In the under-appreciated, limited circulation 2010 movie “The Company Men”, actor Chris Cooper plays 57 –year old ‘Phil Woodward’. Woodward is leveraged to the hilt in debt, with a daughter at Brown – who also expects to go on a summer trip to Italy- and a wife who spends most of her days in bed with headaches. He works at “GTX corporation”, in Mass., and takes in 160k a year which is enough to pay his huge mortgage and his daughter’s tuition, board at Brown.
Alas, Phil’s life comes crashing down after the 2008 financial meltdown when GTX shares plummet and make it ripe for the plucking by outside vulture capitalists (recall Mitt Romney) and their corporate lackeys. In order to survive, the GTX CEO Jim Salinger must dump workers to appease Wall Street. By downsizing thousands he cuts whole divisions and expenses, as well as benefits…including health insurance, for older workers (mainly those over 50).
This is where Phil’s economic future ends, as he’s informed one gloomy day by the HR Resource person that he’s no longer needed. On the "up" side, he’s directed to a career placement outfit where he gets assigned his own office. On the first day, in a one-to-one with the chirpy nitwit that staffs it, he's informed he will have to dye his graying hair and lose some weight. The reason? “Because God you’re pushing sixty and look like hell, you’ll never be able to compete with younger men for jobs”.
And so he learns the truth of that over months of job searching, even after his severance expires. Meanwhile, Sarah’s Brown tuition is due and he can’t pay it. His wife offers no support, regarding him as having betrayed her trust and security. So long as he lacks a job she orders him to not return home on a work day until after 6 p.m., “so the neighbors don’t find out.” Phil eventually stops going to the career services after a month or so, preferring to drown his sorrows at a bar until it's time to drive home.
Eventually, with no job prospects that can pay all his massive debts, tuition bills etc., and after suffering insult after insult, Phil has had it. He closes his garage door one evening, turns on the car ignition while inside it, and ….well, the next scene flips to his funeral.
Fiction? Yes, but perhaps accurately depicting why so many 50-plus American males are killing themselves in record numbers according to just-release CDC stats. Those stats show that from 1999 to 2010 the suicide rate among Americans from 35 to 64 years of age rose by nearly 30 percent. The most pronounced incidence was for men in their 50s, which jumped by nearly 50 percent. A record. (In 2010, according to CDC stats, there were 38,364 suicides compared to 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle accidents.)
The news report published yesterday (‘Suicide Rates Among Middle-Aged Have Increased Sharply Says CDC’, Denver Post) pinpoints that: “a generation that has faced years of economic worry and has easy access to prescription pain killers” may have formed a lethal combination leading to the dismal death stats.
Is this so hard to understand? Not really? As long ago as 1996, a Fortune 500 white paper (which had been issued to CEOs, CFOs in secret) alerted companies that age 50 ought to be considered the age of “diminishing financial returns” for justifying whether to retain an employee. That milestone age, the paper observed, is the best time to downsize to preserve financial stability and share prices. It meant less risk in terms of health care insurance costs, as well as less money having to be shelled out since older workers tended to earn more – going up the corporate ladder.
And so millions of 50 plus males have been floundering since the mid-1990s, most leveraged to the hilt like Phil Woodward, and unable to escape. Even if they worked round the clock at three burger flipping jobs they’d not be able to make up the losses – say to their 401ks (raided to pay bills, or monies lost in several stock crashes) and no one really wants to hire them anyway.
Caught in economic limbo, too young to claim Social Security or Medicare, and often having to take care of the expenses of college –age kids and sickly parents, they opt to end it all. Their economic life having ended, they see their biological life can’t be supported without it.
In most cases, of course, this extreme end is chosen only after all other options are exhausted, including unemployment insurance, and getting Social Security disability. Often the latter is the only possible economic life line left to them, but with waiting times measured in years, they’re unable to hold on. If they themselves are faced with a pre-existing medical condition (i.e. cancer) on top of their other grief, and obligations, they will feel it's time to phone it in. After all, the country doesn't give two shits about them.
When one strips away the veneer of materialist greed, and overt consumption, the U.S. Neoliberal market economy offers nada in terms of social support for displaced older workers. They are on their own. The tragedy is that market economies like the U.S. - governed by cowboy capitalists determined to keep the cattle chewing their cuds- only emphasize money and power. Even the so-called "religious people" (who haven't yet figured out that Mammon is the real god of this market country, not "God" of their imaginations) buy into the addictive enticements of money and power.
In such a capitalist-driven, consumerist organizational economic model, wherein the resource “pie” for the non-wealthy elite grows ever smaller, the young are threats to us oldsters, as we are threats to them, as neighbor is to neighbor. It can't be otherwise. This capitalist model has seen fit, in other words, to destroy our areas of commonality and common cause, replacing neutral civic space with demeaning commercial space and commercialist, market values. People-employees like 'Phil Woodward' - are merely expendable cogs in this massive market consumption machine. If profit margins fall too low, they are jettisoned like yesterday's fishwrap. Perhaps no one has expressed our nation's economic fascism better than author Charles Reich ('Opposing the System', Crown Books, p. 103 )
"When society itself comes to be modeled on economic and organizational principles, all of the forces that bind people together are torn apart in the struggle for survival. Community is destroyed because we are no longer 'in this together' because everyone is a threat to everyone else."
