The lovely thing about our country is that you can love an institution and also protest it.
I would like to protest a headline today -- written, I would assume, by the NYTimes -- and a lede written by the AP:
Iraq's Financial Free Ride May End
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 15, 2008
Filed at 5:33 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq's financial free ride may be over.
Those damned Iraqi's -- they've really been making out like bandits over there. It's so their fault I can't afford to fill up my Volvo!
I've been trying to find some numbers on the state of the personal economy in Iraq -- I can't find much that's very satisfying. According to the State Department and CIA websites, the average income is $3,000 a year.
They have power for about 3 hours a day -- and there isn't enough power to run the hospitals. In the first war we bombed the hell out of their infrastructures and have never rebuilt them.
I found an amazing photo assignment from 2003 from Time Magazine -- it's really beautiful.
http://www.time.com/time/onassignment/iraqlife/index_blank.html#
And it makes me ill to think that this is the message we are going to disseminate now that we need to withdraw. Free Ride. Yes, they didn't pay for it. Yes, they got taken somewhere.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Over Time
So this morning I'm looking at 3 different articles in the Times -- all about Mexico, and a situation that appears to be brewing there.
Headlines:
Mexican Leftist Leader Wants Oil Debate
filed at 9:30 last night
Mexico: Leftists Take Over Congress in Protest Against Oil Plan
news brief, yesterday
Mexico Proposes Limited Overhaul of State Oil Monopoly
April 10
I'm interested in a few different things -- ranging, of course, from language to the new world order...
First off, I'm interested in the word "leftist;" what does that word mean?
"Over time it became clear that there was something to the left even of that "left": the precursors of socialism and communism. The original left, and their radical or republican descendants, had stood for a certain abstract equality of rights, but this emerging socialist left stood for a more radical notion of equality: in its more extreme forms, for an absolute leveling of wealth and a willingness to use the power of the state to achieve that postulated "equality". The traditional right views civilized society as existing primarily to defend property rights."
I was wondering when that shift took place... over time. Glad that's cleared up.
I've been more and more interested in how people write with bias without even noticing it -- without even meaning to -- of course there are times when we mean to persuade -- but more often we are persuaded ourselves by our own interior voices...
Okay, so back to the headlines. The socialists have taken over congress. Well that's alarming.
In the beginning of the first article it sounds like a filibuster to me:
"Legislators from Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party and two minor parties have camped out around the clock in both chambers of Mexico's Congress to block discussions on the bill. Congressional leaders have said they might look for a new place to conduct legislative business."
Somewhere else... can't you hear Dick Cheny now, okay guys, we could go over the Library of Congress -- they have a nice big table and a coffee maker...
In the brief it sounds slightly more forceful:
"Left-wing legislators shut down both houses of Congress and vowed to continue their sit-in indefinitely to protest a government plan to revamp the country’s state-run oil monopoly."
I'm interested that there is forceful debate -- and to see a government that seems to have some control over itself in terms of different parties, ideas and conversations having the power to have themselves heard. A sit-in shut down congress! Here here!
As always, I'm interested in the language -- Vow, Revamp, Monopoly.
Vow is forceful and sounds rhetoric like; Revamp sounds like a positive, not major fix-up, monopoly is bad. Who looks how because of this language...
The issue is that Mexico is running out of oil. Furthermore they lack the advanced capabilities they need to keep looking and drilling, as the easy oil options dry up. The constitution of the country says that the industry must be owned and operated by the government. The 'revamp' entails partnering with private companies -- to share equipment, risk, knowledge... of course, then you have to share the profits.
I'm interested in the word "monopoly." It's such a bad word to us capitalists -- connotes all sorts of unhealthy controls -- price fixing, lawlessness, power. But when I think about the balance -- of governments V. the 5 major oil companies -- it's the companies feel like the monopoly to me, with government owned industries serving a very important role in keeping the big companies and big countries out of regional assets and resources -- those which are consistently plundered to the detriment of local peoples when Chevron et al are given the opportunities. So the use of the word "monopoly" here is very loaded. I have offered my opinion here, which I do more than I'm comfortable with, but it seems that kind of forum -- but the use of "monopoly" by the AP writer of today's article make clear their own bias -- or the bias of the paper, or the sources on the story.
Here's the thing. Mexico has a lot of oil. They are important to the US, and oil is important to them.
When you learn how to write a hard news article, they basically teach you this: very few people are going to read the whole thing. You write the lead in such a way that no one has to read further -- you get all 5 W's (who what when where and why) right in the first sentence (or two) so that the first paragraph functions as a brief itself. Then the information comes in from the top down -- most important first and then next then next -- so that the information at the end is the least imperative. This is important, because very few readers will get that far, so you can't put anything they need down there. I think about this as I write here all the time -- I often put the most important things at the end... I often wonder (especially days like today when I go on and on) if anybody gets there...
Here is the third paragraph in today's story:
"Oil production in Mexico, one of the top suppliers to the United States, is declining, and reform advocates say Pemex needs outside resources to explore for more reserves."
Here's the third to last paragraph:
"Lopez Obrador said the bill aims to privatize Pemex, allowing Mexico's oil revenues -- which now account for nearly 40 percent of the national budget -- to go to private and foreign companies."
Umm... to repeat what is folded in and left for last... oil revenues account for nearly 40 percent of the Mexican national budget. And they are running out of oil. And they have to decide at what cost are they willing to sign up for sharing their future with the big oil companies.
Russia, Venezuela, Mexico...
-- socialism v. capitalism -- capitalism won, didn't it already...
I taught a poem last week. It was an Orpheus poem -- retold in the voice of a husband who had brought his wife back from the mental hospital. The end is different, say the students; the author has rewritten the myth... but what if not, I argue. What if Orpheus just hasn't turned around yet...
Headlines:
Mexican Leftist Leader Wants Oil Debate
filed at 9:30 last night
Mexico: Leftists Take Over Congress in Protest Against Oil Plan
news brief, yesterday
Mexico Proposes Limited Overhaul of State Oil Monopoly
April 10
I'm interested in a few different things -- ranging, of course, from language to the new world order...
First off, I'm interested in the word "leftist;" what does that word mean?
- believing in or supporting tenets of the political left
- collectivist: a person who belongs to the political left (worldnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
"Over time it became clear that there was something to the left even of that "left": the precursors of socialism and communism. The original left, and their radical or republican descendants, had stood for a certain abstract equality of rights, but this emerging socialist left stood for a more radical notion of equality: in its more extreme forms, for an absolute leveling of wealth and a willingness to use the power of the state to achieve that postulated "equality". The traditional right views civilized society as existing primarily to defend property rights."
I was wondering when that shift took place... over time. Glad that's cleared up.
I've been more and more interested in how people write with bias without even noticing it -- without even meaning to -- of course there are times when we mean to persuade -- but more often we are persuaded ourselves by our own interior voices...
Okay, so back to the headlines. The socialists have taken over congress. Well that's alarming.
