Local Effects of Global Climate Change

No sooner had Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski been reelected than the local television media was jumping all over him for daring to speak the truth about Oregon’s climate often being in direct conflict with the over-privileged elite’s favorite delusions.

Kulongoski’s comments implied, not too subtly, that people who build expensive houses in areas that are prone to erosion or flooding or other whims of nature have way too much money and not nearly enough brains. What Kulongoski hinted at is that building in a watershed or perching a vacation home on the edge of a cliff, facing the ocean, isn’t a smart thing to do.

It’s no secret that nature behaves in unpredictable ways. Storms happen, and when they do wind blows and rain falls, unleashing upon the unsuspecting and the unprepared all sorts of discomforts and uncertainties. Rivers rise and overflow their banks; ground saturates and turns to mud and the forces of wind and water cause trees to topple; storm surge erodes beaches and undermines the cliffs that abut them. Nature’s forces are relentless and unforgiving, and no one should be surprised by them or made indignant because of them.

Certain privileges carry certain risks. The price of a spectacular view of the Pacific is that the fabulous McMansion one enjoys it from is at risk of perishing in the next storm. The price of an intimate view of the Sandy River, or any river, is that the viewpoint is at risk of washing away in the next flood. The price of living near a volcano is the risk that, someday, you’ll be blown away by a pyroclastic floe or swept away by a lahar.

While I don’t wish adversity or misfortune on anyone, I deeply resent all the whining and bitching and complaining when disaster strikes those whom invite it. As they lament their bad luck and curse Mother Nature’s cruel acts against them, they should take a hard look into the mirror and stare deeply into the eyes of the idiot that put them in harm’s way.

Kerry Speaks to New Reality

Okay, so I was too optimistic in my resolve not to post here for an entire month, but I just can’t help myself. How was I supposed to know that John Kerry would open his mouth? Anyway, so many right-wingnuts complained about what Kerry said about the troops rather than what Duhbya did to them, I felt compelled to weigh in on the subject.

My take on the matter is that when Kerry suggested that students who didn’t fare well in school were likely to end up in Iraq, he was exactly right. For decades, young men (and, more recently, young women) have joined the military upon graduating from, or dropping out of, high school. They cite critical on-the-job training, a GED certificate or other educational benefits, a steady paycheck with healthcare benefits, or a long-term career at the end of which awaits a relatively secure retirement package as reasons. These are not bad things, and they in no way imply that people who embark on such courses of action are stupid. For decades, the military has been a viable career alternative. Until lately, that is.

Not everyone does well in school. Not everyone wants to be a doctor or lawyer. Not everyone is interested in science, chemistry or computer technology. Not everyone wants to go into business. Some people just want to put in their eight hours, then kick back with a beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other. Not necessarily stupid, mind you, just not overly ambitious.

Unfortunately, today’s economy is increasingly hostile toward lower and middle class workers. When blue-collar jobs disappear, white-collar jobs soon follow. Today, thousands of students are encouraged to pursue a college education to learn the skills they’ll need to land a job that won’t exist. The reality is that when they graduate many of them will be competing for low-wage jobs for which they’re over-qualified. While an unskilled person can start at the bottom and work her way up, an overqualified person can’t even get his foot in the door.

An unintended consequence of large numbers of students pursuing higher education is that they drive up the cost of education for everyone. Another unintended consequence is that many college graduates begin their careers deeply in debt.

The emerging economy, thanks to globalization and so-called fair trade agreements, is putting the squeeze on young people, some of whom find a stint in the military their only option. Today, when young people join the military, they’re virtually guaranteed a tour of duty in Iraq. If they survive, they’re virtually assured a return engagement. They (and you) can thank George Bush for that.

Did Kerry dishonor or disparage the troops when he made his comments? No! He spoke to America’s new reality.

Did Duhbya endanger the troops when he sent them, under false pretenses, into harm’s way in Iraq? Yes! If you really want to vent your anger, then venting it at Bush would be appropriate.

Kerry may have said it badly, but he said what needed to be said. Right-wingnuts still don’t get it. They probably never will.

Ramping Up for NaNoWriMo

With midnight, November 1st, fast approaching, I’m scrambling to get caught up on a myriad of unfinished projects in anticipation of NaNoWriMo’s starting gun. Yes, dear reader, for the third consecutive year I’m going to attempt the implausible, improbable, impossible task of writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.

As I prepare to embark on this momentous undertaking, it’s necessary for me to shuffle my priorities around until everything but the act of writing is relegated to a back burner. No more AlterNet, no more MadeBig Vibes, no more business projects, no more blogging. No, none of these things for an entire month. It’s going to be like a month-long vacation, only without the vacation.