This is also why, instead of giving Phil support after he's booted, the remaining employees' only words to him are of the form: "Did you hear anything about ME? Do they plan to downsize ME?" All about self-interest.
In similar fashion, Reich describes the visceral 'dog-eat-dog' and endless economic warfare that ensues between people in the never ending quest to 'make it' and not be left behind. A tragic game wherein every one, every man, woman and child has a 'market value' and all abiding principles, social or moral, are reduced to economics. Alas, the cost resides in devastated marriages, families and communities.
The capitalist driven “rupture” can occur as quickly as when your neighbor builds a large recreational pool, or puts in a hot tub, and you can’t afford one. Or when he makes a great home improvement add-on while you are left to humble by with the status quo.
By comparison, the endemic socialist, communitarian structures of Barbados or Norway (for example) promote a healthy growth of the social commonweal and the belief that what is done for the benefit of one, or a few, redounds to the benefit of all. Hence, the imperatives for government subsidized low cost housing, national health insurance for all, free education through college
That's why I couldn't help thinking how much better 'Phil Woodward' would have fared in Barbados, if he'd lost a similar job there. He'd have had his gov't provided health insurance to fall back on, and his daughter Sarah would get a free college education at the University of the West Indies.
Phil also wouldn't have waited overly long for a new and maybe better job. While the U.S. capitalist system engenders a perpetual creative destruction that ravages precious human resources, Barbados - with fewer human resources, must maximize each. There isn't the quantity of highly qualified people to allow facile disposal or other squandering in wasteful competition- or to appease a stock market. In the U.S., the exact opposite holds. Huge amounts of resources- human and natural - are yearly squandered in competitive games that have only one or a few 'winners'.
In effect, U.S. capitalism creates a self-destructive, wasteful culture that translates into a self-destructive and wasteful social pattern. If a neighbor (like 'Phil Woodward') suddenly become unemployed - and knocked out of the current consumerist culture - they may be jettisoned as friends. They no longer share the same 'buying' interests (or power) after all. Once fast friends become leery of them, and being around them. What fun are they at cocktail parties, or even barbecues? Who wants to hear about their pathetic inability to keep up with the latest market crazes? Repeated untold millions of times, one gets an entire toxic culture, and diseased society
Thus, the best analogy I can give to what is occurring in the U.S. is a malignant cancer. As in cancer, when one limited group of cells grows too much - it does so at the expense of the whole body.
The moral of the story for marginalized, middle-aged American workers is a cogent one: Living in a cruel, casino world governed by Wall Street mandates, they need to live far below their means. If one is earning $100,000 a year then, it is best to live like a $50,000/year earner. If one earns $60,000 a year, it’s best to live at half that level. That also means a smaller home with a smaller mortgage and yes, if kids are in the picture- they make their college applications to State U., not to Brown or Harvard! Then, if and when the downsize axe arrives, the family can more easily cope since they’re living at a much more modest level anyway.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Friday, May 3, 2013
Spare the Paddle? Not for These Female Teachers!
The tendency to accept corporal punishment as a behavioral "solution" in schools, in these United States, is nothing short of appalling. I myself hadn't been aware of the extent of paddling, for example, until attending the American Atheists Convention in Orlando, in April of 2001, which featured Jordan Riak as one of the keynote speakers. Riak is a retired teacher and activist against corporal punishment. He has unabashedly compared paddling to rape and been a consistent thorn in the side of paddlers across the nation.
“The sexual nature of the buttocks is explained not only by their proximity to the genitals, but also by their high concentration of nerve endings which lead directly to sexual nerve centers. Hence, the buttocks are a major locus of sexual signal”
They go on to write (Editorial: 2011/01/05):
"Sadly, the mindset of folks like these is stuck in that traumatic past and they see every incident of c.p. as a replay of what happened to them. So, by extension, they see us at TWP not only as defenders of what happened long ago but as the same persons that abused them!"
Actually, no. I know absolutely none of you are the same as the nun (Sister Mary Francesca) that caned me in the boys' lavatory (using a 1m pointer) at Immaculate Conception after accusing me of tossing wet paper towels up to stick on the ceiling (actually done by two culprits who left just before she entered). But I do know, and am fairly sure, that what I experienced as instant outrage, humiliation and subjugation, the kids you paddled with your 16-incher also experienced.
But we can be consoled at least by their further words:
"Nothing could be further from the truth! As in our MISSION STATEMENT, we believe that any use of c.p. must be Judicious, Moderate, and Sparing."
Ah yes, "we're going to paddle you using a 16" implement but never mind, we are "judicious, moderate and sparing". I love the last word! Sparing! "So you, kid, will only get three swats from my sixteen incher, as opposed to twenty -three!" The kid is then supposed to appreciate the mercy afforded him and be thankful his butt is only red and swollen for one day as opposed to bruised to the point he needs hospitalization for a week.
But their last comment is especially galling:
"In all of these cases, we would have stopped the abuse had we been there. But we cannot and no one can “go back.” However, for those who were abused -they go back constantly and that is tragic. To those, we plead to you to get counseling!"
