12/27/2001

Two Down, Ten to Go

Today is the third day of Christmas; your true love should be giving you three French hens, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree, but probably will not. Traditionally, the Christmas season lasts 12 days, from Christmas Day until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the magi were supposed to have arrived from the east, bearing gifts.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
12/20/2001

Let It Snow, Let It Snow

We have an affinity for snowflakes in Vermont. About this time every year we import a googol or two from Canada. We’ll be enchanted by our snowflakes for the next three months, but the flakes will outlast our enchantment, sticking around until April.

It was a Vermonter, Wilson Bentley, from over in Jericho, who took the first photographs of individual snowflakes in 1885. Mr. Bentley took 5,000 photos of snowflakes, and it was he who declared no two are alike, although when it comes to snowflakes, 5,000 is a small sample from which to draw conclusions.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
12/13/2001

A Nice, Clean Fight

“War – what is it good for?” the old song asks. “Absolutely nothing,” comes the reply. That song was not written by a defense contractor, because war is the best live-action research and development program a weapons maker could ask for. The current conflict in Afghanistan has been a boon for the arms industry, particularly for makers of drone aircraft, used for reconnaissance and search-and-destroy missions.

Developing bigger, better weapons, however, in the larger philosophic sense, is probably not a good thing – or is it? As it turns out, not all weapon improvements are directed toward an increase in slaughter efficiency. Some of the billions of dollars spent each year by the Pentagon are used to make American armaments among the most environmentally-sound on earth.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
12/06/2001

Stop Beating Your Wife

Last Saturday, December first, my probation ended and I was returned to full-fledged citizenship. I was arrested in late August with some folks from Greenpeace for occupying a coal-burning, carbon dioxide-spewing power plant in Salem, Massachusetts. We were trying to make a point about global warming.

The local judge all but thanked us for protesting, then placed us on three months probation, in a peculiar Massachusetts legal limbo known as “continuance without finding.” I imagine it was devised as a means of carefully handling the indiscretions of that family from Hyannis Port.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
11/29/2001

The Long In-Between

We are deep in the middle of the part of life Hollywood leaves out of every movie: the long in-between. This is the time when we grieve for the immediate past and fret for the near future. At best, this period might be shown in a movie as a calendar, with the pages tearing away swiftly, as if blown by the wind.

Movies are often about unhappy events – war, natural disaster, calamity. The audience is insulated from the unhappiness of these events by the tide of adrenaline which carries us forward and by the floor of the editing room, which saves us from having to live through the long in-between.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
11/22/2001

Justice for Just Us

Today is Thanksgiving, the American holiday, and when we bow our heads over the turkey, many of us will take an extra moment to contemplate our civic good fortune and count the blessings of our American values. There’s been a good deal of talk about American values in the past few months – American values have been defended, American values keep us strong.

American values are under attack, the virulence of which has seldom been seen in our nation’s history. The latest attack was launched by two men on Pennsylvania Avenue, George Bush and John Ashcroft. Military tribunals, secret evidence, eavesdropping on attorney-client conversations, unknown numbers of people hidden in jails – it’s starting to look very banana republic out there, and I don’t mean there’s a sale on black turtlenecks.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
11/15/2001

Unlearned Lessons

A federal court in San Francisco last week threw out a five billion-dollar punitive damage award in the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The court called the award excessive and ordered a lower court judge to reduce the amount.

In the 12 years this thing has been floating through the legal system, Exxon merged with Mobil and ExxonMobil’s spokesperson said the company should not have to pay any punitive damages whatsoever.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)