Exist Kind explores all the ways we could, can, and do exist more harmoniously with each other and our environment. A friend of ours once mused that the phrase "Exist Kind" is a term to be used in place of "mankind" so as to represent the value of all of existence. contact me at existkind@aim.com.
For the moment our website is down and the link that leads to the website page is also down as a result, so be sure and check that out again soon. Until then the paragraph below serves as a short overview of that story.
Puppy is a very special dog. Apparently puppy was originally found starved to very near death. Puppy was emaciated and would not have survived but a very short time longer and when given a small amount of food and water puppy passed out in the persons lap who found her. Puppy was restored to good health and became a very happy dog so grateful to be alive. Things took a very bad turn for puppy when puppy was run over by a car and was not expected to survive the night. This is when we raised $4000 dollars in 24 hours to save Puppy's life. This was done in a blatant refusal to have puppy put down based purely on the expense it would take to save her life. In the end Puppy had a amazing recovery not to short of miracles if not indeed so. For at this point in time puppy is expected to live a full and normal life free of pain and need for meds and any thing like that.
We love Puppy and Puppy loves us and life. For this reason we plan on having puppy as a poster child for various causes.
For the moment our website is down and the link that leads to the website page is also down as a result, so be sure and check that out again soon. Until then the paragraphs below serves as a short overview of that story.
Technology is often changing at a rapid rate in various arenas. Of late the technology in battery power, delivery and longevity has increased dramatically in it's ability to deliver this in smaller and smaller packages. Also Electric motors made for the purpose being a vehicular electric motor have increased in their horse power and efficiency dramatically. This is bringing big changes in what is possible and worth doing in the realm of electric vehicles. So now people are just beginning to discover that the large truck is now a worth while and even very desirable endeavor in the world of gas to electric conversion. When one realizes that a major line of thought is that a truck is the best first vehicle for one to convert, the leap of size dose not seem so far.
we have come up with a program for making such a conversion with a large truck. the program includes involvement from the community that will help keep the cost of the truck down. This can be passed down to the buyer and the vehicles can be sold at a price that makes them available to those that would not otherwise be able to afford them. The over all goal is to make and get converted electric vehicles out on the street that have batteries that are most often solar charged, with plug in for back up. Then sell them at price that makes a very sweet package. Thus promoting the whole solar green movement.
Some key points to this involvement is to ask the community to give there old computer batteries to the project by mailing them to us. while this mite bring them a little chunk of change, if they are not short on cash it would be easier for them to mail it than to mess with other rigamorol to properly dispose of them. We can receive them turn them into cash and new lithium batteries. Lithium batteries are the best way to go in such an application.
Also another key point is that there are some successful businesses that get old solar cells from people who have them (broken or unused ones) they refurbish them combine them and sell them as larger solar panels at a greatly reduced price. So reduced they can even be afforded by villagers in Africa.
This process is not so dangerous and dirty as say trying to refurbish lead acid batteries would be.
This brings the goal of the project to bear. by getting the public to help for the greater good in ways like 2 key ways just mentioned often meaning just donating valuable junk, all the while driving down the cost of the vehicle. We will sell a full sized 4 door truck with all the bells and whistle's the truck originally had (though some things will function differently than before) that is also solar charged with plug in back up for under 10 grand. That's 10 grand for a solar charged vehicle that can carry the family and the party. Still carry a large load in the bed of the truck, have a long range and go fast enough to get a speeding ticket on any USA highway. Still enjoying all the luxury bells and whistle's the truck always had plus a few it did not like an on board computer and assist cams. All this while the speeding ticket is being handed to them on the highway. What Fun! What a way to change the concept of tomorrows electric cars and to rethink what we can do with the gas vehicles we have today. Some basic numbers to through around in light of this. I bought a luxurious 1990 one tone ford f 350 for $1,500 to be able to do what is mentioned above it will need 3 or 4 warp electric motors at about $2,000 each then a grand for the satalite devices that go with them like the govoner ect.. Then drive the price down with the donations from the public and drive the price down again with me or a well enabled volunteer doing all the labor. such a marvelous vehicle could be sold for just under 10 grand or so. Even people who have converted such vehicles are getting excited about this project when I share its dynamics with them. So, come along and help me build something great! and as many as possible.
Earlier
I supported the idea of people volunteering for Gabriela Saucedo. I
did this in the light of publicly displaying people I like and what I
like about them even from non partisan political view. Though I will
for sure like one over the other I mostly want all sides competing to
have value, because if they all have value the system is so much more
stable and stronger. Also, every one in the community has a potential
better life for themselves and to offer others. The way to get that
out of a system is to promote it.
