Volunteers sought

 

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.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2012/08/28/gabby-mercer-middle-easterners-only-goal-is-to-cause-harm-to-the-united-states#.UD1jPshk55s.email

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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 at http://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!

 

Reminder to Council Member Romero

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:

Council Member Regina Romero

Ward 1—Westside/Southside/Downtown

940 W. Alameda St.

Tucson, AZ 85745

Phone: (520) 791-4040

Fax: (520) 791-5393

Email: ward1@tucsonaz.gov

Revisiting John Kromko's RTA initiative.

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:

Big new project in the works!

Here it comes!

I've been awfully quiet for a long time now because I'm well underway with Exist Kind's most exciting project yet and I wanted to keep it under wraps until it got well underway.  Video production is a very large part of my work, but it's not always the centerpiece.  Projects such as this sometimes take center stage for a while.  If you want to cut to the chase, scroll through and watch the rough-draft video clips I've inserted throughout this long blog post.

It goes without saying that the cost of gasoline is starting to break the bank for a lot of people and it's all too common to see people trying, perhaps in vain, to sell their large vehicles that get decidedly poor gas mileage.  People are increasingly seeking out smaller cars, hybrid cars, two-wheeled modes of transportation, and still other alternatives.  I've been thinking that I might be able to put my engineering skills to use for the greater good and build small electric vehicles for people as a non-profit service to the public.  I've experimented with this kind of project in the past using scooters, but some research revealed that people are choosing golf carts for their electric-vehicle experiments.  Some of the techniques they've used are very similar to what I tried with the scooters, while others are very different and, truthfully, less innovative.  My scooters also featured "turbo" switches to provide quick bursts of extra speed (in addition to the high speeds I built into them).  These were made possible by the special cooling system I developed.  After one too many trips to the grocery store in my pickup truck, I decided that it was time to revisit the old scooter idea on the slight bigger golf cart scale.  A complete golf cart will be enclosed, climate-controlled for use in all weather, completely street-legal, move at regular street speeds, and have a cooling system to enable it to travel across a large city without the various batteries overheating.  I've read up on what defines a street-legal golf cart and will incorporate the parameters into every cart I build.  Because of the ease of charging and building one of these, it will be able to be much more economical to many people than a full-sized electric car.  People can still maintain their regular cars for long trips or work purposes while driving one of these carts on small errands.  Later, I want to be able to convert gas-powered vehicles for people, again at a much lower cost than they would have to pay for a factory-built or converted car.

Now, to tell you the actual story of what I've been able to accomplish so far along these lines.  Back on Cinco de Mayo, Beth and I made a small road trip up to Waddell, which is an unexpectedly agricultural area between Goodyear and Surprise.  Why the random trip to a random part of the West Valley on a day when everyone out there was partying?  Well, I'd had the good fortune of finding an excellent deal on a used golf cart that was very much intact and just about functional while still being very inexpensive.  I looked around and couldn't find anything approaching that deal any closer to home.  So we drove up to Goodyear, picked up a U-Haul trailer, and found our way to a nice lady's ranch where we chatted for a while and loaded up her old cart.  Since then, I've been working hard to turn this little ranch runabout into a very legitimate electric vehicle that can be driven on the streets of Tucson and give us a much-needed break from hauling around our Dodge Ram at ten miles per gallon of (three-and-a-half-dollar) gasoline.

We're certainly not the only ones in the area with this idea—a family right in our neighborhood doesn't even use a regular car at all, but gets around with their own golf cart.  I've also seen other small electric utility vehicles being driven on major roads in town.  Beth tells me that when she lived in Florida, the residents of the Sun City development down south of  Tampa rarely drove cars around their town but famously got around by golf cart.  What will set my cart apart from these examples, though, is the fact that I am simultaneously building a solar charging station for it that will run on a different kind of solar power: thermal energy from the sun, instead of photovoltaic cells.

