A good cause. For reals!

Ok, so, look: I didn't hit y'all up this year for donations to a charity bike ride. (I was actually entirely too busy to do one of these great rides, which is pretty sad.)

Good friends who operate a really fantastic nonprofit in Alderson, West Virginia, have a fundraising call out. The Alderson Hospitality House is asking for the very small donation of $10. (Well, lots of those, hopefully.)

The Alderson Hospitality House is so warm, so full of kindness and beauty and hope, that it's hard to express in words. I've had the extraordinary opportunity to visit a few times.

I have already donated the full $100, and encourage any of you who can to consider donating any amount that makes sense for you. If you can, match me! If you can't, please give whatever you can.

The Alderson Hospitality House provides hospitality to the families of women incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp at Alderson:

The Alderson Hospitality House supports the women of the Federal Prison Camp Alderson and their friends and families. We believe in the importance of visitors during incarceration. Our volunteers and staff, through donations, demonstrate this belief by providing temporary lodging, meals, transportation assistance, information and support.
Since AHH opened in 1977, there have been more than 50,000 overnight guests from all over the world.  We do not charge for our services, but rely only on the generosity of our guests and friends of the house for operating funds.  We are not part of, nor do we receive any assistance from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, any church or religious organization, any government entity or any corporation.  Our staff, who live and work at AHH, and Board of Directors, who are local community leaders, are all volunteers.

Below is the fundraising pitch for this. As though any more than going through the website is needed. (Really: please go through their website.)

The Alderson Hospitality House needs your help to continue offering free housing and meals to our guests. 

Some of the most important visitors to the House are the children of the women incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp. They come in all ages, all colors, and most importantly, they all miss their mothers. The children travel from all over the country to spend just a few short hours with mom in the visiting room. Our job at the Hospitality House is to make these children feel as comfortable as possible. A beautiful playroom with lots of toys, home-cooked meals, and a listening ear are just a few of the ways we accomplish this goal. After an emotional day of behaving in the visiting room, it is important to let the children play and get their energy out. Our house is here for them during this difficult time.

I need your help to keep the doors open for these children and their families. I have to find 10 people willing to give 10 dollars in the next 10 days. Will you help me out? It's simple. Just click on the link below and click on the amount you are willing to give. Don't wait, click now before the 10 days disappear.

http://www.razoo.com/story/10-In-10

Thanks for your support.

Vote! (I did.)

As longtime readers of this blog already know, I take voting very seriously. Though it mystifies some of my lefty friends, I believe that the franchise is a critical right, and should be expressed meaningfully and thoughtfully by all those who we haven't disenfranchised fucked over.

And since I'm pretty open about it, as I did in 2010, I'm again posting photograph of both sides of my voted ballot for the Alaska 2012 general election:

Some thoughts:

voting thoughtfully is a time consuming process. It once again took me several hours of research to decide how I was going to vote.
I was surprised to find that I actually was okay with voting for the democrats in the US House, State Senate, and State House races, and didn't feel like I was just voting against the republicrats.
I particularly dig the candidate for US House, Sharon Cissna, who is aggressively anti-TSA for outstanding reasons. (And Michelle Scannell is her former chief of staff.)
As for bonds, I'm generally tax-and-spend, but unstated transportation bonds where I couldn't find any clear indication of what it would be spent on? Since it's a decent prediction that that "something" would be primarily to build and improve infrastructure for single passenger automobile transportation, I passed.
A constitutional convention? Ummm, sure? Why the heck not? (This is required by state law to be automatically included on the ballot every ten years.) Here are some thoughts on what a constitutional convention could do (though I'm not at all sure how I feel about a unicameral legislature, which the author advocates for.)
Justice Winfree I was genuinely kind of torn on, and it was a somewhat close call. (I mostly evaluate appellate judges based on their written opinions, especially their dissents, where you get to judge how they really feel about stuff.) 
Judge Bolger sucks.
The real timesuck was researching every single superior court and district court judge, using their applications to the bench, in some cases their reappointment packets, and in some cases, extraneous web searches when this didn't yield enough information.
Turns out it's actually really important to vote on judicial retention in Alaska: judges are regularly retained by as little as 55-60% of voters.

Okay: back to work for me!

15 Issues this Election is Not About

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/24/neither-candidate/

September 24, 2012

15 Issues This Election is Not About

Neither Candidate

by BILL QUIGLEY

Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of the death penalty for federal or state crimes.
Neither candidate is interested in eliminating or reducing the 5,113 US nuclear warheads.
Neither candidate is campaigning to close Guantanamo prison.
Neither candidate has called for arresting and prosecuting high ranking people on Wall Street for the subprime mortgage catastrophe.
Neither candidate is interested in holding anyone in the Bush administration accountable for the torture committed by US personnel against prisoners in Guantanamo or in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of drones to assassinate people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia.
Neither candidate is against warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, or racial profiling in fighting “terrorism.”
Neither candidate is interested in fighting for a living wage.  In fact neither are really committed beyond lip service to raising the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour  – which, if it kept pace with inflation since the 1960s should be about $10 an hour.
Neither candidate was interested in arresting Osama bin Laden and having him tried in court.
Neither candidate will declare they refuse to bomb Iran.
Neither candidate is refusing to take huge campaign contributions from people and organizations.
Neither candidate proposes any significant specific steps to reverse global warming.
Neither candidate is talking about the over 2 million people in jails and prisons in the US.
Neither candidate proposes to create public jobs so everyone who wants to work can.
Neither candidate opposes the nuclear power industry.  In fact both support expansion.

Bill Quigley teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans and is Associate Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. You can reach him by email at Quigley@loyno.edu 

Vegan airport breakfast!

I almost never drink Bloody Marys, but got a wild hair this morning. Sitting at the SLC Sky Club, never my favorite in the system, and now that they've torn out the business carrels, it hasn't improved.

Solid fights from ANC to SEA and SEA to SLC, both upgraded, now awaiting the final fight of today to SMF.

Alaska was... amazing. Beautiful place, great people, great work. I'm thinking i might be spending more time there...

Alaska! North Carolina!

Holy. Shit. Been a long, wonderful, exhausting few weeks. (Month?)

Here is some fun vegan food porn. Feeding some awesome folks. Out of the back of the car. In NC.

Posting from ANC. Damn. I miss Alaska. Like, a whole lot. 

Mat Su glacier

From the top of the Lion's Head formation. It's a good day in Alaska.

Damn, I miss this place.