Political Factors

Oversight

Perhaps its just oversight on the part of our political powers that they would play yet another of their games late on a Friday afternoon in mid-November.  It’s the perfect time to lose significant actions in society’s weekend activities.  A significant action, for instance, regarding prisoner and detainee abuse photos.  It’s certain that even if the mainstream media were to report on it, the people would be more interested in testosterone induced football players and cheerleaders doing what they do best.  

Sort of.  The executive branch, while perhaps not thinking about cheers and squeals and grunts and groans,  banks on the weekend as a guiding force in its desperate search for campaign help.   Prison abuse goes unchecked, unanswered, and unaccounted for.  

Access Documents

On this most recent of late Friday afternoons our Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates (yes, he of Bush Junior fame), exercised some of his most recent new found powers.  Any thoughts of detainee abuse photos seeing “the light of day” will remain just that, thoughts.  

Thanks to a a provision in the Homeland Security appropriations bill passed by Congress in October, Gates has the power to withhold pertinent information (i.e. “protected documents”) that could be construed as endangering U.S. citizens or U.S. soldiers or government employees deployed outside the United States.  This provision in turn gives its thanks to two bastions of civil liberties, Joe Lieberman (I - Connecticut) and Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina), who are the original sponsors of this political marketing endeavor.  

From the Congressional Record, June 17, 2009, we have these words of wisdom by Graham: “Secondly, I wanted to be assured by the administration that if the Congress fails to do its part to protect these photos from being released, the President would sign an Executive order which would change their classification to be classified national security documents that would be outcome determinative of the lawsuit. Rahm Emanuel has indicated to me that the President is committed to not ever letting these photos see the light of day, but they agree with me that the best way to do it is for Congress to act.”  

You’ve just got to love “the light of day” concept.  The absurd idea that the Freedom of Information Act could be used in a positive manner to access documents of historical significance has been dealt a knockout blow, sponsored in part by hope and change. 

FOIA Requests

For nearly six years the ACLU has been attempting to gain access to the images.  First, through a FOIA request filed in 2003 and then sued the aforementioned Bush Junior administration.  A US District Court ordered the release of the photos, affirmed by the US Court of Appeals.  Additionally, the district court stated that Junior’s administration was attempting to expand FOIA exemptions to protect their actions while suppressing “global controversy.”

Thanks to the efficiencies of our judicial system, the case was headed for the Supreme Court.  Then of course came the Lieberman-Graham amendment along with the “light of day” banner being displayed on that fast moving to a sudden stop hope and change bandwagon. 

While the Barackstar professes that the images “are not particularly sensational,” the executive branch still feels the need to act under the cover of weekend squeals and groans.  Oh yes, and oversight.  

Asking The Right Questions

Worst Disaster

Three days after Ft. Hood’s worst disaster, a shooting spree that left 13 dead and 30 wounded, our infotainment-based media continues in its absurd and pathetic reporting of the incident.   What we do know, we think for certain, is that Nidal Malik Hasan is a psychiatrist, with the rank of Major, in the United States Army.  

Hours after the incident, news reports were based on an instant creation of hysteria and sensationalism.  Half-staffed in coverage and half-baked in their ability to do a good job, much less a decent one, news reporters instead gave us hype. This hype was based on  information received from a military installation in lockdown mode.  Three days after the fact, the facts trickle out, sensationalism still reigns.

While internet discussion boards are filled with hate, racism, and bigotry over this major disaster, little is offered up toward a rational thought process.  Nor is anyone questioning the information offered up by the military.  Any information released was, is, and will continue to be based on the age-old CYA policy.  This seems to be especially true with the military’s modus operandi.    

Ask The Right Questions

Why does the media continue to provide information to the general populace based on information provided that is based on anonymity?  How can we get accurate information if someone is providing that information without fear of accountability?  

While army officials continue to present the story that a lone gunman did all this killing and wounding with only two handguns, as presented by CNN and seemingly every other news outlet, ballistics tests from casings strewn about the murder site have yet to reach a conclusion.  A conclusion that, no doubt, will be announced by the military industrial complex as it stays in the CYA mode.  

