If I've been missing in action here, it's because I spent several intense days in the microcosm:
-- the narrative: 28 year old who grew up here, firefighter, business woman, comp plan committee co-chair running against an incumbent selectman, tea partier, Agenda 21 believer.
-- the team: some veterans, but mostly twenty-something energy.
-- the tool: shared online web database that tracks contact, commitment, voting.
-- what other people were telling us: you know this is just a small town selectman's race, not a presidential election.
-- the results: high voter turn out and Emily beats Clem 182 to 122.
-- especially sweet: Emily being sworn in by her dad, the meeting moderator.
-- how to motivate people to vote: show them the Agenda 21 quotes.
-- fun event: gathering at noon to elect Don as moderator (he has been moderator for over 20 years).
-- more data: the document that shows who voted comes out in a few days; that is what really tells the story.

I'm reading Michael Schermer's The Moral Arc breezily as if it were a novel instead of a sciency summation with sentences like this: "Beccaria was an early game theorist applying rational principles born of Enlightenment values and observational data from real-world examples--with an end toward tilting the motivational matrices to incentivize the citizenry to commit fewer crimes." And I think it is all about the font that the Kindle reader suggested I use: Bookerly. It's like my visual slide across the page has been greased and I grab whole sentences faster. Also the width of the Kindle Fire reader in portrait mode is ideal for grabbing text chunks, better than the iPad. The book itself is a joy. I love his analysis of an episode of Star Trek:

In an episode of the original Star Trek television series, titled "Arena," an alien species called the Gorn attacks and destroys an Earth outpost at Cestus III, leading Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to give chase to avenge the unprovoked attack. Spock is not so sure about the aliens' motives, and wonders aloud about having "regard for another sentient being," but is interrupted by the more martial Kirk, who reminds him, "out here we're the only policemen around." Their moral quandary is interrupted when both ships are stopped by an advanced civilization called the Metrons, who explain, "We have analyzed you and have learned that your violent tendencies are inherent. So be it. We will control them. We will resolve your conflict in the way most suited to your limited mentalities."
...
The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, invented a genre unto itself with the creation of the magnificent starship Enterprise, whose twenty-third-century mission was to expand humanity's horizons, both physically and morally, via extraterrestrial interactions with the starship's interracial, transnational, trans-species mixed crew . Each episode was both intrepid space adventure and thoughtful morality play, and many episodes explored the controversial issues of the age-- war and conflict, imperialism and authoritarianism, duty and loyalty, racism and sexism, and how humanity might handle them centuries hence. Roddenberry made it clear that one of his goals with the series was to smuggle onto TV allegorical moral commentaries on current events.

The solid-state drive in my Asus Zen ultrabook has experienced a sudden untimely death. In looking around to replace it, I find the best-rated ultrabook (13.3" screen, 2.5 lbs) is the new Asus Zen which is now faster and better and costs half as much as I paid last time. It is so well-rated that I have to get in line to have one shipped to me.

Two things have happened in the last few days that make me realize how people can view things very differently. First, a few days ago just after dark, a pickup truck hit an Amish hay wagon, knocking over the wagon, horses and people. The driver was an 83 year old man without a driver's license and from a nearby town. He didn't realize he had hit the wagon and just kept going. He was charged with a hit and run. The Amish wagons usually have some lights and reflectors but the hay could have obscured them. The comments on the article are what's interesting. For me, "unlicensed driver" says it all, plus driver who is not alert to know when he's hit a big hay wagon. Get this guy off the roads. But a lot of commenters blame the Amish, as in roads are for cars, not horses and wagons.

Second, at the selectmen's meeting last night, Penny suggested that unplowed driveways in the village would make it difficult for the fire department to get to a fire at the homeowner's house, and that letting a house burn because the trucks couldn't get to it would endanger the houses that abutted it. It was suggested that maybe we needed an ordinance requiring that houses in the village be required to plow enough snow away for fire truck access. Penny's thought was not for the negligent homeowner but for the surrounding buildings that would be endangered. The discussion on that idea was classic common good vs individual property rights.

Another thing that people disagree on locally is the role of the town in supporting non-profits who provide services to the needy in town. The needy include the poor, elderly, abused, and mentally ill. To my mind the most efficient way to provide that help is to give some money to those organizations in the town budget. Others think people should donate money privately, like that would ever happen.

Everyone agrees that our property taxes are too high and we can see that the mill rate will go up again this year. The reality is that the drivers of our rising taxes are above town level and out of our control: school district costs and cuts to revenue sharing by the state. We have no control over the school budget and our embarassing political accident of a governor wants to get rid of revenue sharing altogether. Cuts to service-providing non-profits is just nickle and dime stuff. Town Meeting is at the end of the month.