Before and After

At the moment, the cart is very close to being ready for registration at the MVD and thus being street-legal and permitted to travel on arterials with speed limits up to 35 miles per hour. To bring it up to code, I've installed new headlights, taillights, turn signals, a hazard-light wand, and a button for a horn that will soon be added for safety. up above you can check out my before and after video clip showing the turn signals. We will have a full featured how to video as time passes so stay tuned. I'll also be purchasing seatbelts and re-upholstering the seats. Soon, I want to enclose the cab and add a couple of climate controls for comfort in all kinds of weather.
                                                                                                                                   
Before beginning to add the street-legal features, I had to take a couple of important systems apart to ensure that they were in good condition and working properly.  Look at the effort I had to put into inspecting the brake system: The lugnuts had apparently been previously put onto the hubs with an impact wrench, so it was, at first, a rather troublesome time removing them.  After some work on them all was well with the brakes, though, and I was reminded to avoid impact wrenches when doing my own vehicle maintenance! You can check out the short clip below to see part of this. Of course we will be putting together a detailed how to video documenting all this.

Inspecting and Reworking the Brakes

After ensuring the functionality of the brakes, it was time to show other motorists that they were working--that is, connect them to the taillights.  It's quite a simple concept: I cut a hole in the brake pedal, inserted a switch, and wired the switch to the battery that is connected to the brake-light portion of the taillights.  When stepping on the pedal, the driver can't miss the switch and thus activates the lights. Also as part of that effort there was the intallation of the turn signals. The video clip illustration below shows this.

Great Brake Light System!

The cart needs a little bit of basic body work before I enhance it at all, as you can see here:

Saving money and fossil fuel is all well and good, but I feel that it is important to take the electric concept a step further by charging the cart with solar energy.  The destructive method of mining for coal in the Appalachian Mountains known as mountaintop-removal mining (MTR) is a growing crisis for both the ecosystem there and the citizens whose lives are being, honestly, ruined by this method.  The odds are good that my consumption of electricity originates with coal and I am very aware that I may well be benefiting from this terrible situation.  Charging my electric vehicle with the power of the sun thus moves me a step away from the use of not just petroleum, but that other fossil fuel as well.  Of course, solar panels have their environmental impact, too, however well-intended they may be.  Thermal has been known to generate an impressive amount of power but has been overlooked because it's too simple and inexpensive for anyone to be able to trademark it and lock out the Average Joe.  It would probably put electric companies out of business, to be honest.  It's this forgotten or overlooked nature of thermal that inspired me to build a thermal charging station.


The way the thermal station will work is with steam that will be created by heating water with a parabolic mirror.  The light is focused onto a pipe that can withstand moderately high-pressure steam escaping from it.  The steam will escape and turn relatively small DC motors connected in series that will be be about double the size of a man's fist.  The motors only have to have a reasonable amount of amperage and a little more voltage than the battery pack they are charging.  The released steam won't go to waste but will be condensed and collected for reuse to start the process over again.  The parabolic mirror is a "pre-prototype", you could say, and the goal is to have it working for a short time in the middle of each day.  Once I'm sure that it's effective and I've worked out the biggest bugs, I'll build an actual prototype. Check out my video of this concept in crude form. The more advanced version will soon begin.

Solar Furnace Concept is Implemented

Returning to the thought of photovoltaic cells--While I am concerned about their environmental impact and their cost, they still have their utility.  They can be used to manufacture new cells or be refurbished.  I'm interested in collecting secondhand solar cells for my future plan of building more of these enhanced electric vehicles.  I want to be able to provide these vehicles and cells to people at a very affordable non-profit price to give more people a break from having to use their gasoline-powered vehicles and to enable them to charge up without the high up-front cost of solar power that might otherwise prevent them from making the switch.  *I am currently accepting donations of your old solar panels, working or not, to make this possible.*  I am also accepting donations of other related items, such as carts (one has already been donated to us), delivered deep-cycle lead acid batteries, and laptop computer batteries.  Computer batteries are great for powering other electrical systems on these carts, such as cooling, climate control, etc.

