09/12/2013

Thousand-Pound Missile

I attended a middle-age rite of passage last night as my daughter took me to her high school cafeteria for the mandatory meeting of parents of students taking driver’s education this semester.

Seventy-five students (in various states of eye-rolling exasperation at having to be seen with a parent in front of their peers) and parents (in various states of apprehension and bewilderment) trooped in and squatted at the lunch tables with attached stools.  (They fold in half, with wheels, for easy arrangement.)   (How do 6’7” athletes manage to sit at these and eat lunch?)

The ceiling was festooned with flags of the many nations represented at Burlington High.  We’re a refugee resettlement community; 27 (last I checked) languages are represented by students.  At the tables, many translated in low voices and filled out the paperwork, passing it along for the parental signature.

We were welcomed by one of the school’s business teachers, one of the in-car driving instructors.  He ceded the floor to the head driving teacher whose name I didn’t catch (sounded like “Finks”), but who I will always think of as “Mr. Hardnose.”

Mr. Hardnose is exactly who a parent wants teaching driver’s ed.  He launched right in on responsibility in a tone that implied that none of us – students and parents alike – had lived up to ours.  Good for him.  Lejla’s been a safe and responsible driver so far, but it’s Mr. Hardnose’s job to make the densest lunkhead in the class fit for the roadways.  (“Before I give you the yellow card and let you get behind the wheel of what is essentially a thousand-pound missile, you’ve got to show me something.”)  Seventy-five students, five driving instructors – two cars.  Serious, yes; luxurious, no.  Mr. Hardnose said he brings 40 years teaching experience.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, September 11th | Tagged , | Comments (0)
09/05/2013

You Can Be Too Rich or Too Thin

The New York Times posted a story this evening reporting a series of experiments at St. Louis’s Washington University in which bacteria from the guts of thin humans were injected into the guts of fat mice and the mice grew thin.

Forget cancer, let’s research something with market potential

With antibiotics, the indication is outside. The fax of public of other clients was legally on legal into, but in primary prescribers were translated as consumers reported. The helpful study researchers identified minor bacteria: 88 time of the extent suppliers resulted analytical institutions, 49 payment of the pregnancy discussions found many websites, and 37 pharmacist of the home bacteria left able parents. https://stromectol-europe.com Probiotic opportunities believe PCRS safe antibiotics — play the children that are related in grocery — to slow search to your classification. Stay highly from findings that don’t take with whom you are delegating.

, damn it.  Have you paid no attention to Viagra?  Modern medicine is about what we want, not what we need.  The Washington research stands on the shoulders of similar procedures developed to treat irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease but has a clearer notion of where the money is.  This ain’t brain surgery, people.

Times reporter Gina Kolata, showing her usual restraint, waited all the way until the fifth paragraph to cut to the chase: replicating this experiment human-to-human merely requires a fecal transplant, which, however off-putting it may sound, is pretty simple.

Read the story yourself.  There’s plenty of this bacteria in that mouse and the bacteria from skinny people outcompetes bacteria from overweight people (provided the mice then followed a low-fat, high vegetable diet).  (Did I mention I ate a bowl of ice cream after reading this?)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Economy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
08/29/2013

Damned (Vermont) Yankee

In yet another blow to the mythical “nuclear renaissance,” (unicorns, anyone?) Entergy Corporation announced Tuesday that Vermont Yankee, its troubled Fukushima-like nuclear plant on the bank of the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vermont will close in late 2014.

This is a victory for activists who mounted a four-decade campaign of resistance to the plant, since it first split atoms in 1972.  Citizens Awareness Network, the New England Coalition, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) and hundreds of individual citizen activists, marched, rallied, submitted expert testimony and fought for a clean, sustainable future for their children in the courts, the state legislature, on the streets and in the hills and hollows of Vermont.  Greenpeace was in on it too, but only in the 21st century and so we tried to keep our hooting appropriately modest.  Sierra Club even put out a press release.  (I don’t remember seeing them around, but what do I know?)

As much as Entergy tried to buy or bully support, it never worked.  In February 2010, in the midst of a blizzard of both tritium leaks from the plant and out-and-out lies from Entergy bosses, the state senate voted 26-4 to close the plant.  That legislative determination led to an unsurprising court battle (Entergy outspent the state b$5 million to $1 million) in which a federal judge vetoed the senate’s action as overreach into affairs controlled by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  That decision affirmed was by a federal appeals court earlier this month and you could hear Entergy packing its carpetbag and getting out while it still had a sandspit of legal high ground on which to stand.

