Editor's Note: The phone rings on a Sunday night a few weeks back. An official robotic male voice, not very friendly, says "Hello, This is Global Tellink, and this call originates from a Connecticut Correctional Facility and may be monitored or recorded. You have a call from" (the voice pauses) "Joe Santana," says the person on the other end of the line.

 

Mr. Roboto continues, without missing a beat "an inmate at the Hartford Correctional Facility. To accept this call, press five now." I press five, and before Mr. Roboto turns over the line to Joe, he gives me a pitch for prepaid collect calls from prison. Then I hear Joe's voice: "Hey Ken." At irregular intervals during the call, Mr. Roboto reminds me that this is Global Tellink and that this call is from a Connecticut Correctional Facility.

 

With about 13 minutes, Mr. Roboto reminds us that we have but 120 seconds remaining. Mr. Roboto marks time again at 60 seconds. After a minute, silence. Usually the conversation gets cut off in mid-stream, although we try to time it and wind down appropriately. It's always an awkward ending. It's hard to squeeze a lot of life into 15 minutes.

 

Joe Santana joined the staff of Echoes from the Streets in January 2001, months before we ever hit the presses. His first article explored the history of hip hop. At the time, he was a freshman at an alternative high school because of some difficulties.

 

But he could write, he had excellent people skills and he showed potential for a reporter. Echoes sent him to New Mexico to report from the Taos Pueblo Native American Reservation with buildOn, the international educational aid organization based on Stamford, CT that builds schoolhouses abroad and encourages community service here in the US. Joe's cover story from September 2002 is here.

 

Joe earned his GED, and wrote about that triumph. As the years rolled on, his enthusiasm for telling stories was matched only by his propensity to attract trouble.

 

I wish I could say it is not painful to watch as a person, a friend, an employee, a mentee and a father makes mistakes, compounded by the built-in prejudice of the criminal justice system. It is.

 

But Joe still loves to write. I have been encouraging him to send this letter for some time. It came in the mail last week, pencil on three different sheets of paper. I offer it to you in its entirity. I look forward to publising more work from him.

 

Joe Santana, inmate number 306658 E2C4 at Hartford County Correctional Facility, 177 Weston Street, Hartford Connecticut 06120, always loves to get mail. Feel free to write him back. -KK

 

Well hello everyone. My name is Joseph and I am an inmate at H.C.C.C. I am here because I have made some poor choices in my life, and this is the way I am taught to correct my mistakes. It's a sad story in general, but in this letter I will not be discussing what I should have done.

 

I will be writing about the process inmates go through before or after sentencing. So pretend that I am an undercover journalist sent to jail to get the first scoop of life in a correctional facility.

 

Let's start off with whatever police department you're booked in. In my case, I had a choice of either West Hartford or Hartford. I told my bounty hunters to bring me to West Hartford because the officers there would actually treat me like a human being.

 

When I got there, I was searched thoroughly, told to take off laces and anything else I could hang myself with. Everything that was in my possession was bagged and put away.

 

Next was the finger printing, which in my case had to be done four times for four different warrants. I would like to thank the WHPD for serving all of my warrants in that one arrest. You might be asking "What's so great about it?"

 

The reality is would rather serve all these warrants nowthan to be caught off guard later in the near future. So because I was served all four, my bail is 10 percent of $325,100. Although there are bondsmen who will take you out of jail for five percent or even three percent.

 

Either or, I don't have anyone in my family who can put up that kind of money. After you sign all the paperwork and finish up with your phone calls, you are placed in a cell to wait for court the following morning.

 

Waking up to BK coffee and a croissant isn't the worst thing in the world, but it will never beat waking up starving at home.

 

Letter from Inside the Belly, continued...

 

While likely 99 percent of the readership of this website cannot vote to re-elect New Haven Green Party Alderman Allan Brison on November 3, the world at large should know who Allan is and why he matters.

 

I have inclination to write about this because Green Party stalwart Charlie Pillsbury and his partner Allie Perry hosted a fundraiser at their newly refurbished home on Saint Ronan Street Thursday night, October 22.

 

While Charlie's house is technically not in Allan's district, some 35 people showed up to gnosh on munchies and let the mother's milk of politics flow: money. I wrote Allan a check for $50, because without Allan, my life would probably be very different.

 

In the summer of 2006, Allan Brison collected well more than 2,500 signatures to help put gubernatorial candidate Cliff Thornton on the ballot. Without Allan, Cliff doesn't make the ballot.

