John Dilbeck Musings

Randy Burnett, non-partisan candidate for the Cherokee County NC School Board, has opened a new website that contains information about his platform, a survey, blog, photos, and other items of interest about the candidate and his campaign.

It is nice to see a candidate not only presenting information, but also inviting feedback.

Hopefully, other local candidates will create an online presence, as well.

If you know of any other 2006 election campaign websites for candidates in Cherokee County, NC, please leave a comment and I’ll point to them, too.

Voting isn’t just a right, it’s a duty.

At this point, I don’t care who you’re voting for, just that you vote. Sure, I’d like for you to agree with me and vote the way I do, but we know that this is going to be one of the closest elections in the history of our country. There are big issues at stake and you have to decide for yourself if our country is heading in the right direction or if it needs to make a big change.

I don’t feel a need to tell anyone who I’m voting for. I will vote in about three hours and I think that is what is important.

If I were a betting man, I’d be willing to bet that we won’t know who our new president is 24 hours from now. However, most of the other races will be settled. Governors, senators, representatives, judges, school boards, and many, many other offices will be decided in the next several hours.

Don’t let anyone take away your right to vote — including yourself.

Go vote.

It’s your duty.

Here I am, again, working alone in my office in the middle of the night adding some new content to my newest website at AYearFromNow.com and I just noticed that today is September 11.

In that moment of realization, my mind’s focus switched immediately from 2004 to 2001.

I had to stop for a few minutes and think back to that morning three years ago when I was sitting right here working on a website and the hosts of the Today Show announced that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

I didn’t get any work done for the next several days as I sat glued to the TV watching the tragedy unfold. I didn’t feel like working. I didn’t want to miss any of the evolving news. We grieved for those who were lost and raged against those who were responsible.

It was a day that changed the focus of several nations and the actions we took as a result — for good or bad.

For months, and even now, we watched the stories of those who were affected and that affected us, too, although to a lesser degree.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, stop a moment and reflect. Think of those who were lost. Think of those who worked so hard to help.

We came together for a few weeks and now we’re more divided than ever.

It’s a pity.

If we came together once as a response to a threat, why can’t we cooperate and work together because we are much more similar than we are different? Why do we need a common enemy before we can be friends?

Why do we like to be divided?

Why has it become a national sport to tear apart the reputation and try to assign the most cynical intentions to anyone who steps up and tries to be a leader in our country? Why is it not enough to vote for someone with whom you agree or vote against someone with whom you disagree? Why do we, instead, choose to revere one and demonize the other?

What do we gain?

As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that working for ya?”

The Junk Science of George W. Bush, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration–aided by right-wing allies who have produced assorted hired guns and conservative think tanks to further their goals–are engaged in a campaign to suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since the Inquisition. Sometimes, rather than suppress good science, they simply order up their own. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging, censoring and blacklisting scientists and engineers whose work threatens the profits of the Administration’s corporate paymasters or challenges the ideological underpinnings of their radical anti-environmental agenda. Indeed, so extreme is this campaign that more than sixty scientists, including Nobel laureates and medical experts, released a statement on February 18 that accuses the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific fact ‘for partisan political ends.’”

[The Nation]