Wow! Get counseling? From a therp? How does that erase the trauma experienced at the time? A better solution, for those of us that were abused, is to find a way to halt current thrashings/ paddlings of today's kids. Because, after all, what are you paddlers teaching by your actions? You're teaching that brute force is the only answer or response to a class discipline problem.
The good news is that these female teachers, all of whom graduated from schools in the Deep South - which features the majority of paddling states- in red, see map below:
are no longer feeding their blog in terms of rationalizing their "moderate and sparing" paddling practices. The bad news is that in the period since their TWP blog entries ended, dozens more kids have probably met the business end of one or other of the women's 16-inch paddles, to their shame and pain!
What Sort of Nitwit Gives a Lethal Weapon 'Gift' to a 5-Year Old Kid?
By now virtually everyone not living under a rock or on Mars has heard the story: 5- year old Kristian Sparks of Cumberland County, Kentucky was given of a gift of a "Crickett" - the cutesy name for a .22 caliber rifle sold specifically for young 'uns in the southern backwood, hunting districts. It's manufactured by the Milton, Penn. based Keystone Sporting Arms - which also features a "Kids corner" on its website.
Anyway, a bullet was left in the rifle - unknown to the family- and the mom "heard Kristian playing with the rifle on the porch" when she subsequently "heard the gun go off" (Denver Post, p. 17A, yesterday 'Toddler Shot by 5-Year Old Brother'). When the mom ran to see what had happened, little Kristian had killed his two-year old sister Caroline with a shot to the chest.
Can anyone say fucked up? I mean, let's get real! How fucked up is it to be selling a lethal rifle (never mind the caliber) to a FIVE year old? And then entrusting it to the kid (who's not even reached the age of reason) to PLAY with? And by a company that puts it under the name "Crickett"? Jeezus fucking Christ has this country gone totally stark raving nuts?
Now, I am sure you will hear some Kentuckians yapping along the lines of "This h'yar is Kentucky! All the families have guns!". Yeah, sure, but for five year olds? To PLAY with?
Sure, I had a gun too when I was five, a CAP pistol! You put these litle red tagged papers with tiny amounts of explosive in them and fired. Made lots of noise, but if you fired at a brother or sister neither got killed! All that happened was lots of noise!
This, btw, is the only gun a 5-year old tot ought to be playing with. Then when he's 10 you might get him a 0.177 cal. air rifle to shoot BBs. If he showed he could handle that responsibly, then by age 15 or 16 he got his first .22.
Make no mistake here, the caliber doesn't matter. A .22 is as lethal as a Browning automatic, or snub-nosed .38 or even a Glock - if loaded and fired at close proximity toward a person's vulnerable organs. If loaded with hollow points, you have a genuinely lethal weapon that can do significant harm and even kill from a distance. It is not a fucking toy and no parent with any IQ over room temperature has any business giving it to a five year old, I don't care how it's marketed or what cutesy ass name the manufacturer gives it. (Evidently, they also offer another rifle too, known as 'the Chipmunk'. How about changing those names, i.e. Crickett and Chipmunk to Viper and Rabid Bat?)
The Post story went on to describe scenes of kiddies in Ky and elsewhere in the South going on family hunting expeditions and proudly sporting their kills, including of turkey and deer. The story claims this starts at an early age....but FIVE? I believe any folks even in the backwoods of Mitch McConnell's state would have to be daft to give a kid THAT kind of rifle! The most they ought to be allowed is MAYBE a BB gun.
Now, the whole Sparks family mourns and the farming community (90 miles north of Nashville, TN) "is in shock". One can imagine also how the parents feel, especially the father. A guy who seemingly believed a five year old had the level of responsibility and maturity to take care of a .22 rifle. This despite the brain studies of Jean Piaget, showing a five year old can't even reason from cause to effect. He still believes when he screams at the Sun that's what makes it move across the sky.
Meanwhile, we know at least two errors were made - as reported in the press- though I assign three. The first was leaving the rifle "in a corner of the mobile home". Uh, NO! You lock the sucker in a case, until such time Jr. and daddy are ready to go out together to use it- Jr. doesn't get to "play" with it on his own! It's not a toy!
Second, the rifle - having been left in the open- wasn't checked to see if a bullet was left in. This is the sort of cardinal error too many gun freaks and owners make- and one highlighted last night by "the Gun Guy" who appeared on Chris Hayes' "ALL In" MSNBC show. He allowed that too many gun owners were lax and irresponsible and this led directly to tragedies like the Sparks incident.
The third error, which I assign, is lack of parental oversight. The parents, having failed to secure the rifle, allowed it to be freely accessible to the kid as a "toy" - so didn't micro-manage the toddler's activities and in particular, limit them only to times when one or other parent was present - to act as the responsible party in the absence of the brain development needed by Jr.
One wonders now how little Kristian will feel about what he did to his sister when he does hit the age of reason or reaches his late teens. If we have any luck at all, his predictable regret will be directed toward becoming an anti-gun lobbyist and especially going after the companies that market lethal weapons for kiddies under cute animal names like Crickett and Chipmunk.