In the beginning of the first article it sounds like a filibuster to me:
"Legislators from Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party and two minor parties have camped out around the clock in both chambers of Mexico's Congress to block discussions on the bill. Congressional leaders have said they might look for a new place to conduct legislative business."
Somewhere else... can't you hear Dick Cheny now, okay guys, we could go over the Library of Congress -- they have a nice big table and a coffee maker...
In the brief it sounds slightly more forceful:
"Left-wing legislators shut down both houses of Congress and vowed to continue their sit-in indefinitely to protest a government plan to revamp the country’s state-run oil monopoly."
I'm interested that there is forceful debate -- and to see a government that seems to have some control over itself in terms of different parties, ideas and conversations having the power to have themselves heard. A sit-in shut down congress! Here here!
As always, I'm interested in the language -- Vow, Revamp, Monopoly.
Vow is forceful and sounds rhetoric like; Revamp sounds like a positive, not major fix-up, monopoly is bad. Who looks how because of this language...
The issue is that Mexico is running out of oil. Furthermore they lack the advanced capabilities they need to keep looking and drilling, as the easy oil options dry up. The constitution of the country says that the industry must be owned and operated by the government. The 'revamp' entails partnering with private companies -- to share equipment, risk, knowledge... of course, then you have to share the profits.
I'm interested in the word "monopoly." It's such a bad word to us capitalists -- connotes all sorts of unhealthy controls -- price fixing, lawlessness, power. But when I think about the balance -- of governments V. the 5 major oil companies -- it's the companies feel like the monopoly to me, with government owned industries serving a very important role in keeping the big companies and big countries out of regional assets and resources -- those which are consistently plundered to the detriment of local peoples when Chevron et al are given the opportunities. So the use of the word "monopoly" here is very loaded. I have offered my opinion here, which I do more than I'm comfortable with, but it seems that kind of forum -- but the use of "monopoly" by the AP writer of today's article make clear their own bias -- or the bias of the paper, or the sources on the story.
Here's the thing. Mexico has a lot of oil. They are important to the US, and oil is important to them.
When you learn how to write a hard news article, they basically teach you this: very few people are going to read the whole thing. You write the lead in such a way that no one has to read further -- you get all 5 W's (who what when where and why) right in the first sentence (or two) so that the first paragraph functions as a brief itself. Then the information comes in from the top down -- most important first and then next then next -- so that the information at the end is the least imperative. This is important, because very few readers will get that far, so you can't put anything they need down there. I think about this as I write here all the time -- I often put the most important things at the end... I often wonder (especially days like today when I go on and on) if anybody gets there...
Here is the third paragraph in today's story:
"Oil production in Mexico, one of the top suppliers to the United States, is declining, and reform advocates say Pemex needs outside resources to explore for more reserves."
Here's the third to last paragraph:
"Lopez Obrador said the bill aims to privatize Pemex, allowing Mexico's oil revenues -- which now account for nearly 40 percent of the national budget -- to go to private and foreign companies."
Umm... to repeat what is folded in and left for last... oil revenues account for nearly 40 percent of the Mexican national budget. And they are running out of oil. And they have to decide at what cost are they willing to sign up for sharing their future with the big oil companies.
Russia, Venezuela, Mexico...
-- socialism v. capitalism -- capitalism won, didn't it already...
I taught a poem last week. It was an Orpheus poem -- retold in the voice of a husband who had brought his wife back from the mental hospital. The end is different, say the students; the author has rewritten the myth... but what if not, I argue. What if Orpheus just hasn't turned around yet...
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Verbs
Slides Tops Sends Slides Falls Shoots Push Drops Fall Soar Raises Climbs Climbs Soars Surges Surges Surmounts Falls Dips Slips Tops
Far Above The Ceiling
The following are all from headlines in the New York Times. Except for the last semi-heroic couplet, they are in descending order from today to 2004.
Oil Slides Below $110 as Dollar Gains on G7 Talk
Crude Oil Tops $112 a Barrel
Tight Inventories Send Oil Prices Higher
Oil Slides to $105 as Iraq Tensions Calm
In Reversal, Oil and Gold Fall Sharply
Oil Shoots Higher
Supply Fears Push Oil to Triple Digits
Oil Price Drops Sharply
Oil Prices Fall From Triple-Digit Highs
Gas Prices Soar
Record Price Of Oil Raises New Worries
Crude Oil Price Climbs to Another Record
Oil Climbs, And Stocks Do Likewise
As Oil Soars, Natural Gas Is a Bargain
Oil at Another Record, Surging Above $93
Oil Surges $3.36, Closing Above $90
Can a Plucky U.S. Economy Surmount $80 Oil?
At OPEC, Some Worry As Oil Prices Start Falling
Oil Contract Dips Briefly Below $60 a Barrel
Oil Prices Slip As Speculators Start to Retreat
Just Another Day in the Pit as Oil Tops $52
Oil Above $46 and Far Above OPEC's Ceiling
High-Priced Oil Adds Volatility To Global Scramble for Power
2007 May Be Gone, but the Volatility of the Markets Carries On
Far Above The Ceiling
The following are all from headlines in the New York Times. Except for the last semi-heroic couplet, they are in descending order from today to 2004.
Oil Slides Below $110 as Dollar Gains on G7 Talk
Crude Oil Tops $112 a Barrel
Tight Inventories Send Oil Prices Higher
Oil Slides to $105 as Iraq Tensions Calm
In Reversal, Oil and Gold Fall Sharply
Oil Shoots Higher
Supply Fears Push Oil to Triple Digits
Oil Price Drops Sharply
Oil Prices Fall From Triple-Digit Highs
Gas Prices Soar
Record Price Of Oil Raises New Worries
Crude Oil Price Climbs to Another Record
Oil Climbs, And Stocks Do Likewise
As Oil Soars, Natural Gas Is a Bargain
Oil at Another Record, Surging Above $93
Oil Surges $3.36, Closing Above $90
Can a Plucky U.S. Economy Surmount $80 Oil?
At OPEC, Some Worry As Oil Prices Start Falling
Oil Contract Dips Briefly Below $60 a Barrel
Oil Prices Slip As Speculators Start to Retreat
Just Another Day in the Pit as Oil Tops $52
Oil Above $46 and Far Above OPEC's Ceiling
High-Priced Oil Adds Volatility To Global Scramble for Power
2007 May Be Gone, but the Volatility of the Markets Carries On
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Coverage
Ann Sexton wrote in a love/death poem called "The Truth the Dead Know," "in another country, people die..." -- sometime the war feels so far away, while death itself looms thick and heavy. I have small children, so I don't tend toward the news very much -- the news, even NPR is so concentrated on deaths ... but sometimes it is important to see it again. I came across this AP video this morning.
The headline reads "Fighting Erupts in a Critical Iraqi Oil City."
Oil. I also notice in this video language I'm sure is still out there which I haven't noticed in a long time -- note Dana Perino says that insurgence have "infested" the area. This is part of a large base of language that was systematically employed during the first Gulf War to liken Iraqi people to insects. (I did my undergraduate thesis on this language in 1992.)
