the core assumptions on the right need to be looked at carefully and publicly: is it an infringement of your individual liberty to require you to get health insurance? Sure. is it justifiable? Yeah. No analogy is a perfect match but the requirement to get car insurance is very close. Uninsured drivers and impoverished and uninsured sick and injured people both end up in the ER and cost us money. Sick people cost all of us even if they don't go to ER. You cost us money we tell you to get some insurance and we'll make it easy as possible for you, unless you want to go socialist with single payer but you hate that, so we say get some insurance or get off the road, stay out of the ER and stay away from everybody you could infect or influence. You come to the ER with no money you get turned out to die. You get sick you get sent to some island. You get voted off the island, start swimming. You want to be your own person and be totally free and not owe anybody anything? Be our guest just don't go being your own person on our dime.
My name is Dennis Williams.(Just so if you want to criticize me at least you can spell my name right). Me and the bank own some property at 3428-3434 E. Presidio, and 1323-1329 W. Hualpai Rd. (The bank lets me collect the rent for it.)
No I don’t make a lot of money on these rentals. The best I can do is just maintain and hold on to them with my fingernails and a frail hope and a shred of faith that they will one day be useful as part of the program I’m directing under Artfare, a 501c3. Because I believe I have a responsibility as a property owner to participate in activities that benefit the neighborhood, I’m a recent member of the Cabrini Neighborhood Association and the El Rio Neighborhood Association. . For the same reason, I’m also a member of Neighbors For Safer Wireless. Before you start looking for coordinates with which to aim your heavy artillery on me, let me just say that what I see here in this forum and on the streets of Cabrini, is a hopelessly deadlocked argument between deeply held beliefs at the level of politics and (there’s a Catholic Church involved so...) religion. You can’t argue a person into your political or religious belief anymore than you can tell someone they ought to like a certain food or be part of a certain community or ethnic group. You can’t tell a pregnant woman that her baby is going to be safe with additional microwave radiation being beamed down on it any more than you can tell a mama bear that you just want to pet one of her cubs....not one of your better ideas. You can’t convince a progressive parent who’s sending her child to Waldorf School that microwaves are safe....not going to happen. You can’t tell someone with a sore or a brain tumor just above the ear where they put their cell phone that it wasn’t caused by microwaves. As far as they (or myself in this case) are concerned they are not an anecdote. You say the studies and statements from the TUSD Governing Board, the FCC, the Pima County Board Of Supervisors, and World Health Organization, and A.M. Best, the insurance risk rating organization and etc. etc. are bogus or political. We say the studies calling us hypochondriacs are paid for by the cellular industry. You say the statistics showing lowered property values and consequent rise in crime and vandalism, and derelict properties are skewed, but you have the evidence right here in these online comments that enough people are against cell towers in Cabrini and other neighborhoods to make a big economic difference. Want to change these people’s minds with facts, figures, cites, local or national politics, or by getting into personalities? Good luck with that. For my part, my base of potential renters, and my profit margin are both so small, I don’t see myself surviving if the cell towers go in. And if I’m forced to sell or walk away a big rental or real estate consortium will be the only entity that can afford to take my properties and they’ll be turned into another set of cookie cutter, ticky tacky, little boxes so called town homes. And I’m not your best candidate for being talked into loving that scenario. We’re here together, and for whatever reasons, we can’t sell our homes and rentals and go someplace else. Like the ecologists say, there is no “away” in which to throw our garbage, and I say, there is no “away” to step away from the Neighborhood Association into. Cell towers or no cell towers we’re stuck here together and sitting back and doing nothing is working for tremendous commercial forces including AT & T and gentrification in general (look at how downtown is becoming a U of A company town in the name of “revitalization”), forces, if you ask me, (and I’m well aware nobody did) are arrayed against real neighborhoods. Whether or not we get past this issue determines whether the neighborhood has a chance to be a real community or whether it becomes what I call an artificial community made of “spit and whistle “ 3/8 inch stucco, pressed wood and cardboard. My project goes the other direction, toward organic gardening and an international art and artist