I pretty-much eliminated margarine from my life nearly 30 years ago when I first became aware of the info a reader recently cited to me about it. Sad, isn't it, how some (very bad) things just seem to go on, and on, and on with no apparent end in sight... I mean really, from my (aged) perspective, stuff like this -- which has a devastating effect on ALL of us -- *should* be 'old news' by now in that our own FDA *should* have banned the production of margarine, aluminum cookware, growth hormones in dairy cattle & chickens, etc., etc., and so on, long ago...
 
But you see, this has not happened because the system is 'corrupt'... and I do not mean this necessarily in the 'evil-people' sense, but more in the way the term is used to describe certain types of technology failures wherein the 'programming code' gets corrupted (scrambled) by, for example, a power fluctuation -- as with what happened to my computer systems last week --- which are by the way now working fine and better than ever (yea team)!!!
 
So you see, the corruption of my systems -- though inconvenient -- was not a 'terrible' thing, but more like a simple and common risk that comes with the territory of life in the virtual world.
 
An analogy which, I might add, carries through to the 'real world' of day-to-day democracy in more (detrimental) ways than margarine, and is in fact at the bedrock of the issues we address now, about which I humbly note that I personally see this whole thing from the perspective of having been doing 'the nice thing' -- politely 'sharing accurate information' -- for over 30 years and by my perception throughout that time things have gotten exponentially worse...
 
A statement I must qualify in that to fully appreciate my sentiments here you must know what specifically I think has 'gotten worse'... and in a nutshell this is our (we the people) digression from 'the highest law of the land'... aka: Constitutional Law.
 
That is, we have abandoned the whole concept of personal liberty that this nation was founded on --- that our soldiers have over the last 200+ years given their lives to ensure --- and I am (perhaps like our patriotic forbearers) old and tired of speaking politely with people about these things, all the while watching things get worse...
 
And frankly, these people who hold elected office *should* know this better than I do. They each one have taken an oath to uphold and enforce the Constitution... yet in the same breath they violate every tenant inherent thereto in the (false) name of 'law & order'...
 
The system is corrupt and --- like my now 'working perfectly' computer --- some of the 'code' needs to be re-written... but it is NOT going to be re-written by the people who are 'in power'... as with the American Revolution, the new code is going to be written by those who hold the tenets of liberty dear... sacrosanct above all else.
 
And if that means digging out some dirty laundry and putting it in the face of 'the public' so they can see what their own apathy/laziness/arrogance has wrought (because they have been 'too stupid' all these many years to think about things like margarine or liberty), then I'm all for it. Because to my mind (and I make a clear distinction here between what I personally want and what The Committee is 'all about') -- and more importantly to the tenets of the Constitution -- it is a crime to make it a crime for a person to grow a plant.
 
Being totally upfront about my personal agenda, however, it must also be noted that it is clear to me as a marketing professional who wants to do everything possible to turn the evil tide of despotism I have seen sweep across my country over the past 30 years, that the strategy now on the table, inclusive of the public forum this autumn, is the best strategy to build credibility and momentum for The Committee so that ALL of these various 'honesty in law enforcement' issues get resolved.
 
As to the alleged 'guilt' of certain individuals who stand accused of alleged crimes... are you aware -- and I say this with utmost humility and respect -- that to a true and devote upholder of the Declaration of Independence which plainly establishes that we each are endowed by our Creator with certain 'unalienable' rights which cannot be 'repealed' by 'government' -- that to condemn a person as guilty before that person has been tried in a court of law by a jury of his/her peers is to commit an act of treason...
 
And I understand from several conversations that some folks do not necessarily 'believe' that what the Declaration of Independence or Constitution have to say is 'worth' anything in today's world... thus I would ask, what do you believe in? That is, what are the 'rules' we can agree to as a society that will make things fair and equitable amongst ourselves, especially when one of us feels we have been wronged...???
 
Because Michael Kelley and Joe Honea and Loren Reeves have been wronged. Their liberty has been violated by a system that is corrupt. This is self-evident by measure of our IMBUED (aka: sacrosanct, inviolate, Creator-endowed) rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as guaranteed us by the highest law of our land. 
 
And of course these folks have jumped on the bandwagon, clamoring for HONEST law enforcement... but the fact is that they should never have had to have a bandwagon to jump on... and the only reason there is a bandwagon is because 'the system is corrupt'... which means that somebody has to write 'new code'.... and again at the risk of redundancy, there is no way this code is going to be properly re-written by those who are entrenched in (and rely for their paychecks on) the system. Thirty years of polite/informational stumping has proven this to me beyond a shadow of a doubt... and as when my computers crapped out last week, I am tenacious now that it must be fixed...
 
PS: I shared the above note with a group of friends on March 17, stumping for people to attend the VBC Quorum Court meeting last Thursday (March 20). For those who care about civic well being, you will be interested to learn that I -- the (alleged) brigadier of Pollyannaism -- was evicted from said VBC Quorum Court meeting under threat of police escort; dressed-down and dismissed by 'the man' like an indentured servant accused of 'talking back'.  Stay tuned for details... ~Christine

snow, snow, snow....
There is a special quality to snow that fosters gleeful sounds; squeals in young girls as they are chased by snowball-tossing gutturally-grunting young boys; a quality unmatched by the heraldry of angels.