----
On another gun-related story note, kudos must go out to Gov. Jerry Brown of Cailifornia for marshalling the funds for gun seizures there. The plan received the green light Wednesday, when Gov. Brown signed legislation providing $24 million to clear the backlog of weapons known to be in the hands of about 20,000 people who acquired them legally. (They were later disqualified because of criminal convictions, restraining orders or serious mental illness.)
California is the only state in the nation to operate a database that cross-references gun owners with those who are subsequently disqualified from owning firearms. But budget cuts had prevented the state Department of Justice from keeping up with the list, which grows by 15 to 20 names every day. Now with the funds at hand, enough agents can be deployed to seize the weapons of those 20,000 renegades, who have no business owning even a BB gun.
Let's hope other states commence useful data based like California's to keep track of all those who have no business owning a BB gun, far less a Glock 9mm.
Anyway, a bullet was left in the rifle - unknown to the family- and the mom "heard Kristian playing with the rifle on the porch" when she subsequently "heard the gun go off" (Denver Post, p. 17A, yesterday 'Toddler Shot by 5-Year Old Brother'). When the mom ran to see what had happened, little Kristian had killed his two-year old sister Caroline with a shot to the chest.
Can anyone say fucked up? I mean, let's get real! How fucked up is it to be selling a lethal rifle (never mind the caliber) to a FIVE year old? And then entrusting it to the kid (who's not even reached the age of reason) to PLAY with? And by a company that puts it under the name "Crickett"? Jeezus fucking Christ has this country gone totally stark raving nuts?
Now, I am sure you will hear some Kentuckians yapping along the lines of "This h'yar is Kentucky! All the families have guns!". Yeah, sure, but for five year olds? To PLAY with?
Sure, I had a gun too when I was five, a CAP pistol! You put these litle red tagged papers with tiny amounts of explosive in them and fired. Made lots of noise, but if you fired at a brother or sister neither got killed! All that happened was lots of noise!
This, btw, is the only gun a 5-year old tot ought to be playing with. Then when he's 10 you might get him a 0.177 cal. air rifle to shoot BBs. If he showed he could handle that responsibly, then by age 15 or 16 he got his first .22.
Make no mistake here, the caliber doesn't matter. A .22 is as lethal as a Browning automatic, or snub-nosed .38 or even a Glock - if loaded and fired at close proximity toward a person's vulnerable organs. If loaded with hollow points, you have a genuinely lethal weapon that can do significant harm and even kill from a distance. It is not a fucking toy and no parent with any IQ over room temperature has any business giving it to a five year old, I don't care how it's marketed or what cutesy ass name the manufacturer gives it. (Evidently, they also offer another rifle too, known as 'the Chipmunk'. How about changing those names, i.e. Crickett and Chipmunk to Viper and Rabid Bat?)
The Post story went on to describe scenes of kiddies in Ky and elsewhere in the South going on family hunting expeditions and proudly sporting their kills, including of turkey and deer. The story claims this starts at an early age....but FIVE? I believe any folks even in the backwoods of Mitch McConnell's state would have to be daft to give a kid THAT kind of rifle! The most they ought to be allowed is MAYBE a BB gun.
Now, the whole Sparks family mourns and the farming community (90 miles north of Nashville, TN) "is in shock". One can imagine also how the parents feel, especially the father. A guy who seemingly believed a five year old had the level of responsibility and maturity to take care of a .22 rifle. This despite the brain studies of Jean Piaget, showing a five year old can't even reason from cause to effect. He still believes when he screams at the Sun that's what makes it move across the sky.
Meanwhile, we know at least two errors were made - as reported in the press- though I assign three. The first was leaving the rifle "in a corner of the mobile home". Uh, NO! You lock the sucker in a case, until such time Jr. and daddy are ready to go out together to use it- Jr. doesn't get to "play" with it on his own! It's not a toy!
Second, the rifle - having been left in the open- wasn't checked to see if a bullet was left in. This is the sort of cardinal error too many gun freaks and owners make- and one highlighted last night by "the Gun Guy" who appeared on Chris Hayes' "ALL In" MSNBC show. He allowed that too many gun owners were lax and irresponsible and this led directly to tragedies like the Sparks incident.
The third error, which I assign, is lack of parental oversight. The parents, having failed to secure the rifle, allowed it to be freely accessible to the kid as a "toy" - so didn't micro-manage the toddler's activities and in particular, limit them only to times when one or other parent was present - to act as the responsible party in the absence of the brain development needed by Jr.
One wonders now how little Kristian will feel about what he did to his sister when he does hit the age of reason or reaches his late teens. If we have any luck at all, his predictable regret will be directed toward becoming an anti-gun lobbyist and especially going after the companies that market lethal weapons for kiddies under cute animal names like Crickett and Chipmunk.
----
On another gun-related story note, kudos must go out to Gov. Jerry Brown of Cailifornia for marshalling the funds for gun seizures there. The plan received the green light Wednesday, when Gov. Brown signed legislation providing $24 million to clear the backlog of weapons known to be in the hands of about 20,000 people who acquired them legally. (They were later disqualified because of criminal convictions, restraining orders or serious mental illness.)
