Putting aside the substance of the legislation for a moment, the whole debate has been a fascinating exercise in political framing:

Using “Right to Work” as a label is a clever and strategic way to frame what the legislation is about.  If you are “for people having jobs,” how could you dare be against their “right to work”? Any critic of “right to work” laws has to try to find some other meaningful label to use for themselves that isn’t derived from the original name, but in doing so they lose some of the attention of voters.  (From what I can tell, the phrase “right to work” was introduced when a group of business owners in the southern U.S. formed the National Right to Work Committee in the 1970s to try to work against union efforts.)

The “Big Labor” bashing that happened last year across the Midwest set the stage for the “Union” label itself to be tainted to some degree in the minds of many voters (“Wait, are those unionized teachers really just trying to squeeze out every last taxpayer dollar while they sit around in luxury doing nothing? Golly!”), and so at least in part because of this association, I don’t think unions have succeeded in being the rallying point for those who oppose these proposals.

A related frame that gets invoked all the time around this legislation is “creating a pro-business climate.”  If you are for “right to work” then you are for creating an atmosphere where businesses can thrive.  If you are against “right to work,” you must hate commerce, capitalism, business and the American Dream.  Of course we know that “pro-business” doesn’t have any particular meaning; someone who traffics in human slaves can say they are “pro-business” but that doesn’t mean they’re operating in the interests of most people.  But again, critics haven’t succeeded in presenting a suitable alternative theme – being “pro-worker” or “pro-living-wage” – and so the debate is framed around whether you are for or against business, period.

Another frame that’s emerged in Indiana is the idea of Democratic state representatives who have used procedural moves to prevent a quorum for voting on this legislation as “cowards” who are “shirking” their duties and who don’t have the courage to just come and vote.  Democrats have argued back that they are trying to stand up for the interests of their constituents, but it’s so effective for Republicans to use the image of “we showed up to do the business of the people and guess who didn’t?” to beat up on Democrats as insolent children, and so they’ve used it every chance they get.

In a culture that generally celebrates “fighting back when you’re being bullied” instead of “call out the bully for the chaos and disrespect they bring,” Democrats haven’t been very effective at calling those fouls.  The closest they’ve come (as seen in e-mails I get from my state rep) is talking about how the legislation was “rushed” and “rammed through” and then about how “disappointed” they are in this “massive mistake.”  By only being against what their Republican colleagues are perpetrating and lacking a frame that everyone can be for, they end up mostly looking like sore losers.

I won’t even get into the “class warfare” against “job creators” being waged by “job killers.”  You get the point: In Indiana and elsewhere, conservative Republicans are dominating the frame game.

If we put aside the frames and labels that polarize this debate, we could see more clearly what’s happening in the statehouse.  We could see a broken system of legislating perpetuated by vindictive, reactive and politically driven agendas that don’t necessarily represent the interests or priorities of voters.  We could see politicians manipulating the fears and relative ignorance of their constituents to go for the quick win in that day’s news cycle, instead of thinking about what’s actually good for those same constituents in the long run.

Even if it passes, the “right to work” legislation has been a failure and an embarrassment for Democrats and Republicans alike.

As a resident and employer here I can say that I think the intent of the bill is unhelpful for Indiana workers and a waste of taxpayer time and dollars to pursue given other more pressing needs.  But more significant and important for me is what the process and framing being used signals about the dishonorable intentions of lawmakers and the foundering condition of governance in the Hoosier State.

You might open a newspaper soon to see an ad like the one at right which appeared in my local paper a few days ago.  It encourages you to “Stand With Main Street” to protest “special treatment” of Amazon.com that allows them to forgo the collection of sales tax on online purchases, resulting in an unfair advantage over “every Hoosier brick and mortar retailer.”  I don’t usually see full-page ads related to Internet commerce in a market this size, so I thought I’d investigate the issues at stake.

The question of taxing e-commerce transactions is a bit complicated to be sure.  If you have a strong and concisely-worded position on it, you’re probably running for national political office, or a Libertarian, or both.

On one hand we can see the clear financial and psychological advantage that an online retailer has with customers who are weighing a purchase from a local store that charges tax against an online store that doesn’t, and maybe offers the item at a slightly lower price too. At the same time, that online retailer may be benefitting from the infrastructure that sales taxes others are collecting help pay for (setting up warehouses, trucking goods around state roads, etc.).