I found this video first on an amazing news search engine I just discovered, Silobreaker.com.
The Truth the Dead Know
by Anne Sexton
For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
The headline reads "Fighting Erupts in a Critical Iraqi Oil City."
Oil. I also notice in this video language I'm sure is still out there which I haven't noticed in a long time -- note Dana Perino says that insurgence have "infested" the area. This is part of a large base of language that was systematically employed during the first Gulf War to liken Iraqi people to insects. (I did my undergraduate thesis on this language in 1992.)
I found this video first on an amazing news search engine I just discovered, Silobreaker.com.
The Truth the Dead Know
by Anne Sexton
For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Unreportable Warfare
This morning, about oil, I learned that if you burn the pools from an oil spill and seal off the hole in the earth, you have only made things worse. The burning releases fumes, vapors and toxins, and leaves a denser crude behind.
Still, this is a common method of clean up for many villages in Nigeria, according to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“The land is devastated. The drinking water and streams are polluted. As it rains, we use the rain water but cannot drink it, because even that is full of crude oil,” youth leader Amstel Monday Ebarakpor told IRIN.
“At every groundwater intrusion, you see seepage. Sometimes you can see oil sheen on drinking water,” he told IRIN. “Crude will be there for the next 50 years.”
Just to repeat: Sometimes you can see an oil sheen on the drinking water.
On 25 January the chairman of the government’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, Bamidele Ajakaiye, told Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology that there are 1,150 abandoned oil spill sites in the Niger Delta region. Many, communities say, are cleaned like the one in Kedere - if at all.
There seem to be a lot of factors at work.
The largest is the growing unrest in that region. I've written about Nigeria before... Local people steal oil from pipelines to sell on the black market or to heat their homes -- as one would imagine, this is not a very safe practice. Also sabotage against the oil companies is occurring frequently as communities protest the discrepancy between what is being taken from the land and what is being given back to the people of the land. Also -- pipelines are really old. Also -- in the realm of things that are never reported -- doesn't it stand to reason that if the huge oil companies are responding to guerrilla style warfare that by killing and crippling the surrounding lands and people they would be engaging in their own warfare...
Unreportable warfare.
I noticed in the news coverage last year the language of the stories reported made the issue sound very much like a band of thieves and hooligans were set on messing things up for everyone. It concerned me then -- and then the coverage fell off all together. The UN report was picked up be Reuters, but I didn't see it in the Times, and a Google search didn't show it as appearing in any major newspaper.
President Bush will be traveling to Africa this month.
Posted today, on what looks to be a newsish site -- though I can't really decipher, because it's all in Portuguese (I think) -- is a letter to our President.
"Mr President:
Greetings from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) of Nigeria. We trust this letter will reach you and your entourage touring some African countries well.
MEND needs little introduction to you since you must have been briefed after the actions we have taken to address the injustice in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria may have affected the oil dependent American economy.
Your trip to Africa comes at an opportune time and indicates the soft spot you have for the people of this great continent. Africa is facing several on going conflicts, almost all are avoidable. Nigeria is at the verge of entering its own mega-conflict even though everyone seems to be in denial. When Nigeria erupts, the lava will spread so fast, far and wide that the human and economic catastrophe will dwarf Darfur."
The letter goes on to outline a proposal for action. It doesn't sound like the kind of letter I would be reading if I was president of the United States.
I wonder if President Bush will read this letter.
I wonder if oil is being used deliberately as chemical warfare.
But really, isn't it hard to imagine a group of pissed off American or European oil workers, hot and sick of being messed with, not saying...
Photo: Dulue Mbachu IRIN photo
Environmental damage from an oil spill in Kegbara-Dere in the Ogoni district of the Niger Delta. Residents say the spill is more than 10 years old and has not been cleaned up.
Still, this is a common method of clean up for many villages in Nigeria, according to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“The land is devastated. The drinking water and streams are polluted. As it rains, we use the rain water but cannot drink it, because even that is full of crude oil,” youth leader Amstel Monday Ebarakpor told IRIN.
“At every groundwater intrusion, you see seepage. Sometimes you can see oil sheen on drinking water,” he told IRIN. “Crude will be there for the next 50 years.”
Just to repeat: Sometimes you can see an oil sheen on the drinking water.
On 25 January the chairman of the government’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, Bamidele Ajakaiye, told Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology that there are 1,150 abandoned oil spill sites in the Niger Delta region. Many, communities say, are cleaned like the one in Kedere - if at all.
There seem to be a lot of factors at work.
The largest is the growing unrest in that region. I've written about Nigeria before... Local people steal oil from pipelines to sell on the black market or to heat their homes -- as one would imagine, this is not a very safe practice. Also sabotage against the oil companies is occurring frequently as communities protest the discrepancy between what is being taken from the land and what is being given back to the people of the land. Also -- pipelines are really old. Also -- in the realm of things that are never reported -- doesn't it stand to reason that if the huge oil companies are responding to guerrilla style warfare that by killing and crippling the surrounding lands and people they would be engaging in their own warfare...
Unreportable warfare.
I noticed in the news coverage last year the language of the stories reported made the issue sound very much like a band of thieves and hooligans were set on messing things up for everyone. It concerned me then -- and then the coverage fell off all together. The UN report was picked up be Reuters, but I didn't see it in the Times, and a Google search didn't show it as appearing in any major newspaper.
President Bush will be traveling to Africa this month.
Posted today, on what looks to be a newsish site -- though I can't really decipher, because it's all in Portuguese (I think) -- is a letter to our President.
"Mr President:
Greetings from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) of Nigeria. We trust this letter will reach you and your entourage touring some African countries well.
MEND needs little introduction to you since you must have been briefed after the actions we have taken to address the injustice in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria may have affected the oil dependent American economy.
Your trip to Africa comes at an opportune time and indicates the soft spot you have for the people of this great continent. Africa is facing several on going conflicts, almost all are avoidable. Nigeria is at the verge of entering its own mega-conflict even though everyone seems to be in denial. When Nigeria erupts, the lava will spread so fast, far and wide that the human and economic catastrophe will dwarf Darfur."
The letter goes on to outline a proposal for action. It doesn't sound like the kind of letter I would be reading if I was president of the United States.
I wonder if President Bush will read this letter.
I wonder if oil is being used deliberately as chemical warfare.
But really, isn't it hard to imagine a group of pissed off American or European oil workers, hot and sick of being messed with, not saying...
Photo: Dulue Mbachu IRIN photo
Environmental damage from an oil spill in Kegbara-Dere in the Ogoni district of the Niger Delta. Residents say the spill is more than 10 years old and has not been cleaned up.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Energyville
Well, I started out writing about a court case -- Environmental groups and local officials up in Alaska are suing to block the development up there -- and it looks like Shell has to wait for the court case to begin exploration on its lease of some 29 million acres of land... I may get back to this tomorrow -- in the meantime I've been playing a game...
Energyville.
I clicked on a paid advertising link on the New York Times article page and came across a very elaborate web site of the Chevron Corporation.
