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Seven months & six days out -- a civic second, a Merry Christmas moment

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Our efforts to achieve more secure elections in Tennessee moved forward this week when the TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) voted unanimously to release the TACIR staff report, "Trust But Verify", to the state legislature and the general public. This report recommends that Tennessee move to voter-verified paper ballots to improve election integrity.

The TACIR Commissioners were obviously influenced by the outpouring of emails and other messages they received from many of you last week. They told us that hearing from so many people did influence their deliberations. We need that to happen again in the next 2-3 days in order to move safe elections legislation forward. The joint legislative study committee that is considering a bill to require optical scan voting systems statewide by November, 2008 meets on Tuesday, 12/18. The recommendations of this study committee and the actions it recommends to the legislature will go a long way toward determining if our elections will be secure in 2008.

So, if you have a few minutes (and it will just take a few, I promise), please go to www.votesafetn.org and follow the suggestions there. Send an email to the legislative study committee members supporting voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits to be put in place before November, 2008. You can write each member separately or write them en masse. Whatever you do, it will make a difference so please send these emails in the next 2-3 days.

If you have a few more minutes, you can also scroll down at the web-site to find contact information for other important state officials, including Governor Phil Bredesen, Secretary of State Riley Darnell and others. Letting them hear from you will help our efforts immensely.

Finally, if you're not from Tennessee but know that, if our country is to survive, all of us have a stake in how votes are cast and counted in every other state, please take a few minutes to write our Governor Phil Bredesen to tell him to please let our votes count in Tennessee. His email address is Phil.Bredesen@state.tn.us (I'd love it if you blind-copied me on your email to the Governor -- that would be nice.)

Thanks kindly for anything you can and will do to help us save our democracy here in Tennessee.
Now, by way of thanking you all for so much more that I can enumerate, for all you mean to me, here is my Christmas poem about you. Enjoy. I am honored to know all y'all. Bernie
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A Merry Christmas moment: No matter where I was, you were there

No matter where I went, from the moment my life changed, from the uncertainty to the sentence,
from the farm, to the “house” that was no home, for a minute and then back to silence – you were there.

No matter how I was, sorrowful or silent, dutiful or drifting, engaged or floating endlessly,
expectant or resigned, a stronger body wrapped around a still-too-restless mind, you were there.

No matter when I jumped, no longer able to hold up or hold on, when it looked like hope was gone,
no longer able to withstand great force, no longer able to chart my course, you were there.

No matter where I landed, in hushed and crowded courtrooms, in concrete and concertina wire,
in restless rows of strangers forever fighting fitful sleep, in quiet woodlands one mile deep, you were there.

No matter how I felt -- fearful, forceful, fawning, futile -- forced to dance to silent tunes, you were there.
No matter why I knelt, for quiet heart or calmer mind, to ask for strength or just for silence, you were there.

No matter how seemingly unsettled, surrounded by the energies of sixty shifting souls, you were there.
No matter how momentarily serene, in long and steamy showers, in silent walks to work, you were there.

When the day was bright & busy, when the day was dark & slow, endless & the same -- you were there.
When the night was never-ending, muted lights, un-muffled breaths, plastic pillow – you were there.

When a “minute” was not sixty seconds, but all the time between then and now, you were there.
When a “second” was all the space that filled the time between clean sets of sheets, you were there.

When my life was a breathless story, when it was a strained refrain, of what it had once been like,
what had happened and now what each and every, new & knowing, moment means to me, you are here.

Yes. Right now. Right this very minute. Wrapped within this mindful moment. You are here.

When I feel the soothing sun, see the damp & rain-bowed fields, dogs ahead, my bed behind, you are here.
When I hear the singing spring-fed waters and the soft sounds of almost-silent winds, you are here.

When I know that everything that came before me brought me where I’m meant to be, you are here.
When I dream and all your faces (real and fancied) float before me, so timeless and so dear, you are here.

You who are so many. You who are so different. All my teachers, team- and touch-mates. You are here.

No matter where I am, you are here. And I can hear you, I can feel you, you are never far away.
In this now. In this forever. In all we have – this perfect day.

Bernie Ellis (Twelve days free)
Trace View Farm, Santa Fe, TN 38482
12/16/07

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