On the other hand, we know that laws around state sales taxation were created prior to the age of the Internet and that the models of online business and affiliate sales have completely changed the way the world does business, and current attempts to rewrite them in order to create short-term bandaids on ailing state economies are probably not in the best interest of business innovation, especially when they favor large retailers (online and off) and send small businesses and people who make a living as Amazon.com or eBay affiliates into a quagmire of tax collection bureaucracy.

(In my company’s work building online stores for our clients, we’ve experienced this firsthand; helping a small business calculate the city, county and state tax rates that affect what they’re selling customers and then keeping that information current can take up a lot of their time.  Services like taxcloud.net are helping make it easier.)

Some states are moving toward “origin-based sourcing” for taxation, where the tax rate is based on the county/state where the vendor selling the goods is located.  This keeps the taxation process simple (the retailer has to know their local rate and doesn’t have to worry about where the buyer lives or what the rates are there) and encourages governments to keep their tax rates competitive for businesses that might locate there.

Indiana is still a “destination” state, where the tax rate is based on where the goods are being sent.  Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, not generally known for advocating taxation, is supporting the move to make Amazon.com and others pay sales tax so that the government isn’t “picking winners and losers.”  But as others point out, the playing field of retail taxation is already off-kilter in favor of big businesses, which get tax credits, exclusions and special pricing that make it very hard for mom-and-pop shops to compete with them.

Back and forth, back and forth.

I don’t have a strong feeling about what direction we should go (hence disqualifying me from running for office), other than that all of this highlights how complex and outdated the modern system of taxation is, for online commerce and pretty much everything else.  When small businesses or people selling used exercise equipment from their basements have to hire tax law professionals just to sell online and be fully compliant, we’re doing something wrong.  I’m not sure the “Stand With Main Street” ad advances the conversation any, but it hopefully encourages more awareness about what’s at stake.

1. Build stuff people want, offer products and services people want to buy
2. Attract and retain quality talent
3. Raise capital to get fledgling ideas to the point of sustainability, create a density of “investors”
4. Create a world class culture that encourages people to stick around even when times get tough

These may not be comprehensive factors, but they could be useful metrics to view your city with.

If I had to rate my own city of Richmond, Indiana, I’d say we have plenty of room to grow in each area:

1. We have a lot of great infrastructure and a variety of desirable products/services but we’re pretty scattered on how to sell them in the global marketplace
2. We think we know a lot about what kind of talent we’re looking for, but there’s often a disconnect between that knowledge and our level of investment in actual attraction efforts
3. We don’t always make efficient use of the limited capital that’s available to us, but we have a lot of generous and heavily invested people living here
4. We’re often short-sighted when it comes to building an attractive culture, but there are pockets of people who see the big picture and are working for change

How does your city do when you look at it as a start-up company?

Perhaps the most striking point for me in Bischke’s piece is the question of leadership.  He says we need more than just strong or experienced leaders, we need people who can think like entrepreneurs:

As we roll into an election year, many cities are in a state of crisis. Budgets are a mess and job growth has been minimal for a good swath of the country. Cities in need don’t just need strong leadership, they require transformational leadership. It’s no easy feat but it’s likely that the more that mayors view their cities through an entrepreneurial lens, the better they will be able to adapt to a rapidly-changing world.

Almost any city across the country could adopt the slogan “Adapt or Die” and it wouldn’t be an understatement of the predicament they’re in and the approach needed to get out of it.  Many traditional businesses are in the same boat.  The businesses/cities that will not only just survive but flourish are the ones willing to use non-traditional methods to make ground-shaking changes in the way they operate.

Recently I went looking for a more sustainable way to shave, so that I didn’t have to throw away as many of those ridiculously expensive blade cartridges.

At some points in life I’ve used an electric razor, which had fewer parts that needed regular replacing.  I suppose you could try to make the case that a really well-engineered electric razor with a long-lasting battery could end up being lower resource usage than the manual razor with cartridges, but as electric razors got more crazy in their design (“buy this special gel-pack that only fits this one model of razor so it can automatically douse your face with soothing chemicals at just the right time!”) it felt simpler – and, okay, a little more manly – to just drag a blade across my face by hand.

But my cheap side cringes every time I walk into a drug store and pay $22 for 10 blades.  My cynical, paranoid side fumes as I see the razor manufacturers invent new models of razor blades that require a different model of razor handle and cost even MORE to buy, while also suspecting that the production quality is only decreasing over time so that the blade cartridges don’t last as long.