Performance Evaluation Process

While the kicking of a downed human continues, little is said about the suspect reaching the rank of Major in one of the world’s most powerful militaries.  Instead, as Osman Danquah states, we hear “I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”  This in reference to Hasan’s seeking counsel from Danquah regarding what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers regarding the killing of Iraqis and Afghanis in those U.S. military-occupied countries.  Danquah is the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen.  Another question, if things didn’t seem quite right, did Danquah report any of this?  It’s just a question, but maybe it’s one of the many right questions.

How about Major Hasan’s performance evaluation?  This man reached the rank of Major based on his performance.  Right?  Again, questions.  This of course leads us to the question of staff evaluations.  Who was, or is, responsible for determining where Hasan’s performance evaluation report lands?  On whose desk does the report ultimately land?  Better yet, in which file cabinet is the report stashed?  Who evaluates those who evaluated Hasan?  So many questions that may never be asked.

Anyone or any entity can present their own agenda, passing it off as fact, as long as the right questions aren’t asked.  Infotainment remains king, even in tragedy.  

New Name Is Squeaky Clean

Names In The News

With all the publicity, most of it bad, regarding Canada’s tar sands project, it’s amusing to see - in a pathetic sort of way - the marketing forces behind this project cranking things up a bit.  Funding must have finally made its way into their bank account.

Syncrude, operator of one of Canada’s largest mines in man’s newest venture into the environmental disaster arena,  now prefers that we refer to the tar sands as “oil sands”, the reason being that it sounds more positive.  Forget the visuals associated with the ecological disaster of tar sands mining, let’s prioritize things here by emphasizing the sound quality of a name.  On a side note (pardon the pun), this does question the proper spelling of their company name.  

Even Wikipedia, that fountain of almost accurate wisdom, now refers to the tar sands as oil sands.  Everywhere one looks in the corporate world, tar sands money is growing on those evergreen corporate trees.  

Boom Town, Tar Sands Style

Fort McMurray, 270 miles northeast of Edmonton, is surrounded by boreal forest and sits at the confluence of the Clearwater River and the Athabasca River.  Hint: forests and rivers.  In 1966, the town’s population was estimated at just over 2,000 residents.  Population projections for the year 2012 come in at 100,000.  

The town’s economy is based, unnaturally, on the tar sands of Alberta.  Specifically, on the Athabasca tar sands project.  This tar sands deposit is the largest of three tar sands projects in Canada, and the single largest tar sands deposit in the world.  Combined with the other two Alberta deposits, the Peace River deposit and the Cold Lake deposit, a 54,000 square mile section of this boreal forest and muskeg continues to be under extreme attack by the oil industry.  

Forgive me, I digress.  Fort McMurray’s other driving forces in its economy are natural gas, oil pipelines, and forestry.  Oh yes, and tourism.  It’s probably a safe bet to say that the recent spike in their tourism numbers comes from carbon energy executives flocking to the area just to see what the recent Greenpeace fuss is all about. 

Oil Sands Jobs

Oil sands employment, not tar sands employment, is booming these days, as the mental thought process seems to diminish.  Jean Fournier, a 64 year old scaffolder recently earned $64,000.00 Canadian dollars (approximately $60,000.00 USD) over the last four months.  His take on the recent Greenpeace activities at the tar sands plants was simply “ Greenpeace will make people starve by killing the economy.”  He obviously believes the Greenpeace economic policy is equivalent to the Bush-Cheney economic policy.  

The oil industry has, over it’s storied history, created strong employee alliances the same way they create strong corporate alliances.  The money grows on a different tree in the same orchard.  

Losing Money

During the roller coaster oil price years of the Bush Jr.’s presidency, tar sands projects went along for the ride.  However, once oil prices dropped below or at $60.00 per barrel, tar sands became sand castles.  In today’s economy, prices must be above $60.00 per barrel in order to justify the extreme expenses associated with tar sands mining, otherwise its a losing money proposition.  If there’s one thing oil companies care very little for, other than a positive environmental plan, it’s losing money.  