 

If Cliff never makes the ballot, we never make a stink about candidates Mayor DeStefano and Gov. M. Jodi Rell colluding to shut Cliff out of the debates. Such zealous advocacy never attracts the interest of the Governor's Security Unit of the Connecticut State Police, and I never get put on a watch list and arrested for my political activites, and we never find out that the state police keep watch lists.

 

Such is the cause and effect of local politics. So, in my eyes, Allan deserves all the support we can give him. Make no doubt about it, Allan's collection of those signatures was a Herculean task. And his task of challenging Mayor DeStefano's machine is as Sisphyean a chore.

 

He showed tenacity and toughness on the 2006 campaign trail. If he didn't show he was made of nails with his petitioning success, there were the times like when he chauffered Ralph Nader around one day and Ralph yelled at him, and Allan barked right back.

 

Because of these qualities, we talked often about him running in 2007. In fact, we contemplated that a measure of success of the Thornton for Governor campaign would be Allan's electoral victory in 2007.

 

So he won. He is the lone independent voice among 30 members of New Haven's Board of Aldermen, 28 of whom are Democrats - one who is Republican. The 28 Democrats are split between DeStefano's machine and independents who have managed to challenge the machine. But Allan stands alone.

 

This year, Mayor John DeStefano has propped up candidate Justin Elicker to challenge Allan. Elicker moved into Ward 10 only in January of this year, a tactic that sounds a lot like carpetbagging to me, but what do I know?

 

Elicker has positioned himself as an independent. It is the propaganda he must pitch in order to defeat a real independent. But make no mistake, members of Mayor DeStefano's staff campaign with him, and help him run his operation.

 

Re-Elect Allan Brison , continued...

 

The Class of 2010 at the University of Connecticut School of Law graduates 212 days from today, Friday, October 23, 2009. But who's counting?

 

Me. At the end of this semester, I will have to complete only seven credits to obtain the 86 required to earn my juris doctor. I am done with it.

 

Everyone says fear the bar exam, but actually, I look forward to it.

 

More frighteningly, I fear the future of the legal profession. My fears don't come from the collapsing economy that has shuttered the doors on many a law firm. Nor do my fears mimic those of the dozens of studies and articles written about how law school fails to prepare lawyers for the legal practice and the disconnect between the court room and the classroom.

 

The grim picture that I see for the law is based on my observations from attending classrooms in two different law schools, one private, Quinnipiac University, and one public, UConn.

 

The history of American law has never thrilled me, given the fact that our best and brightest judges (who are usually lawyers) decided in favor of slavery in Dred Scott, segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson and judicial control over elections in Bush v. Gore.

 

And some scholars, like civil rights expert Prof. Derek Bell, who gets short shrift in the legal classroom, even maintain that the supposed high points of American jurisprudence, like Brown v. Board of Education, can be read as a further defense of property over people. After all, Brown gave us the reform doctrine of "with all deliberate speed."

 

Prof. Bell further maintains that the U.S. Constitution contains no less than a dozen provisions designed to protect the institution of slavery.While I hoped to learn some of this in a required Constitutional Law class, I didn't.

 

Mind you, my constitutional law professor at Quinnipiac is one of the state's more respected civil libertarians, and in his defense, there is a vast body of constitutional law that needs to be taught, and only so much time.

 

So I had to seek it out, like taking a class of the American Legal History of Race Relations, taught by Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens at Quinnipiac. Where the required Constitutional Law class has 70 students or so, Judge Stevens had seven students, some of whom spent the evening
classes instant messaging their friends on facebook.

 

You can't teach consciousness, but you can ban laptops. Even so, it seems that the current educational regime, though, elevates the study of core capitalist legal doctrine above human rights. Property and criminal law are required classes, yet Stevens' class isn't or an analogous human rights law class isn't.

 

Considering that the fundamental issue in the criminal justice system is race, one would think we want law schools to teach about the impact of race on law. Nope.

 

Law School Blues, continued...

 

What would an Office of the Community Lawyer in Hartford be like?

 

If we model it on the Office of the Community Lawyer in Winsted, Connecticut, it would be a non-partisan civic resource for citizens, situated in an office on Main Street, where anyone can walk in for citizenship assistance.