Energyville is a game where you (I) make energy decisions for the future of an imaginary city -- I didn't realize it was imaginary at first though; you put your own town's name in and it calls your city that name. I was really impressed until I noticed the plan and stats are the same for Cambridge and Dallas and Afdser. Energy levels, the site asserts for each city (2007-2015) are based on projected production patterns and lifestyles of prosperous countries in North America, Europe and Asia. There, factories consume/will consume 41.59 percent of the energy consumed; vehicles 19.83%; trucking and freight 9.05% airplanes 2.7%; single family homes 9.09%; apartment buildings 6.53% and commercial buildings 8.48%.
Anyway -- you go through the city and you substitute different energy sources for the current usages -- wind, solar, nuclear, coal hydro and bio fuels -- there are buttons for a few emerging energy sources -- but those options are unavailable because they haven't been discovered yet. The game supposedly tracks cost, environmental ramifications and security risks.
Not surprisingly, this game is an advertisement. After a few substitutions it tells you you need petroleum, and it makes sure to mention the problems with each alternative energy source along the way. I had never thought, for instance, of the issue of sea storms with off shore wind farms -- seem like black outs could conceivably go on for a little longer than usual... If you only load your city up with petroleum, on the other hand, it tells you that you need to work on diversification. Man cannot live on oil alone.
But what alarmed me most about inside of the game was the down play of the environmental effects of coal and nuclear power. The lead story in the Times today is about languishing nuclear waste sites -- waste hasn't been buried -- "The federal government is at least 20 years behind schedule on its obligation to bury nuclear waste." The addressing of our current state solely as a production and energy issue, and not as an environmental one seems to me the most damaging issue before us presently.
The other disheartening thing on this site was a link to the Kyoto Protocol. I spent some time reading some of the text of that agreement. I like the fact that I now have a PDF of the entire thing on my computer...
Elsewhere on the site, Chevron had a set of e-cards that was a print advertising campaign in the New Yorker:
Well, while I would certainly support us all going out and getting tandem bikes, driving a little slower, and downsizing out need for more more more, it seems to me that by offering this focus to consumers Chevron is saying one thing -- the need for larger changes are out of our control -- focus on what YOU can change and trust us to take care of the rest...
Since beginning this project I have made a lot of changes to my life - I've been quite happy about them, and keeping up with them to varying degrees. But I certainly don't think they are going to save the polar bears.
(As an aside I think someone needs to take a look at the health effects of florescent lights.)
Well -- I feel a little badly, but I'm not going to link the Chevron site here. If you really want to play it should be easy enough to find...
They also have a cool little counter on the front of the front of the page ala MacDonalds:
4.57 million gallons of oil were consumed during the writing of this post.
Energyville.
I clicked on a paid advertising link on the New York Times article page and came across a very elaborate web site of the Chevron Corporation.
Energyville is a game where you (I) make energy decisions for the future of an imaginary city -- I didn't realize it was imaginary at first though; you put your own town's name in and it calls your city that name. I was really impressed until I noticed the plan and stats are the same for Cambridge and Dallas and Afdser. Energy levels, the site asserts for each city (2007-2015) are based on projected production patterns and lifestyles of prosperous countries in North America, Europe and Asia. There, factories consume/will consume 41.59 percent of the energy consumed; vehicles 19.83%; trucking and freight 9.05% airplanes 2.7%; single family homes 9.09%; apartment buildings 6.53% and commercial buildings 8.48%.
Anyway -- you go through the city and you substitute different energy sources for the current usages -- wind, solar, nuclear, coal hydro and bio fuels -- there are buttons for a few emerging energy sources -- but those options are unavailable because they haven't been discovered yet. The game supposedly tracks cost, environmental ramifications and security risks.
Not surprisingly, this game is an advertisement. After a few substitutions it tells you you need petroleum, and it makes sure to mention the problems with each alternative energy source along the way. I had never thought, for instance, of the issue of sea storms with off shore wind farms -- seem like black outs could conceivably go on for a little longer than usual... If you only load your city up with petroleum, on the other hand, it tells you that you need to work on diversification. Man cannot live on oil alone.
But what alarmed me most about inside of the game was the down play of the environmental effects of coal and nuclear power. The lead story in the Times today is about languishing nuclear waste sites -- waste hasn't been buried -- "The federal government is at least 20 years behind schedule on its obligation to bury nuclear waste." The addressing of our current state solely as a production and energy issue, and not as an environmental one seems to me the most damaging issue before us presently.
The other disheartening thing on this site was a link to the Kyoto Protocol. I spent some time reading some of the text of that agreement. I like the fact that I now have a PDF of the entire thing on my computer...
Elsewhere on the site, Chevron had a set of e-cards that was a print advertising campaign in the New Yorker:
Well, while I would certainly support us all going out and getting tandem bikes, driving a little slower, and downsizing out need for more more more, it seems to me that by offering this focus to consumers Chevron is saying one thing -- the need for larger changes are out of our control -- focus on what YOU can change and trust us to take care of the rest...
Since beginning this project I have made a lot of changes to my life - I've been quite happy about them, and keeping up with them to varying degrees. But I certainly don't think they are going to save the polar bears.
(As an aside I think someone needs to take a look at the health effects of florescent lights.)
Well -- I feel a little badly, but I'm not going to link the Chevron site here. If you really want to play it should be easy enough to find...
They also have a cool little counter on the front of the front of the page ala MacDonalds:
4.57 million gallons of oil were consumed during the writing of this post.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Be In Touch
There's an interesting article in the Times today -- it talks about how cowboys are looking out for the land all over the country --
''Look at this grass. If I don't take care of it, that's my livelihood,'' Nitschke said, kneeling as he examined foxtail shoots. ''We dress differently than the eco-folks, we probably vote differently, but in the end there's a lot of ways in which our core values are really close.''
Isn't it sweet -- the image of this cowboy bending down to touch a baby tree... The story says, usually, those who live off the land and those who seek to protect it are at odds...
Across the West, cattlemen and environmentalists have locked horns over grazing practices for decades. But increasingly, ranchers are buying into the idea that they have a role to play in protecting open space, be it through preserving private wildlands or promoting sustainable grazing techniques.
"Arizona state card."
Wealth does Arizona hold
In her mines and hearts of gold,
In her towering Canon Grand
Till she seems, 'The promised land'.
[1916]
Near Florida's Lake Okeechobee, the World Wildlife Fund has recruited ranchers to build ditches on their lands to improve wetlands habitat for threatened and endangered birds like the wood stork and crested caracara.
In Wyoming, the Audobon Society is trying to persuade oil and gas companies to pay ranchers to maintain sage brush expanses key to the survival of the sage grouse.
It's a strange sort of question -- what constitutes living off the land -- in harmony with -- in understanding of -- in cooperation with -- respecting...In touch vs out of touch -- isn't it nice to think of skin involved in that interchange. In touch with one's surroundings. In touch with the earth. The people around us...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Corruptors of Governments
The other day I mentioned in passing the law suit that temporarily bars Venezuela from control over its own oil supplies -- the order passed down freezes 12 billion dollars in assets.
