About: A Guest Commentator

Web Site: http://

Email: clarksville@clarksvilleonline.com

A Guest Commentator's Articles:

Ted Talks: Karen Armstrong - Charter for Compassion

April 15, 2008 |

 

As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions — Islam, Judaism, Christianity — have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion — to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Spirituality | No Comments

 

Simple measures could make big difference in gas consumption

April 14, 2008 |

 

Gasoline prices have hit a record high, which has prompted a public outcry for the government to “do something.” Federal and state officials can do much to reduce gasoline consumption, and in turn, the price of gas, by implementing existing regulations and enforcing laws already on the books.

The key to success is to work with, rather than against, motorists. With this in mind, there are several opportunities to reduce gasoline consumption, without resorting to rationing schemes or heavy-handed price controls:

• Synchronize Traffic Signals - In 2003, the City of San Jose, California started to coordinate its traffic light system. By altering the timing on just a third of the city’s stoplights, traffic delays were reduced 33 percent and average travel time was reduced 16 percent. The city also estimated that this project significantly reduced fuel usage - saving approximately 471,000 gallons of gasoline each year.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments

 

Ethanol: great politics, ineffective energy

April 5, 2008 |

 

Corn Ethanol is becoming the Iraq war of energy policy. A policy based on lies, that initially won supporters political advantage, is highly destructive to the US, and ultimately destructive to its supporters when the costly truth becomes widely known.

In 2007, 115 US plants produced 7 billion gallons of Corn Ethanol - the energy equivalent of 132 million barrels of oil using about 15% of corn production. While this sounds large, it is tiny in the context of the US economy. This is equal to only 1.6% of the energy from from oil in 2007 used in the US. But the situation is worse than this because it takes 1 unit of fossil fuel to produce 1.3 units of corn ethanol. The net energy produced was only 0.5% of the energy from from oil - while consuming 15% of the US corn crop!

Vast sums of taxpayer and consumer dollars are funding an ineffective solution to the real problems of global warming and energy independence. While the country does not sufficiently fund what can be real solutions. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 3 Comments

 

Lost in Limbo

March 12, 2008 |

 

How the Threat of Eminent Domain Harms Property Owners

An irony of urban redevelopment is that the purported goal of economic development is usually hampered by government’s insistence on retaining the power of eminent domain for a project. Forest City, a developer infamous for its Atlantic Yards dispute in New York, is involved in just such a situation in Fresno, Calif. Fresno decided in 2005 that the area south of Chukchansi Park, home of the city’s minor league baseball team, should be “revitalized.” The next year, the city hired mega-developer Forest City to begin the downtown redevelopment; unfortunately, the very plan designed to revitalize Fresno’s downtown is draining the area of not only its current tax base but hampering other future investments in that area.

Forest City’s plan for the 85-acre South Stadium area, which calls for a new shopping district and 700 new homes, has threatened more than 40 properties with eminent domain for private gain. ¹ «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Issues | No Comments

 

FISA isn’t the worst of it

February 25, 2008 |

 



The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is just the latest salvo in an attempt to install a surveillance society in America. Don’t let anger at the Bush administration and Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) over the NSA blind you to a much larger problem. We need a comprehensive national policy on data collection and its use in both the public & private sectors. Privacy rights and the associated laws must be clarified and strengthened, taking into account the complexities of modern technologies. The wall between government and private industry must also be restored.

Theoretically, U.S. laws and policies restrict the government’s use of dossiers on individual citizens who are not under criminal investigation. President Carter’s Executive order 12036 prohibited domestic surveillance. There are no such laws preventing private companies from doing so, as long as they ensure that specific protected pieces of data (your social security number, for example) aren’t lost or stolen or otherwise compromised. And some people in the intelligence community have been trying to get their hands on that commercial data for years. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Technology | No Comments

 

DAC hosts Doug Halloran’s “Sidetracked”

February 17, 2008 |

 

“SIDETRACKED: Something that causes a diversion from the original subject or activity.” This is the title of a new solo art exhibit by regional artist Doug Halloran. The exhibit opens with a public reception from 6-8 p.m. on Saturday, Feb 23rd, at the Downtown Artists Co-op located at 96 Franklin St. on the square in downtown Clarksville. “Birdland”(at left) is one of the works on exhibit).

Halloran says his choice of exhibit title came about when he was reviewing his finished work.

“I was looking for some kind of common thread but, as usual, the work was an eclectic mish-mash of both photo images and pastel paintings; each image had at some point diverted from my original intention. So, I decided to explore this way of working and follow the “something” that led me to a different way of seeing.”

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure | No Comments

 

Citizen concerns, ideas and input “vital” to successful downtown redevelopment

February 15, 2008 |

 

Patsy Sharpe, a downtown property owner, submitted the following letter to Clarksville Online, with the following note: “The Leaf Chronicle is refusing to print letters to editor on the blight issue. They always give different reasons but none are truthfully a good one. I am sending my letter to [Clarksville Online] in hope that you will print what a biased newspaper like the Leaf, won’t. ” The following is Ms. Sharpe’s letter:

I would like to address the upcoming talks on the controversial Redevelopment Plan that blights the entire downtown. The idea of involving the residents and business owners in the affected area is, of course, the only right thing to do. They should have been notified from the beginning and one can only speculate as to why they were excluded, referring to the Emerald Hill and Dog Hill residents. The Brandon Hills and Red River residents were notified. If proper procedure is followed, there will be a series of meetings and discussions on how redevelopment should proceed and all should have a voice in the matter. For the record, we are not anti-redevelopment. We just want redevelopment that is fair and beneficial to the residents as well as to the city. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues | No Comments

 

Your Email action is needed now to ensure verifiable voting in 2008 elections

February 11, 2008 |

 

The most important message to send to TN lawmakers is: We must have paper ballots in time for the 2008 Presidential election!

The house state & local government committee rolled our bill (HB 1256) from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12 – this coming Tuesday. It will be heard at 10:30 in Room 16 at Legislative Plaza.

The senate state & local government committee will be hearing our bill (SB 1363) that same day at noon in Room 12.

We expect (but aren’t sure) that both bills will pass out of the committees. The next stop is the Finance, Ways & Means committee where the members will consider how the bill would be funded. This is where we anticipate the most difficulty.

However, there are reasons to be hopeful «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues | 2 Comments

 

« Older Articles

Newer Articles »