California is the only state in the nation to operate a database that cross-references gun owners with those who are subsequently disqualified from owning firearms. But budget cuts had prevented the state Department of Justice from keeping up with the list, which grows by 15 to 20 names every day. Now with the funds at hand, enough agents can be deployed to seize the weapons of those 20,000 renegades, who have no business owning even a BB gun.
Let's hope other states commence useful data based like California's to keep track of all those who have no business owning a BB gun, far less a Glock 9mm.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Toxic Nation: Maybe we Have Little Choice
I've blogged on the pervasive use of chemical toxins in this country before, and more recently how the more widespread use may be linked to everything from genetic damage to aggressive prostate, liver and breast cancers. For sure, the anomaly of American males in their 30s being diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer (Gleason score of 8 or higher) may be directly linked to their inhabiting a chemical toxic sea - most of whose components they know nothing about. Right now, indeed, I am writing this amidst a toxic 'brew' in my own home, as a result of exposure to resins, acrylic acid (e.g. http://www.epa.gov/ttnatw01/hlthef/acrylica.html ) etc. from having a downstairs shower pan replaced and resurfaced. Yes, the thing looks fantastic after the replacement, but the toxins released - which we are now trying to expel using a high-powered fan, maybe not so much. (Don't blame me, btw, it was wifey's idea to refurbish the thing as it "looked too grungy". I guess maybe she figures we may have guests coming at some point to use it!) The point is, in this country there is almost no escaping the toxic stew, which accompanies everything from a simple bathroom shower floor redo, to pest and weed control and even handling DVDs (laden with bisphenol A).
Even oldish toxins can lay in wait and affect the most innocent among us, kids - who may have nothing to do with pesticide spraying or renovating showers. The CDC estimates that in at least 4 million households in the U.S. today children are still exposed to dangerous amounts of lead from old paint that produces dust every time a nail is driven into a wall to hang a picture, a new electric socket is installed, or a family renovates its kitchen. It estimates that more than 500,000 children ages one to five have “elevated” levels of lead in their blood. (No level is considered safe for children.) Studies have linked lost IQ points, attention deficit disorders, behavioral problems, dyslexia, and even possibly high incarceration rates to tiny amounts of lead in children’s bodies.
Sadly, when it came to the creation of America’s pervasive chemical stew, the lead industry was hardly alone. Asbestos is another classic example of an industrial toxin that found its way into people’s homes and bodies. For decades, insulation workers, brake mechanics, construction workers, and a host of others in hundreds of trades fell victim to the disabling and deadly lung diseases of asbestosis or to lung cancer and the fatal cancer called mesothelioma when they breathed in dust produced during the installation of boilers, the insulation of pipes, the fixing of cars that used asbestos brake linings, or the spraying of asbestos on girders.
Despite growing medical knowledge about its effects (and increasing industry attempts to downplay or suppress that knowledge), asbestos was soon introduced to the American home and incorporated into products ranging from insulation for boilers and piping in basements to floor tiles and joint compounds. It was used to make sheetrock walls, roof shingles, ironing boards, oven gloves, and hot plates. Soon an occupational hazard was transformed into a threat to all consumers.
What’s inside the new walls of your new home might be even more dangerous. While the flame retardants commonly used in sofas, chairs, carpets, love seats, curtains, baby products, and even TVs, sounded like a good idea when widely introduced in the 1970s, they turn out to pose hidden dangers that we’re only now beginning to grasp. Researchers have, for instance, linked one of the most common flame retardants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, to a wide variety of potentially undesirable health effects including thyroid disruption, memory and learning problems, delayed mental and physical development, lower IQ, and the early onset of puberty. Other flame retardants like Tris (1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate have been linked to cancer. As the CDC has documented in an ongoing study of the accumulation of hazardous materials in our bodies, flame retardants can now be found in the blood of “nearly all” of us.
Is this the end of it? Dream on! Lurking in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, for instance, are window cleaners and spot removers that contain known or suspected cancer-causing agents. The same can be said of any cosmetics (including lotions- linked to hypospadias in male infants) in your bathroom, or of your plastic water bottle or microwavable food containers.
As for Bisphenol A (BPA), the synthetic chemical used in a variety of plastic consumer products, including your DVDs, some baby bottles, epoxy cements (now wafting through my home) Sarah Vogel of the Environmental Defense Fund has written: “New research on very-low-dose exposure to BPA suggests an association with adverse health effects, including breast and prostate cancer, obesity, neurobehavioral problems, and reproductive abnormalities.”
Do we care? Maybe we do, but inhabiting a techno-civilization where these chemicals are so abundant and intimately woven into our lives means there's little we can do to control them. Toss out all your DVDs? Hardly likely! Tell my wife no more bathroom renovations like this last one, unless harmless chemicals are employed? Even less bloody likely! Demanding wifey use a newspaper to kill that large 6" diameter arthropod over there as opposed to spraying RAID? Even less probable!
So, in the end, we swim amidst all these toxins, use them - in so far as we have to - then cross fingers and just hope to hell we don't get to be the one stuck with liver, prostate, breast or kidney cancer.....or some awful respiratory disease.