exchange. Every penny I’ve made as a self employed HVAC-R maintenance guy has gone into this project I direct under Artfare, a 501c3, a project to which my rentals are dedicated.. The program is an international art and artist exchange, not invested in big buildings with money targets on their butts, but invested in community, based on student exchange, a member of Couchsurfers.com and WWIOOFUSA. So preach me a sermon, tell me it’s a dumb idea, but we can bring a lot of beautiful sculptures and art pieces made with nature to your neighborhood. It’s an urban gardening/aquaculture center, and child care music and art hour. As such I’m interested in cooperating with any gardeners and anyone who’s interested in the effort to return either or both neighborhoods to a more pristine, natural state. I’d like to see fences covered with vines, xeriscapes and live ponds with trees towering over them to provide shade and especially I am working toward the goal of supplying each of my tenants with a raised bed garden with a shade frame and a cold frame over it with small, well managed livestock to restore some sense of natural balance to a neighborhood over invested in dogs. My theory is that recognizing these aspects of the natural community will make our part of it, the human community, more relaxed, stronger and healthier by changing the entire “climate” of the neighborhood. I’m interested in cooperating with local gardeners in terms of sharing volunteer labor, expertise, produce and CSA’s (community supported agriculture programs). I’m saying all this because I’d like to get past this cell tower issue. We’re not going to change each other’s minds on it. It appears we can’t even have a good conversation about it, so I’d like to just move on to things we can agree that we should work together on. I don’t see how I, much less my projects, can survive if the cell towers go in.. Even if you don’t agree with people’s concerns for their financial or physical health, their opinions will matter. You can’t reassure them, you can’t assume whatever risk there is for them. There’s no amount of liability you or The Church can take out to cover the perceived harm. The Church’s financial interest in renting out the space for the cell towers doesn’t override the concerns of Neighbors For Safer Wireless for their health and safety. There have to be other ways we can help the church do its good work with St Vincent De Paul and Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, both of which I’ve supported in the past and will continue to support (ask Brian Flagg). But you have the evidence here in this forum that the towers can only damage the long term financial interests for the entire neighborhood. Even if the cell towers go in, people aren’t going to stop fighting for their perceived health concerns. Some people will be turned off by the fight and not want to join a bitterly divided neighborhood association. But it is what it is and it just is. It has to be because people have a right to their health concerns. Others, the ones who can, will just move away.
There is too much at stake and we have too much work we need to do together. Let’s agree to disagree and get back to work. In the words of Senator McCain, a man with whom I disagree on just about everything except immigration reform, just because you have a political disagreement with someone doesn’t mean they have evil motives, it usually just means you both honestly believe different things. I’ve found us a new place to meet and a willing business partner at AGM on Ft. Lowell near Dodge. Soon, with their help, we’ll find a dumpster space and an event space where we can all party down dude, forget the past, let bygones be bygones and just move on. Let’s roll.
In the interests of full disclosure I have another personal investment in this argument. A few days ago I had to take my friend to the hospital. (see my blog at http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=62…) . He had a tumor radiating out from the area just above his right ear where he puts his cell phone. There are many other similar instances, but they’re just anecdotes, nothing you should have to worry about.
CONTACT:
Dennis Williams
1323 W. Hualpai Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85745-2051
520-429-0347
dennishwilliams@gmail.com
Member of the El Rio Neighborhood Associaton and also
of the Cabrini Neighborhood Association.
Director of Casa Goofy International (see our website, Facebook
page, WWOOFUSA profile (in the attachment) Blogger, Tumbler etc.) a
program under Artfare, a 501c3.
The International Agency For Research On Cancer, a division of the World Health Organization, rates electromagnetic radiation as having very high probability for being carcinogenic. .
The national institute that rates risk for insurance companies has placed microwave radiation at the top of its list.
Lowered property values after cell tower installation is a statistical fact. Crime and vandalism and general neighborhood decay follow. These are facts. We are all entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts.