 

"By taking the dollar signs off the courtroom door and replacing those with pro bono service signs, a community lawyer can enable citizens to exercise their legal rights against opponents who are richer, or use other people's money (such as hospitals and governments) to pay attorneys in private practice," Claire Nader wrote in the recently-published introduction to the Report to the Community about the Office of the Community Lawyer.

 

The 20-page report (.pdf here) chronicling the successes of the Community Lawyer was prepared for the 20th anniversary celebration of the Office of the Community Lawyer.

 

On Saturday, October 10, 2009, the community in Northwest Connecticut celebrated this milestone with a fundraiser dinner featuring Bill Curry, Richard Blumenthal and Claire Nader. 

 

More than 150 people gathered from as far as Chicago and Los Angeles in Winsted’s Crystal Peak ballroom to recognize the achievements of the Office of the Community Lawyer, and the person who has been that advocate for 19 years, Charlene Lavoie.

 

Even though I've known Charlene and the Office of the Community Lawyer since 1995, saying the words together still jars: community lawyer. It's not what they teach in law school as modern legal theory, for sure.

 

Community lawyering is such a different concept from the motion practice of trial litigation, where maybe one in 20 cases reaches court, and most are settled prior to seeing a jury.

 

As young Connecticut lawyer in the mid-1980s, Lavoie wanted more from her legal degree than filing motions to strike counts one and two of defendants' counterclaim or  motions for summary judgment on the issue of liability only. 

 

Oddly, motion practice generates feelings of immobility that the bulk of the law comes from the people who can afford $300 an hour legal services. What about those who make $800 a month? Is the law on their side? For a long time, it has seemed no.

 

The Office of the Community Lawyer, (link)...

 

For as long as I can remember, behind my father's desk, on his bookshelf, sat a football, painted in white "Wesconn 1969 2-2-1." I knew it wasn't one to be played with.

 

I always vaguely understood that in 1969, three years before I was born, my father was the first head football coach at Western Connecticut State University. And by 2-2-1, I understood that the team had a .500 record.

 

Exactly who those men who played for him that year were, and exactly what that experience meant to those men, and to my father in general, and even to me, had been somewhat blurry. It was one of those things about your dad that you consider, but cannot necessarily communicate about.

 

Months ago, my dad told me to block out Saturday, October 3, because the 1969 Wesconn football team would celebrate its 40th anniversary at the Western campus in Danbury.

 

In the late 1960s, the students at Wesconn wanted a football team. In one parade, they built a float envisioning their dream. The grainy newsprint picture showed a car towing a float, featuring a few football players and a scoreboard of Wesconn beating UCLA in the Rose Bowl.

 

While that dream still remains far off for the Western football program, which is winless in 2009, Western actually has a football team. The student body rallied together in 1969 and voted in favor of starting a team, against the wishes of the academic dean.

 

The concept of that kind of student-fueled democracy and campus management may seem startling to students on today's campuses. That an administration would follow student demands and budget money for such a vast undertaking as a football team seems stunning to me now.

 

The inverse, then, should be true, that a student body could vote to dissolve a sports program, too. But considering how universities have been co-opted by corporations, and how the profit motive dominates college sports, I doubt it could ever happen.

 

That vote was in the late Sixties, though, and students exercised their political muscle in ways unheard of now. Even the clips from the student newspaper, with headlines bragging how Wesconn's fledgling program beating UConn 44-0, shows a different time.

 

The student paper seemed fuller, more thoughtful than the version of the Western Echo available on campus this past Saturday. But I don't want to sit here and say "My how things have changed."

 

Western's 40th (top)...

 

The New York Times just ripped out a piece on Linda McMahon - and it notes that Daily Kos has already mocked her. Strangely, the Times didn't reach for local criticism of her on Myleftnutmeg.

 

Nor did the Times mention another pro wrestler, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. Perhaps he ran an insurgent third party candidacy, and most likely would criticize her foray into duopoly politics, so they didn't want to compare them.

 

The NYT story is here. Right now, it is on the front page of the Times website.

 

The profile talks to everyone Watertown Republican Sean Williams (a Simmons supporter), Dick Ebersol and an anonymous senior GOP thinker, who criticizes her. Williams suggested that McMahon's affiliation with WWE left her vulnerable because WWE objectified women and glorified violence.

 

The CT GOP is moving to the center when a rising star admits women are objectified - that wouldn't go over much in Mississippi.

 

Make no mistake - the Senate primary is a fight for the soul of the CT GOP. Rell is behind McMahon, by promoting her to the CT BOE.

