How To Support The Troops

One week ago today, before Christmas, the Santa Barbara city council unanimously passed a resolution calling for an end to combat operations in Iraq and withdrawal of American troops. The room was celebrating the accomplishment.

Perhaps there can be "Peace On Earth, Goodwill to Men." Consider this event part of a growing national groundswell. Our county seat has joined more than 300 other cities that have passed similar resolutions!

In fact, in June, The annual U.S. Conference of Mayors was held in Los Angeles and passed a "Bring Home the Troops resolution." (See page 200.)

According to the Santa Barbara Independent, "the (Santa Barbara city's) resolution was crafted by Councilmember Das Williams and Mayor Marty Blum, who are hoping it will persuade the State Legislature to enact a similar proclamation, which, in turn, will increase the pressure on any presidential aspirants seeking to win the hearts and minds of California voters in the state primary this February."

California cities and counties that have passed a resolution to end the Iraq War or a similar Peace Resolution:

Alameda County, Arcata, Berkeley, Coachella, Davis, Los Angeles, Marin County, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Sebastopol.

Will this energy soon spread to Lompoc, Santa Maria and cities in SLO county in 2008? (San Luis Obispo's city council passed an anti-war resolution in January of 2003.)
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Morninglory Music Moving On

Just browsing the online Lompoc paper and this news hit me. Now there's no place in Lompoc I can visit and check the old and new music CD's and discover something great.

Morninglory Music on H Street is closing at the end of the year. I will miss the place.

Don't tell me "there's always Wal-Mart!" Yes, but it will be a cold day in you-know-where before I set foot in one. Got my reasons.

I first heard Jimmy Eat World and The Verve at Morninglory Music. The clerk must have had some extra sensory perception that these tunes would get me to buy the disc.

There's still a thrill in holding the little package, liner notes and graphics. Can't do that with an intangible mp3 file, but what the hey. If I really need the "strolling down the aisles" fix, I'll drive down to the Morninglory Music main store on State Street in Santa Barbara.

There's enough volume of record buyers to keep that store alive. And that will have to be enough for me.

Late Note: July 21 the Daily Sound reports the sad demise of the Santa Barbara Morninglory store on State Street.

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What The Lompoc Grinch Sent To The Dump

This is an estimated $4550 worth of new bunk beds, sitting sadly at the Lompoc dump.

Thirteen bunks and 26 new mattresses were donated to the Bridgehouse Homeless Shelter in Lompoc a day before Thanksgiving.

Godsend? For some reason, the shelter management decided against using them and sent the items to the landfill instead.

What were they thinking? They don't need the extra beds? Single cots are better than bunk beds?

In an effort to actually learn more about this, I read an editorial in the Lompoc Record. "If outsiders are given free rein to attempt to micromanage shelter operations, the community will have failed in its mission to help the less-fortunate among us." Oh really?

Apparently the bunk beds, similar to what's in use at other shelters on the Central Coast, were just not in their plan for the area's homeless. For church ladies to decide to make a donation and drop it off is characterized in the editorial as an "attempt to micromanage shelter operations."

Would a donation of a case of toilet paper be treated the same way?

What's the hubbub anyway? Ask Liann Noble, a county child welfare worker and one of the people who gathered the donated beds from PXP, a major oil company on the Central Coast. PXP uses these kinds of bunks for their crew in the offshore oil rigs.

Whether the shelter needs any new beds really wasn't why they refused the gesture.

Last year, Noble attempted to stay overnight to learn more, firsthand, about the actual homeless shelter conditions. She used a fake name and was recognized and later fired. Since then, she has won two appeals of her case and is waiting on a third appeal.

The full story is in this week's Independent. It's amazing how a personality clash, can interfere with an attempt to help single moms and their families have slightly more comfort and more privacy within the facility. For whatever reasons, these families are homeless.

If you want the Noble "was harrassing us" angle, here it is. It still appears to be a matter of "attitude" from where I sit in little old Lompoc.

Does improving things at the shelter make it more of a "country club"?
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New Radio Ownership: Less Local Morning News!

Hello, dear reader. Yes, it's been some time since the last post.

I was waiting for something big locally to happen. Like when El Dorado Broadcasting actually took over KVEC and the other broadcast outlets they bought from Clear Channel some months ago.

The new owners of KVEC 920 AM, have officially taken over and less than a week later, changes have been made.

Last Friday, 11/30, the word came down:

• News Director King Harris is history.
• Program Director and morning news sidekick, Ben Greenaway, also gone.
• 6am -9am weekdays will be filled by the Laura Ingraham show.
• General Manager and two other employees also cut loose.

Details here. Would it be a good move if King were to "anchor" the morning news on San Luis Obispo's Air America station, KYNS 1340 AM?

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MoveOn Who?

After two weeks of being hammered in the headlines, whaddya know?

More than two-thirds of the American public (67%) does not know or have an opinion about MoveOn.org, according to, ahem, Fox News' own polling.

The progressive lobbying organization has been doing just fine lately, where it counts: with money donations and membership growth.

Due to controversy surrounding the Petraeus newspaper ad, MoveOn has reportedly seen a spike in its membership and its fundraising, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Here are some questions and answers about how MoveOn.org operates and how it and others direct money to political candidates.

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Telephone Polling The Central Coast

Just received a call that quizzed me in a "survey" of voter opinions and attitudes. That's what I'd call it, and I played along with this 20-minute exercise to learn who was behind it.

I also learned how little I know of state politics when quizzed on certain names. Later, I found how crucially important know who is who can be. (The following are linked to essential public records information.)

Do any of these names sound familiar to you? Tony Strickland, Jim Dantona or Hanna Beth Jackson? What can you tell me about candidates and potential contenders for California's 19th State Senate District?

Not much, eh? Yeah, about as much as I knew, too. But this phone call, a polling survey, served to wake me up a good deal. As a progressive, I have been looking to make a difference on a local level and now I may have found another opportunity.

And of course, you already know what I think of our pro-torture, congressman Elton Gallegly.

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The Power Of One MoveOn Ad

Today, the Dave Congalton program (920 AM) is scheduled to interview me about MoveOn. I will freely say that I'm a member of this 3+ million member, grassroots group. I'll tell Dave what I know of the organization and how it operates. Guess it's time the so-called Main Stream Media (tm) deal with actual facts for a change.

Here is the text of the MoveOn newspaper advertisement as published in the New York Times, September 10th.

General Petraeus or General Betray Us?

Cooking the Books for the White House

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, "We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress."

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That's because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don't count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you're shot in the back of the head--not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we've been there. We'll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won't hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won't hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

Amazing how one newspaper ad can cause the US Senate to spring into action. Did they set a troop withdrawal date? Oh no. Our own California Senator, Dianne Feinstein, plus Senator Hillary Clinton and others voted to condemn the ad from the grass-roots organization, MoveOn. Time spent to memorialize their opinion instead of doing something substantial about the Iraq mess.

Telling the truth hurts. In a newspaper ad, in a Senate roll call vote and when that dark telegram arrives with the news of another young soldier killed in action.

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Net sources for the facts:
MoveOn history and activities (Wikipedia.org)
MoveOn's Comment on Petraeus Ad
News reports citing facts stated in the Ad

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