And let’s not forget the “disposable” animals that some razor and shaving cream manufacturers use to test their products on.  This is an issue that’s gotten more attention over the years, but there are still companies that perform toxicity testing experiments on rabbits and other animals.  (I recently wrote a letter to Gillette’s parent company Proctor & Gamble that in part asked them to make a more firm and permanent commitment not to test on animals.  I got a generic letter in response that said “Thanks for writing, Chris!  This is feedback I was hoping for…I can’t wait to share it with my team!” – sigh.)  You can find more products on mainstream shelves these days with “no animal testing” labels, if you want.

But back to the razor itself.

I found GFD, a German company that makes a diamond-tipped tungsten carbide razor blade that is supposed to stay sharp 1,000 times longer than regular steel blades, so that’s a great choice to use after you go for a swim in your large vat of gold coins.  (Okay, they’re only $150-$200 per blade, but try getting that to mass market.)

I briefly contemplated not shaving at all, and then looked at some pictures of myself experimenting with growing out facial hair in college, and remembered why that is not going to work.

And then I found what has so far been a magical piece of information in my search for a more sustainable shave:

It turns out that the quality of the shave with a particular disposable cartridge isn’t decreasing over time because the blade is getting roughed up by the shaving process itself – it’s steel, it can probably handle itself okay against hair and skin.  Rather, it’s when water sits on the blade after washing it that you start to see corrosion, causing tiny bits of the blade to flake off over time.  As you can imagine, when the bits that flake off are the blade edge, your shave suffers.

How do you prevent this corrosion?

Dry your blades really well after each use.  Some folks are using blow dryers, some folks just blot them with a towel.  I’ve been using the towel method for a few months and I have indeed seen incredibly extended life from the blades I’m using.  YAY!  Shaving is a little less dependent on disposable things now, and a little cheaper.

I was at a drugstore this week and looked at the packaging surrounding razor blades and handles being sold, and none of them have any instructions about preserving or extending the life of the blades.  Of course, they don’t have instructions of any sort, so maybe this is one of those things that’s supposed to be passed down from generation to generation.  (Or maybe razor manufacturers don’t mind too much if customers buy blades more often than they might otherwise need to.)

I know most of you read this blog solely for my personal hygiene tips, so I hope you get some mileage out of that one.  Next time I’ll cover how to make your own prescription contact lenses using plastic wrap, steel wool and duct tape.

I think straight party ticket ballots generally only do a disservice to Indiana voters.

At best, it enables a kind of impulsive loyalty to a vague label that can mean very different things to different people.

At worst, it facilitates voter ignorance, allowing good candidates to be glossed over while other candidates are voted in based on affiliation instead of qualification.  (I was surprised in my own limited experience as a candidate how many people in Richmond said they thought I was probably a better person for the job than some of those running in their own party, but wouldn’t vote for me because of my party affiliation on the ballot.)  And as Doug mentions, political parties aren’t a concept that the state or federal Constitutions help us navigate very well, so baking them into our electoral process doesn’t seem quite right.

If someone wants to vote only for candidates of a particular political party, that’s fine, but let it be because they’ve researched who those candidates are and what they stand for, and then made their choices well in advance of election day.  And if this change to election law hurts Democrats because Democrats were winning on party loyalty alone, then so be it; that’s a problem for the party and its candidates to take up with voters.

For the moment, let’s put aside the horrifying fact that such a bill was even earnestly discussed or advanced in Congress, or that indefinite detention without a trial of anyone is something we’re willing to entertain as acceptable.  Let’s put aside the disturbing practice of folding fundamental changes to U.S. military and legal policy into what are essentially administrative budgeting conversations.  And let’s pretend that the president didn’t sign such a groundbreaking bill on a holiday, a Saturday when most of the country was known to be preoccupied with celebrating the particulars of the Gregorian calendar.

All those things aside, President Obama still signed a bill that he says he disagrees with.   That’s fine if the bill says that unicorns might exist or that the White House will be painted green; sign it, put it in a file somewhere, work out the details later.  But a bill that authorizes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial seems like it deserves a lot more than the “I don’t like it but I guess it’s what we have to do” treatment.

President Obama tried to reassure us by saying that his administration won’t actually USE these new powers, and that he’ll work tirelessly to change the parts that concern him.  ”My Administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded.”

