Both the Electronic Freedom Foundation and MoveOn present contact tools opposing Congress's recent reauthorization of Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. (MoveOn's contact tool is actually a petition.) If you're looking for inspiration as to what to tell your cowardly Congressperson, look no further than The Onion. Congress actually called that steaming pile of dung the "Protect America Act." And Democrats will still think the reason they only pick up half a dozen Senate seats in 2008 is that they're not enough like Harold Ford. Whatever their next move might be, their names now occupy the annals of infamy.
The FCC will decide soon whether to approve the sale of Verizon's landlines in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to FairPoint Communications. Terrific, you say, that Verizon wants out of three states? Well, the problem is the company they want to sell to -- FairPoint, based in North Carolina, will have to add almost $2 billion in debt and will watch its access lines increase sixfold and its employees increase over threefold. Starting to sound like a recipe for disaster? Some say that Verizon ought to have the right to sell its property to whomever it likes, as long as they don't break laws. But some are cruel and heartless and would feel a bit abandoned, I think, if they were in an otherwise underserved rural area and their phone line (or cable line) were on the fritz and the company maintaining the lines were trying-their-best-but. In other words, the rights of corporations to manage and dispose of property must bow before the public they serve. Unionvoice provides the petition.
Creators Syndicate has hired David Sirota to write a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column, and maybe you'd like your local newspaper to carry it. You know, to balance out all that Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin. Carrying David Sirota (whose Working Assets blog can be accessed via my very own blogroll, on the right) wouldn't be like adding One More Liberal to the editorial pages. First, you don't find that many liberal columnists in the papers anymore. Second, Mr. Sirota lives in the midwest and keenly observes midwestern populism, which you might have thought died out or something. In other words, this is a niche, a hook, call it what you will. I bet you can get contact information for your local newspapers better than I can. When you do contact your local paper, be polite and respectful, this once, and if you're stumped for what to say, Creators Syndicate has posted a short bio of Mr. Sirota, which also links to a handful of his recent columns.
(Hat tip to Idiozeitgeist for that Onion link.)
Comments