 

But note the higher education story that McMahon's eyes point to: the prepaid college savings plans heralded as a way to ensure affordable education, since they are tied to the stock market, are pretty much crap. McMahon, though, will be avoiding major issue statements for months. She is introducing herself to voters.

 

She has a plan. A timetable. She didn't just get into this. She has been thinking about it for months. She had to have a succession plan in place at WWE for her departure.

WestConn's 40th Reunion

 

Apparently, this aired again on Saturday, October 3, 2009, and will be broadcast yet again today at 3:45 p.m. on Gerri Willis show "Your Bottom Line" on CNN.

 

Here's the transcript, from CNN:

KEN KRAYESKE, ACTIVIST: I drop the bike...

GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORREPSONDENT: It was the morning of Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell's inaugural parade.

KRAYESKE: ... pulled out my camera, and I just shoot Governor Rell about 23 shots.

WILLIS: Moments later, Ken Krayeske was stopped by Hartford police officers, handcuffed, arrested and jailed.

KRAYESKE: I said what did I do? They said you shouldn't have been making those threats.

WILLIS: Local police have been on the look out for him after state police gave out a security bulletin with his photo on it. Officials wouldn't comment pending a civil lawsuit. The court documents reveal state police were alarmed by Krayeske's blog posts. "Who is going to protest the inaugural ball with me?" And, "No need to make nice."

KRAYESKE: Why do I have to be nice to a political figure simply because she won an election? WILLIS: Police began digging for information, mining public and commercial data bases. They learned Krayeske had been a Green Party campaign director, had protested the gubernatorial debate and had once been convicted for civil disobedience. He had no history of violence.

Law Professor Danielle Citron says police aren't supposed to gather information on citizens who are suspected of a crime.

DANIELLE CITRON, PRIVACY EXPERT: We're interested in someone because they are an advocate for a Green Party candidate and we think they are suspicious because they want to get other people to protest someone's ideas but not because they think there is a true threat to their lives. I think that's just troubling.

WILLIS: Today, law enforcement collects and shares more information than ever. And much of it goes on at state intelligence centers called fusion centers.

Fusion centers were started after 9/11 to help federal, state and law enforcement connect the dots and stop a terrorist attack. The Department of Homeland Security says they are a critical tool in keeping the nation safe.

JANET NAPOLITANO, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: In a typical fusion center an FBI agent might be sitting next to a state highway patrol officer. They don't merely share space. They share data bases and techniques.

WILLIS: But what's going into those data bases has critics worried. The ACLU says there's evidence that some fusion centers have targeted Muslim groups and peace activists for surveillance.

MIKE GERMAN, ACLU: Collecting the information about people that has no relevance to whether or not they are breaking the law.

RICH KELLY, DIRECTOR, REGIONAL OPERATIONS INTELLIGENCE CENTER: We're in the center of the analysis element.

WILLIS: The director of New Jersey's Fusion Center says law enforcement works hard to balance national security with individual privacy.

KELLY: We in law enforcement and certainly in fusion centers are very attuned to the bill of rights. We're not in the business of investigating first amendment -- or constitutionally-protected rights.

WILLIS: But Ken Krayeske thinks that police in his town crossed the line.

KRAYESKE: The police did not determine the difference between who was dangerous and who was merely expressing protected constitutional -- their constitutionally protected viewpoints.

 

Indianapolis Colts
7001 West 56th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46254

 

Dear Mr. Irsay:

 

We share mutual interests. In running your football team, you want smart, mature players who can handle the economic, social and physical pressures of professional football. As an advocate for free public higher education, I want strong institutions that can train and educate skilled young people who are prepared to meet success.

 

It seems in running back Donald Brown, your first round draft pick from the University of Connecticut, we have an example of that individual in whom we share an interest. Mr. Brown so far is having a decent rookie season for the Colts. In three games, he has 99 yards on 29 carries and a touchdown.

 

When you signed Mr. Brown to a five-year, $11.235 million contract, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if you shouldn’t be giving the University of Connecticut a contribution for helping prepare Mr. Brown to step right into the life of a professional football player.

 

See, Connecticut right now is facing a multi-billion dollar budget deficit in these tough economic times, and the state government is cutting services across the board. The University of Connecticut is bearing a heavy burden. In Spring 2009, Gov. M. Jodi Rell sought give-backs from all departments.

