple of calls, said “um” a lot, and ran out of time to make my point, unfortunately, but I touched on the main ideas.)
Anyway, here is the video, followed by some links.
These are the articles that I mentioned (or was going to mention) on the show:
Looking Beyond Nuclear, by Sean Gabb
No Corporate Welfare for Nuclear Power, by Navin Nayak and Jerry Taylor
Nuclear Energy: Risky Business, by Jerry Taylor
I had a caller insist that I didn’t have any facts to back up my opinion that the disaster at Chernobyl caused death and damage to human health. I, foolishly, assumed that it was an undisputed known fact. So, here is an article on MSNBC about the death toll. It seems the actual number is still being debated, but no one is claiming that there were no deaths.
I stand by my opinion that the risk is too high.
To that effect, here is the photo exhibit that I referred to in the video. It puts the reality of a nuclear disaster in perspective, at least it did for me. Just imagine southern Vermont in these photos and tell me that it doesn’t make you think twice about keeping Vermont Yankee open.
The Politics of Morality
Newt Gingrich announced that he’s running for president. The announcement comes as little surprise. Gingrich is scheduled to give a speech Friday that will lay out his platform.
“I think he is going to use language that is aligned with fiscal conservatives but has a truth and appeal to people concerned with moral issues,” said spokesman Rick Tyler.
Speaking of people “concerned with moral issues,” I’m concerned with moral issues. Like this one: I think it’s immoral to use the law to force your values on other Americans.
Newt Gingrich was an early political hero of mine. Say what you will, but the Contract with America was a brilliant political strategy, and many of its points were good ideas, as well.
But, I have no respect for a politician that has staged his comeback by pandering to the social conservatives.
This isn’t because I have become more liberal, a characterization which isn’t entirely accurate, anyway, but because even at my most religiously conservative, I have always rejected the idea that we should ever use government to dictate religious-based morality.
What other people choose to do with their lives is no one else’s business, and if a law has no other justification than “because it’s in the Bible,” then it isn’t a good law.
For a party that claims to be opposed to the government overstepping its constitutional authority, freedom of religion seems to have eluded most of them.
I, for the life of me, cannot understand how anyone can want the government to stop telling businesses what to do, yet at the same time want to tell individuals what they can do in their own private lives.
So much for that limited government we keep hearing about.
My Brief Return to Community Access TV
I was recently a guest on VT Blogosphere TV. If you are not familiar with it, it’s a show on ORCA, featuring interviews with people around the Vermont blogosphere. I talked about She’s Right, Shatter Nicely, and Tenselblog and blogging in general, a little about my religious and ideological transitions, as well as some other topics. The show is 30 minutes and you can watch it on YouTube, below. (I just love the screen shot, by the way.)
In other community access media news, this Friday, May 13, I will be guest-hosting the Live @5:25 show, The Woodchuck Report, right here in Burlington on CCTV, channel 17, at 5:25 PM. That is a live call-in show, so if you are so inclined, tune-in and give me a shout.
Some of you may remember that She’s Right started out as a Live @ 5:25 show back in the day. It will be fun to be back in the CCTV studio hosting a live show, if only for one night.
And, if you don’t live in the Burlington area, don’t worry. I’ll post the video of that show when it is available.
So, as you may have heard, Osama bin Laden was killed this week. There are people calling for the government to release the photos, but President Obama has decided, rightly, not to.
Sarah Palin apparently has a problem with that. Ms. Palin tweeted:
“Show photo as warning to others seeking America’s destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama; it’s part of the mission.”
Show photo as a warning to others seeking America’s destruction?
I almost don’t even know what to say about that. I am so flabbergasted that a full-grown adult human being would think, let alone say, such a thing.
We should publish a “graphic” photo of a man who was shot in the head to warn others of what will happen to them if they fuck with America?
How mature. How diplomatic. How statesmanlike.
Let me just add this to the reasons that Palin Is Not Presidential.
I have a feeling that could be a category all its own, if I didn’t ignore her most of the time.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham agreed, adding, “I’m afraid the decision made today by President Obama will unnecessarily prolong this debate.”
No, Senator, people like you and Ms. Palin, who refuse to respect the decision made by the President of the United States, are what will unnecessarily prolong the debate. It is the president’s decision to make, whether you like it or not. Deal with it.
Just to round this out, and remind myself and others that not all Republicans are batshit insane, Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, agreed with the president’s decision.
“I don’t want to make the job of our troops serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan any harder than it already is. The risks of release outweigh the benefits. Conspiracy theorists around the world will just claim the photos are doctored anyway, and there is a real risk that releasing the photos will only serve to inflame public opinion in the Middle East,” Rogers said.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, also agreed with President Obama.
“No reason to feed this debate,” Fleischer said.
Indeed.