Rachel Maddow Exposes the Bush Library for the Sham and Farce It Is
Rachel Maddow in her show last night outdid herself again, exposing the newly opened Bush Presidential Library as the total sham it is, especially certain parts (e.g. the "Decision Points Theater") which tries to lead the unwary toward the insane path of accepting the Iraq invasion and war. As Rachel put it last night:"This whole library area is a museum designed to make you think the Iraq war was a great idea".
Maddow then noted the Library gave MSNBC permission to film, and her crew went directly to the ‘Decision Points Theater’ with its interactive, push-button displays. You get to select advice from assorted Bush lackey knotheads, warmongers and fellow Neocon travelers - interrupted only by ominous "breaking news" developments. ("We have just learned Saddam now has ....blah, blah and blah" etc.)
When you approach the console you have the option to seek advice before making your choice on what you'd do if you were in Dumbya's place. There are three options to choose from when the time comes to render your decision:
Seek another UN Resolution
LEAD an International Coalition
Take NO Action
Obviously, for any intelligent and well-read person, the last is the superlative option - which also would have avoided a wasteful occupation that in the end cost us over $3 trillion and more than 4400 American lives as well as 600,000 innocent Iraqi lives (according to WHO, the World Health Organization). But woe betide you if you choose that option in the Bushie Decision Theater! At that point, a dopey Bush avatar appears to lecture you on why you made the wrong choice.
Bush then spouts off for ten minutes on why invading Iraq was the right answer. This includes all the usual baloney sold like pig shit at the time, including: Saddam’s “WMD”, and association with terrorist organizations. Bush notes 25 million Iraqis having the chance to “build freedom” but doesn’t mention the 600,000 killed by Amerikkan shock and awe, Nazi-style 'blow em up and let God sort 'em out' tactics. As Maddow describes it the choices are ludicrous: Be a “man” and “LEAD” or a sissified wuss and “take no action” thereby accepting Saddam remains in power.
An especially remarkable wake up call for those who buy the whole world was behind us, was when -to make a glaring graphic point- Maddow displayed a map of the world with all the nations supporting the invasion(red), and those that didn’t (in blue). Easily seen is the map is awash with blue regions and the red are relatively small and isolated - occupied mainly by the U.S. and a few outliers.(Australia, Poland).
Of course, in the next televised imagery we see Texas school kids standing in line, waiting to be brainwashed by this 'Decision Theater' and gobbling up the history......errrr....horse manure. Maddow bluntly references this travesty, before declaring that - in line with the kids being mesmerized by the display - the Iraq war was a “ hoax perpetrated on the American people. All cooked up and a national scandal”.
A national scandal indeed! But incredibly too many Americans lack the historical memory or education to be able to see through this crap. Why is the Bush Library selling this bunkum? Because it can! Because they know a majority of Americans have limited historical memories. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson then discussed how “fast we rehabilitate things” in America. He referenced a national security turkey like Phil Mudd who ought to be unemployed, but is “still around”
Why should all this matter? Well, because we ought to be awake and alert enough as citizens not to allow ourselves to be led into another bogus war! Col. Wilkerson then cited Iran and all the officious bloviation we keep hearing now about "red lines" and other horse shit. But, he warned, if we allow ourselves to be manipulated like we were 10 years before with Iraq, we will have another $1 trillion war and more enemies than we can possibly imagine.
There is also the issue of evil - real human evil - at work. One of the canards circulated about human evil over the years is that it’s irrational. If the person only knew better, or reasoned properly, he’d arrive at the generic good. Fortunately, philosopher John Kekes disposes of this myth quite forcefully in his book, The Roots Of Evil (p. 168).As Kekes observes, abundant historical examples disclose that people often robustly justify their actions on the basis of a good perceived in their minds, but which in retrospect turns out to be evil. Therefore it’s not the lack of reason or rationality that infuses their actions but instead the false beliefs that supported the reasoning!
In the case of Bush's justifying the Iraq invasion and butchery we behold a perfect example. Using every sort of ruse - from 'yellowcake' to aluminum tubes and alleged claims of WMD (from a rat named 'curve ball') - the Bushies pumped up a bogus case for invasion, just like Hitler and the Nazis did (using faked imagery of German fraus being raped by Poles) to justify an invasion of Poland in 1939. Once he had the U.S. corporate media on his side it was merely a matter of drum beating a sheep-like American public into giving him the poll numbers he desired to launch an invasion in March, 2003.
Bush’s aggression also exposed unsavory aspects about ourselves as a nation: a willingness to violate Nuremberg Article IV to actually launch a pre-emptive, aggressive war just as the Nazis did when they invaded
So, all this being considered, Rachel Maddow rightly called out the Bush Library for what it is, a National Disgrace - even if only one part featured the Iraq meme makeover.
The most incredible and unsettling thing of all? A dirt bag, nose- picking moron like Dumbya Bush can be walking around rehabilitating his criminal history – launching a pre-emptive Nazi style war that killed over a half million and spawning rendition and torture methods- while Bradley Manning sits in federal stir somewhere accused of simply ‘leaking’ documents that exposed the Iraq invasion and occupation as the fucking travesty it really was. Now, how fucked up is that? A lot!