 

To meet the budget cuts, the University of Connecticut slashed its educational programs. For example, in the economics department, large 300-plus student lecture halls no longer have discussion sections. In the geography department, all adjunct faculty members have been cut. Professors and graduate students are losing jobs, and tuition is rising.

 

The painful reductions hurt students, who pay more, go deeper into debt, but receive less of an education. This impacts you, Mr. Irsay, because you need players who know how to budget out a multi-million dollar paycheck and find Indianapolis on a map. The NFL even stresses economic prudence and financial management in its rookie seminars, which Donald Brown just took part in.

 

While it might seem intuitive that the Colts should give to Indiana public schools before donating to Connecticut, just as you invested a significant sum in Donald Brown and are confident that he is part of the future of your backfield, the taxpayers of Connecticut did the same.

 

We Nutmeggers directed a fortune in tax monies to build a stadium and hire a top-rated coach to help your industry. I was proud when I watched Donald Brown scamper into the endzone against the Dolphins in Week 2 for the tying touchdown, knowing that my tax dollars gave him the room to grow as football player and young man.

 

I think other taxpayers in Connecticut, too, are proud. In fact, you may see a jump in revenue from new Colts fans in Southern New England, especially those among us who dislike your arch nemesis, the New England Patriots. See, some of us want to see you beat the Patriots year in and year out, and continue your success.

 

Make no mistake, the Colts can benefit from future UConn talent, as well. I understand that an area of concern for the Colts is a shortage on defensive line. Well, the Huskies have the player for you: his name is Lindsey Witten, and he is being mentioned as a candidate for the Ted Hendricks Award, an honor bestowed to players who demonstrate leadership and defensive prowess.

 

This may seem unorthodox, but I would respectfully request that you consider sponsoring the University of Connecticut to help rebuild its economics and geography departments to make sure that players like Lindsey Witten are ready to play pro football. I know it seems unconventional for a pro football team to back a public university, especially one that is not in its own state.

 

Letter to the Colts...Continued

 

Here's the video. The only problem is my verbal trip up at about 3:40. And the CNN anchor's Ari Fleischer-ism at the end of the clip that we have to watch what we say chills speech, to me. But otherwise, a pretty good story questioning the need for fusion centers.

 

Tune in to CNN tomorrow, Wednesday, September 30 at 7:25 a.m, EST, 8:25 a.m. EST and again during the 9 and 10 a.m. hours to see a 2-minute segment investigating the role of FBI and Homeland Security fusion centers.

 

A CNN producer and photojournalist traveled to Hartford and interviewed me at the spot where I was arrested on January 3, 2007 for taking photos, and we discussed exactly what transpired that day. For more information about the unlawful arrest, go here.

 

Fusion centers, where federal, state and local law enforcement agencies combine information to "protect" America, remain a vital part of the homeland security scheme. Just recently, the Department of Homeland Security announced "an initiative to grant select state and major urban area fusion center personnel access to classified terrorism-related information residing in DoD's classified network."

 

From the same Sept. 14, 2009 press release:

 

"This initiative reflects the federal government's strong commitment to improve information sharing with our state, local, and tribal partners," said DHS Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Bart R. Johnson. "Fusion centers are a critical part of our national security enterprise, and this new tool enables federal agencies to share information with these partners while utilizing our advanced technical capabilities for secure information sharing."

I'm not convinced that Fusion Centers work, based on my experiences. But what do I know? Tune in to CNN and see what the network has to say about them. Hopefully, video will follow.

 

The ACLU hasn't liked fusion centers since a whole month before I was arrested.

 

Hartford, Connecticut, Tuesday, September 22, 2009.

 

5:10 p.m. In front of the Aetna, Farmington Avenue. Some 250 union members and concerned citizens disperse after protesting the insurance giant for its denials of healthcare in the name of profit. They carry signs and wear stickers seeking public healthcare.

 

Rather than advocate for a public option or Medicare for all, the protesters delivered a demand letter to Ron Williams, Aetna CEO, who made $24.3 million last year.

 

They want Aetna to comply with common sense honor before profit demands, such as:

• not standing between a doctor and a patient when it comes to deciding what care that patient needs;

• not denying or dropping coverage based on pre-existing medical condition;

• terminating any policy or incentive that rewards employees financially or otherwise for denying care and rejecting claims;

• not using any resources – including funds, employees, and facilities — to oppose any aspect of the health reform proposals supported by President Obama and being considered by members of the United States Congress.