I've been avoiding Venezuela. I'm not sure I can do it any more justice today. As if to underscore that fact I clicked on a link to "current local time in Caracas;" It's 6:29 am there -- which is exactly a half an hour off of the time here. Good Grief.
I was told last year that Venezuela was the biggest story not being looked at in oil world-wide. Venezuela, one of the largest oil suppliers in the world, I was told, is letting their fields languish in pursuit of it's socialist ideals... putting money into social programs and such at the expense of the oil fields. "Isn't that a good thing?" I said at the time; feeling silly even as the words came out.
The latest law suit with Exxon has to do with Chavez attempting to exert control over their own oil reserves -- asking Exxon and others to abandon billions of dollars of investment.
The problem with this story is that I don't trust the reporting. That is my least favorite situation to be in. For the most part I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that the American press is an amazing institution -- but occasionally I do feel like I'm reading non-thinking pop-language soundbites at best -- government propaganda at worst.
Venezuela’s government has been seething since Exxon recently won orders in British, Dutch and American courts freezing as much as $12 billion in Venezuelan oil assets abroad — refineries and other oil-related infrastructure that Venezuela owns. Venezuela vowed to overturn the decisions before arbitration over Exxon’s attempts to win compensation for its nationalized oil project.
By Simon Romero, NYT
Seething? Vowed? It has seemed clear over the past few months in trying to delve into this story that Chavez is turning into a cartoon.
"I'LL GET YOU MY PRETTY, AND YOUR LITTLE DOG, TOO!"
I watched the Wizard of Oz this weekend with 6 kids between the ages of 5-7.
Chavez, for his part, is certainly an easy target -- the propaganda he spews aids the image...
“I speak to the American empire, because that’s the master,” Mr. Chávez said. “Continue, and you will see that we won’t send one drop of oil to the empire of the United States.” Referring to Exxon, he said, “They are imperialist bandits, white-collar criminals, corruptors of governments, overthrowers of governments.”
The issue is language again, and how do we trust people who are so clearly trying to tell us what to think... so clearly communicating with words intended to elicit feeling, not thinking...
The problem inside Venezuela is that there is still an extreme food crisis.
The problem outside Venezuela is that world oil prices being effected.
I guess one question is whether or not socialism can exist at all in this globalized world -- and how on earth that works in a country so enmeshed in the oil market.
I've been avoiding Venezuela. I'm not sure I can do it any more justice today. As if to underscore that fact I clicked on a link to "current local time in Caracas;" It's 6:29 am there -- which is exactly a half an hour off of the time here. Good Grief.
I was told last year that Venezuela was the biggest story not being looked at in oil world-wide. Venezuela, one of the largest oil suppliers in the world, I was told, is letting their fields languish in pursuit of it's socialist ideals... putting money into social programs and such at the expense of the oil fields. "Isn't that a good thing?" I said at the time; feeling silly even as the words came out.
The latest law suit with Exxon has to do with Chavez attempting to exert control over their own oil reserves -- asking Exxon and others to abandon billions of dollars of investment.
The problem with this story is that I don't trust the reporting. That is my least favorite situation to be in. For the most part I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that the American press is an amazing institution -- but occasionally I do feel like I'm reading non-thinking pop-language soundbites at best -- government propaganda at worst.
Venezuela’s government has been seething since Exxon recently won orders in British, Dutch and American courts freezing as much as $12 billion in Venezuelan oil assets abroad — refineries and other oil-related infrastructure that Venezuela owns. Venezuela vowed to overturn the decisions before arbitration over Exxon’s attempts to win compensation for its nationalized oil project.
By Simon Romero, NYT
Seething? Vowed? It has seemed clear over the past few months in trying to delve into this story that Chavez is turning into a cartoon.
"I'LL GET YOU MY PRETTY, AND YOUR LITTLE DOG, TOO!"
I watched the Wizard of Oz this weekend with 6 kids between the ages of 5-7.
Chavez, for his part, is certainly an easy target -- the propaganda he spews aids the image...
“I speak to the American empire, because that’s the master,” Mr. Chávez said. “Continue, and you will see that we won’t send one drop of oil to the empire of the United States.” Referring to Exxon, he said, “They are imperialist bandits, white-collar criminals, corruptors of governments, overthrowers of governments.”
The issue is language again, and how do we trust people who are so clearly trying to tell us what to think... so clearly communicating with words intended to elicit feeling, not thinking...
The problem inside Venezuela is that there is still an extreme food crisis.
The problem outside Venezuela is that world oil prices being effected.
I guess one question is whether or not socialism can exist at all in this globalized world -- and how on earth that works in a country so enmeshed in the oil market.
Monday, February 4, 2008
It's Stunning
So...
over nearly a century, an estimated 20-30 million gallons of oil has leaked into the water and soil of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, NY. The story got some mounting attention in 2007, as lawsuits are prepared to combat inaction on the part of Exxon and five other companies involved in an enormous toxic waste situation. Read here here here and hear here.
A report this month from the Environmental Protection Agency suggested that the Newtown spill may be twice as large as first believed — some 30 million gallons, nearly three times the size of the Alaska spill. It has polluted the 4-mile strip of waterway and some 55 residential and commercial acres around it, gathering in subsurface reservoirs, mixing with groundwater, creating toxic vapors and and seeping, slowly but inexorably, into the creek. One major concern is the reported leakage of chemical vapor into homes.
Vapors into the homes... arsenic - lead... we have no idea what this means -- has meant to families to children over the years. What effect on families - family histories... could toxic fumes cause toxic behavior? Physical illness? Mental illness...
I've just returned home from a week in Brooklyn, and somehow it seems even closer -- Greenpoint, according to NPR is still home to Polish immigrants -- which is what it was 60 years ago, when the bulk of the spill occurred; which is what it was 60 years ago when my father and his brother Al were playing bloody knuckles and my grandmother and Ellie were standing on the stoop gossiping while the fresh kilbasi boiled inside... when we drank the water...
“The Brooklyn-Queens waterfront has the potential to be New York’s Gold Coast, with sparkling towers, schools, parks and libraries,” said Eric Gioia, a City Council member whose Queens district abuts the creek. “Cleaning Newtown Creek is critical to that vision.”
Still the ability to ignore is amazing. On the NPR story, a carpet cleaner got Exxon to pay for a fan to ventilate his work area because the smell of oil was so strong.
"with the fans running we don't smell them [the fumes] -- with the fans running, I think they stay underground."
I love the language of that. With the fans running the fumes stay underground.
Brooklyn is home to the biggest oil disaster in this country. I read about this in October, and I've been trying to figure out how to make sense of it since then -- to put into some sort of context...
maybe there simply is none.
