Paying attention . . . Yes, by simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported you can legitimately call yourself a citizen, an advocate for democracy.
Citizen Tip = Why do we vote on Tuesdays?
It goes back to an 1845 law, established to give people traveling by horse-drawn carriage to take all of Monday to travel to the county courthouse after allowing Sunday to be devoted to rest. Yes, that's the actual reason.
"If we can move Columbus Day, Presidents’ Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Holiday for the convenience of shoppers, why not make Election Day more convenient for the sake of voters? First and foremost, it is time to end the deafening silence of good people on this vitally important issue. So we ask: Why Tuesday?" source
One could question if the day of the week is the most obvious reason people don't vote, but it does raise a host of questions about our political rituals in general for the curious, for the aware.
Way too many 19th century conventions are followed to the letter in 2012 for no apparent reason or for reasons that died long ago. Daylight Savings Time comes to mind. Is that a statement with which you might agree? Sometimes it's easy to forget that we need to be aware of and to challenge the things around us that do not support our lives, our quality of life or our future. Supporting the status quo is sometimes just inattention or inertia.
At the same time there is an equal challenge of abandoning or destroying things that have worked for a hundred or hundreds of thousands of years because of an immediate or short term need or profit potential. See forests, wetlands, clean air, life cycle waste treatment, diverse planting and diverse animal species and healthy ocean life.