When I return in December, there’ll be lots to catch up on – the Iraq occupation, the November mid-term elections, global warming, inept politicians, illegal immigrants, government duplicity, the bursting housing bubble, the war on (some) drugs, the energy crisis, rising gasoline prices. There’s never a shortage of things to write about, only a shortage of time in which to write about them.

Dying for No Good Reason

In the early hours of last Saturday morning, a distraught mother dialed 9-1-1 seeking help to control her 18-year old son, who was drunk, disorderly and threatening to harm himself. Two Washington County deputies and a Tigard city cop were dispatched to the scene of the disturbance. Minutes later, Lukus Glenn died in a hail of bullets.

This sad affair calls to mind another incident, not so long ago, in which another young man died needlessly in a withering fusillade of police gunfire. Fouad Kaady, naked and in shock from serious injuries and burns suffered in a car accident, was gunned down by Gresham police when he became combative and failed to respond to police commands. He possessed no weapons of any kind.

Police justify the use of deadly force whenever they fear that out-of-control persons pose a threat to themselves, to the police, or to others. Officers are trained to respond to a particular level of force with the next highest level of force. I guess—if one subscribes to this line of reasoning—that it’s okay for police to respond to someone who’s intent on fisticuffs with a knife in the belly, or to repel a rock thrower with an RPG. Certainly, someone wielding a hand grenade should be countered with a hydrogen bomb.

But, c’mon! How much of threat can a naked, unarmed crazy guy be? Or a drunken crazy kid armed with a three-inch bong knife? Or, for that matter, a drunken weirdo pissing in the street?

Police spokespersons claimed that the officers involved in these incidents acted according to the book. At the risk of sounding like a Monday morning quarterback, maybe it’s time to review police training procedures, tactical weapons, and threat assessment/threat response protocols.

We know that Tasers are, too often, ineffective against people who are pumped on adrenaline or high on meth. We know that beanbag rounds are, too often, ineffective for the same reasons. News media accounts provide ample evidence of this. Is there anything of less than lethal force that can subdue someone who seems possessed of superhuman strength? Do police have tactical means available to them that will allow them to gain control of an out-of-control miscreant without risking serious injury or death to themselves or the miscreant?

In fact, at least two means do exist. Both are primitive, both are effective, and each is relatively inexpensive. Neither is likely to cause fatal injuries. I’m referring, of course, to nets, long used by game hunters who want to capture their prey alive, and to pugil sticks, long used by the Marine Corps as training devices in bayonet training, where the use of real bayonets might prove lethal to fellow marines. Any cop who, after a couple of weeks of training, can’t disarm and/or take down a knife-wielding suspect with a pugil stick doesn’t deserve to wear a badge.

Unfortunately, police continue to overlook or ignore the potential of these great, non-lethal countermeasures. Until cops are willing to explore safer alternatives to guns, senseless deaths will continue.

Making Right a Few Wrongs

There’s an old saying that goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” What this means is don’t start tinkering with something that works ‘cause you’re liable to mess it up. Politicians should have heeded this advice but, failing to see the inherent wisdom in it, of course they didn’t. As a consequence, things keep getting worse.

Government becomes more dysfunctional, authority figures less trustworthy, social institutions less reliable and more inept. Weeda sheeple seem to be in mortal danger of losing the social safeguards we all depend on. Someone—or something—has usurped control of the political system and ordinary citizens find the ability to control certain aspects of their lives greatly diminished.

Suppose you had the power to fix everything that ails society today. Where would you start? How would you order your priorities? What changes would you make, and how would you execute those changes?

These are the things I would do if, by some twist of fate or quirk of happenstance, someone appointed me dictator of the month:

1. Election reforms; give Diebold the boot, return to paper ballots.
2. Legislative reforms; allow no riders and only one issue per bill, no more piggybacking unpopular bills on top of “must pass” legislation.
3. Tax reforms; adopt progressive taxation that puts the burden of taxes on those with the most ability to pay.
4. Corporate reforms; redefine corporations, rewrite corporate charters, limit corporate ability to influence legislation.
5. Strengthen environmental protections.
6. Expedite renewable fuels research and development.
7. Fund national healthcare.
8. End the drug war.
9. Address education and school reforms.
10. Create high-speed rail system as part of nationwide public transportation program.

That’s the first ten. On the second day, I would . . .. Yeah! Right!

9/11 Revisited

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers, in New York City, each of which collapsed into its own footprint after being struck by a hijacked airliner. Five years has not been long enough to erase the memory of that fateful day, to ease the pain felt by those who lost friends or loved ones to the carnage, or to quell the sense of outrage that grew in the aftermath of terrorism.