I don’t know about you, but the times we’ve left the questions of “interpretation” and “implementation” to the preferences of individual leaders seem like the times where we’ve done the most damage to civil liberties or to a national sense of security about the aspects of “American life” that are core to our identity.  In this case, the starting point is that the reckless and dangerous provisions of the Patriot Act from ten years ago have been expanded and then made permanent.  Even if Mr. Obama faithfully steers the entire federal government and military-industrial complex to resist taking advantage of these new powers, what happens when the next president decides it’s not such a problem to lock up a few people — FOREVER — without a trial?

I think the president had on obligation to veto this particular bill.

It was the one option on the table that would have forced revisiting of the discussion about this ground-shaking change with the urgency and attention it deserved.  Now that it’s law, we’re left with incremental attempts to clarify the language of the bill to hopefully do less harm and court challenges that could take years to get to a Supreme Court that isn’t known for its civil libertarian leanings.

Some will say that this is an unsurprising move in a broken political system that already facilitates the amassing of power by a few to the detriment of the ordinary citizen.  Others will say that it’s not such a big deal and that surely in the end it will mostly be used to legitimately and necessarily fight terrorism.  Both of those may be true in some regard.

But for me, it’s a new low for the promise that was the Barack Obama presidency.  For a man who campaigned on such clear ideals when it came to civil liberties and the role of the U.S. Government in protecting and maintaining them, the signing of the NDAA represents a true lack of integrity that no signing statement or philosophizing about “this is the way the world works” can explain away.  There are a lot of wonderful things about the Obama presidency, and there’s a lot of good that’s been done on his watch.  But I can’t begin to imagine how, with decisions like this one, the president will make the case to progressive Americans for his re-election.

Whether it is the 2009 Christmas Eve Senate passage of a huge, and hugely controversial, health care reform measure by Democrats narrowly controlling the U.S. Senate or, closer to home, Republicans and Democrats waiting until after a general election to craft their respective political handiwork, this is the stuff that alienates and isolates the public from those who have sworn to represent their best interests.

Through any such conversation we must of course be sensitive to Mr. Welch’s experience along the way.  I certainly wish him the best in recovering his health, and appreciate the years of time and service he has given to the Richmond community and the residents of District 5.  It’s not easy to be a political figure in the public spotlight even when you’re healthy, and so we know that it must have been particularly hard on Bing and his family to have health concerns and questions about his ability to serve in that role all mixed in together.

But when someone is elected to represent the interests of voters, their own story is not the only story that needs considering.  Calls for privacy and sensitivity are legitimate to an extent, but I think elected officials at any level should be held to a higher standard than private citizens when life events affect their ability to do their job.  When a health issue actually prevents someone from doing the job at all, or from making the case to voters that they should be re-elected, that’s when the interests of their constituents are most vulnerable, and the most in need of the protection that comes from extreme candor and accountability.

My perspective on this is hardly objective – I campaigned for most of a year for a seat on Council and now someone else will be selected after campaigning for part of an evening.  But one of the mantras repeated by candidates in all parties during the recent campaign was that in order to move Richmond forward, we have to be willing to have hard conversations about sensitive topics without taking it personally.   Talking about what’s best for the voters of District 5 and for City Council is one of those conversations, and those who would suggest that we shouldn’t go there because it might hurt the feelings of the Welch family, or who say that a thirst for information should be satisfied by just trusting that the right thing was done, are missing the point.

Make no mistake, no one is suggesting that any laws were broken or that the local Republican party isn’t well within its rights to caucus and appoint a new District 5 representative until the next election.  You could make an argument about what might be more ethical or “fair” to voters, but in this case and many others, “fair” doesn’t necessarily line up with what’s “legal” according to Indiana law or what’s strategic for a political party.  Like it or not, we have to respect that until the law is changed.

But the point the Pal-Item editorial makes (and that I agree with) is that if we want members of our community to feel like their voices matter in the course of electing and working with government leadership, then we must have a higher standard of transparency and communication on the part of those leaders.  If the motivating vision for would-be leaders in a political context is “win a victory at any cost” instead of “do the right thing for the community,” then we’re not going to make it very far as a city.

We don’t know what really happened behind the scenes with Mr. Welch’s health and subsequent decisions by his party about how to handle his seat on Council; their choice was to share as little information as possible, and only when repeatedly asked to do so.  In the absence of the information that should have been forthcoming, we’re left with the appearance that Bing Welch’s health issues were exploited for political gain, and there’s no forward motion for Richmond that comes from that.

