Budget remedy
Ruble’s bond still $2.5M
Health officials urge caution vs. uncommon virus
Killer sentenced for drug trafficking
Council talks more about 308 Putnam St.Top Headlines Poll: How much does the enterovirus outbreak worry you?
OUR SYSTEM is most frequently characterized as a dictatorship or, more precisely, as the dictatorship of a political bureaucracy over a society which has undergone economic and social leveling. I am afraid that the term “dictatorship,” regardless of how intelligible it may otherwise be, tends to obscure rather than clarify the real nature of power in this system. We usually associate the term with the notion of a small group of people who take over the government of a given country by force; their power is wielded openly, using the direct instruments of power at their disposal, and they are easily distinguished socially from the majority over whom they rule. One of the essential aspects of this traditional or classical notion of dictatorship is the assumption that it is temporary, ephemeral, lacking historical roots. Its existence seems to be bound up with the lives of those who established it. It is usually local in extent and significance, and regardless of the ideology it utilizes to grant itself legitimacy, its power derives ultimately from the numbers and the armed might of its soldiers and police. The principal threat to its existence is felt to be the possibility that someone better equipped in this sense might appear and overthrow it.
From The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel, 1978
Coal Run’s story
94th House: Newcomer vs. incumbent
Jury convicts Belpre man of assault
Ground broken in Belpre for skilled nursing rehab center
City Council discusses sewer projectsTop Headlines Poll: Do you plan a home improvement project between now and the holidays?
A SPECTER is haunting Eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called “dissent.” This specter has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting. It was born at a time when this system, for a thousand reasons, can no longer base itself on the unadulterated, brutal, and arbitrary application of power, eliminating all expressions of nonconformity. What is more, the system has become so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures.
Who are these so-called dissidents? Where does their point of view come from, and what importance does it have? What is the significance of the “independent initiatives” in which “dissidents” collaborate, and what real chances do such initiatives have of success? Is it appropriate to refer to “dissidents” as an opposition? If so, what exactly is such an opposition within the framework of this system? What does it do? What role does it play in society? What are its hopes and on what are they based? Is it within the power of the “dissidents”—as a category of subcitizen outside the power establishment—to have any influence at all on society and the social system? Can they actually change anything?
I think that an examination of these questions—an examination of the potential of the “powerless”—can only begin with an examination of the nature of power in the circumstances in which these powerless people operate.
From The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel, 1978
Pumpkin time
Devola tie to city’s sewer system discussed
Changes for Ohio deer hunters
City weighs Armory heating, cooling concept
Shirt sale helps fight cancerTop Headlines Poll: How have you been distracted while walking?
This is my exercise in shoveling out the blogpile…
We think we’re making a fresh start when really we’re only adjusting one or two of countless variables.
But there’s a deeper problem: the concept of the fresh start suggests a very bizarre notion of the self. It implies that you can “stand back” from your personality characteristics, nominate some of them for change, then set to work. But, obviously, we are those characteristics; they define us. The self doing the work is the self being acted upon. This needn’t mean change is impossible – clearly, it isn’t – but it makes things vastly more complicated. It means we’re inescapably implicated in what we’re trying to leave behind, and it makes the idea of a fresh start highly suspect. Start Where You Are is the title of three different books on happiness, but the real point isn’t that you ought to start where you are; it’s that you have no option: you are where you are.
Oliver Burkeman writing in Fresh starts for The Guardian.
Civil Forfeiture is one reason why we need judges like Jennifer Brunner…
Also:
Stop and seize…
Government self-interest corrupted a crime-fighting tool into an evil…
And, the kicker:
Auditor’s sale
New anti-drug program
Local firm bids to drill under the Ohio
Churches organize blood drives
Insanity verdict for W.Va. woman charged out of chaseTop Headlines Poll: Are you getting more nervous about Ebola reaching the Mid-Ohio Valley?
Some have been complaining that Ohio 95th District State Representative Andy Thompson is being treated “unfairly” by his opponents. At least one local writer has labeled such critics as “Marxists and communists.”
Thompson is one of several Republican office-holders elected in 2010 on the basis of their promises to create jobs and restore economic stability in southeast Ohio after the 2008 economic meltdown. What has has done to fulfill his promise?
Apparently, he has spent most of the last four years promoting a rather juvenile Glenn Beck-sponsored group called the “9-12 Project” which mainly opposes inheritance or capital-gains taxes (not sales or payroll taxes), promotes Birch Society-type stunts, and seeks to abolish nearly all federal programs up to and including Social Security and Medicare. On behalf of another extremist group, the Koch Brothers-sponsored Competitive Enterprise Institute, Thompson has opposed all government oversight of big business and corporate polluters, all forms of public-assistance for low-wage earners, and poor or unemployed citizens. Meanwhile, he has promoted “corporate welfare” for major business interests and corporate malefactors.