As peak oil production across the planet becomes ever more distant in our rear view mirrors, expect today’s major disaster in Canada to become a global disaster.    

Oh, Canada.  

Protecting Pollution In The Name Of Counterterrorism

Pollution Problems

On September 15, 2009, Greenpeace began a campaign against Canada’s (and the world’s) largest energy project, the major disaster known as tar sands.  Regarding greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, Shell is the proud parent to this baby, leading the oil sands companies to compete, no doubt, with clean coal for a greener pasture.    

But wait, there’s the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA).  They’re coming to the rescue for tar sands production.  Based in Houston, Texas, this pro-tar sands lobby group is busy making all the right moves.  However, it’s not as if they’re giving us life inspiring quotes.  

“Our economy is completely dependent on fossil fuels,” states Michael Whatley of the CEA. Truer words were never spoken.  Continuing with his stunning revelations while entering the realm of genius, he states that “If you start taking oil based products off the table before alternatives are ready for prime time, then you are going to have catastrophic impacts for the economy.”   He gave no indication as to which economy was currently feeling “catastrophic impacts.”  

Environmental Plan

While Canada’s tax dollars help fund shipment of tar sands oil across the globe, the reality is that they don’t have to ship very far.  The greediest of all the energy consuming pigs on the planet is their closest neighbor.  Yep, still the world’s largest energy consumer, the U.S., slobbers and slathers all over itself for any energy it can get, from any carbon-based source.  Militarily speaking, at any expense.  Forget the sun.  Forget the wind.  

The Canadian government, with a limp wrist treatment to the oil industry, claims that environmental activists are using terrorist tactics against the industry and furthermore state that “We’re coddling people who are breaking the law,” a brilliant quote by Premier Ed Stelmach of Alberta.  The referenced coddled people were those attempting to protect the environment, not the oil people.  

Environmental Activists

In their mad dash to line up for padded pockets of cash, government officials fail to realize one simple thing. Throwing claims of terrorism at people whose wish is to stop environmental disaster will only encourage that which they claim.  It makes little sense for someone accused of terrorism to stand and watch as a government institutes a “counterterrorism” program.  

Blocking heavy oil conveyor belts, reached by canoe does not constitute an act of terrorism.  Blocking access to refinement equipment does not constitute terrorism.  Chaining oneself to three-story high dump trucks is not terrorism.  Most of the terrorism we should be discussing is actually happening at much higher levels, and at the opposite end of the playing field.  

Accusations of acts of terrorism should be allowed where ever the acts are occurring.  One of the first places to start would be with the link of carbon and coal based energy monsters with any government entity that allows its citizens to become dependent on the product, at great cost to the environment.  

As for Mr. Whatley, he might want to consider spending less time in his office and a bit more time out in the wind and sun. Our civilizations, along with our home, will never reach “prime time” until we become dependent on wind and solar. 

To Shoot The Moon

Moon Landscape

Reports indicate that up until October 8, 2009, there have been 18 crashes into the moon’s surface, thanks to mankind’s ability to spend money, and desire to waste energy.  Furthermore, an additional eight attempts were made that somehow missed their mark.

Now we can add two more crashes into the moon landscape.  This time, to prove that, once and for all, there is water on the moon.  This gives hope that, once we’ve destroyed the Earth, we can all take up residence on the moon, giving new meaning to the term “illegal immigration.”

At a speed in the neighborhood of 6,000 mph, the crash has been labelled, by certain news reports, as  “a magnificent job.”  Indeed, magnificent.  To the tune of $79 million.  Imagine how much has been invested in space research over the years.  Now imagine, for a moment, the rate of return on the investment.