It’s also the case that I try to do creative work: building interactive and engaging websites, collaborating with people to find innovative solutions to challenging problems, creative writing, creative thinking, and more.

Sometimes it can be a challenge to do creative work surrounded by pieces of infrastructure that don’t elicit creativity, and that sometimes even discourage it.

For a while now, I’ve been starting my day with coffee or tea poured into one of two hand-made mugs that I bought earlier this year.  The mugs were made by Ben Clark, who is an amazing potter and teacher from Richmond, now living in Cincinnati.

The mugs are still “built” items as opposed to “naturally occurring” ones, but they are built in a way that I can marvel at and appreciate what went into that process.  They are elemental, with the textures and ingredients of their making on display as you use them.  They are a simple and singular result of an inspired creative act.

And so when I start my day with these mugs, I feel a little more connected to the sources of creativity and inspiration that make me feel most alive in my work, and in my life.

For some people, it’s ceramics that have that effect.  For others it’s plants, or sculpture, or art on the wall.

What pieces of your surroundings bring you inspiration and creativity in your work and life?

Most of the media coverage this week seems to be glossing over the significant detail that the U.S. investment in Iraq, in terms of personnel and dollars, will continue.  Instead of uniformed troops from the military, we’ll have 15,000-16,000 people there in the form of other government employees and private contractors.  We’ll be spending almost $4 billion there in 2012.  These numbers are lower than what we’ve been investing, but they are not small numbers, and they still represent a significant commitment on the part of U.S. taxpayers, let alone on the part of the soldiers still on the ground.  We can’t afford to start thinking or talking as though our involvement in Iraq is through.

It also seems appropriate that when we talk about the human life lost in the course of the U.S. presence in Iraq, we avoid artificial exclusions based on nationality.  The story and cost of war is incomplete if you only recognize the count of killed and wounded on one “side” of any conflict.  As we consider this particular milestone, let us reflect on the totality of what has been sacrificed, taken or destroyed along the way.

Even if Eddington’s role as Executive Director of the organization isn’t as dramatic as you’d find in a legal thriller, the need for reduced rate or free legal services in our area has never been greater, and the prospects for funding sources to meet those needs are changing rapidly.

In the past, pro bono legal services in Indiana (including the District 9 office that serves Wayne County) were funded largely through the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts (IOLTA)  program run by the Indiana Supreme Court and the Indiana Bar Foundation.  Basically, lawyers around the state would pool together their deposits from paying clients in a shared bank account that would accumulate interest, and that interest income would be used to cover expenses for pro bono work.  You may have heard that the global economy hasn’t been doing so well in the last few years, and when your bank account interest rate is approximately zero, it’s hard to earn much money on it.  Pro bono offices around the state found out recently that IOLTA funding would cease at the end of 2011, leaving them to revert to the State’s plan for filling in pro bono service coverage: one part time person trying to handle all of the cases across many counties.

“We can do better,” Eddington told me.  The Whitewater Valley Pro Bono Commission, a 501(c)3 non-profit, has decided to try to meet the legal needs of low-income community members in Wayne County through the support of donations and the time and efforts of their legal team and board.  If you’re at 125% of the Federal Poverty Level ($13,612 gross yearly income for a single person), the Commissions’s services will likely be at no cost to you.  If you’re at 200% of that level, your out of pocket expenses are capped at a reasonable amount.  The process starts with a fairly simple application form available at their 712 E Main Street location in Richmond.

The Commission is having a luncheon tomorrow, Thursday December 15th, to share more information about their work and to raise some funds.  They also recently received a grant from the Wayne County Foundation to help keep operations going as they seek out longer term sources of income.  You can contact them at (765) 935-5053 for more information.

I would certainly rather live in a world where access to legal advice that might make a significant difference in someone’s ability to live a happier life (or, more pressingly, keep their home or fight abuse) doesn’t depend on their own personal wealth.  While the court system provides public defenders for someone caught up in a criminal case, there’s no such protection in civil cases, but the stakes can sometimes be just as high. The reality is that people do find themselves in situations beyond their personal control, and sometimes good legal counsel does make all the difference.

I hope we can explore sustainable, long-term solutions for meeting these community needs that don’t depend on fundraising.  But for now, I’m grateful that the Whitewater Valley Pro Bono group is working to meet this need in our community today, and I hope they continue to receive support along the way.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I’m on the board of the Wayne County Foundation which recently awarded a grant to the Commission, and I’m part of an LLC that rents out the office space the Commission uses.)