Calling Conrad Tester! Calling Conrad Tester!

This hoary marmot had never before heard the sound or smelled the fumes of an ATV
The “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012” (HR 4089) is one of a long list of bills that are part of a full frontal attack on our wilderness system. When I was working these issues back in the 1990’s, the ever-present threat was the loggers, who like so many others, cannot conceive of the concept “enough.” They wanted everything, every log, and the idea of setting land apart merely to preserve it was foreign to them. That is the ethos of the corporation, and while corporations are comprised of human beings, corporations manifest the worst aspects of humans – greed and indifference to nature and human aesthetics. In fact, that is what corporate structure promotes, and what the law mandates – profit before all.

Loggers are still with us, and presented their agenda (again – it’s old wine in a new bottle) in Sen Jon Tester’s (D-MT) “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act,” like the Heritage Act, a name crafted around a long oak table in a room deep in the bowels of an ad agency. Their job is to sell, and the naming of a bill (Clear Skies, anyone?) is as important as any other aspect of getting anti-social, anti-commons, anti-community legislation passed.

SHA2012 does the following, according to Wilderness Watch of Missoula:

HR 4089 would give hunting, fishing, recreational shooting, and fish and wildlife management top priority in Wilderness, rather than protecting the areas’ wilderness character, as has been the case for nearly 50 years. This bill would allow endless, extensive habitat manipulations in Wilderness under the guise of “wildlife conservation” and for providing hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting experiences. It would allow the construction of roads to facilitate such uses and would allow the construction of dams, buildings, or other structures within Wildernesses. It would exempt all of these actions from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Finally, HR 4089 would remove Wilderness Act prohibitions against motor vehicle use for fishing, hunting, or recreational shooting, or for wildlife conservation measures.

In other words, the bill overrides every important provision of the 1964 Wilderness Act.
Continue reading “Calling Conrad Tester! Calling Conrad Tester!” →

Oh what a night!

On to serious stuff now.

In my athletic days (slow-pitch softball, like bowling, is considered an athletic activity by some), I was called upon late in a game to be the catcher (something to do with my not catching balls in the outfield). Our center fielder had a cannon for an arm, and ran down a ball in the gap and got it back to me at the plate quickly. That took the other team by surprise, and there I stood at home plate, ball in glove and two runners having crossed third base. I tagged each of them, one of the most unusual double plays ever in the annals of the game. The second runner, probably out of embarrassment, tried to run me over, Pete Rose fashion. But as I discovered on further examination, I had held onto the ball. (He was called out for running into me, not allowed in slow-pitch, but he was out anyway.)

That event came to memory as I watched a baseball game last night – something far more unlikely happened. Cincinnati’s Mike Leake, Zach Cozart and Drew Stubbs hit back-to-back-to-back home runs, unusual. But the really amazing thing was that one fan in the center field bleachers caught two of them.

Imagine that there were 23,000 fans in the ball park. The odds of any one of them catching an errant ball are, say 20 in 23,000, or 1/1,150. The odds of the same person catching two would then be 1/1,322,500.

What a night for 20-year old Caleb Lloyd! He was invited up to the broadcast booth during and down to the locker room after the game, and even standing among all those millionaires, wanted no money for Leake’s home run ball (it was his first major league home run).

New witness steps forth in the RFK murder

I have long since dismissed any serious consequences or fallout from the JFK assassination. The poor schmuck was a victim of circumstances, and would probably had continued to lead a charmed life had he not been popped that day. The one person who mostly caused his demise knew that he had done so, and from afar it appears that he went through a consciousness-altering experience with the death – enormous guilt, a new perspective on the world, and a death wish. That was Bobby. Though we’ll never know, it could be that his anti-war stance was genuine.

Normally in American politics, false leaders appear on the scene to collect discontent and misdirect it to a futile end. In 1968, that appears to have been Eugene McCarthy’s role. There was no need for a another false leader, so that Bobby’s anti-war stance could well have been real. There was also the matter of his determination to solve the mystery of his brother’s death. These two things made him unqualified to be president.
Continue reading “New witness steps forth in the RFK murder” →

The heart of a progressive president

From Glenn Greenwald

Though a bit oversimpified — the Bush administration killed plenty of people, while the Obama administration makes use of kidnapping and torture chambers albeit by proxy; also, as this tweeter noted: it’s “unfair to say the Obama administration kills those it doesn’t like, since they claim power to kill people without even knowing who they are” – this concise comparison just about about sums it up. But it’s important to note that President Obama has progressivism in his heart and that makes all the difference in the world.

Between the lines

Dr. McCarthy
Kirk Johnson of the New York Times writes about the return on whooping cough in the state of Washington, with almost 1,300 cases reported so far this year. That approaches epidemic proportions.

I wonder if the Playboy model turned health advisor, Jenny McCarthy, reads this stuff and feels any responsibility. The story makes no mention of her or of the fraudulent study published in the British medical journal Lancet in 1998, later discredited. In that article, Dr. Andrew Wakefield made a false connection between autism and vaccinations for various maladies, including whooping cough. McCarthy, herself the mother of an autistic child, picked up on it and has not let go.

