Campaign Finance Reform
Not supposed to be thinking about this sort of thing anymore, but, in case you are http://www.opensecrets.org/.

Or a whole Yahoo section at http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/Politics/Elections/Campaign_Finance/Reform/

She can't really say that, can she
Molly Ivins rules. Check out her current column at http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

The Unknown, and Laudable, Osbourne
Sharon and Ozzie Osbourne have three children, although you only see two on the reality show. The eldest, I think it is a daughter, has chosen NOT to be on the show.

All congratulations to her. I hope she is enjoying her time out of the limelight. It is good to see someone choosing NOT to get the embarrasment and hyperattention of reality TV.

We have constructed a feedback loop that is very dangerous: we are showing people how to act by these reality TV shows, and we may not be upholding the highest possible aspirations. Be careful what you watch: it influences more than you may realize.

Smart Growth in Kentucky
There is a link to what is going on with smart growth in Kentucky http://www.planning.org/growingsmart/States/Kentucky.htm.

Found via http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/policy.html, a collection of policy pointers.

Suburban Nation by Duany, Plater-zyberk and Speck. Another interesting book. Read it, too.

Points to city- and neighborhood-planning as the source of many problems. The design of the neighborhood has lead naturally to isolation and not knowing your neighbor, since you have to drive everywhere. The wide, smooth arcs and wide streets that allow for easy car navigation naturally let drivers go faster, and people don't want to walk, even if there are sidewalks. Even, and perhaps too far, points to the isolation of the neighborhood as leading to teenage problems: the isolated 13-, 14- and 15- year olds either can't wait to drive, or go wild when they finally can.

Says that zoning in 99% of the U.S. does NOT allow the useful, walkable, mixed development of the classic "neighborhood", with shop owners living over the stores, etc. Sprawl is REQUIRED by zoning. Not any one decision, but a series of small mistakes too us to the illogical extreme. If you require parking for retail, you have to have big parking lots which discourage walking, and you naturally get blots on the landscape of big-box retail.

Adovates use of a "traditional neighborhood checklist", with several pages of suggestions.

Points to Congress for New Urbanism at http://www.cnu.org and Traditinoal Neighborhood Development at http://www.dpz.com.

The Future of Success by Robert B. Reich

Really interesting book. Go read it.

Some suggestions from the end:

• "Earnings insurance" - people who get a sudden, substantial (30%? 50%?) rise in income would pay part of that into a fund. People who have a corresponding bad year (30 or 50 percent loss in earned income) would get some money from the fund, maybe half their loss, to smooth out the shocks in the fast-moving new economy.
  
• "Community insurance" - corporations who want to move to a new location would pay into a fund that would help the old locations re-train/re-tool/recover from the shock.
  
• Invest in education of course, but even further, hand everyone a nest-egg of $60,000 at a certain point (age 18 or age 21), funded by a tax on the very rich. Or, my idea, phase back in the estate tax to create this endowment.
  
• Raise the pay of the "caring professions" (nurse's aides, home health-care aids, child-care workers, schoolteachers, social workers) so that more people will be attracted to those professions.
  
• (Possible danger here- why not allow parents themselves to do this) Create preschools for 3- and 4-year-olds, and create more after-school care for school-aged children.
  
• Encourage businesses to give people more flexibility to care for their children or elderly.
  
• Staying home with a child under three would be subsidized.
  
• Fund schools through other means than property taxes. Perhaps a national net-worth tax.
  
• Break the cycle of poverty by requiring a certain percentage of low-income housing in upscale developments.
  

Three conversations we are currently having (that probably need to be brought together):
1) how wonderful technology is - we are all getting terrific deals
2) the fear of unfettered capitalism, greed of corporations, and global problems (this book was pre-9/11 and pre-Enron)
3) creating balance in our lives