Fairtax.org

So recently, I sent an email out to a few folk I thought might be financially and politically conservative regarding the Indiana leg of the national Fair Tax group.  One of them emailed back to unsubscribe.  I am assuming he meant from the group, not me.  If me, oops.  Another asked me to further explain, especially as to whether it was worth doing.

On Nov 7, 2009, at 2:23 AM, XXXXXX wrote:

Please explain what this is about. Is it worthwhile? What does it do?

 

Here is my response:
Yes and no.    http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_main

Fairtax.org is really the website you should take  look at.
It is a grassroots organization with people who are fed up with the income tax structure.  Wants to replace it with a national sales tax.  Do away with having to file income taxes and withholding.  If you buy something, you would pay a tax and the businesses would collect and send in the money.  But YOU decide whether you want to buy something, (new, that is.)  Or from a store, for that matter.  Maybe I would rather trade goods and services.   Like if I ever need twine,  I know someone local who has a huge ball of it.  I bet he would sell a bit under the table.

The FairTax:
Enables workers to keep their entire paychecks
Enables retirees to keep their entire pensions
Refunds in advance the tax on purchases of basic necessities
Allows American products to compete fairly
Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
Ensures Social Security and Medicare funding
Closes all loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
Abolishes the IRS

So that is the yes part.

I have been on their mailing and news list for a few years.  Recently, interest has picked up due to the tax and waste Congress and socialist president we have.  *(I should have said socialistic leaning president)

Here is the no, probably, part.  They have started to really get each state organized and are stepping up the use of the Internet.  This includes social networking similar to Facebook, Twitter, etc.  This social networking stuff is how Obama basically got elected via the young voters.  A whole bunch of college age kids got on the bandwagon with his campaign.  He also sent text messages to them to remind them to get out and vote on their cell phones.   Anyway, I signed on with a little more information (not my cell number, though) to their new Indiana segment and invited others I thought might be interested in it.  I really like the idea of controlling my own earnings.   However, the social networking thing is not something I am deeply into.  Twitter is silly, in my opinion.  But there are millions who have taken up with it.  Again, the young people.  They are counting on the young people to change the US from a conservative center right country to a liberal, left country.

Update .36?!?!?!

Now I am hearing it was a .36 blood alcohol content.  And that he said that his imaginary friend Steve was driving.  Geesh.  

But the best, or worst, is that the judge has “reserved” the records at the police departments and the Putnam County Hospital.  I am not sure of the legal term, but people are telling me that it means the records are suppressed, not preserved.

On the other hand, the man was seen driving a wrecker the next day, hauling abandoned cars from around town.  Now they are conveniently located on Main Street.  Again, if it was you or I, our license would have been pulled.  Of course, his license may have been pulled, but “nobody tells him what to do!”  I bet he would tell you his long lost twin Steve was driving.

Oh by the way, the Wednesday police meeting was cancelled.  Guess they figured out how to do their job.

Next Tuesday is the next regulary scheduled meeting.

Bon Voyage, Myrna.  Happy retirement.  We will miss the most consistent bit of sunshine in the window.

Abandoned Vehicle Meeting 3.25.09

When the Council attended a regional meeting last month with the Association of Cities and Towns,  they heard that the number one problem in most of the towns  is abandoned vehicles.

At the last regular Town Council meeting, the Council voted to direct the Police Chief to implement the abandoned vehicle laws.  I understand there are over 100 cars, trucks, etc. that need to be hauled off or licensed or repaired or some combination along those lines.  I recall that Don Sublett wanted to personally tag vehicles over a year ago, but of course, that is not something a civilian should do.   Some people are attached to their junk.

Apparently, the police are reluctant to enforce the laws and there will be another special meeting this Wednesday to address the issue.

Cars are a good start.  Then get the yards and porches cleaned up.

You can go here:  http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title9/ar22/ to read the state law.

.32 Hangover

Wonder what kind of hangover a person gets whose…

         blood alcohol content abruptly drops from .32 to nada due to a forced cessation?  

One must go to the jail and in order to interview the guy whose personal taxi service aka as the Cloverdale Police Department reached him too late, beat out by the Indiana State Police.

It was just a couple of months ago that this same person was taken home by his best buds on the Cloverdale force when the local truckstop called 911 because he was causing a scene.  Now if it had been you or me causing a drunken scene, I bet we would have been arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content  says the behavior and impairment for this level is as follows:

0.30–0.39

Severe Depression Unconsciousness Death Possible

Bladder Function Breathing Heart Rate

If he had caused a death, do you suppose the town could be sued for aiding and abetting aka enabling his behavior due to the prior police actions?

Local Photographer is Recognized

Lori Naanes’s nature photography work is being featured on the cover (and inside, I think) of the 2009 Weather Indiana Calendar put out by channel 13.  Your can see and order it here:  http://www.indianaweathercalendar.com or pick it up at Half Price Book store, which has a new location in Avon.  Looks like lots of statistics on the calendar to go along with the beautiful pictures.  It would make a great Christmas gift.

I met Lori when she worked at the local high school office.  She did a great job there and left to work at Pershing’s accounting office in Greencastle.  Not only was she efficient and easy to work with, she has a very positive aura that helps set the tone in an office.   They need that at the top, methinks.

Lori and her husband live outside of Cloverdale and their kids graduated from CHS in recent years.  Lori has deep artistic roots as her sister, Jeri, is the owner of the very successful Boca Loca bead store, where she is a successful glass artist.  Here is her website:  http://www.bocalocabeadsinc.com

I have been to a lot of bead stores in Indiana and this is the best one.  She even travels the world to buy up vintage beads.  Ooh la la.  I have taken a couple of classes at her shop and they are always extremely professional and helpful.

All My Sons at the Putnam County Playhouse

Tonight was opening night for the drama of the season at PCP. “All My Sons” is a Tony award winning play by Arthur Miller that was originally performed and centered around post WWII America. A good play based on a current event can sometimes win awards. In 1947, most everyone could relate to it in some way based on living through the war and sacrificing, doing without for a common cause. A great play can be performed 60 years later when most of the WWII veterans are gone and many of the children who did without and helped tend Victory Gardens are senior citizens now and yet, new people still “get it”. They get it because the play is based on human frailties and universal themes, such as honor, compromise, greed, etc. I could go on, but that is not the point nor am I capable of writing properly about that right now.

I am still a bit overwhelmed after sitting on the edge of my seat watching opening night of this play. Now considering I already knew how the play would unfold, one might ask why I was on the edge of my seat. I was drawn into the play, into the era, into these people’s lives because of the cast’s masterful performances. I appreciated the powerful words and scenes that the playwright strung together. The set, the lighting, the costumes all contributed to put one in the mood. But this is an actor’s play and they were on it tonight.

The director, Jack Randall Earles, put together a cast of local talent, many of whom could seriously rival professional regional theater. Many of the actors have degrees or are working on degrees in theater, speech, English. A couple of the actors have taught acting at the college level and a couple more in public schools. There were about three college students in the show, including Zippie’s sister. Some of the actors have acted on professional stages in the past. The set, the lighting and the costumes all added to the show, especially the costumes, definitely 40’s styles, including details such as seamed hose.

The playhouse complex is growing and getting better each season. If you haven’t been for a while, realize that is has air conditioning and cushioned seats. You can still get some decent seats for this show. (Straight plays with relatively small casts do not sell out as soon as the musicals). Take a child, a grandchild (yes, rip their little hands off of the video games and tv controls) or someone who has never been to a play before and introduce them to live theatre. The playhouse is one of the jewels of Putnam County. Check out the cast here: www.putnamcountyplayhouse.com

Suzchef’s Potager Garden

A Potager garden is a the French version of an English cottage garden, heavier on the vegetables and more artfully laid out.  I haven’t had a proper garden for years, nor kept up our flowers in town due to the squalor on either side of us-it was too depressing to go outside.   Since we have been homesteading at a new location, there has been so much work to do and never enough time or money to get it all done.  