No individual, and no entity, including the church, should be allowed to assume a known risk on behalf of someone else, much less babies, and children and anyone else who can’t speak up for themselves, much less an entire community. If they do assume that risk, their liability is endless. When our health is gone there is no amount of compensation that can make us whole.
Ever since the destruction of the International Arts Center at the old Y at 5th. ave/6th. st. I try to follow and be concerned about the arts in downtown, but that old cognitive dissonance (the problem with keeping two "truths" in your brain at the same time) just keeps growing and growing, and you have to be a little suspicious of stories that just get more and more complicated the more you try to understand them. "This is OK," the art directors say, "we're working out our problems with the City, the building dept. and the money people. Everything is cool." Yeah, it's OK....like in a bad marriage. It's just a question of how long you can put up with those subterranean conflicts to your real mission statement, before you start screaming.....if you're lucky.
Recent Comments
No I don’t make a lot of money on these rentals. The best I can do is just maintain and hold on to them with my fingernails and a frail hope and a shred of faith that they will one day be useful as part of the program I’m directing under Artfare, a 501c3. Because I believe I have a responsibility as a property owner to participate in activities that benefit the neighborhood, I’m a recent member of the Cabrini Neighborhood Association and the El Rio Neighborhood Association. . For the same reason, I’m also a member of Neighbors For Safer Wireless. Before you start looking for coordinates with which to aim your heavy artillery on me, let me just say that what I see here in this forum and on the streets of Cabrini, is a hopelessly deadlocked argument between deeply held beliefs at the level of politics and (there’s a Catholic Church involved so...) religion. You can’t argue a person into your political or religious belief anymore than you can tell someone they ought to like a certain food or be part of a certain community or ethnic group. You can’t tell a pregnant woman that her baby is going to be safe with additional microwave radiation being beamed down on it any more than you can tell a mama bear that you just want to pet one of her cubs....not one of your better ideas. You can’t convince a progressive parent who’s sending her child to Waldorf School that microwaves are safe....not going to happen. You can’t tell someone with a sore or a brain tumor just above the ear where they put their cell phone that it wasn’t caused by microwaves. As far as they (or myself in this case) are concerned they are not an anecdote. You say the studies and statements from the TUSD Governing Board, the FCC, the Pima County Board Of Supervisors, and World Health Organization, and A.M. Best, the insurance risk rating organization and etc. etc. are bogus or political. We say the studies calling us hypochondriacs are paid for by the cellular industry. You say the statistics showing lowered property values and consequent rise in crime and vandalism, and derelict properties are skewed, but you have the evidence right here in these online comments that enough people are against cell towers in Cabrini and other neighborhoods to make a big economic difference. Want to change these people’s minds with facts, figures, cites, local or national politics, or by getting into personalities? Good luck with that. For my part, my base of potential renters, and my profit margin are both so small, I don’t see myself surviving if the cell towers go in. And if I’m forced to sell or walk away a big rental or real estate consortium will be the only entity that can afford to take my properties and they’ll be turned into another set of cookie cutter, ticky tacky, little boxes so called town homes. And I’m not your best candidate for being talked into loving that scenario. We’re here together, and for whatever reasons, we can’t sell our homes and rentals and go someplace else. Like the ecologists say, there is no “away” in which to throw our garbage, and I say, there is no “away” to step away from the Neighborhood Association into. Cell towers or no cell towers we’re stuck here together and sitting back and doing nothing is working for tremendous commercial forces including AT & T and gentrification in general (look at how downtown is becoming a U of A company town in the name of “revitalization”), forces, if you ask me, (and I’m well aware nobody did) are arrayed against real neighborhoods. Whether or not we get past this issue determines whether the neighborhood has a chance to be a real community or whether it becomes what I call an artificial community made of “spit and whistle “ 3/8 inch stucco, pressed wood and cardboard. My project goes the other direction, toward organic gardening and an international art and artist exchange. Every penny I’ve made as a self employed HVAC-R maintenance guy has gone into this project I direct under Artfare, a 501c3, a project to which