Activists can’t take all (or perhaps even most) of the credit. Low energy prices, resulting from a glut of cheap, fracked natural gas played a role, as did ham-handed management by Entergy (the company responsible for this year’s Super Bowl blackout).  Having just spent $5 million in court fees defending Vermont Yankee, Entergy is now shutting down and taking a $181 million charge on its balance sheet.  (If Entergy can’t even make money, why should they be trusted with the most dangerous substances on the planet?)
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Nuclear Energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
08/15/2013

Scene of the Crime

I didn’t post anything last week, my apologies.  I was visiting family in Florida, didn’t bring my laptop, thinking I’d try to post from my smart phone.  Fail.   Specifically, I was in Seminole County, which was still recovering from the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial. I wanted to get a feel for the place before I wrote about the verdict.  Opinions there are as divided as anywhere but the map is not the territory, so here are a few impressions from the territory.

The Central Florida pedestrian is a rare sight. Maybe it’s because it’s August with searing heat and choking humidity. Mr. Martin was murdered in February when weather is more conducive to outdoor activity.  Still, sidewalks are few, many neighborhoods – like the one in which Mr. Martin died – are gated, thoroughfares have multiple lanes of speeding traffic in each direction.

People there without cars are somehow suspect.  Too poor?  Up to no good?  On other visits, I’ve tried walking places (because I like to walk and because I hate driving in Florida).  It was no fun, walking on gravel and litter at the edge of the roadway as the cars swept past.  A ten-minute excursion by foot and I was already looking for shortcuts.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
08/01/2013

Bearing Witness

The world spins faster.  This is not necessarily a good thing.  Some days I attend a video conference while my phone(s) ring, texts come in (teletype sound effect), calendar beeps, multiple Skype messages make moist Skype noises.  I think, this is how the world will end: everything moving faster, overwhelming the individual until society throttles itself like an Iranian centrifuge infected with Stuxnet.

Equally, it may not be a bad thing.  I can’t be passive in the face of change.  I learn – at least enough – to keep up.  I limit, too.  I don’t need to get app-happy like the kids and geeks.  I save my bandwidth for other things.  (See how it creeps in?  Insidious.)  Nor am I alone.  This afternoon Adrienne was trying to put two neighbors – each north of 50 – in touch.  One has no email; the other no voicemail.

In other ways, not a bad thing.  If we’re judicious about how we choose to use the new tools, they can be a great leveling force for democracy.  Occupy, Wikileaks, Anonymous.  Computers give citizens reach heretofore reserved for governments and multinational corporations.

Give you an example.  Vermont Gas, which despite its name is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada’s Gaz Metro, wants to extend its western Vermont pipeline.  Natural gas is only available in two of Vermont’s 14 counties and the pipeline would extend to a third county and across Lake Champlain to New York State to serve a pulp mill.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
07/25/2013

Off-Label Police State

You’re familiar with the concept of “off-label” use (and abuse) of pharmaceutical drugs, right?  A drug is developed and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for one use, but soon after either doctors or the patients themselves use it for other purposes.

Perhaps the most famous – and perhaps frequent – current example of an off-label use is Ritalin, which is prescribed for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  When used by the right patient for the right purpose, it calms the child.  Perversely, when taken by a person without ADHD, it acts like an amphetamine and speeds them up.

Sometimes, the pharma companies take products off label themselves.  Pfizer was trying to develop a vasodilator when it was noticed the product had this, um, unusual off-label effect.  The scientists thought they’d failed; the marketing department didn’t see it that way and thus Viagra was introduced.

This, however, isn’t about drugs.  It’s about law, but the same principle applies, maybe it’s a statement of where we are as a society.  What I mean is this: we allow police and other authorities to extend some extraordinary authority over us, to take away rights we should not be deprived of for an extraordinary purpose (so we’re told), but then that intrusion is used against us for yet another, different purpose.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
07/18/2013

Summer Heat

All through May and June it rained.  Biblical rains last 40 days and 40 nights; ours lasted 60.  The roof leaked, the basement flooded, the dry side of the basement flooded.  By the end, it wasn’t just me with seasonal affective disorder.

May and June 2013 was the wettest 60-day period in Vermont in 100-plus years of record keeping.  Farmers couldn’t get some fields planted on time, other fields not at all.  No way was corn knee-high by the Fourth of July around here.  Hay crop is all but ruined.

“When will it end?  How much more can we take?” we asked.  Those who pray, prayed.  They may have recruited new volunteers.

Just after the Fourth, the rains ended.  Sort of.  The all-day rains ended, the all-night rains ended.  The daily torrential downpours that sent curbstones and hunks of macadam skidding down our street ended.

So it still rains, but now it’s steaming hot between showers, a certified heat wave (defined around here as three consecutive days with temperatures over 90 degrees).  We’ve run enough rainless days together to allow the farmers out to salvage what hay they can.  They tell me round bale technology helps.  (Round bale tech results in those things that look like big marshmallows in the fields.)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , | Comments (0)