second email sent to petition signers

The second email I sent to people who signed the petition is below. It went out Thursday, September 27 at 5:20 PM.

This blog has been commandeered for

A week ago today, I started a petition on SignOn.org calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to "stop the commercials" paid for by Education Reform Now narrated by Emanuel and spinning the results of the negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union. As of now, the petition has over 8,200 signers. I created a survey for people who signed the petition and 68.5% who took the survey are from the City of Chicago.

SignOn.org does allow me, as the petition creator, to email everyone who signed the petition. However, I know that all people don't want to be involved in every little discussion and decision.

So, I'm going use this blog to keep people abreast of what is happening in connection wit the petition.

preliminary feedback from petitioners on school questions for Mayor Emanuel

Thursday late afternoon I sent an email to approximately 8,000 people asking them to provide feedback on questions for Mayor Rahm Emanuel about issues related to Chicago Public Schools. When I returned home about midnight there were approximately 530 responses.

The following questions got the most positive feedback:

Rahm Emanuel graphic produced by SignOn.org

Are you annoyed by the money spent having Mayor Emanuel spin the teachers strike?

Bradley Manning deserves a monument

In the future, Bradley Manning will be judged a hero. He exposed official misconduct. He exposed lies the government used to justify continuing to prosecute wars. These wars were folly. Manning showed the people the truth.

(I am assuming that Manning was in fact the source that provided Wikileaks with the information the government alleges Manning provided to Wikileaks.)

Society has monuments to people it considers heroes. But usually these monuments have the imprimatur of the government. So, these monuments tend to be skewed to war heroes and the like.

But why can't the people claim this tradition for our own?

I want there to be a monument for Bradley Manning. He took a grave personal risk to expose the truth to the people of the United States and the people of the world.

People who want there to be a monument to Manning should come together and create a committee. Money should be collected and proposals from artists should be solicited.

Batman is Jesus; personal morality is the only hope for society

Today I saw in The Dark Knight Rises (IMDB) at some theater in western Cook County. My friend who leans toward a libertarian outlook and dislikes police saw the movie having a pro-police state subtext. I did not.

I saw the film as being mostly a Christian film. Batman is Jesus. And Bane & company are sort of an evil--or at least frustrated-at-humanity--version of God reneging on His promise to not destroy the world after The Flood.

Batman is the Jesus figure because he understands man's sins, but is willing to sacrifice himself to prevent the destruction of mankind. [Minor spoiler included after break.]

there's a movie about rape and sexual assault in the U.S. military

Last night, at the invitation of the head of the local Iraq Veterans Against the War chapter, I saw TheInvisible War (IMDB, Wikipedia), a documentary by Kirby Dick about both rape in the military and the military's response to rapes in the military. The movie is showing at the Music Box Theater until July 5.

This is going to be a long blog entry. So, I'm going to include an outline. You can skip to the points that are interesting to you.

1. The film
   A. The list of reasons why this is a good film
   B. Who are the “bad guys” in the film?
   C. Congress gets a pass in the film
2. Connecting the film to my military experience
A. I was sexually molested
B. Rape at Navy Recruiting District Chicago
C. M Division on USS St. Louis (LKA-116)
D. Kicking a waitress in Phnom Penh
3. Connecting the film to my activist experience
   
   A. Dorothy Mackey
   B. What could Congress do?

Continued below the fold.