The Dark Side of Nuclear Power
Yesterday marked the 25 anniversary of the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The area near the plant remains a ghost town to this day, and radioactive material is still smoldering inside the concrete containment built after the accident.
I was 10 years old when the incident happened and, having the naivete of a child, I thought that the world had learned it’s lesson about nuclear power – that it is too powerful to be contained by human beings, and we shouldn’t mess around with it.
Yet, here we are watching helplessly as another country tries to wrangle the nuclear monster.
Some countries, such as Germany, have almost unanimous agreement that nuclear must be phased out.
The Fukushima incident has practically silenced all debate in Germany about prolonging the use of nuclear power, which provides 25 percent of the country’s electricity, and put pressure on [Chancellor Angela] Merkel to end nuclear power.
France, on the other hand, is a country with very strong support for nuclear power.
Both the governing center-right UMP party of President Nicholas Sarkozy and the main opposition, the Socialists, are keen to show their commitment to nuclear power. About 200,000 French jobs depend on the industry.
Sadly, nuclear power continues to be a part of the conversation about America’s energy future. Politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that nuclear should remain on the table, including President Obama.
And the current disaster in Japan doesn’t even give pause to champions of nuclear power. The mayor of Massena, NY, Jim Hidy, is pushing for a nuclear plant to be built in his impoverished city.
“In light of the Japan incident, I’m even more confident we should have it,” Hidy says. “The nuclear plant was about the only thing still standing there after the earthquake and tsunami.”
Interestingly, he left out the fact that said nuclear plant is still leaking radiation and the surrounding areas were evacuated, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless.
I have to wonder when we will ever learn that we cannot control such a violent force as nuclear reactions. How many more disasters have to happen before we finally leave nuclear energy in the past? The long-lasting devastation to the environment and to human health is just far too great a risk.
For an inside look at the devastation wrought by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, watch this video made by Gerd Ludwig, photographer behind the project, The Long Shadow of Chernobyl.
Environmental Regulations
I hesitate to call this “Part 1,” so I didn’t, but after I finished writing this, I realized that I want to explore this topic further.
I went to the store today and bought one item, a bottle of Seventh Generation laundry soap. After pointing out that even with my dollar off coupon, it would still be cheaper to buy another brand, the cashier put it into a plastic bag. One item. One earth friendly item, with a handle. Not to sound like an eco-snob, but she clearly missed the point. (I guess that should have been obvious by the fact that she thought I only bought that brand because I had a coupon.)
On my way out to the car, I was thinking about how funny that was. Then, I realized that it’s not really funny. It’s typical, and unfortunate. A lot of people don’t intentionally act in a way that is environmentally friendly. But, beyond that, they don’t even really get why they should or, even, why other people do.
Then, it dawned on me, maybe JD Ryan has been right all these years that I am naive to think people will do the right thing for the environment without it being legislated.
I’m not ready to say that we should make everyone buy environmentally friendly laundry soap or that plastic bags should be banned or taxed. But, I am ready to admit that this isn’t the kind of thing that people will do on their own. There are too many people who just don’t care, or who just don’t think about it.
Protecting the environment is important. Dare I say, our lives depend on it, or at least our quality of life does. If people choose not to do it, it has a negative impact on us all. It’s not hard to make the case that it is the government’s duty to oversee this area. The question, of course, is how much, and what, it should do.
(No, I don’t have an answer to that – yet.)
The Federal Budget, Plain and Simple
Part of the reason that I don’t post on here as often as often as I want to is that I don’t have the time to keep up with the political news and views of the day to the extent I feel I should in order to be a good political blogger. But, I decided, since that doesn’t seem to stop anyone else, why should I let it stop me?
So, let me preface this by saying that I have not really been following the budget talks.
I know there’s some congressman named Ryan who wants to make deep cuts that would affect social programs in a way that most people are not comfortable with. I know that funding for NPR and PBS were at issue. I know that some social cons wanted to make an end-run around the fact that abortion is currently a legal medical procedure, by cutting the funding to clinics that provide abortions alongside greatly needed medical care and family planning for primarily poor people. I know that President Obama said something about raising taxes.
That’s about it. And I got most of that from headlines.
So, what I am about to say is not so much based on any kind of deep analysis of what’s going on, but rather just some observations and opinions about the budget in general. (In other words, I reserve the right to be wrong.)
The way I see it, we have two competing ideas about the government (and this is a broad generalization). We have the people who want the government to do a lot for us, and understand that we need to raise the revenue (taxes) to fund it. And we have the people who don’t think the government should be doing a lot for us, other than defense and infrastructure, and therefore the government doesn’t need a lot of revenue, and people should keep their own money.
The problem is that people have taken what they like from each side, and now we have a government that does a lot for us, but doesn’t collect enough revenue to do it.
Well, that won’t work. That should be obvious, yet it’s not. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that most people don’t really see the big picture, or something.