When I was about 12 the house across the street from my grandmother's burned to the ground. I wasn't allowed out on the stoop, but I stood at the window and watched it go up -- later I took a picture which is still hanging on my wall --
and the flames swallowed up what had been. And there were rumors of intent -- murmors of intent and neglect and what a pity
and we all stood and watched -- and the fire trucks came late -- and everything was destroyed.
over nearly a century, an estimated 20-30 million gallons of oil has leaked into the water and soil of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, NY. The story got some mounting attention in 2007, as lawsuits are prepared to combat inaction on the part of Exxon and five other companies involved in an enormous toxic waste situation. Read here here here and hear here.
A report this month from the Environmental Protection Agency suggested that the Newtown spill may be twice as large as first believed — some 30 million gallons, nearly three times the size of the Alaska spill. It has polluted the 4-mile strip of waterway and some 55 residential and commercial acres around it, gathering in subsurface reservoirs, mixing with groundwater, creating toxic vapors and and seeping, slowly but inexorably, into the creek. One major concern is the reported leakage of chemical vapor into homes.
Vapors into the homes... arsenic - lead... we have no idea what this means -- has meant to families to children over the years. What effect on families - family histories... could toxic fumes cause toxic behavior? Physical illness? Mental illness...
I've just returned home from a week in Brooklyn, and somehow it seems even closer -- Greenpoint, according to NPR is still home to Polish immigrants -- which is what it was 60 years ago, when the bulk of the spill occurred; which is what it was 60 years ago when my father and his brother Al were playing bloody knuckles and my grandmother and Ellie were standing on the stoop gossiping while the fresh kilbasi boiled inside... when we drank the water...
The spill, originally several times the size of the Exxon Valdez oil leak, resulted from an accident in the 1950s and lay undiscovered until 1978. In notices of intent to sue that were sent to the five companies, Andrew M. Cuomo, the state attorney general, said that so much oil had leaked into the creek that some samples of its sediment, when dried and weighed, were nearly one-tenth oil.
The notices also disclosed that an internal study by one of the companies found nearly 100 different pollutants in the creek water or sediment, including benzene, arsenic and lead.
Of course, the timing is... not for the Polish immigrants. Brooklyn is gentrifying. Already the brick row house my family sold a few decades ago for about $60,000 would be worth probably ten time that; imagine if it wasn't nestled in toxic waste...“The Brooklyn-Queens waterfront has the potential to be New York’s Gold Coast, with sparkling towers, schools, parks and libraries,” said Eric Gioia, a City Council member whose Queens district abuts the creek. “Cleaning Newtown Creek is critical to that vision.”
Still the ability to ignore is amazing. On the NPR story, a carpet cleaner got Exxon to pay for a fan to ventilate his work area because the smell of oil was so strong.
"with the fans running we don't smell them [the fumes] -- with the fans running, I think they stay underground."
I love the language of that. With the fans running the fumes stay underground.
Brooklyn is home to the biggest oil disaster in this country. I read about this in October, and I've been trying to figure out how to make sense of it since then -- to put into some sort of context...
maybe there simply is none.
When I was about 12 the house across the street from my grandmother's burned to the ground. I wasn't allowed out on the stoop, but I stood at the window and watched it go up -- later I took a picture which is still hanging on my wall --
and the flames swallowed up what had been. And there were rumors of intent -- murmors of intent and neglect and what a pity
and we all stood and watched -- and the fire trucks came late -- and everything was destroyed.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Justice Is Blinded 2
I'm going to cheat today.
The article that caught my eye this morning is about a coal company. In my defense, I never do this -- in my other defense, this relates to a post earlier this week that was about oil -- and in my other other defense, coal and oil are inexorably linked, as the use of coal begins to rise based on the threat of oil supplies tightening...
Furthermore, it's about a court case -- and I don't think any discussion of a court case and an energy law stands alone against the backdrop of the Supreme Court, which this spring is slated to hear the damages case against Exxon Mobil for the Valdez crash.
“In West Virginia, there is a proverb that says that everything is political except politics, and that is personal,” said Conni Gratop Lewis, a retired lobbyist. -- The New York Times.
The story comes out of West Virginia, and has to do with a case that was thrown out in November -- a $50 million dollar fraud case against Massey Energy Corp. That judgment was declared on a 3-2 vote. The case is being reopened after photos surfaced of the chief justice and the CEO playing golf.
On Thursday, several plaintiffs in the case — mining companies that say they were driven out of business by Massey — filed a separate motion seeking the disqualification of a second judge in the original majority, Justice Brent D. Benjamin. Justice Benjamin was elected to the court in 2004 with the help of more than $3 million in advertisements and other support from Don L. Blankenship, Massey’s chief executive and Chief Justice Maynard’s dining companion in Monte Carlo.
The judges don't think there's a problem. They say they remain impartial -- and that the scrutiny is unwarranted. Two weeks ago, Massey settled another suit:
CHARLESTON, W.Va., Jan. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Massey Energy Company (NYSE: MEE) today announced that it has settled a Clean Water Act lawsuit filed in May 2007 on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The $20 million settlement avoids expensive litigation, resolves questions about the company's potential liability and enhances Massey's environmental protection efforts.
I said in the older post that the judgments in these cases were so high, they dwarfed the price of elections... it worse than that -- the profits of these energy companies dwarf the expenditure of governments. Massey alone holds $3 billion in assets -- with sales in the neighborhood of $200 million. Exxon Mobil made 39.5 billion in profits in 2006 -- and that was before the increases in oil prices last year. Annual numbers should post soon for 2007...
It makes me really dizzy. It's one thing not to think of our politicians as justice oriented, but to think of how political our judges are -- it's a level of undermining the authority in this country I simply don't know how to reconcile.
Justice. A justice. Language again -- just the title "justice" trains us from the beginning of our education to expect good from them.
I am thinking this morning -- what if everyone walked around as the personification of their job -- that which they are charged to impart. We could call a teacher "a knowledge," a doctor could be, rather than a healer, "a healing." A poet would have to be called " a truth." Geez I'm glad that's not my title. We argue about the nature of truth all the time...
What can we really expect of each other? What can we really expect from them?
The article that caught my eye this morning is about a coal company. In my defense, I never do this -- in my other defense, this relates to a post earlier this week that was about oil -- and in my other other defense, coal and oil are inexorably linked, as the use of coal begins to rise based on the threat of oil supplies tightening...
Furthermore, it's about a court case -- and I don't think any discussion of a court case and an energy law stands alone against the backdrop of the Supreme Court, which this spring is slated to hear the damages case against Exxon Mobil for the Valdez crash.
“In West Virginia, there is a proverb that says that everything is political except politics, and that is personal,” said Conni Gratop Lewis, a retired lobbyist. -- The New York Times.
The story comes out of West Virginia, and has to do with a case that was thrown out in November -- a $50 million dollar fraud case against Massey Energy Corp. That judgment was declared on a 3-2 vote. The case is being reopened after photos surfaced of the chief justice and the CEO playing golf.