To sum up, I've started what I think is a great golf cart prototype that so far, has a range of about forty miles, is designed to operate at the maximum legal speed, contains all of the necessary safety lights, and is ready for the horn to be wired.  Regarding the maximum legal speed, I want to distinguish between what the cart is capable of and what it can legally reach.  It legally must be designed to travel at 25 miles per hour and is not allowed to exceed 35 on any street without the driver being cited by the police.  These are the parameters for all street-legal golf carts of this class.  After mine becomes legal, it will be enclosed and climate-controlled, have its cargo space increased (likely with a detachable trailer), and have a cooling system installed so that the demands I put on the electrical system won't strain it, such as maintaining speed on steep hills or using one of those turbo switches I mentioned earlier. You can see it still in its early stages here yet it is very fun to drive and has a very long range for what it is and zips right along.

Here it Comes!

As I continue my research and experimentation, I am increasingly really looking forward to using similar methods to develop enhanced full-sized vehicles converted from gasoline to electricity as I am developing a greater understanding of this comming bup with plans on how to make such things more obtainable to those who would otherwise feel it is out of their reach..  I'll use some the same concepts as on the golf carts, such as design, cheaper ways of acquiring and fabricating parts, and soliciting donations.  This way I can provide very viable electric vehicles to car owners who would like to switch, even part-time, to electricity but otherwise couldn't afford to.  I want to see lower-income citizens be a part of the movement and hope to extend financing to people who want to purchase them and the accompanying charging stations.  I feel strongly that hybrid cars are not a real answer, nor are all-electric vehicles that depend on charging through conventional means.  The electrical grid actually wastes much more energy than it makes useful to consumers, so I want to do my part to move the world in the direction of hyperlocally-generated electricity (i.e., in one's own backyard).  If the vehicles catch on, people will be inspired to increase their use of solar power in their homes and businesses, which will greatly reduce the materials needed to build houses and transportation.

"Animal Teachings From Hayley's Angels": A book to make the world a better place for animals and people.

Please share this link with your networks, such as Facebook, or other social networks that would appreciate it.  Thank you kindly!  Please see the accompanying video below.  This video depicts the 2011 "Caring For All Animals" event hosted by Hayley's Angels, as well as an overview of the work of Dr. Joanne Lefebvre, DVM.

How can we live in greater harmony with ourselves, our animals, and the world around us? How can we communicate better with our animals and improve the quality of life for all? What happens to people and animals when when we die, and how can we focus on the quality of the death experience as well as the quality of life experience? These are some of the questions Joanne asked in her book Animal Teachings from Hayley's Angels Methods.

When it comes to communicating with animals, I offer this example from my own life: My dog Velvet recently came barging into the bedroom, lay on the floor, and refused to leave. Velvet has free reign of the most the house and the backyard but not the bedroom. If it were up to me Velvet would also have free reign of the bedroom too, but relationships always require agreements that meet the needs of everyone. So with this in mind, not only did Velvet barge into the bedroom, but she refused to leave without me leading her out by the collar. While Beth was asking why this was happening, I realized it was because Velvet was telling me that she badly wanted for us to take her on a run. She had not been on one for a couple weeks and the weather that day was ideal for it. We were short on time, but I agreed with Velvet to take her on her walk. In exchange, I wanted from her a quick bath first because she spent some time rolling in the dust and was covered in dust and dirty. She wanted to run out in the Rillito riverbed but because of time constraints, we took her to a nearby area where she and Jane Doe, my other dog, could be let off the leash for a bit. After letting off some steam, the dogs were happy and good, and they didn't try to come and occupy the bedroom. The kind of animal communication that Joan speaks of in her book is along these lines.

She also speaks of controversial issues such as birth control for animals and people, medicine, living for a better world, and many other fascinating subjects. She advises people to know the personalities of the animals in their lives and recognize that many pets' behavioral problems are actually caused by humans. She even touches on the idea that people and their pets often show striking similarities in their ailments.