Thompson promoted SB-5, the Kasich-sponsored attempt to eliminate collective-bargaining rights that was overruled by Ohio voters in 2012. Andy also was a very visible participant (and perhaps instigator) of the loud and nasty October 15, 2012 protest in Marietta against the “Nuns-on-the-Bus,” a highly-respected Catholic organization that worked on behalf of those trapped by poverty and unemployment. Andy and local GOP chairperson and tea-party honcho Leslie Haas spread the false rumor that these activists were “fake nuns” and were “promoting abortion” (this was untrue). When the event later went “viral” on YouTube, it caused much embarrassment for Marietta and the entire area.
Andy’s most-recent stunt has been his 2014 sponsorship of HB-597, a bill that started as an attempt to eliminate Common Core standards from Ohio public schools, but (since CCS only pertains to math and reading standards) goes far beyond that effort to dictating what can or cannot be taught in science, literature, and history classes in all Ohio schools. This bill promotes “creationism”, removes “controversial” figures like Dr. Martin Luther King from history textbooks, and (in Thompson’s original version) eliminates most “non-English” authors (i.e. Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Franz Kafka) from Ohio literature classes.
But what about the “creation” of living-wage jobs for Ohio workers? It seems that Andy has been too busy with his far-right ideological interests to concern himself with such “mundane” matters. Thompson earned his money the “hard way”. He inherited a bird-watcher magazine from his industrious dad.
On November 4, send Andy Thompson back to the birds.
This is my exercise in shoveling out the blogpile…
The subtler problem is that we tend to think about habit change wrongly. (I’m not talking about physiological addictions.) We get trapped in a paradox: we want to, say, stop watching so much TV, but on the other hand, demonstrably, we also want to watch lots of TV – after all, we keep doing it – so what we really want, it seems, is to stop wanting. We’re mired deep in what the Greeks called “akrasia”: deciding on the best course of action, then doing something else. The way round this, says Newby-Clark and others, is to see that habits are responses to needs. This sounds obvious, but countless efforts at habit change ignore its implications. If you eat badly, you might resolve to start eating well, but if you’re eating burgers and ice-cream to feel comforted, relaxed and happy, trying to replace them with broccoli and carrot juice is like dealing with a leaky bathroom tap by repainting the kitchen. What’s required isn’t a better diet, but an alternative way to feel comforted and relaxed. “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken,” Dr Johnson observed gloomily, but maybe by looking at the problem differently we can still, Houdini-like, slip out of them.
Oliver Burkeman writing in How long does it really take to change a habit? for The Guardian.
Octoberfest: It’s a wrap
That time of year: Schools offer tips on avoiding illness
Belpre VFD celebrates 80th
Blessed are the animals
Paying it forward: Coaching takes dedicationTop Headlines Poll: Have you cranked up the heat yet in your house?
Some years ago when Tim Hagan challenged Rep. Mary Rose Oakar for her Congressional seat I advised voters, “Hold your nose and vote for Mary Rose.”
Mary Rose would accept any support she could get from anywhere. Beside the ditty amused her. She got a good laugh.
She won re-election, too.
Now I would advise any Ohio voter to do similarly for Edward Fitzgerald for Governor of Ohio. Just do it.
Why?
Because of the other guy, Gov. John Kasich. As with Oakar-Hagan, it’s a matter of who will do you less harm.
Kasich has proven to be a sly Republican. He’s acting moderate. But he no less a right-winged Republican. That means someone who will reflect the needs of the powerful not of the needy. Don’t fall for that nonsense Continue Reading »
[T]here’s something jarring about being told, say, how to manage your time by someone who spends their life immersed in time-management systems: the rest of us don’t have time to live like that, which is kind of the whole point. Or take the pop-psychology cliché of discovering your “life purpose”. This might be a valid notion, but the people recommending it are almost always coaches and authors who’ve decided that their life purpose is helping other people discover their life purpose – which seems, somehow, like a dodge.
The blogger Ben Casnocha calls these people “meta-careerists”. “The best advice on networking will come from someone who is not a professional networker,” he writes. “The best advice on entrepreneurship will come from someone whose entrepreneurship is not selling books and workshops about entrepreneurship.” And it’ll be harder to obtain, because they’ll be busy doing whatever it is that they do: true masters are rarely persuaded to write books about their field. My local chain bookshop has a display table dedicated to books on how to write—“So You Want To Be A Writer?” it says, on a little sign—but I’ve never heard of any of the authors. Which is, surely, an issue.
Oliver Burkeman writing in True masters will rarely give advice about their field for The Guardian.
She showed up three days after my 59th birthday and I’ve been burning through more than 1,000 words a day since. My current novel, Absent Son, passed 50,000 words last Monday and I’m rapidly closing in on 200 pages. Clearly, willowy and alabaster are for slackers.
Via Oglaf… Warning! Very NSFW…
There are, however, no guarantees…
Local News
Belpre VFD celebrates 80 years
Pioneer Day
Capito, Tennant to debate
DNR seeks public help with invasive species
Woodcraft opens first Tool Box storeTop Headlines Poll: Do you believe the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is capable of regaining trust?
Powered by Wordpress | Design by Ash Haque
XHTML Strict | RSS Entries
