GuvWurld Week In Review

When I get working on logistics, I tend to write less in this space. In the past week I've been focused on gathering info on Instant Runoff Voting, including the San Francisco Department of Elections report (.pdf) on the city's first experience with ranked choice voting. I've also been looking at possible formats and potential facilitators for Eureka's upcoming town hall forum on IRV. By way of an update, there won't be much to say until Scott Menzies and I meet with Eureka Councilmembers Chris Kerrigan on Mike Jones on March 1.

In Arcata, the last City Council meeting had an impressive community outpouring of commentary on the conscientious objector resolution. Wisely, it was only brought forward for discussion, not a vote. The result of the discussion is yet another town hall forum. The No Confidence Resolution was not addressed and I still do not know when that will come out of subcommittee (Dave Meserve and Harmony Groves).

Also worthy of note this week:

• Dennis Kyne has a new article "What happened to the test tube paradigm?" challenging the US military on the obvious absence of testing of Depleted Uranium (DU) before using it to nuclearize American weapons in the field, contaminate exhaustive stretches of foreign landscapes, and poison our own troops.


• With great curiosity and enthusiasm I attended Jello Biafra's spoken word performance at Humboldt State University. I credit him with being well informed and for being ruthlessly honest. I was disappointed that he focused on current events and recent history without offering insights on what to do in response.


• Without becoming obsessed or even drawn in, I've taken notice of the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story lighting up the blogosphere. The corporate media is starting to pay attention. Still, I wonder if we've learned how to use such scandals to produce change, applying pressure on those maintaining indefensible positions (aka The Tilt Strategy). It also occurs to me that Gannon and the other propagandists recently revealed to be working for corporate media while on the government payroll make good examples of the dark side of advocacy journalism.