Great Quotes

Some of the great quotes in life warrant no discussion, simply for their profound and enlightening message.  Other times, their greatness lies in their sense of profound disbelief.  For instance, because space rocks crash into the moon, on average, four times per month, we’re justified in crashing a 2.2 ton empty rocket stage into the moon. As Peter Schultz, of NASA’s Ames Research Center said, “There’s a reason you drop pumpkins off a 30-story building.”  Then, lest we forget, he informs us that “Geez, I’ve got the neatest job in the world.”  This is a government-funded organization, people.  In other words, 79 million of our tax dollars just vanished.  Poof.  Gone.   

Reality Check

It’s not enough that we have an earth full of waste and debris and garbage and pollution.  It’s not enough that the effects of global warming are accelerating humanity into an unknown and  most likely unforgiving arena.  It’s not enough that the planet’s glaciers are all in retreat.  It’s not enough that we’re running out of carbon- based energy with little effort being put into plan B.  

While bigots insist on not allowing school children to watch and listen to a world leader discuss the importance of education, across the United States people drooled and peed in their pants over the thought of a man-controlled object crashing into the lunar surface.  

Disaster Report

Statistics Disaster

Statistics Disaster
The daily environmental reports continue to alarm. While the International Energy Agency statistics show peak oil occurring after 2030, a new report out from the Energy Research Council (UKERC) predicts oil supplies will diminish before 2030. Even more alarming, the report states that there is a “significant risk” we will reach peak oil before 2020.  

That’s ten years, folks.  We wonder why Canada is frantic in its efforts to extract tar sands, destroying its landscape, air, and water supplies in the process?  Oil prices from 2008 were a primer for the world’s populations that depend on black crude.  To date, the world’s economies are still reeling from that act of generosity, compliments of the well-oiled Bush administration. 

It would be so unnatural to begin a full-fledged environmental association with a similar amount of funding given as is being provided to fight the global war on terror.  What to fight about after the oil is gone?  Don’t tell me, for I already know. 

Energy Conservation Program

To be clear, the Energy Research Council is UK government funded, independent of the U.S. oil-influenced government.  With 80 mph speed limits in certain U.S. states, it’s obvious that our energy conservation program is firmly in place, with little need to validate this latest report on a global disaster. 

Less than ten years.  Relative to the history of the planet, that’s seconds from disaster. Will the oil industry acknowledge this issue?  Not for a while.  There are still major profits to be made;  there’s really no reason to alarm the public.  Hell, they might start their own energy conservation plan, without being told.  Can’t let that happen.  Corporate pigs are still stuffing themselves of our hard-earned dollars, disaster or no disaster. 

What a joyous day it would be to have an environmental industry more powerful than the carbon-based energy industry.  

American Waste

Disposable Packaging

It’s amazing to think that in todays’ society, with instant communication and with instant digital imaging, we still fail to see the big picture.  Thanks to America’s insatiable appetite for consumption of all thing wrapped in plastic, we are now one of the world’s top producers of garbage.  

Latest reports indicate that America now creates 254 million tons of waste each year.  Less than a third of this amount is recycled.  Thanks to the financial meltdown of 2008, the recycling industry has become virtually nonexistent, so the numbers become even more skewed.  Connecting dots is not a game to be taken lightly, as it will lead the participant into troubled waters, far from anything resembling a comfort zone.  This national appetite for waste creation has obviously turned into a global environmental catastrophe, floating upon the high seas, far from home, eventually landing on distant shores, among other places.

Waste News

In the Pacific Ocean, northeast of Hawaii, lies the Central Pacific Gyre.  Natural currents and weak winds combine to help create something quite unnatural.  This is the place where yet one more irresponsible act of mankind gives an all-star performance on the center stage of environmental damage.  Plastic waste congregates within the gyre, covering an area, by most estimates, twice the size of Texas, with new immigrants arriving by the day, so to speak.  Within this area, plastic fragment pollution, as it’s known, outweighs naturally occurring plankton by a ration of 6:1.    

Plastic disposable containers, foam containers and disposable garbage beyond comprehension floats on the ocean’s surface, waiting for the sun’s rays to break it down into smaller and smaller pieces.  Eventually, these pieces become an attraction for marine wildlife, where entry into the food chain begins.  

