In another thread, I suggested that the retired foreign service officer be honored again... but then I thought I had only one of those half-baked ideas...

So, now I'll propose an idea that's two-thirds baked...

CGCS should institute an annual award given for the best exhibition or demonstration by a ___________ for pointing the way to common ground with a common sense perspective.

So who should be eligible?

The press?
politicians?
average citizens?
all of the above?

How shall the selection be made?

Open nominations by CGCS members which have to be seconded and garner the posted support of at least five other members for a total of seven to make the preliminary run-off...

A poll... which would generate three to five finalists...

Michael and Sandra could appoint a very small board of advisors, and make the final selection themselves... or use them to generate the nominations, leaving members just the right to comment and vote in the straw poll.... no doubt subjecting themselves to the possibility of a boo or two from the peanut gallery (but it's obvious they can handle it...)

Given that this is a web site wholly owned and operated by persons other than myself, I recognize that they get the final say... veto power, as it were...

But, properly and thoughtfully done, it would generate some "press" and attention for CGCS, and perhaps even a little exposure for the idea of common ground, and common sense.

I nominate Jimmy Carter.

He made commonsense 30 years ago, and it still makes sense today


Press-I nominate Dan Rather for a lifetime achievement award.
Fair and honest. He never once lied to me. Never. No agenda, just truth, justice, the American way with alot of commonsense thrown in

Very good idea, it would provide a backdrop for good discussion.

May be way off base here, but I would nominate our foreign members who lend
a different perspective to discussion and often bring us back to reality.

Methinks that's a worthy consideration. IMHO the press and politicians for the most part work against findin' common ground with a common sense perspective, while 'tis difficult to figure the perspective of average citizens, even if we could actually figure out who they are, eh?

This award should undoubtedly go to George W. Bush. Without him this forum would not exist!

Right now, I would lean in the direction of Robert Reich.

I thought I noticed you listing a bit to the north by northeast.

north
by
northeast

There you go.

This is a great idea, Magmak! I was thinking of Howard Dean, Barbara Boxer. . .

Oh, I know who I want to nominate. Patrick Fitzgerald!

Magmak1, I like this idea. I would like to suggest a prior contest to be carried out
first which would further define the concepts of Common Ground an d Common Sense. Launch a contest among the CGCS membership to compete in writing the best 150 word essay explaining the meaning of common ground and common sense .

rla, a good additive idea...

I think the essay contest can run in parallel, or even precede, the rest of it.

Better yet, we can alter that by having the winning essay collaboratively developed and designed by cgcs members and moderators and the gurus in the penthouse, and have that stand as the guide for award nomination and awardee determination. Perhaps this is where people could nominate fellow members to a committee which might used some simple collaborative software offline or in a special thread.

The thing I like about rla's extension and my extension of rla's idea is that it does get to the point raised by flydangler. Here, if this were a site that allowed streaming music, I'd play Copland's Theme for the Common Man. (I prefer Woody Herman's jazz variation from the Montreux Festival.)

I like and am not surprised by Gabrielle's nomination of Fitzgerald. A respect for the law is a big part of our natonal tapestry. But I'm not the judge and jury here...

My vote goes to Al Gore. We got to make sure he get's the opportunity to run in 2008.

Magmak1, just a suggestion - perhaps you could ask to have this moved to action items otherwise it may just get lost in the shuffle.

Dan Rather!
for his years of service.
I'de pitch in a few $$ so that we could get him a nice little (fill in the blank).

Thanks, Cardinal. ;<)

Rla, I've taken you up on your suggestion and started a separate thread to collect thoughts on the meaning of common ground and common sense.

I've opened it up to more than just essays... not a lot of people have the time or will take the time to compose one... so any thoughts, ideas, pictures or other contributions are welcome...

I'll nominate John Winston Howard & George W (?) Bush as becuase of them both we have our 'bitches' every day.
The latest joke doing the rounds in Australia is that JWH is in hospital having a nose job.........get his nose out of GWB's A*SE....heheheh

As noted elsewhere, I nominated Al Gore after his stupendous speech. And when I came back to this thread, I noted that G4A nominated him some time back, once again proving to us a certain amout of prescience.

So I second the nomination.

If the rules I outlined above meet with the approval of Michael and the CGCS members, we'd need only five more nominations to make Gore the first candidate for the award.

I think it also meets with flydangler's comments (although methinks I'll let him speak for himself), given Gore's last and best part outlining the role of the citizen in preserving this Republic.

My nominee for the first CGCS award goes to you guys for your hard working efforts as a team by spreading the word out to the american public to end this madness the GOP is causing to harm our country and hopefully in '06 they'll get the boot out of congress.