Now
I am disappointed in Gabriela’s take on people from the Middle
East. She blanket them as all bad, basically as all out to harm the
united states. She originally seemed very down to earth but then she
started talking about how we should not want any of them here legal
or illegal and she is an immigrant herself. If you think about that
for a minute one realizes how problematic that really is. She should
know better and not be willing to say such a thing for a long list of
reasons.
In
some ways her other statements seemed not down to earth but far from
reality. Paraphrased it was something like I don’t have the exact
numbers but a whole lot of people from the Middle East are posing as
Mexicans crossing the boarder. To the point they are the ones leaving
most the trash so as to harm us. They are most of the Mexican boarder
drug force as well. We should make them all go back to the Middle
East even if they are legal because we don’t want them here they
are all out to harm us.
There
are people who would want to have the same thing happen to her legal
or not. For a slightly different set of conspiracy’s such as a
Mexico is really just launching an invasion on us one. She is
protected by laws of fairness from such blanketing racist acts. That
protection for her is eroding more than she might think and her line
of thinking and saying would only serve to hasten the taking away of
the very laws that protect her.
I
am sorry Gabriela but I cannot ask some one to go volunteering for
those kind of blanketing racist statements. It is just to wrong.
below is my original post.
to
see video clip for yourself visit the link below and scroll down to
clip.
Beth and I had the opportunity to visit the church of a colleague of ours at Access Tucson. There was a social event at which we sat at a table to eat and talk with political candidate Gabriela Saucedo Mercer and her husband. Gabby, as she is known, is running for a representative position in Congress for Arizona District 7 on the Republican ticket. I told her what I do through Exist Kind and showed her my work on the electric car project. We talked about the current state of things in America and the shared desire, regardless of party lines, for someone to be elected to office who truly represents and listens to his or her constituents. Since one of my favorite things to do under the Exist Kind name is to connect movers and shakers with each other and with resources, it seemed appropriate to let her know that I could do so for her. Given what you may know about me and Exist Kind, it may surprise you that I reached out to help someone from a political party that I do not typically vote for. However, I want to maintain some balance in my network and at least hear out what people of varying perspectives have to say, even if I cannot fully agree with them in the end. Thus, I am turning to readers of this blog in order to find people who might be interested in serving as volunteers for Gabby's election campaign.
Take a look at Gabby's website athttp://saucedomercer.com/ and see if she shares your values or those of someone you know. If so, and you or someone else would like some experience with helping a local candidate be elected to represent others with these values, think about signing on with this campaign. There is a link on the front page to volunteer opportunities (http://saucedomercer.com/volunteer/) and being a grassroots effort, I'm sure she can use plenty of assistance. Thanks for your consideration!
Since the dust settled on the last
local election and the temperature rises on the next one, it is time
to remind Tucson Ward 1 councilwoman Regina Romero that a
record-breaking chunk of the vote did not go to her. The people thus
told her that the issues Beryl Baker ran for are important to the
people Romero represents. I feel she must respond to this. She
represents the people who voted for her and her opponent. It is
evident that most of the people who voted for Beryl Baker voted
outside of their party, and they will vote again. Beryl said herself
that if a lot of people were to vote for her, then the issues she
wants to address are as important to them as they are to her. That
is, she would effectively represent the population of Ward 1. Recall
that she received 34.04% of the vote, which may be a loss by a large
margin, but an unprecedented percentage for her party in Pima County.
It would be logical to conclude that such a large percentage would
have to come from more than just registered Green Party
voters—members of the Republican and Democrat parties, other
parties, and independents would have to have also cast votes for her.
Indeed, I have spoken with people coming from various walks of life
who all said that they voted for her.
If this inspires you to contact
Councilwoman Romero, I am providing you with her contact information:
I was driving down Park Avenue in the midst of the U of A campus one day and hit a cluster of potholes that caused a rumbling, bouncing, and bucking that was reminiscent of Armageddon. Indeed, it seems an omen for very bad things to come for Tucson if we don't fix our crumbling infrastructure. In the city's current fiscal condition, one must realize that there soon won't be any money left to make repairs.
John Kromko has some ideas for using Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) funds that were allocated to projects we don't need, based on projections that simply did not come to pass and will not for a long time. These projections were made back in 1987. Instead of waiting for these outdated projects to launch and use up that money, John wants to use money that already exists to fix our streets. He and Kent Solberg said that to fix them, it would cost $68 million and that money simply does not exist to try and meet even half our needs. It is likely to require another round of raised taxes that will actually harm our tax base, which is were the money comes from in the first place. Are you following the logic on that? I'm not.