On Thursday, several plaintiffs in the case — mining companies that say they were driven out of business by Massey — filed a separate motion seeking the disqualification of a second judge in the original majority, Justice Brent D. Benjamin. Justice Benjamin was elected to the court in 2004 with the help of more than $3 million in advertisements and other support from Don L. Blankenship, Massey’s chief executive and Chief Justice Maynard’s dining companion in Monte Carlo.
The judges don't think there's a problem. They say they remain impartial -- and that the scrutiny is unwarranted. Two weeks ago, Massey settled another suit:
CHARLESTON, W.Va., Jan. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Massey Energy Company (NYSE: MEE) today announced that it has settled a Clean Water Act lawsuit filed in May 2007 on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The $20 million settlement avoids expensive litigation, resolves questions about the company's potential liability and enhances Massey's environmental protection efforts.
I said in the older post that the judgments in these cases were so high, they dwarfed the price of elections... it worse than that -- the profits of these energy companies dwarf the expenditure of governments. Massey alone holds $3 billion in assets -- with sales in the neighborhood of $200 million. Exxon Mobil made 39.5 billion in profits in 2006 -- and that was before the increases in oil prices last year. Annual numbers should post soon for 2007...
It makes me really dizzy. It's one thing not to think of our politicians as justice oriented, but to think of how political our judges are -- it's a level of undermining the authority in this country I simply don't know how to reconcile.
Justice. A justice. Language again -- just the title "justice" trains us from the beginning of our education to expect good from them.
I am thinking this morning -- what if everyone walked around as the personification of their job -- that which they are charged to impart. We could call a teacher "a knowledge," a doctor could be, rather than a healer, "a healing." A poet would have to be called " a truth." Geez I'm glad that's not my title. We argue about the nature of truth all the time...
What can we really expect of each other? What can we really expect from them?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Footprint on the Delta
When hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, there were lots of ideas about what happened to expand the devastation and why -- neglect, indifference, abandon. I learned this morning that a lot of the destruction had to do with that state's oil industry.
blogs.abcnews.com
while this image is posted on the ABC new site, it's not attributed.
Some mornings I come across an article so good I just want to post it -- offer it up or pretend I wrote it and that I am a reporter for the New York Times instead of a poet with a research project... today is one of those mornings. I even found an article in the London Telegraph which does just (pretends it wrote it) (funnily enough, I found the article after I wrote that first sentence...). ((It's worth noting here that this article is an Associated Press article -- it's stellar reporting, quotes and depth are offered entirely un-bilined. When people begin to get down on the media, they should please remember the amazing work that our reporters do everyday -- not for credit or glamor, but for belief in the job and for public service.))
To start, I didn't know how huge the LA oil industry is (remember, it's my responsibility to be entirely shameless here...)
In oil's heyday 30 years ago, Louisiana's coastal wells pumped 360 million barrels a year, an eighth of what Saudi Arabia ships to the market today.
I didn't know the marsh lands of Louisiana provide natural protection from Hurricanes -- and have been decimated -- in at least some large part by the state's oil industry. Swamp erosion, toxic waste and rerouting of water have all lead to completely overturning the nature of the region.
This from a times article from 2005 -- DOCTORED
The Gulf Coast has always been vulnerable to coastal storms, but over the years people have made things worse, particularly in the oil-rich state of Louisiana, where Hurricane Katrina struck yesterday.
Since the 18th century, when French colonial administrators required land claimants to establish ownership by building levees along bayous, streams and rivers, people have been trying to dominate the region's oil-rich landscape and the forces of its nature.
There's a whole site dedicated to "protecting Louisiana's Citizens and Environment from the Effects of Oil Spills."
If you see spilled oil, the law requires you to make two (toll-free) calls:
(1) Call the 24-hour Louisiana Emergency Hazardous Materials Hotline at (877) 925-6595
(2) Call the National Response Center (NRC) at (800) 424-8802
I keep trying to imagine sentences from the web site substituted for Boston or finished with "in Boston" like that kid's game where you finish movie titles with the phrase "in bed..."
· Minimize unauthorized discharges of oil in Boston
· Provide for an effective spill response in Boston
· Compensate the public for damages to the state’s natural resources in Boston
· Assist the public through education, service, and public outreach in Boston
None of that would ever be an issue. We don't have the resources. We also have a lot of power up here, inside of all these brick buildings... for crying out loud one of our countries best senators is standing in the way of wind energy to protect his family's view of the Cape Cod coast!
Money, Power. "Who Owns The Oil." Not the people living in the toxic waste areas -- not in Nigeria and not here. There seems to be no end to the proof of the devastation people cause by their greed and plundering of the earth.
blogs.abcnews.com
while this image is posted on the ABC new site, it's not attributed.
Some mornings I come across an article so good I just want to post it -- offer it up or pretend I wrote it and that I am a reporter for the New York Times instead of a poet with a research project... today is one of those mornings. I even found an article in the London Telegraph which does just (pretends it wrote it) (funnily enough, I found the article after I wrote that first sentence...). ((It's worth noting here that this article is an Associated Press article -- it's stellar reporting, quotes and depth are offered entirely un-bilined. When people begin to get down on the media, they should please remember the amazing work that our reporters do everyday -- not for credit or glamor, but for belief in the job and for public service.))
To start, I didn't know how huge the LA oil industry is (remember, it's my responsibility to be entirely shameless here...)
In oil's heyday 30 years ago, Louisiana's coastal wells pumped 360 million barrels a year, an eighth of what Saudi Arabia ships to the market today.
I didn't know the marsh lands of Louisiana provide natural protection from Hurricanes -- and have been decimated -- in at least some large part by the state's oil industry. Swamp erosion, toxic waste and rerouting of water have all lead to completely overturning the nature of the region.
R. Eugene Turner, an LSU oceanographer, has calculated that every square mile of the delta is bounded on three sides by oil-canal ridges. Turner has spent more than 30 years studying the oil industry's footprint on the delta.
''If the water is blocked from going in, the wetlands on other side is drier for a little longer and also stays flooded longer than it otherwise would be,'' Turner said. ''By drying it, the land oxidizes and dries out; and if it's wetter, it's like leaving a lawn sprinkler on and the plants are going to die.''
I'm thinking, too, about that "oil-rich" distinction which is spreading like wildfire through the news these days ... What if every time there were reporting on LA -- or every time there had been reporting on Katrina it had been preceded by that adjectival clause?This from a times article from 2005 -- DOCTORED
The Gulf Coast has always been vulnerable to coastal storms, but over the years people have made things worse, particularly in the oil-rich state of Louisiana, where Hurricane Katrina struck yesterday.
Since the 18th century, when French colonial administrators required land claimants to establish ownership by building levees along bayous, streams and rivers, people have been trying to dominate the region's oil-rich landscape and the forces of its nature.
There's a whole site dedicated to "protecting Louisiana's Citizens and Environment from the Effects of Oil Spills."
If you see spilled oil, the law requires you to make two (toll-free) calls:
(1) Call the 24-hour Louisiana Emergency Hazardous Materials Hotline at (877) 925-6595
(2) Call the National Response Center (NRC) at (800) 424-8802
I keep trying to imagine sentences from the web site substituted for Boston or finished with "in Boston" like that kid's game where you finish movie titles with the phrase "in bed..."