We’re now seeing anti-science bearing fruit.

I have no problem with famous people using that fame for causes. But fame carries enormous responsibility. Mistaken notions, even if well-intended, can turn into disastrous outcomes.

Johnson’s article also mentions the poor condition of public health in Washington state, with underfunded and understaffed hospitals struggling under the burden of new (and expensive to diagnose) cases. Doctors are advised to just start treatment when they see symptoms.

The uninsured population in that state is now 14.6%, compared to 11.6% three years ago, prior to reform. Along with McCarthy, Johnson makes no mention of Obama.
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As well-publicized, there was a horrible bombing in Syria that killed 55 people and injured hundreds more. There was a tiny story on a sidebar in the Denver Post, Page 18A, that a “shadowy militant group” claimed responsibility for the incident.

This is a situation where high skepticism is warranted. Syria is a country under attack by outsiders – never mind its lousy government, which is of no concern in Washington (DC).

A horrible bombing, some ragtags claiming responsibility on the Internet … removal of rose-colored glasses might lead to the culprits. I suspect name of that “shadowy group” begins with C and ends with A [or M and D or both]. It’s right out of their playbook.

Am I saying that Americans are involved in random murder, doing violent provocation to enflame an already dangerous situation?

Yes. Quite yes. Daily. Who benefits from continued violence? Just think of our guys as the “militants” or “terrorists” and it’s easier to see.

Getting it right

From today’s paper:

The Denver Post is your trusted source of information and will run corrections of all stories that contain information that is not factual or is substantially inaccurate.

In a news story in Saturday’s edition we reported that there is no US military presence in Yemen. However, the correct spelling of the international airport in the capital city of Sana’a, where marines and equipment have not landed, is “El Rahaba” and not “El Rahabai”. The Post apologizes for this error.

Where elections have meaning

Page two of Monday’s Financial Times had the following stories: Spotlight on Greek left after poll surge; Sinn Fein’s anti-austerity stances strikes chord with young Irish; and Hollande must cope with split inside EU over path to reform.

All of these stories are about elections in European countries, where public opinion can and does translate into public policy (it does not here), and the reaction to “austerity” programs, or the idea that public programs for public benefit are the public’s business do not exist at the whim of bankers.

Here’s a snippet from the Hollande article:

What gets less attention was Mr. Hollande’s revealing admission that he did not share [President of the European Central Bank Mario] Draghi’s vision, endorsed by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, that … growth … should be structured on structural reforms, such as increasing labour market flexibility.*

Mr. Hollande was not coy about this. “Can we really believe that liberalism**, privatisations and deregulation, which led us into the financial crisis we are in, well help us get out of the crisis?

Indeed. Mr. Hollande, please come to America, write about us as de Tocqueville did, give us the insight he did. We really need some French wisdom on this side of the pond.
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* “labor market flexibility” is code for hire and fire at will, no job security.
**”liberalism”, over there, is equivalent to what we might refer to as “neoliberalism” here, or the Greenspan-Bernancke-Clinton school of deregulation and low taxation of concentrated wealth.

Jellyfish run from falling walls

I witnessed yesterday two of the most high-profile jellyfish politicians of our era, President Obama and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, finally take a stand on equal rights for gays. This can only mean one thing: The battle is over. Soon, maybe within five years, gays will have equally protected constitutional rights in all fifty states, including North Carolina.

One pundit yesterday – Thom Hartmann? – said that the TV show Will and Grace had perhaps saved more teen agers than any other force in our country. The highest suicide rate in our land is among gay teen agers. Watching a popular medium like TV, seeing openly gay people accepted and treated with respect, gave many the courage just to get through high school, get away from the bigots, maybe move to a bigger city, and live their lives.

Please note – after the battle was waged, after the walls were falling, only then did Hickenlooper and Obama weigh in. This gives weight to the argument that popular movements, even of minorities, is the strongest determinant of future public policy. This explains FDR an LBJ. They did what they did because they felt pressure, perhaps even acting on their own impulses knowing that they had power behind them.

Politics 201

Joe Biden appeared on Meet the Press yesterday and made a big splash by endorsing gay marriage. This is the sort of thing that drives me buggy about American journalism – a scripted performance by an elected official on a program known to act as a handmaiden to power. These days it is David Gregory playing the part of Tim Russert.

This is politics, of course. There is no disagreement within the administration about gay marriage. More likely they, like most power centers in the country, are disinterested. It’s a wedge issue, and important in politics, and not beyond.

Secondly, the Vice President tackles this issue because it is too hot for the president to handle. Call him Spiro Biden if it helps to understand the matter.

Third, Obama has been indifferent to gay marriage during his presidency, or better said, disinterested. But campaign time is approaching, and his campaign team is busy assembling his voting blocs. He’s gone after youth on TV and in a popular magazine, and now the LBGT community via Biden.
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