As I spoke with some protesters afterwards, I spotted a man in a shirt and tie, carrying lunchbox, wearing an Aetna badge on his belt, and walking towards Farmington Avenue.

 

What do you think of this protest? I asked him.

 

"I'm waiting for my ride," he replied.

 

You obviously work for Aetna because of your badge, what do you think of the healthcare debate in America right now?

 

"I'm waiting for my ride," he said again, as his free hand slipped his badge into his pocket, out of sight.

 

Did Aetna instruct you not to talk to the press?

 

"I'm waiting for my ride."

 

In what area of this corporation do you work?

 

"I'm waiting for my ride."

 

Is this the strangest conversation you have ever had? It feels like "Waiting for Godot" to me. Let's go. We can't. Why not?

 

"I'm waiting for my ride."

 

At that point, Phil Sherwood, New Britain City Councilor and staffer at Connecticut Citizens Action Group, walked by. I introduced Sherwood to Mr. "I'm waiting for my ride."

 

Sherwood, who I shared a jail cell with for a night after we were arrested in protest of the illegal invasion of Iraq, was diplomatic.

 

Go to Scenes Two and Three from an Evening Bicycle...

Correction: Previously this column misidentified the inventor of the diesel engine. In 1893, six years after Daimler and Benz invented the automobile, Diesel published Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat-engine to Replace the Steam Engine and Combustion Engines Known Today, which laid the foundation for his invention of the diesel engine.

I should also note that if I wanted to spend $1,000 on my Jetta, I could convert it to run strictly on vegetable oil. This is one of the things that makes diesel engines so flexible.

 

I hate cars. But cars are a fact of life in Connecticut. This should not be. But it is.

 

I moved to Hartford in 1998 so I could bicycle to work, and for years, I kept a calendar tracking car free days.

 

But now, I have a job requiring a 40-mile round trip commute. To find some peace within this tyranny of travel, after I wrecked my 1993 Honda Civic in October 2006 (working a different car-dependent job), I bought a diesel VW Jetta with the goal of using biodiesel to kick my addiction to foreign oil.

 

When Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine, he envisioned a flexible fuel engine that could run on veggie oil, diesel or biodiesel. Biodiesel makes your car run cleaner (less frequent oil changes, etc) and you emit 70 percent less carbon.

 

The best part of this non-fossil fuel is that ordinary people can mix biodiesel in their garages with methanol, lye and used vegetable oil from restaurants. I hoped that a diesel car could help me attain fuel self-sufficiency.

 

While running with biodiesel doesn't eliminate traffic, or any government policies that slant the transportation system towards the automobile, the wealthy and the suburbs, biodiesel would make me feel better about not relying on war to get around.

 

Making a gallon of biodiesel costs about two dollars - a dollar for materials (equipment, methanol and lye) and a dollar for the labor. Building relationships with restaurants, collecting the veggie oil, filtering it, mixing it, cleaning up after the chemical reaction, and pumping it into your car all take time, which is money. This is all still cheaper than ExxonMobil’s sulfur-free diesel, which still spews mercury and Sox and Nox into the atmosphere.

 

Other biodieselers seem to handle the mixing and using of biodiesel without a problem. It seemed so simple at first that I dreamed of a bio cooperative where diesel drivers pool resources to insure a stable flow of clean fuel - a closed loop industrial process that recycles oil from local eateries and creates a few jobs, too.

 

But my bad car karma (or, my car-ma) has led to me to declare my experiments with the alternative fuel a failure.

 

The tribulations of my used 1999 Volkswagen Jetta TDI began with the engine being replaced under warranty in December 2006, two months after I bought it. In June 2007, my dad, trying to be a nice guy, accidentally filled my tank with unleaded instead of diesel.

 

Mistakes happen, so I can't hold that against my dad, especially considering that before graduating college, I totaled four of his cars – a '77 Chevy Nova, a '72 Dodge Dart, an '83 Ford Escort, and an '87 Firebird.

 

Obviously, that I am not the world's best driver contributes to my loathing of my dependence on automobiles. Yet I figured that making my own fuel might repair some of my bad car-ma.

 

So after paying a mechanic to drain the unleaded from my diesel, I started in earnest trying to mix biodiesel. A friend of mine has been mixing his own biodiesel for years, and I learned from him.

 

Adventures with Biodiesel...to the rest of the story...