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
ANTI-MJ Crusaders Busted By Misusing Academic Paper
Well, who would have thought? Barely a few weeks earlier the austerity fetishists were busted for trying to promote an academic paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff to justify massive spending cuts. But hey - it turned out the paper was flawed and the two turkeys that penned it didn't even know how to use a freakin' Excel Spreadsheet! (See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/04/reinhart-rogoffs-fuzzy-spreadsheet-math.html.
Now we also learn one of the leading anti-MJ groups in Colorado (Smart Colorado) has been similarly busted by attempting to invoke another academic paper to support overturning Amendment 64.
Like the austerity hawks (who btw would have trotted out 'Simpson -Bowles II' two weeks ago except the Boston marathon bombing blew them off he media's radar - since it was to have been unwrapped the same day) the scandalous anti-MJ crusaders have no shame. Diane Carlson- heading the bunch- recently gushed:
"The latest research just confirms that marijuana proponents' promises to Colorado voters that Amendment 64 would be a financial gain to the state were empty. Even if voters approve the recreational-marijuana tax, the new pot market could be a net drain on the state's budget, the study indicates. That means funds for education, roads and other top priorities could be diverted to marijuana regulation"
Except it's all hyper-exaggerated bollocks. In fact, the study that Carlson referenced, by the Colorado Futures Center at Colorado State University, offers no serious evidence for such a claim. So it appears Carlson was swiping fairies or fairy tales out of thin air -like a well-known knuckle dragging blogger we all know. Denver Post columnist Vince Carroll adds (Denver Post, p. 5B today)
"It would indeed be scandalous if what the anti-Amendment 64 group said were true. ....Quite the contrary. The study actually provides estimates for annual marijuana tax revenues — $91 million from a special sales tax of 15 percent and $17.6 million from the existing 2.9 percent sales tax — that are far in excess of any conceivable regulatory or other expenditures related to legalization."
While the errors in the Colo. Futures study weren't blatant, as in the case of Reinhart-Rogoff, their omissions were definitely misleading, spawning misuse by the rabid, anti-Amendment, anti-democracy enclaves. This arises because the Center at no point explained its report's "key finding", i.e. that "marijuana tax revenues may not cover the incremental state expenditures related to legalization,"
Indeed, columnist Carroll notes that he asked the report's authors, Charles Brown and Phyllis Resnick, for help. It turns out, according to Resnick, the finding represents more of a worry expressed by some lawmakers and members of the governor's implementation task force than any careful analysis of actual data.
In other words, the report's authors gave far too much ballast to subjective reservations by known Amendment 64 skeptics, including Hickenlooper. This isn't "research" it's a propaganda vehicle! Carroll, for his part, merits commendation for exposing what it was really about - thereby kicking the support out from under 'Smart-ass Colorado' and any other anti-MJ crusaders in the state that might consider invoking it.
Another major omission of the report, as noted by Carroll, is that it never tried to quantify overall social costs from Amendment 64. Meanwhile, as Carroll notes, there would be major social savings. He writes:
"After all, legalizing pot should reduce the number of violators processed through the courts. The Colorado Center on Law & Policy, a left-oriented group, projects "$12 million in instant savings for the year following legalization because of reduced criminal costs."
That is considerable and blows all the critiques of the anti-MJ loons into a cocked hat.
Of course, none of this should be construed to mean these anti-MJ goofballs will stop their efforts to overturn the will of voters. No, they won't do that any more than the austerity fetishists and Simpson-Bowles groupies will halt their efforts to massively cut spending! You see, it won't happen because in either case it is ideology which drives the respective agendas, not facts or hard data.
Stay tuned!
Now we also learn one of the leading anti-MJ groups in Colorado (Smart Colorado) has been similarly busted by attempting to invoke another academic paper to support overturning Amendment 64.
Like the austerity hawks (who btw would have trotted out 'Simpson -Bowles II' two weeks ago except the Boston marathon bombing blew them off he media's radar - since it was to have been unwrapped the same day) the scandalous anti-MJ crusaders have no shame. Diane Carlson- heading the bunch- recently gushed:
"The latest research just confirms that marijuana proponents' promises to Colorado voters that Amendment 64 would be a financial gain to the state were empty. Even if voters approve the recreational-marijuana tax, the new pot market could be a net drain on the state's budget, the study indicates. That means funds for education, roads and other top priorities could be diverted to marijuana regulation"
Except it's all hyper-exaggerated bollocks. In fact, the study that Carlson referenced, by the Colorado Futures Center at Colorado State University, offers no serious evidence for such a claim. So it appears Carlson was swiping fairies or fairy tales out of thin air -like a well-known knuckle dragging blogger we all know. Denver Post columnist Vince Carroll adds (Denver Post, p. 5B today)
"It would indeed be scandalous if what the anti-Amendment 64 group said were true. ....Quite the contrary. The study actually provides estimates for annual marijuana tax revenues — $91 million from a special sales tax of 15 percent and $17.6 million from the existing 2.9 percent sales tax — that are far in excess of any conceivable regulatory or other expenditures related to legalization."
