Adopt an Israeli Dog

My friend, Diana Kimmerling, lives in Jerusalem and is often involved in animal rights causes. She has written articles on the condition of city dog shelters and how animals are treated. During her life, she has prevented hundreds of dogs from being destroyed.

Right now, she is trying to find a home for a puppy named Blackie. The man who had taken the dog has changed his mind and given her the dog back. If you know anyone in Israel who would like to adopt a dog, please email Diana at dianakimmerling@hotmail.com.

Community Colleges

Registering for a course at a local university or community college offers several advantages to war-tax resisters.

1. Tuition is tax-deductible.
2. Being a registered students gives you access to valuable services that may be difficult to afford on a war-resister's budget.

I spent more than a decade working at a community college, either in their learning resources department or as an adjunct instructor. This time left me with a high regard for community colleges.

The instructors are, for the most part, talented people who love to teach and care deeply about their students. A variety of services are in place to help students. Many have child care facilities for use during class and lab hours. There is career counseling, psychological counseling, and various other support services. By attending a community college, you will meet other people who want to better themselves.

Being a student allows you to get complimentary tickets to many cultural events hosted by the college such as music performances and plays. This gives the budget-conscious a culturally-enriching night out. It also allows you to support student artists.

The community college near me has an observatory that sets of telescopes for the public on Friday and Saturday evenings. I was thrilled to see the rings of Saturn. Many parents brought their young kids to this event.

If it is at all feasible, I encourage you to support one of America's better public institutions by enrolling in a course. Foreign language courses are always useful and are not too stressful. There are arts courses as well.

Tuition is nearly always tax-deductible and if you use all the services available to you may actually be a good investment.

An SAT book

I have written a technical book that teaches the skills necessary to do well on SAT math. I am trying to start my own home-based business teaching SAT review to kids.

I would also like to get the book published. Does anyone have any advice about agents or publishers?

If so, could you mail the advice to jmramer@bellsouth.net

Thanks.

Jessica

Saving Money

One of the biggest challenges of war tax resistance is living below the threshold of taxable income. I haven't succeeded totally in doing this but I am getting close. One of the challenges, though, is that inflation is increasing but the amount one needs to avoid taxes isn't.

Oil and electricity have incraesed in price. My water bill has increased because S. Florida is under water rationing and the water company has increased its rates to compensate for the shortfall. After the hurricanes of 2005, both my homeowner's insurance policy and the townhouse maintenance fees have doubled.

I have been trying to spend less money on groceries and have almost completely eliminated prepared foods. I am eating a lot of lentils because a bag that lasts me two days cost $1.05. The good news is that I feel much healthier and energetic. I am living on brown rice, lentils, onions, cabbage, and collard greens and feel wonderful. Sometimes, I have some oatmeal. I am surprised at how good I feel. This is the good side to war tax resistance--improved health from a better diet.

Credit Card Liberation Day

I have two credit cards. I paid off the last one today. I have canceled one and am freezing the remaining one inside a plastic bag filled with ice water. It will be saved for emergencies--like the house burning down or a hurricane. It sounds funny but after Hurricane Wilma, the stores wouldn't accept cash but did take credit cards. I think it was because the credit card equipment was wireless and probably operated on batteries.

I made the decision after receiving a sales call from a bank offering me a great deal on a credit card: no fee, 0% interest for the first six months, and 9.9% interest after that. The catch was that even if there was one late payment, interest rates went up to 29.9% This is usury.

Even the most conscientious among us sometimes make a late payment because of illness, job loss, natural disasters, or some other good reason.

This is only indirectly related to war resistance. Living below the taxable income level requires rigorous budgeting. Credit cards are the enemy of financial prudence. It is also easier to oppose current US foreign policy if one is not struggling to stay afloat economically because one has more freedom to make choices.

Fortunately, I don't have children. It would be nearly impossible not to use credit cards if I had kids--they always have needs and kids do need joy, fun, and to fit in economically with their peers.

Today, I love (part of) my government

The 16 intelligence agencies recently released a national intelligence estimate on Iran that minimized the threat of Iran' nuclear program.

Apparently, the agencies acted in this way to undermine the credibility of the "bomb Iran" faction in the Bush administration. This has caused Bush, with his WW IIII rhetoric, to lose credibility.

Joel Klein wrote in Time " This was, quite possibly, the most assertive, surprising and rebellious act in the history of the U.S. intelligence community."

Klein continues, "But it wasn't just the intelligence community that had been trying to prevent the war hawks in the Administration from bombing Iran. The Secretaries of State and Defense and the leaders of the uniformed military had decided that diplomacy was the best way to deal with an admittedly hostile and dangerous foe in Tehran. "

When Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they told him the Iranians could " make life very difficult for the U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. They could shut off hte flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, thereby creatinga global economic crisis. And they could use the threat of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks on the American homeland."

This is not really new--lots of career military people were skeptical about Iraq too: Colin Powell, Anthony Zinni, Norman Schwarzkopf, Brent Scowcroft. Time Magazine also reported before the war that at least 1/3 of the high-ranking officers had doubts about this plan.

