01/31/2013

A Piece of My Mine

A colleague, an attorney, began her career in the Monroe County, New York Public Defender’s Office.  I’m from Monroe County.  I told her the name of my town.

“Hmm,” she said. “We didn’t work by town, we worked by zip.  What was your zip?”

“One four six one seven,” I said.

“Oh yeah, I know that zip.  Sex offenders.”

“Really?  Wow.  I, um, haven’t lived there for many years.”

“Oh, I’m sure!  Things change.  I’m just saying…”

Well, that was awkward.  It’s been more than a decade since my colleague was in the Monroe County PD’s office and 30 years since I moved away , but fact is, I did know of sex offenders in the old neighborhood.

It’s been a while since that conversation, but it rises in the mind from time to time, especially when I contemplate data mining.  If you’re not familiar with the term it’s used to describe how information about us is collected, packaged and sold.  It’s the answer to the question: How does Google make money?
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Economy | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)
01/24/2013

A Bit of Everything

I spent a good portion of last weekend happily skating on the Pine Street Barge Canal near my house.  It was perfect winter exercise and recreation, just what I needed to bring a healthy glow to my cheeks.  (I’m a crappy skater, but I enjoy it.)  Gliding over the rough patches near the beaver lodge, it struck me how many factors had to converge to make my leisure possible.

First there’s global warming which messes with our weather patterns and has brought northwestern Vermont a roller coaster winter, with temperatures on a 50-degree swing from 40 above to 10 below.  (Last weekend was high 30s, since then it’s been single digits either side of zero.)  The warmth melts the snow and ice on top and the ensuing cold freezes it smooth.  The ice is green, with Rorschach bubbles trapped below.  Most are white; some are brown and some purple, which leads to the second factor…

The Pine Street Barge Canal is a Superfund site.  Were it not a Superfund site, there would be no skating; as a high-speed, limited access highway would run through there; a horrible fad from the 1960s that would have cut Burlington off from its own waterfront.  A contemporary version of this highway, an infrastructure zombie unbuilt but undead, is still pushed upon us by city fathers and chamber of commerce types who’ve yet to learn the last century’s mistakes.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Global Warming, Toxics | Tagged , , | Comments (1)
01/17/2013

Gas Attack

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Shell oil rig Kulluk, which was then beached on an uninhabited island off Alaska’s south coast.  Shell has since refloated the rig and it’s now in a sheltered harbor being inspected.  This is not the end of Shell’s troubles.

Shell’s incompetence with equipment (see here for a longer, but far from comprehensive list) is merely one factor they’re passing around the Bromo-Seltzer at HQ these days.  Aside from the fact that one commenter on an industry web site said Shell’s Alaska operations look like “six monkeys playing football,” the real terror is natural gas.  Fracking, if you read this blog (or even go to the movies) is familiar to you as is the way it destroys landscapes, pollutes groundwater, divides communities and releases hellacious amounts of greenhouse gases (which conveniently slip between regulatory regimes).

Beyond that, fracking has put huge volumes of natural gas on the market, creating a glut that’s given a painful kick in the pants (where the wallet is kept) to other forms of energy.  Coal, nukes and oh, yes oil, which has been king for the past 150 years are all feeling the effects natural gas has brought to the so-called free market.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Energy, Global Warming, Nuclear Energy, Oil | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
01/10/2013

Where the Mental Health Thing Comes In

James Yeager, the CEO of Tactical Response, a Tennessee company that specializes in firearms training, posted – and then unposted – a 32-second video of himself swearing into the camera (swearing in both the sense of cursing and making a promise) that if guns are regulated, he will start killing people.

I hardly know where to begin with this guy.  He certainly expands the horizon on my mental image of “CEO.” (Unless those initials stand for something else in this case – “Cursing Execution Officer”? “Crude Expletive Offender”?)  Mr. Yeager – as far as I can tell – hopes to dissuade the federal government from adopting measures controlling the use of firearms by threatening unspecific murder.  This is what happens when we stop teaching Civics in high schools and “Schoolhouse Rock” is no longer aired with the Saturday cartoons.  That’s not how change is made in America, Mr. Yeager.  The koo-koo eyes don’t help, either.

OK, so he’s just one CEO with more tattoos than brain cells.  But turn on CNN and see Alex Jones screaming in the same vein, only louder, longer and minus the overt death threats, although he apparently drenched Piers Morgan with spittle.   Granted, Mr. Jones was screaming at Mr. Morgan, – and who wouldn’t want to do that live on the air? – so maybe I should cut him some slack, but all in all, these are not people I want walking around with weapons.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
01/03/2013

Empty Shell

Happy New Year.  The snow here is two feet deep and the temperature is in single digits, sometimes above and sometimes below zero.  Winter in Vermont as it should be and as it too rarely seems to be anymore.

Global warming is the cause, of course, and while we seem to be enjoying a respite from it here in New England, I have spent most of the hours of 2013 (so far), dealing with a pernicious effect of global warming on the far side of the North America continent.

Royal Dutch Shell, better known to Americans as Shell Oil, has been trying to drill for oil in the ocean north of Alaska for some years now, but its plans are continuously foiled, mostly by Shell’s own stunning incompetence.  (I try to keep these things under 1,000 words, so an exhaustive catalog of Shell’s mishaps – and the US government’s equal incompetence in providing oversight – won’t fit in the space allotted, but there was the drifting drill ship, the flaming onboard engine and the safety equipment “crushed like a beer can” while be tested in calm waters.)
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Global Warming, Oceans, Oil | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
12/27/2012

Status Report

I’ve shoveled three times today, so far.  Big flakes are supposed to keep falling from the sky for the next two days.  I checked my neighbors’ house – they’re out of state for the holidays and now trapped in the Midwest – to make sure their pipes don’t freeze.  So far, so good.  So far may be the phrase of the day.

The newspapers are calling this either a “heavy snow” or a “low-grade blizzard.”  Heavy it’s not.  It’s light and powdery and if you shovel early and often, it’s pretty easy to move.  When (if) the traveling neighbors get home, we’ll all have to chip in and dig them out.  For now it’s enough for the rest of us to keep our own spots clear.

I always have the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, which is good, because it’s the week I tend to be knocked on my keister by some bug.  Weeks of rushing around, tending to end-of-year necessities and when I finally slow down, something catches me or I catch it, I’m not entirely sure how it works.  This year’s version seems to affect me only from the throat up, which is kinder than some varieties.

Aside from a table full of OTC cold meds (including the dreaded Chloraseptic), I’m nursing myself through with a combination of lemon juice, honey, fresh ginger and cayenne pepper, all mixed with boiling water.  It works, but makes me wish I’d gotten a new batch of handkerchiefs for Christmas.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
12/20/2012

Christmas in Prison

I suppose you want to hear a Christmas story.  “It was Christmas in prison and the food was real good, we had turkey and pistols carved out of wood… ”  That John Prine song will be 40 in the New Year.

Twenty years ago this month I wandered through parts of the Midwest humming that tune and it’s there and then my story of Christmas in prison takes place.  It’s one of those true/not true stories that one accumulates/embellishes after a half-century on the planet.

At the time, we were a bunch of (relatively) young activists living in a rented house in Chester, West Virginia.  We were helping the locals in the Ohio/West Virginia/Pennsylvania region fight the construction of the world’s largest toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio.

The battle had been joined for several years and had been white-hot for the previous year, with multiple acts of civil disobedience and by December most of us had been repeat guests of the Columbiana County Jail.  (Jail is not prison.  Jail is a local holding facility for those awaiting trial or serving short sentences, usually under a year.)
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Toxics | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)