Still, after five years, many questions remain unanswered. A high percentage of citizens believe the government engaged in some kind of cover-up. The official 9/11 Commission Report contained inaccuracies and “facts” not in evidence. Indeed, the government’s explanations of the 9/11 catastrophe fail, on many points, to pass the straight-face test.

One of the talking heads on NBC News, last night, claimed that the interiors of the fallen buildings were subjected to temperatures equal to those at Earth’s core—physical and thermodynamic impossibilities unless thermite or other high-intensity explosives were used to cut through structural members and facilitate their collapse.

To suggest that kerosene, burning at temperatures not exceeding 800 degrees centigrade, could heat structural steel (which melts at approximately twice that temperature) to the point of failure, in 62 minutes and 102 minutes respectively, is the height of ignorance and stupidity—unless you have something to hide. Those buildings didn’t fall without a lot of inside help.

There are other inconsistencies, paradoxes, enigmas and conundrums associated with the government’s official version of the events occurring on 9/11/01. Among the questions raised by various conspiracy theories are:

Why was the Air Force, despite being equipped with billions of dollars worth of high-tech weaponry and state-of-the-art detection systems, unable to mount an effective response to the hijacking and unauthorized deployment of four commercial civilian aircraft?

What caused Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex to collapse?

Why, in photos of the various impact sites, is there no visible aircraft debris?

How was the pilot of one of the airliners that struck the Trade Center able to override automatic controls that prevent the aircraft from exceeding pre-established safe g-force levels when the aircraft is banking into a turn?

How did debris from Flight 93 end up eight miles away, on the other side of a hill?

Why were some of Osama bin Laden’s relatives flown to safety, outside the country, immediately after the attacks?

Why did President Bush lose focus on his avowed mission of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden to concentrate his attention on waging war in Iraq?

How were so many people on Flight 93 able to communicate by cell phone? (It’s my understanding that, because of the speed at which commercial airliners travel, it’s difficult for a cell phone to establish a connection through a microwave tower before it’s out of range and has to re-establish the connection through a different tower.)

How is it possible that at least 11 of the named hijackers were still living two years after 9/11?

These are only a few of the questions that come to mind; there are many others, but I’ve given you enough to think about, for now. To find out what really triggered the events of 9/11, you must first find satisfactory answers to these questions.

The mainstream media belittles people who speak of conspiracies and conspiracy theories. However, there can be no doubt that there was indeed a conspiracy behind the 9/11 tragedy.

With that thought in mind, we might ask ourselves one final question: Whose conspiracy was it?

Liars Can't Be Trusted

Do you trust President Bush? I don’t!

How can you trust a guy whose every important political decision has been based on a lie? There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Saddam Hussein had no ties to the terrorism of 9/11, the U.S. did engage in the torture of prisoners, in extraordinary rendition, in warrantless spying on U.S. citizens. Bush has said he’s either done or not done a lot of things, but the facts prove otherwise.

How can you trust someone who gutted the Constitution, tried to gut Social Security, and made a bigger mess of public education and public healthcare than they were already in? How can you trust a man who’s willing to sacrifice the global environment all of us depend on for the sake of his oil-plundering buddies?

When queried about his veracity, his expression is that of an idiot deer caught in the headlights, or maybe Alfred E. Neuman on crystal meth, but without the guileless charm. I don’t know, maybe it’s his arrogance, his apparent ignorance, and that ever-present smirk that turns me so against him.

It’s no surprise that Bush’s approval rating has slipped to around 33 or 34 percent. What’s surprising is that there are still that many people who think he’s doing a good job. How can he be doing a good job when he’s involved Americans in an illegal, misbegotten war and spent the country to the brink of bankruptcy?

Who are the Bush supporters? No doubt their numbers are made up of the people who profit handsomely from his policy decisions—special-interest groups, corporate leaders and investors, politicos and political party members who gain political traction from decisions that favor their causes.

Religious fundamentalists, gleefully awaiting Armageddon because they loathe the world they helped create, “true patriots” who never met a crooked politician they didn’t like, and the upper strata of the middle class—too busy fighting the forces that are dragging them down to gain a clear understanding that it’s the Bush Cabal behind the forces that are dragging them down—make up the remainder of Bush loyalists.

But who, in a sound state of mind, would support an incompetent twit, a chronic liar, a leader that lacks direction, a decider that makes bad decisions? Other than diminish our nation’s reputation in the eyes of the world, undermine Constitutional protections, and put the country into hock up to its ears, his only successes have been to make rich people richer, poor people poorer, and the fearful more fearful. It’s not a track record anyone should be proud of.

Bush is such a habitual liar that he reminds me of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. He’s told so many lies, so often, that he no longer has any credibility. It’s probably best if we just ignore the fear-mongering rhetoric that would keep us living in fear, and learn to make peace with the wolf.