So, here we are with a large government that does a lot of stuff and low taxes, relative to the size of the government. The result is that we need to borrow money. Every. Single. Month.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know all that. I just wanted to put it out there in simple terms because it illustrates how simple the solutions are. Either stop providing government services or raise taxes, or some combination.
Obviously, I know that the problem is that there is so much disagreement over which of those to do.
But, is there really that much disagreement?
Most Americans want the government to do a lot of stuff. Important stuff, like defense, infrastructure, environmental and consumer protections, providing money to the states for education, health care, and programs for the poor. Even things like art and national parks, things that are not needs, but make the world a better place.
If you ask people, most of them will say that they want that stuff.
The people who don’t want the government to do anything comprise a very small, yet vocal, minority. I’m glad they are vocal. (Or, perhaps, I should say, we, since I functioned as a vocal part of that group for years.) We need that voice as a check on government spending. We need to have conversations about what the government is spending money on and whether or not it should be.
The problem now is, that small minority is getting a disproportionate amount of press coverage. And the people who like what they are saying (lower taxes, less spending) aren’t seeing the whole picture (cut programs).
So, what’s the solution?
As long as we want and/or have a government that does a lot, we need to raise the revenue to fund it. We can’t keep borrowing money. It’s not sustainable, and it’s not good for our national security.
What we really need is for politicians to stop being afraid to lay it out in plain language: if you want these government services, we need the money to pay for it.
I think we could even fit that in a sound bite or on a bumper sticker.
If we want to have a national discussion about what the government should do, I welcome that. But, in the meantime, we need to pay for what the government is doing. We need to live in the present reality, and not the hypothetical or theoretical.
That present reality is that we can’t operate a government of this size, run wars and military operations all around the world, and keep lowering taxes – or even keep them at their current low rates.
This morning’s headlines tell me that President Obama stated as much in his speech.
But, as you know, this is campaign season. So, who knows if it will happen.
I have a twitter account. Actually, I have two, but that’s another story. Anyway, I started my twitter account when I was still blogging at She’s Right. I think my twitter handle at the time was @shesright, but I changed it to @charitytensel, which it still remains to this day.
Since I was still a right-wing blogger when I created the account, I had mostly right-wing bloggers as followers and people I followed. I unfollowed most of the right-wing bloggers a while back because I just couldn’t stand reading their tweets anymore. I kept a few around to stay in the loop.
For some reason, I didn’t get unfollowed by many of the right-wing bloggers who were following me. Probably because I am not a heavy twitter user and my ideological shift went under the radar. Or maybe they like a diversity of viewpoints. Whatever.
But the other day, I found out how to get rid of a conservative twitter follower. Just tweet this: “The nuclear disaster in Japan is heartbreaking and unnecessary, and hits close to home. We need to close #VT Yankee.”
It worked like magic!
I don’t understand why there are so many people out there who are trying to minimize how bad the situation is in Japan. I read something the other day that said it “isn’t really all that bad.”
What the hell does that even mean?
In the context of a nuclear disaster, those words have no meaning.
Could it have been worse? Yes. Could it have been much, much worse? Yes. But that does not mean that it isn’t bad.
The 50 workers – the heroes – who stayed behind to prevent a melt down will likely die from radiation poisoning.
Tens of thousands of people evacuated their homes and will not be able to return for months, if not longer.
Radiation has been found in beef raised near the plant.
Radioactive water has been dumped and/or leaked into the sea, causing the government to issue a health warning for consumption of fish in the area.
The social and environmental impact of this disaster will be felt for years to come. The loss of life will be felt forever. I would not describe that as “not all that bad.”
This is bad.
That’s the nature of nuclear power. It is something that is so much bigger than we can control, yet we, as humans are prone to do, think we can control it.
We cannot.
This is why it matters so much to me that we shut down Vermont Yankee.
I remember when I first learned as a child that we had a nuclear power plant in Vermont. It just seemed so at odds with what it meant to be a state like Vermont. I could not understand why we would risk destroying this beautiful state when there were so many other ways to get power. (And just look at all of the additional technologies we have now!)
I understand the inclination to think that we are safe from the type of disaster that occurred in Japan. We don’t have earthquakes of that magnitude here. In fact, we don’t get much in the way of destructive natural disasters, unless you’re talking about snowstorms. But, as the saying goes, accidents happen.
Many people were shocked that I supported Peter Shumlin for governor last year. The sole issue I voted on was the closing of Vermont Yankee.
But what about jobs and taxes and health care? Those are the things that affect us now, people would argue.
None of those things matter if there is an accident at Vermont Yankee. Our state, as we know it, as we love it, will be gone, possibly forever.
I always found that my main point of disagreement with other conservatives was over environmental issues, so I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised that it would be an environmental issue that would finally sever those lingering twitter ties.