An example of an outdated RTA project is the widening of Broadway Boulevard. The projected traffic estimates did not come to fruition and to proceed with the project would demolish 115 business and historic structures that are currently add to the tax base for the general fund. This plan would also cost $79 million that the county and city do not have. The bottom line is that there are some planned projects based on projections that, with the many changes in our economy, have completely changed. RTA executive Garry Hays, however, disagrees with this idea. He says there is no way that the RTA monies should be used in any other way than what was planned years ago.
Steve Kozachik has his own plan for the use of existing RTA monies. He says that the RTA has become something that the voters did not choose: a shadow government. He also said that the voters have a right to re-evaluate how tax dollars are spent as time changes. It is not right for the RTA to feel that the taxpayers cannot have a discussion about changing how their tax dollars are spent.
Mr. Kozachik and Mr. Kromko have ideas on how to reallocate money from the RTA to fix our roads. I am sure their plans differ in some ways, but these two very different people with highly different views have a strong common denominator: The RTA has unused money previously allocated to projects that ended up being unnecessary, so the money should be used for the very pressing need for road repair.
As a side note, the streetcar project might have been best delayed until another time because the city and county do not have the money for even simple things like road repair. Also, the streetcar project is too small-scale to actually make any kind of difference in public transportation. From what I gather, it was basically a special-interest deal in which things passed and were allowed to happen as the result of appeasing each special interest. Since it is too late to stop the project with all the tearing up of roads going on, I guess we need to embrace the “Big Toy” and hope that in forty years it actually becomes something that serves the city rather than a mere conversation piece. It would have been nice to have made the Sun Tran bus system into a very good one that serves the city well. I have ridden the bus and can think of a list of things that need to change before it is a truly useful system. Additionally, it's likely that the streetcar construction will stomp out many businesses during these economic times when the broke city needs to maintain its tax base as much as possible. On June 21st, the Arizona Daily Star reported that Sharks Nightclub had closed after being in business for twelve years on Congress Street. It survived the finicky downtown economy, the always-depressed Tucson economy, and the failing national economy, but not the invasion of the streetcar construction. It's probably just the first business to go under during this phase of development.
How will Tucson revive with crumbled roads? How will we attract the vision of Tucson having high-paying jobs, such as high-tech green jobs? Jobs that will enable the children of families living here to actually be able to stay in here after graduating from the U of A and have a living wage instead of the chronically financially-depressed culture we have always had? ou might say, “Good! That will mean less people will live here.” No, I say, if we allow this city's infrastructure to crumble it will mean that more poor people will live here, as has been the case in the past. We will just grow into one big, hulking, impoverished, cheap city. Depressed neighborhoods will become slums and we will get that big-city slum feel instead of the almost town-like friendly city we have somehow managed to hold onto.
Residents from neighborhoods in Pima County have launched a petition demanding that the county fix the dangerous potholes in the roads, but the county says it does not have the money to do so because the city has spent the money from the general fund on other things. This is Tucson's neverending problem. Once money gets into the general fund, it can be spent on anything.
Back to John Kromko and Steve Kozachik's separate but similar ideas on redirecting the existing RTA monies to meet the needs of fixing the potholes. This might make it possible for the city to allow the county to have some of its money back. The problem is that it seems Steve Kozachik is not getting traction on this and is not likely to succeed. I think it is time to contact our elected officials and let them know that we want them to use RTA monies that already exist, rather than hiking our taxes which is unlikely to solve the problem, but rather prolong it with a quick and dirty fix that will not last. It would be good to also tell them that if they can't do it, we the people just might do it with an initiative that, in all honesty, might be better than going with Kozachik's plan because of all of the deals that politicians have to make with everyone to get anything done. This way might cost us a white elephant.
I ask you to consider contacting John Kromko at jkromko@dakotacom.net and let him know that you would like to help him get an initiative off the ground.
If you think about: 1) the full weight of plans that are no longer needed costing us money we don't have, 2) hurting our tax base when we have no money, and 3) the long-range cost of having the most crumbled streets in any major US city—It makes sense to take this very seriously and take action. Our future depends on it. It is more important than a politician holding onto his or her job for a few more years.
Below is the link to a video of John Kromko explaining his initiative during a segment of my show back on March 10th:
