Light Pollution Reflection / Refraction Number 8

Posted on January 3, 2008

WARNING:

I guarantee my reflections and refractions will create controversy and confrontation; and quite likely I'll step on many toes, but it's time to be brutally honest. So, if you are thin-skinned proceed accordingly--take your hand off the mouse and back away from the computer.

It's Finally Here...

IT'S finally here: Caucus day 2008 in Iowa. The first serious step on the road to choosing your next president begins tonight. No surprise, most Iowans are undecided, so anything can happen tonight! We've forced the candidates to say things they wouldn't have imagined saying at the beginning of this process.

AS I write this R & R (9:30 AM, Jan. 3, 2008) caucus time is less than 10 hours away. The corporate media is already commenting on the C-O-O-O-O-O-L-D, breezy, snow-covered landscape, poking fun at us quirky, winter-bound Iowans. I gotta admit it, we are rather quirky, not unlike New Hampshirans, but no, it's not cold here today. Cold is what happens in Canadia! It's a bright, sunshiny, warm day--the mid-twenties! Iowans are eager to start the process.

I heard from several astronomers who sent e-mails and called the candidates after reading R and R Number 7. However, I did not hear any of the candidates utter the words, light pollution or dark skies, in sound bites last month. I thank every astronomer / nonastronomer out there who did something to put the words into the candidates' brains.

MORE importantly, after tonight's caucuses, you'll still be able to contact the campaigns of your favorite candidates with your concerns about light pollution! The full list of candidate Websites will also remain on my R and R Number 7.

AS a lifelong Iowan and a person interested in the political landscape, I've never seen anything like the last year, especially the last several months. I've never received so many phone calls from both republicans and democrats--at least 10 yesterday alone--and they have already started today!

I could have wallpapered the entire interior of my modest home with all the glossy candidate mail. Overburdened Iowa mail carriers will really notice the difference in tomorrow's mailbag!

TURN on a radio or a TV here in Iowa and you'd be listening to or watching a blizzard of candidate commercials-- sometimes as many as 10 during just one commercial barrage! YIKES! There goes a commercial on my radio right now, coaxing Iowans to fight the spread of corporate agribusiness hog factories by contacting their candidate.

SOME of the most common commercials playing over and over and over and over have been creations directing Iowans to contact candidates with their concerns about particular issues... Hmm, why wasn't the so-called light pollution authority on top of this strategy with a short, inexpensive, effective commercial? Again, must I do everything?

ALAS, everything will end tonight here in Iowa, and tomorrow morning there will be a MASS media exodus from the state via planes, trains, and automobiles, etc. What will we Iowans do for entertainment without candidates to chase about the state, hanging on their every word? Don't say it, I know what you're thinking...

BY now I can't imagine a single Iowan not knowing the names of all the candidates and their positions on the issues. Do you? Shouldn't every American know how their candidate feels about light pollution? Even all 18 million hogs in Iowa must know all the candidates by name by now! Hey, don't diss pigs. They are very intelligent! I know...I know...I can just hear you..."Well, Stargeezer, if they're so blasted intelligent, why not let the pigs pick the candidates, they couldn't do worse than Iowans!" Ouch! IJNE!

SO, will your next president even recognize that light pollution exists? It's all up to you. After the caucuses tonight, I'll post (below) a list of Websites of the top three or four candidates from each party, and you can get busy repeatedly contacting each one of them with e-mails and phone calls commenting on your concerns about light pollution.

JUST swamp their computers and phones with messages!

YES, I know light pollution is not a major issue on the presidential candidates' radar screen right now--except perhaps in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California where the MEGAFENCE is being constructed; but if you don't let 'em know about the issue, I guarantee they'll not know about it and will do absolutely nothing when one of them becomes president...and one of them WILL become your next president! This may be the last opportunity you have to put light pollution into a president's consciousness before it's too late! I guarantee every other group or cause is competing for every candidate's ear!

List of candidate Websites. After the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, Jan. 8th, I'll come back here and make necessary changes. Until then, all the candidates still in the race are listed on R and R Number 7:

Hillary Clinton. D

John McCain. R

Barack Obama. D

JOIN THE DISCUSSION with your own reflections and refractions. Just click on my e-mail address below and have at it! I will not sell or give your e-mail address to anyone. Your reflections and refractions will be placed under the link to the left labeled "Fan Mail - Hate Mail." I may edit comments I place there, but I will be careful to retain your words wherever possible.