The target was 100,000. But volunteers across the country blew past that goal by early afternoon yesterday. New goal: 200,000. The result? More than 300,000 calls in one day! All in support of the health care reform this country needs so badly.
And Monterey County Democrats were part of it. When health care reform is achieved, people like these callers will have the quiet, lasting satisfaction of knowing they helped make it happen: “I think the overwhelming message with yesterdays calling was gratitude. People still want to talk about their health care stories. Many are so grateful that the Democratic Party hasn’t given up this fight. We kept hearing thank you, thank you, we know you are in a battle, so thank you for fighting for me.” – Teri Short “My story is of the woman who just lost her job and has NO insurance of any kind.This has happened to several of her friends also. We were just about crying at the end of her story. After I told her about the Public Option she was encouraged and hoped Obama would follow through.” – Ed Weinstein “I was calling people who were registered Democrats, but not known to be supporters of health care reform. Everyone I reached was incredibly happy to hear from me and glad to take action. All were strong supporters of single-payer healthcare, and also very willing to support President Obama’s current reform efforts. They expressed a desire for a healthcare system that is more responsive to the needs of patients and their families rather than to the needs of corporations and shareholders.” – Liz WardBetty Moon: “I Get High”
What a blast to see this after all this time – I didn’t know Betty ever made a video of it. My brother Owen Critchley wrote the song (Betty added some new lyrics) and I was the arranger and played the guitar parts on the record. The video is of Betty and her band performing to the track.
Four schools fixed, six to go
I’m happy and proud to see this story from the Monterey Herald. Four elementary schools fixed, six to go, thanks to the $90 million Salinas Measure A bond campaign in 2006. Rick Rivas and I did the communications, Gary Karnes did the field organizing, and the school district staff and parents worked really, really hard.
Alisal completes repairs at four schools
Four down and six to go.
As Alisal Union School District administrators and teachers on Friday celebrated the renovation of four schools, ridding them of mold, Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas announced plans to begin the process of fixing six more.
“The good thing is that the state started issuing bonds again,” she said. Teachers and students of John E. Steinbeck Elementary gathered in the balloon-decorated cafeteria to mark the conclusion of the school’s repairs, almost three years after contamination was first discovered in four of its classrooms.
Micaela Leal, 11, still remembers when she and her classmates first felt the impact of mold. Her classroom in 2006 was not one of the contaminated ones, but the portable units brought in to house the students from the affected rooms covered the basketball courts and much of the space available for recreation. “There wasn’t any room to play, and we had all this noise — sawing and drilling,” Micaela said. “It’s a lot better now. It feels like fourth grade again.” …
Measure A, a $90million bond, was approved in 2006. At the time, the multipurpose rooms of Bardin, Alisal, Jesse G. Sanchez, Virginia Rocca Barton, Fremont and Frank Paul elementary schools had been shut down because of water intrusion. Those rooms have never reopened and they still need repair, Zendejas said.
“This is urgent for us and we knew that the classrooms were priority and that is why we fixed the classrooms first,” she said…
By CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS
Herald Salinas Bureau
http://www.montereyherald.com/search/ci_13477942
Warmer, Fuzzier – The Refreshed Logo
via nytimes.com
A great peek into the thinking that goes into brand identities, and a real indicator of how times have changed: companies used to want to look like authorities, and now they want to look like friends.
Google Wave Preview
via wave.google.com
Tim O’Reilly: “Jens, Lars, and team re-imagined email and instant-messaging in a connected world, a world in which messages no longer need to be sent from one place to another, but could become a conversation in the cloud. Effectively, a message (a wave) is a shared communications space with elements drawn from email, instant messaging, social networking, and even wikis.”