With studies being  conducted to determine the effect of hormonal interruptions at these lower stages of the food chain, along with the ultimate effect on humanity, disturbing news is beginning to come forth.   Tests continue to show that most major health issues in the U.S. over the last 30 years have a relationship of sorts with plastics residing in the food chain.  

Higher Education Business

Somewhere along the way, man’s quest for higher eduction has taken a wrong turn.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that this wrong turn has placed us on a path of no return.  

Daily Pill Reminder : Global Influence

Medication Dispenser 

Frightening is the reality of big pharma’s grip on our rational thought processes .  How ironic that this unchecked power is a disease within itself.  Oozing from the pores of this disease is the fact that any attempt at health care reform will only succeed after any attempt at big pharma reform is successful.  This is not possible.   

Society Issues

An insurmountable task lies ahead.  How do we wean an entire society off prescription medications?  Today’s target is no longer the elderly of our society.  The reality is - and big pharma is aware - that they are a dying customer.  This of course does not stop the industry from sending them off with a huge farewell.  

Our next generation of drug addicts will not be hooked on pot or cocaine.  Already the signs are obvious.  Forced to decide from the multitudes offered, today’s consumer driven parent cannot choose just one designer drug for their child.   A solid lack of sound parenting skills is diagnosed as attention deficit in their children.  

Clawing And Scratching

The drug industry is a powerful machine.  Entrenched into society, interwoven into government policy, and freely stuffed into political back pockets, it has no need for clawing and scratching.  It lives, free range, destroying modern civilization.  

Starvation Effects Of A Sick Planet

Effects of Starvation

While our government institutions continue the raping and pillaging of global civilization, our planet continues to struggle with the effects of starvation.  Money, created from thin air, was instantly found in order to stabilize the financial sector of the planet.  The reason?  A perception of danger.  White collars across the spectrum began living in fear, a fear that their lifestyle was in danger of following the footsteps of the planet’s glaciers . 

Now, thanks to those folks who create and breed fear, we’re told that the planet is actually cooling.  While focusing their talk on cooling, they lead us to believe that global warming is actually climate change.  Forget the fact that extreme weather conditions are on the rise.  Tornadoes reported with regularity where tornadoes were once unheard of.  Ongoing droughts of the exceptional category, five years into the process in some places.  

At the other extreme we now have record floods of the 500 year variety.  Forget the hundred year floods, they now happen with such frequency as to no longer bear any merit.  Thanks to FEMA, we are now provided with revised flood insurance maps.  Homes and homesites, in existence for generations, without ever being close to a flood area, are now required to provide flood insurance to their friendly banker.  Our government, caught with its pants down after Hurricane Katrina, is now able to dictate where flooding will occur.  The relationship between insurance and finance is obvious.  The stench of white collar fraud is overwhelming.  

Nature’s Product

It’s not enough that we control production of food generated on land.  Thanks to declining fish populations across the planet, we now have the hand of man to assist in fish reproduction.  With man’s generous assistance come growth hormones for the farm-raised creature, and disease for the native species, swimming just outside the fences.  Once again, man’s mighty hand taints mother nature’s product.   

Government controlled crop production is coming to a grocery store near you.  Soon.  Today’s farmer no longer farms food.  He produces a commodity based on government subsidies that, combined with a get rich quick for all parties involved crop insurance program, is destined to lead to a food supply collapse of apocalyptic proportions.   

Nature’s Health

Consider a glacier melting.  Nowhere on the planet can starvation effects be more readily apparent.  Or more heartbreaking.  While our planet is entering this so-called cooling period, these massive blocks of ice are disappearing, in instances such as in Patagonia, at an alarming 150 meters per year.  Ice, eons in the making, dripping and pouring into the current below. 

Because these glaciers are a source of water for many societies, what happens when the water disappears?  How terminal does nature’s health become before we raise a hand and say enough?