my rentals are dedicated.. The program is an international art and artist exchange, not invested in big buildings with money targets on their butts, but invested in community, based on student exchange, a member of Couchsurfers.com and WWIOOFUSA. So preach me a sermon, tell me it’s a dumb idea, but we can bring a lot of beautiful sculptures and art pieces made with nature to your neighborhood. It’s an urban gardening/aquaculture center, and child care music and art hour. As such I’m interested in cooperating with any gardeners and anyone who’s interested in the effort to return either or both neighborhoods to a more pristine, natural state. I’d like to see fences covered with vines, xeriscapes and live ponds with trees towering over them to provide shade and especially I am working toward the goal of supplying each of my tenants with a raised bed garden with a shade frame and a cold frame over it with small, well managed livestock to restore some sense of natural balance to a neighborhood over invested in dogs. My theory is that recognizing these aspects of the natural community will make our part of it, the human community, more relaxed, stronger and healthier by changing the entire “climate” of the neighborhood. I’m interested in cooperating with local gardeners in terms of sharing volunteer labor, expertise, produce and CSA’s (community supported agriculture programs). I’m saying all this because I’d like to get past this cell tower issue. We’re not going to change each other’s minds on it. It appears we can’t even have a good conversation about it, so I’d like to just move on to things we can agree that we should work together on. I don’t see how I, much less my projects, can survive if the cell towers go in.. Even if you don’t agree with people’s concerns for their financial or physical health, their opinions will matter. You can’t reassure them, you can’t assume whatever risk there is for them. There’s no amount of liability you or The Church can take out to cover the perceived harm. The Church’s financial interest in renting out the space for the cell towers doesn’t override the concerns of Neighbors For Safer Wireless for their health and safety. There have to be other ways we can help the church do its good work with St Vincent De Paul and Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, both of which I’ve supported in the past and will continue to support (ask Brian Flagg). But you have the evidence here in this forum that the towers can only damage the long term financial interests for the entire neighborhood. Even if the cell towers go in, people aren’t going to stop fighting for their perceived health concerns. Some people will be turned off by the fight and not want to join a bitterly divided neighborhood association. But it is what it is and it just is. It has to be because people have a right to their health concerns. Others, the ones who can, will just move away.
There is too much at stake and we have too much work we need to do together. Let’s agree to disagree and get back to work. In the words of Senator McCain, a man with whom I disagree on just about everything except immigration reform, just because you have a political disagreement with someone doesn’t mean they have evil motives, it usually just means you both honestly believe different things. I’ve found us a new place to meet and a willing business partner at AGM on Ft. Lowell near Dodge. Soon, with their help, we’ll find a dumpster space and an event space where we can all party down dude, forget the past, let bygones be bygones and just move on. Let’s roll.
In the interests of full disclosure I have another personal investment in this argument. A few days ago I had to take my friend to the hospital. (see my blog at http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=62…) . He had a tumor radiating out from the area just above his right ear where he puts his cell phone. There are many other similar instances, but they’re just anecdotes, nothing you should have to worry about.
CONTACT:
Dennis Williams
1323 W. Hualpai Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85745-2051
520-429-0347
dennishwilliams@gmail.com
Member of the El Rio Neighborhood Associaton and also
of the Cabrini Neighborhood Association.
Director of Casa Goofy International (see our website, Facebook
page, WWOOFUSA profile (in the attachment) Blogger, Tumbler etc.) a
program under Artfare, a 501c3.
The national institute that rates risk for insurance companies has placed microwave radiation at the top of its list.
Lowered property values after cell tower installation is a statistical fact. Crime and vandalism and general neighborhood decay follow. These are facts. We are all entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts.
No individual, and no entity, including the church, should be allowed to assume a known risk on behalf of someone else, much less babies, and children and anyone else who can’t speak up for themselves, much less an entire community. If they do assume that risk, their liability is endless. When our health is gone there is no amount of compensation that can make us whole.