I have long believed that our military and our intelligence agencies are the most reasonable parts of our government. This does not mean that I am ignoring the role of the intelligence agencies in the torture of detainees but quite a number of career intelligence professionals resigned over the Iraq debacle and also the torture scandals.

In spite of my strong disapproval of torture and the complicity of some parts of the intelligence community, I salute the military and the intelligence community for putting American interests ahead of political expediency.

Thank you! Thank you!

Autism--This has nothing to do with tax resistance

For several years, I taught part-time at a community college. During that time, I met several adult students who had autistic children. Because the issue concerns me, I am posting a link to this study. Not being a scientist, I have no idea how good the study is. It sounds exploratory rather than definitive to me. Nevertheless, I am posting this on the chance that it might help someone.

The idea underlying the study is that electromagnetic fields, especially from wireless devices, plays a contributory role in autism. This radiation alters cell membranes, making it more difficult for cells to clear themselves of toxins like heavy metals, especially mercury. The authors claim that there is a genetic component to this illness and that exposure to toxins combined with EMF exposure can create autism in genetically susceptible individuals.

Sorry for being so very off-topic.

http://www.avaate.org/IMG/pdf/EMR-Autism-ACNEM-final.pdf

Social Consequences of War Tax Resistance

I am working from home as a copyeditor because I can take a deduction for use of a home office and trying to keep my income below the taxable limit. I am also working part time as a math tutor and am tutoring a lot of kids for the SAT.

In previous years, I invested in IRAs and am nervous as I watch the stock market drop. There is a certain risk in pursuing this tax-reduction strategy and I have encountered it, obviously. I write this to make others aware that even legal tax resistance can have negative consequences.

I have often heard stay-at-home mothers say that they are not treated with much respect. Now that I am working from home, I have encountered this phenomenon, even though I don't have kids. I have a next-door neighbor who can't stand the fact that I don't go to some office. Ever since I began working from home, I am accosted by her, frequently in rude and intrusive ways, and asked about my employment. In the several years I have lived next to her, she has never once asked about my health, my family, and my hobbies. But she will stop her car on the street when she sees me walking my dog, roll down her window, and ask "Are you working?" One time, she was parked in her driveway as I came back to the house, rolled her window down, and actually yelled this question. She engages in this intrusive behavior every few months.

A few weeks ago, she asked again "What are you doing?"

"I am working from home as a copy editor." This was, of course, the an honest answer.

She was not satisfied. The very next day, she approached me and said "I thought you told me that when you did copyediting that you worked at your mom's house."

She said this in a way that suggested that she had caught me in an inconsistency and was *confronting* me with it.

She is a conservative Christian who supports Bush and the war. Hence I did not feel comfortable explaining that I was engaging in a political act

She has always been this way, even when I was teaching high school. One year, I had mono, a stomach virus, and four kidney infections with fevers. I would be weak and feverish, only outside because my dog was whining piteously, and have to account for my absence to her. She never once asked if there was anything she could do to help. She just wanted to know why I was home. She was more of a workplace attendance monitor than a neighbor.

.

Before beginning war tax resistance, I had not thought about the *social* consequences of this. I had only thought about the economic ones. Yes, this is a minor consequence but an annoying one.

The second consequence is more economically serious. Several years ago, I think at the end of 2003 or the beginning of 2004, I started to have serious problems with my townhouse. A pantry wall that adjoins the outside of the house started molding badly. I called someone in to fix it. He looked outside and discovered that someone had put plaster in the pipe that carries condensation from the airconditioner to the outside. The water backed up into the pipe, the pipe leaked, and caused the wall to mold. I had to have the wall replaced. I thought I was done with this problem but it turns out that before the problem was corrected, the water damaged my air conditioner. The air conditioner leaked onto the hot water heater, which was ruined. The carpets were ruined from the leaking water also. A few months later, I had a lot of electrical problems--two computers stopped functioning, my dryer stopped working, my refrigerator died, the phone jacks stopped working. Apparently, this is from the water damage. I called an electrician who replaced a socket and I hope that part is done. The damage will cost thousands of dollars and because I live in FLorida, where the insurance industry has been devastated by claims resulting from 8 hurricanes in 2 years, I have had three insurance companies in the last 2 years and have no idea what will be covered.

I had always assumed that the damage was caused by an untrained but motivated worker hired by the home owner's association. I happened to mention this theory to a neighbor who had told me months before that he was *very* angry about antiwar bumper stickers on my car. The man got the oddest look on his face--a mixture of guilt and embarrassment. I can't prove anything but the look was unmistakeable. He knows a lot about air conditioning and he knows how much damage plugging a pipe would cause.

I want to emphasize that we had never discussed the war or had any disagreements about anything else.

The point of this is that sometimes there are unforeseen consequences to one's actions. Before considering political activity, think about the possibility of such things happening and ask yourself if the consequences are worth whatever will be gained by the action.