T-Day aftermath

Well the holidays are over and I had a good but tiring time and am not looking forward to my first full week of work since October. Tonight I plan to sleep early early early. So sleepy. More later.

Transit Crisis

Time to write your legislators and make them fund mass transit. Well that is what I did anyway. The letter (pretty simple and unedited, but these guys aren't rocket scientists either) is below. If you need to know who your state legislators are try http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm.


November 17, 2004


Mario J. Civera Jr.
State Representative
232 Long Lane
Upper Darby, PA, 19082
United States of America

Dear Mario J. Civera Jr.,

Subject: Funding for Mass Transit

As one of your constituents, I would like to express my encouragement that you vote in favor of Governor Rendell’s plan to raise $110 million for public transportation throughout the state. Dedicated funding is needed for public transportation to allow them to plan and grow. I agree that SEPTA may need to be mandated to do some restructuring, but the best way to go about requiring that is not by cutting off their funding. I think the minimal extra taxes on tires, emissions tests, vehicle-rental tax and drivers records are a good way to pay for the needed dedicated funding for public transportation throughout the State. This bill serves to especially benefit my neighborhood and your constituents who live here, which I chose to live in specifically because of the benefits of mass transportation.

Sincerely,
Justin Dula

Proud to be a Millennium American

In the past week I have seen two bold statements made by Delaware County Communities. The first is that “Tinicum Township Students are Proud to be American”, which is a banner above the door of their gym. The second is an outdoor mural stating that, “Springfield Welcomes the New Millennium” which also shows what I can only assume to be a Springfield resident riding a brightly colored rocket into space. I’m sure these areas went through and asked each and every student how they felt about the new millennium/America and came up with these unanimous results. As much as I would like to think there is a depressed Goth kid at Tinicum Township schools or someone who is afraid of the Y2K bug living in Springfield, I now know that is not the case. Now THAT is democracy in action.

election aftermath

How are you holding up? I'm pretty disappointed. I suppose I was right about Pennsylvania, but I really didn’t think people would be excited to vote for Bush everywhere else. I’m very frightened by the Sunday morning talk shows and the talk of how the Democrats will clearly have to move to the right if they ever want to win another election. There is something seriously flawed with our “democratic” system if 59,054,087 people can rule the remaining 293,027,571 people living in this country with an iron fist and almost completely disregard their opinion. The Democratic Party was already Republican Light as far as I was concerned and now they may give into pressures to move even farther to the right. It is a sad state of affairs that comes with a two party system. Unfortunately, now isn’t the time when people will give in to calls for a fairer voting system, what with it working so well for them. A good website for information is www.fairvote.org. Oh well, what do we do now?