Environmental Damage From The Hot Air Station

An environmental economy is no longer seen - if it were even considered - as viable.  Our right to a harmonious existence with nature is now overshadowed by the daily air quality report.  When corporate mouthpieces force feed us absurdities whose sole design is to protect the company bottom line, our slow death is assured.  

These absurdities include the stance that a belief in environmental destruction due to uranium mining near the Grand Canyon is in itself an absurdity.  Located “within 10 or 15 miles of the north rim of the Grand Canyon” translates into non-justification over concern of environmental changes to one of the great wonders of the natural world.  Would that be 10, or 15?  There is no justification for concern “by any stretch of the imagination,” so states Ron Hochstein of Denison Mines.  No justification whatsoever. 

What is our bottom line, as a world civilization?  When will we begin to effect change in that global civilization?  What are we, as a consumer driven society, willing to live without?

At what point is health the bottom line, not just ours, but the natural environment that is our home?  In a world so full of so many natural born losers, it’s no wonder we’re fighting a losing battle.

Personal Responsibility : Our Lesson Plan

As our country - this self proclaimed free civilization - continues down its chosen path of divisiveness and derisiveness, in part due to the behaviors of our elected and anointed and appointed government officials, we are fast approaching a major crossroad.  Like it or not, this crossroad of personal responsibility  is going to be a tough pill for some to swallow.

History shows that the personal plan can easily morph into a personal agenda.  Left unchecked, this agenda finds its way into the channels of instant communication. Within these channels lie the greatest threats to moral and ethical responsibility.  

Hate talk radio and night time television are now infected with various forms of drugs addicts.  They’ve abused alcohol and prescription drugs, and as a reward are given a bully pulpit to make themselves obscenely rich, at the expense of the unthinking.  Instead of using their available resources as an outlet for interpersonal skill development, they spew forth vile, hate, and contempt.  While foaming at the mouth, their instant business network fans the flames of ignorance and is comprised of individuals without the ability to think or reason, in turn bringing down the ability of an entire free civilization to have meaningful social discourse with the remaining global civilization.  In essence, these overpriced and overweight mouthpieces are nothing more than famous drug addicts.  

History will not be kind to America.  The melting pot of world culture has taken that amazing gift and turned itself into the punk of world culture.  No longer are we looked upon in admiration.  Ours is the image of the village idiot, the laughingstock of world civilization.  Only through a herculean effort will we be able to alter the message we currently communicate to our brothers and sisters across the planet.  

The racists and hate mongers among us will do well to research social learning skills, and then, learn how to live within those applications.  Either that, or live with the eventual results of social inequality that they so self-righteously believe to be a part of their inalienable right in their addiction to the drug of ignorance.   

Innovative Tools

Having recently seen a series of ads in a small market, I was left wondering what sort of response the advertisers were receiving from those ads.  To be frank, these ads left little to the imagination simply because little effort was being given in how to market small business.  During the best of times it's vital to market your product.  When the economy takes a dip, as it always does, it's important to have a marketing program already in place.  The savvy business owner has a creative guru - you know, the product marketing services guy or gal, the commercial photographer and/or graphic designer - at his/her beck and call.  We've all seen the results of their union:  an ongoing ad campaign, highly competitive, solid in visual impact, proper placement in a chosen medium, implied promotional concepts, and a solid understanding of where their business is headed.  They understand market demand and they understand the importance of company image.  They keep a watchful eye on their competition.  Those small business owners who try to play catch-up on a shoestring budget are faced with a dreadful uphill battle.

In September

With September here, it’s time for FOTOSEPTIEMBRE.  This international photography exhibition is currently underway in San Antonio.  Across the city you will find openings and exhibitions throughout the month, into early October.  If you've ever wanted to visit San Antonio, this is a great month to do it and become distracted by the photographic moment.

Having been a member of the Hubpages community for several months, I’ve officially signed up for their 30 Hubs in 30 Days challenge.  Having written several hubs there, ranging from satire to photography to travel, they’ve been published at a relaxed pace.  Now, the structure of goal setting is in place.  Check out the first hub for the challenge, published last night, on the spiritual experience that photography can provide.