While the errors in the Colo. Futures study weren't blatant, as in the case of Reinhart-Rogoff, their omissions were definitely misleading, spawning misuse by the rabid, anti-Amendment, anti-democracy enclaves. This arises because the Center at no point explained its report's "key finding", i.e. that "marijuana tax revenues may not cover the incremental state expenditures related to legalization,"
Indeed, columnist Carroll notes that he asked the report's authors, Charles Brown and Phyllis Resnick, for help. It turns out, according to Resnick, the finding represents more of a worry expressed by some lawmakers and members of the governor's implementation task force than any careful analysis of actual data.
In other words, the report's authors gave far too much ballast to subjective reservations by known Amendment 64 skeptics, including Hickenlooper. This isn't "research" it's a propaganda vehicle! Carroll, for his part, merits commendation for exposing what it was really about - thereby kicking the support out from under 'Smart-ass Colorado' and any other anti-MJ crusaders in the state that might consider invoking it.
Another major omission of the report, as noted by Carroll, is that it never tried to quantify overall social costs from Amendment 64. Meanwhile, as Carroll notes, there would be major social savings. He writes:
"After all, legalizing pot should reduce the number of violators processed through the courts. The Colorado Center on Law & Policy, a left-oriented group, projects "$12 million in instant savings for the year following legalization because of reduced criminal costs."
That is considerable and blows all the critiques of the anti-MJ loons into a cocked hat.
Of course, none of this should be construed to mean these anti-MJ goofballs will stop their efforts to overturn the will of voters. No, they won't do that any more than the austerity fetishists and Simpson-Bowles groupies will halt their efforts to massively cut spending! You see, it won't happen because in either case it is ideology which drives the respective agendas, not facts or hard data.
Stay tuned!
New Data Show Humans Are One Step Closer to Climate Armageddon
The “Keeling curve” derives its name from Charles Keeling who showed, from even his earliest measurements, that there is a continuous, unabated increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. This results from the forcing tied to the Greenhouse effect. Few Americans knew of the graph, before it was made famous by Al Gore in his documentary "Inconvenient Truth". But it is the longest continuous record of CO2 in the world, starting from 316 ppm in March 1958.
When I first saw the "Keeling Curve" (see attached image superimposed on the Earth in a satellite view) it shook me to my core. It also sent me into despair realizing that nothing would halt the ominous rise of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere. To put it bluntly, in the image of the Keeling Curve I beheld the future of our planet: as a hothouse wasteland with little water, barely thousands of people able to survive and with no hope ever for a green or plentiful future.
Now, according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California- San Diego, the ratio of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is flirting with 400 parts per million, a level last seen about 2.5 million to 5 million years ago. Isolated measurements have already peaked at above 400 parts per million in the Arctic, but climate scientists have been more alarmed at steady readings from Mauna Loa, Hawaii, far from major pollution sources. Those measurements, considered to be the most reliable indicators of Earth's atmospheric content, could breach the 400 level this month, according to Scripps.
Climate scientists aren't sure of the exact threshold at which the nonstop Runaway greenhouse effect kicks in, but most put it at someplace between 450 ppm and 550 ppm. Since we're now increasing CO2 concentration at roughly 2 ppm, that gives us about 25 years before the lowest threshold is met. Of course, if the Keystone pipeline is put through the annual increase in CO2 would be significantly higher, perhaps bringing the year of reckoning closer by 5 or even 10 years.
This is why the speed at which Earth’s atmosphere has reached that density of carbon dioxide, a known greenhouse gas, has scientists alarmed. While climate change-global warming deniers and naysayers (amazingly, still around - skulking behind the cover of assorted think tanks) have often attempted to obfuscate issues by referring to "natural cycles" (such as the Middle Ages 'warming' period), this new data stuffs even their fat, bloviating mouths.
This is because for the previous 800,000 years, CO2 levels never exceeded 300 parts per million, and there is no known geologic period in which rates of increase have been so sharp. The level was about 280 parts per million at the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century, when the burning of fossil fuels began to soar.
Scientists estimate that average temperatures during the Pliocene rose as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Sea levels during that 2.8-million-year epoch ranged between 16-131 feet higher than current levels, according to Richard Norris, a Scripps geologist. Norris added:
"I think it is likely that all these ecosystem changes could recur, even though the time scales for the Pliocene warmth are different than the present”
He also warned that heating the oceans probably will cause sea level rises and change the pH balance, affecting a wide array of marine life. We ought to note that already the pH of the oceans is 30% more acidic than at the start of the Industrial Revolution on average. Another 30% increase could wipe out more than alf of all sea life including the phyto-plankton.
Norris added, reinforcing the point:
“Our dumping of heat and CO2 into the ocean is like making investments in a pollution bank,”
Scripps geochemist Ralph Keeling, who has taken over the Keeling curve measurement from his late father, added: "At this pace we'll hit 450 ppm within a few decades."
Or more likely less!
Tim Lueker, an oceanographer and carbon cycle researcher who is a longtime member of the Scripps CO2 Group, provides the most somber note:
"The 400-ppm threshold is a sobering milestone, and should serve as a wake-up call for all of us to support clean-energy technology and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, before it's too late for our children and grandchildren,"
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