Last year, my garden was terrible due to the soil.  The top soil had been scraped and saved by Dandy Andy the Bulldozer Aficionado, however it was squished back up around the house by Bobcat Russ, rather than back where I thought the garden should be, because we needed it to backfill around the foundation.  I haven’t given up on last year’s garden location (I have big plans for that spot requiring loads and loads of cow and horse manure and a circular garden to drive around) but I thought I would work up beds around the house for a kitchen garden and till up a field that has lain fallow for five years for the sweet corn.  (360 seeds planted last weekend.  260 for the deer and if lucky,  we might get a mess or two.)  Anyway, I decided that a potager garden is exactly what I needed for my back and side yard.  We plowed it, we “disced” it, we roto-tilled it, we burnt up precious deisel and gasoline.  It rained.  We retilled.  It rained again.  Finally, we tilled up the the last section a third time.   That is where we planted about 40 tomato plants that I started from seeds and about 45 strawberry plants of two different varieties.  The poor strawberries were purchased earlier this year, but had to sit in temporary flower pot beds until a couple of weeks ago.

We did till up the front beds last year and nearly everything my daughter and I planted came back.  It is heavy on perennials that hummingbirds and butterflies like.  Since I got a laptop, I often sit on the front porch in the morning before the sun gets high and enjoy the flora and fauna.

Anyway, I actually saw some potager gardening in Greencastle earlier this summer when my son and I went to a lady’s house for a gourd painting 4H workshop.  Her beds were raised beds secured with boards painted white.  Not what I wanted to do.  A:  I don’t want anything that needs painted, and B: I didn’t want to buy a bunch of boards since we need to buy other stuff for our house and C: I wanted to be able to move things as the garden evolved.  So, I used my flat of baby plants that the Cabbage Fairy delivered to church to delineate my paths for this year.   So, I got my veggies and flowers in.  I figure I have to start some way and I can always switch things up as I add yard art, hardscape, etc. 

BUT THEN… Eureka,  I found it! Right off of the old national road.  These snapshots are off my cell phone, so aren’t the greatest and they do not do justice to the little garden I found when I took my son to a 4H thing in Greenfield.

I had a little time to kill and walked around Main Street, wandered through a public garden (which wasn’t as cool as this little garden-except for the Fairy Garden, more later) and walked back up the alley when I ran into this.  I was so excited, I actually stopped on the way out of town and asked the lady in the yard about the garden.  It was her mom’s who lived on the other side of the alley and she came out of her kitchen, which was another story, since she is a Sous Chef and has a catering kitchen and a green house.  She was so nice to share her experience.  Very nice lady!

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Suzchef’s Potager Garden facing west.  This shows the trellises Suz’s husband made for her out of cattle panels.  They come from the store 16 feet long and are hard to transport.  Bolt cutters cut them into thirds.  Then they attached them to electrical conduit that they used for stakes.  I will find out where in Indy they bought the finials they welded to the top.  They also made nifty tomato cages out of them.  They were three sided and could be taken down and laid flat, but since they don’t really rust, she just left them out.  MUCH nicer than the old fence kind that get bent up and rusty.  

Same garden facing east.  The hollyhock just sprung up, probably from a neighbor as they were at several houses.  When the lettuce bolts, she will replace with the pepper plants she grew from seed.  She gave me one and I planted it tonight in a special place.

 

They edged the path with wine bottles and used them to square off the potager beds which were about 6 feet square.  You can see two of those bottles on the right.  The sun hit them and added interest.  She got her bottles at a restaurant.  The occasional cobalt blue bottles were gorgeous in the sun.  Oh, joy.  I like shiny objects.

A Little Election Humor

Question From Denmark 

“We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?”

 

My brother, a conservative adrift in a liberal city,  sent this, and thank goodness, there was no threat of bad luck if I didn’t respond to it or pass it on. 

Jack Eggers-Mill Creek W. Elementary School

A teacher friend of mine sent me this story by Nicole Cunningham:  you need to click hear for some good news about a good man: 

http://www.leavealegacy.org/DonorStories/donor_janitor.asp

April 3, 2008 Plan and BZA

Meetings tonight.