Category Archives: Commentary

Cleanup Theater

10/7/2010 – 6:37 am

BILOXI, MS – I’m back in the Gulf of Mexico, nearly six months after BP’s Macondo well blew out and spewed 4 million barrels of oil into one of the northern hemisphere’s most fragile and fecund ecosystems. The government and BP will both tell you things are going great. They want this to be over. […]

By floegel | Also posted in Energy, Oil | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

A Pointless Waste of Time

9/30/2010 – 7:36 pm

The old canards just wear new clothes. “Sure, I have a tee vee, but I don’t watch it much. Public television, educational shows, really.” (Translation: “American Idol, The Biggest Loser, Glee, The Office, for starters.”) “The cell phone – God, I hate it. But it’s good to have in case of emergencies.” (“I’ve never had […]

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Where’s Whitey?

9/23/2010 – 11:31 am

So I’m working Monday afternoon, busy and a Skype message from one of Greenpeace’s media officers pops up on my screen and – God bless them, they’re wonderful – but it’s never good news. A Dallas tee vee station was calling her about a report just released by the Department of Justice that detailed the […]

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Where Does That Leave You?

9/16/2010 – 1:47 pm

We ignore the seasons in our post-industrial age, but they must hold some portent beyond what we see on WeatherUnderground.com. How else to explain the madness of late summer when world wars and terrorist attacks are launched, the lunacy of last year’s congressional town hall meetings or the contrived narrative arc that’s spooled out this […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Electoral Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

But Should You?

9/9/2010 – 10:44 am

Nudity is legal is Burlington, Vermont, with a few (very few) qualifications. It is illegal to be naked in City Hall Park. (The reason for this is unclear, but said park is the summertime lounge spot for folks with white-people dreadlocks and dog-on-a-rope. I’m guessing that has something to do with it.) It is illegal […]

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Look at Vermont

9/2/2010 – 11:15 am

Look at Alaska. Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded the Republican primary Tuesday to tea party/Palin candidate Joe Miller. In conceding, Ms. Murkowski criticized what she called distorted and personal attacks against her by Mr. Miller in the campaign. For his part, Mr. Miller accused Mr. Murkowski’s campaign staff of illegally interfering with the recount. Look at […]

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How Hard is This?

8/19/2010 – 1:07 pm

Polish President Lech Kacszynski and 95 others were killed in a plane crash in Russia last April. A few days later, Polish boy and girl scouts erected a four-meter wooden cross in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw. It’s been four months, a new president is in office and life is returning to normal. […]

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