Joanne also seems to blend humanism with animal rights, two concepts that are too often more like and oil and water when in fact, both are necessary. She believes that taking good care of our animals is a major ingredient in the improvement of society. It is good to love both humans and animals. I can say that I've seen animals teach people lessons of compassion, caretaking, and other valuable living skills. I've also seen communities judged by how they treat their animals—some serious food for thought.

Hayleysangels.com hosts fundraisers for worthy causes, as well as helps the community in humanitarian, environmental, and animal causes. That is why I am asking you to share this link with your friends, as you will be helping Hayley's Angels help your community. Hayley's Angels does this in a well-rounded enough way that some part of it will seem worth your while. So, help get the word out and take a look at this video we put together for her. Joanne is definitely on to something that deserves our attention.  You can find her at the following contact information:

Dr. Joanne Lefebvre, DVM

hayleysangels@yahoo.com OR hayleysangels@hotmail.com

www.hayleysangels.com

West University neighborhood is getting stepped on and your neighborhood is probably next.

 Please pass the link to this blog entry around Facebook or other media because Tucsonans want to be able to build their own city without outside developers or the city government displacing them without their input!

As it turned out, once the petitions were submitted to the City for review, more than half of them had to be rejected due to a small technicality.  It was only long after the City reviewed the language and format of the petition, then accepted it, that it finally told WUNA about this technicality.  What happened was that some fine print had been omitted from the documents: 1) The right of a signer to look through the text of the entire petition before signing.  2) It is illegal for a person to sign more than once.  Petitioners knew enough to say these things to signers, but they needed to be in print to be legally binding.  Now, once WUNA found out about this, they made certain to correct these problems and then continued circulating the petition.  It didn't help those signatures that were rejected, though, and they had to be thrown out.  When I was at City Hall for the review, I observed that the officials who did the reviewing and made the announcement came across as rather sympathetic to the neighborhood's situation.  They apologized and acted as though they didn't want to have to reject the effort.  Interesting ... I hear nowadays that as time passes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for petition efforts to be successful because our elected officials seem to be increasingly opposed to grassroots political efforts from their constituents.  How anti-democratic!  This particular situation in West University isn't just limited to the one geographic location, either.  Other historic neighborhoods are and should be concerned because it opens them up to possible rezoning and veritable destruction, and the people will have no autonomy over their own living space.  The good news is that I'm also hearing that City Council has been receiving a good number of disgruntled phone calls about the results of the petition effort.  So, if you are inclined, I ask you to please assist with this call effort by contacting your respective city council member.  Follow this link to see a list of council members and click on your respective council member to get their contact information. Also, to see this event in action please watch the video below.

Thanks for reading my blog and supporting grassroots democracy.  We can expect to see more action taken by WUNA in some way and I'll be sure to update the blog as I find out more and continue to help.

Repeal the Main Gate Overlay: What's Next

The West University Neighborhood Association, along with a few other adjacent historic neighborhoods, ended up collecting almost 12,000 signatures for their petition.  The total amount of labor involved came to about 2,000 man-hours distributed among over 100 volunteers, most of whom turned down offers of payment for their legwork.  These data were announced on Thursday, March 29th at El Presidio Park next to City Hall in the presence of members of WUNA, other neighborhood associations, and other concerned citizens.  Someone also suggested that a coalition of neighborhoods be formed to give more of a voice to residents.  After all, if the City Council thinks it can just ruin a perfectly good historic neighborhood, evicting residents from their own houses, what's to say that the other neighborhoods like Iron Horse, Pie Allen, or Dunbar Spring would be any more immune?

I'd say that it was a victorious moment for WUNA!

As I promised, I helped to gather some signatures myself and promoted it however I could through my usual media channels.  So far, it's been an educational experience and I'm looking forward to more opportunities to help out.