As the absence of news continues, I’ll celebrate Field & Stream of Consciousness or What Day. It would be about the twenty-fourth annual if anybody cared to celebrate it every year.

Citizen David Blackwelder isn’t impressed that the state government created an education lottery, but the schools are still looking at laying off teachers and holding bake sales for odds and sods. The state can’t even give schools enough money after taking all kinds of crazy porkulus and imposing an 8% sales tax. For clues as to how they perform this amazing feat, and to rub shoulders with like-minded people and possibly (ho ho ho) figure out how to reverse the process and take action, maybe you would like to attend the John Locke Foundation’s Western North Carolina Freedom Club meeting at 6:30, Monday, October 19 at the Renaissance Hotel in Asheville. Education policy analyst Terry Stoops will give the lowdown.

If you don’t like the state’s un-budget at all, then maybe you would like to read the latest suggestions Joe Coletti has offered the state legislature to get a handle on its impulsiveness, wantonness, and lust. For starters, he makes seven recommendations:

• Post budget bills online 72 hours before the first vote.
• Provide a five-year fiscal note with each budget.
• Plan a realistic second year of the biennial budget.
• Pass a taxpayer protection amendment.
• Expand the state’s rainy-day fund to 10 percent of the General Fund and fully fund it.
• Create a tax-me-more fund so taxpayers can voluntarily contribute more.
• Articulate the purposes of state government and hold activities accountable to those goals.

If you already know the state is wasting your money while it is pretending to have insufficient to fulfill its constitutional obligations, and if for some reason you don’t like it, maybe you will want to join Freedom Works’ Taxpayer March on Raleigh. Festivities begin on the lawn between the Legislative Building and the Legislative Office Building at 11:00 am, Saturday, November 14. Mitch Kokai will be one of the speakers.

If you still have some time, maybe you would be so kind as to spare our president the ignominy of going down in history as the man who ruined the greatest country on earth. Perhaps you would like to contact your Congresscritters to let them know healthcare reform starts with eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and regulation.