· Minimize unauthorized discharges of oil in Boston
· Provide for an effective spill response in Boston
· Compensate the public for damages to the state’s natural resources in Boston
· Assist the public through education, service, and public outreach in Boston
None of that would ever be an issue. We don't have the resources. We also have a lot of power up here, inside of all these brick buildings... for crying out loud one of our countries best senators is standing in the way of wind energy to protect his family's view of the Cape Cod coast!
Money, Power. "Who Owns The Oil." Not the people living in the toxic waste areas -- not in Nigeria and not here. There seems to be no end to the proof of the devastation people cause by their greed and plundering of the earth.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
My Attack
A French court ruled Wednesday that the company Total was partly liable for the oil spill their cargo was witness to. The issue was simply that the ship used, The Erika, was in horrible disrepair, and Total employed it anyway. December 12, 1999, the Cargo ship broke in two, spilling roughly 20,000 tons of oil.
This from the original reporting back in 2000:
Edward Bran, a lawyer who specializes in international environmental law, said that under international oil pollution conventions, claims usually are not permitted against parties other than the ship owners unless it can be proved that the damage stemmed from acts of omission.
So, I assume, you could never lie or cheat -- but now you have to do due diligence. That's a big shift. I'm thinking about the things that I check -- I would look at a school bus my kids were going on for a field trip; I would look at a dialyses machine my mother was pouring her blood through -- we check when the cargo is precious -- when the result of failure would be devastating. So Companies must now consider oil precious and environmental disaster personal harm...
... The court also recognized the principle of ecological harm “resulting from an attack on the environment.”
I'm intrigued by this last line. The principle of ecological harm resulting from an attack on the environment. Isn't that what we are doing every day? With our products and our travel and our habits? Don't get me wrong, I think the ruling is terrific, and it certainly seems like they are making environmental strides in Europe we likely will never reach -- but it's a little scary too.
And accidents do... clearly there was gross negligence in this case, but do we really know what we are partaking in? It's aggressive language. Maybe it's true -- I am not passive when I take a plastic bag or wear nylon... in the decisions that I make I am attacking the environment. That is a hostile way to think about this world.
While I want to live in a world where oil spills are taken seriously, and the environment is treated as a victim of our lives, I don't know if I can breathe or heal or help inside the life of a lanuguage of attack...
This from the original reporting back in 2000:
France is still investigating what happened to the Erika. A preliminary report issued last week found that the spill had probably been caused by a rusty bulkhead. At first the crew, all citizens of India, were detained. But they have since been absolved of blame and released.
The criticism has focused instead on the French company TotalFina for hiring the Maltese-registered boat. Investigators found that at least one other oil company, Shell, had rejected the boat as unseaworthy.
The case appears groundbreaking in the pursuit of broadening responsibility in the case of such disasters. According to today's story:Edward Bran, a lawyer who specializes in international environmental law, said that under international oil pollution conventions, claims usually are not permitted against parties other than the ship owners unless it can be proved that the damage stemmed from acts of omission.
So, I assume, you could never lie or cheat -- but now you have to do due diligence. That's a big shift. I'm thinking about the things that I check -- I would look at a school bus my kids were going on for a field trip; I would look at a dialyses machine my mother was pouring her blood through -- we check when the cargo is precious -- when the result of failure would be devastating. So Companies must now consider oil precious and environmental disaster personal harm...
... The court also recognized the principle of ecological harm “resulting from an attack on the environment.”
I'm intrigued by this last line. The principle of ecological harm resulting from an attack on the environment. Isn't that what we are doing every day? With our products and our travel and our habits? Don't get me wrong, I think the ruling is terrific, and it certainly seems like they are making environmental strides in Europe we likely will never reach -- but it's a little scary too.
And accidents do... clearly there was gross negligence in this case, but do we really know what we are partaking in? It's aggressive language. Maybe it's true -- I am not passive when I take a plastic bag or wear nylon... in the decisions that I make I am attacking the environment. That is a hostile way to think about this world.
While I want to live in a world where oil spills are taken seriously, and the environment is treated as a victim of our lives, I don't know if I can breathe or heal or help inside the life of a lanuguage of attack...
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
For The Birds
A new study is looking at long-term effects of oil spills, as monitored through birds.
"Seagull blood shows promise for monitoring pollutants from oil spills," according to a new study from the American Chemical Society. Following seagulls months and years after oil spills, a group of scientists is marking the rise in pollutants in the birds' blood. Among other things, these pollutants (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) are known to cause cancer and damage DNA. I dont' think I knew DNA could be damaged...
While oil spills quickly kill large numbers of seabirds and other animals, scientists do not fully understand the non-lethal biological effects of these spills, the Spanish researchers say.
The article in the ACM journal opened with that canary in a coal mine metaphor, again. Since I first wrote about that phrase last fall, I've seen it come up over and over again. Language travels through society like birds -- flocking and gathering and crying through the air.
This new study is crucial, of course. We look at things in such a short term perspective, we forget to look out, into the future and the past for understanding.
At the same time, while I think this will certainly prove an important study, there seems something so off with the way we look at and talk about these things. The birds -- the birds are not dying to show us when we are killing ourselves... we are killing the birds!
Photo from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
When the Cosco Busa cargo ship spilled 58,000 gallons of oil off San Francisco bay two months ago, within a week over 1,500 birds were dead or dying from the effects. While I have been familiar with photos of oil covered birds for decades, I didn't really know what the actual effects were -- I guess I thought the birds would then suffocate. I still imagine that's part of it -- but more. They lose their waterproofing. (Another irony...) They become incapable of faring cold and water. Listen to rescue workers discuss the scene on NPR here.
It is an overwhelming disconnect -- this one between us and the life -- the earth life -- we are part of. The overwhelming disconnect. As ever, when I feel that drowning in the person-ness we live in, I turn to poems.
Eagle Poem
Joy Harjo, “Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War. Copyright �© 1990 by Joy Harjo. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.
From the Poetry Foundation Website.
"Seagull blood shows promise for monitoring pollutants from oil spills," according to a new study from the American Chemical Society. Following seagulls months and years after oil spills, a group of scientists is marking the rise in pollutants in the birds' blood. Among other things, these pollutants (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) are known to cause cancer and damage DNA. I dont' think I knew DNA could be damaged...
While oil spills quickly kill large numbers of seabirds and other animals, scientists do not fully understand the non-lethal biological effects of these spills, the Spanish researchers say.
The article in the ACM journal opened with that canary in a coal mine metaphor, again. Since I first wrote about that phrase last fall, I've seen it come up over and over again. Language travels through society like birds -- flocking and gathering and crying through the air.
This new study is crucial, of course. We look at things in such a short term perspective, we forget to look out, into the future and the past for understanding.
At the same time, while I think this will certainly prove an important study, there seems something so off with the way we look at and talk about these things. The birds -- the birds are not dying to show us when we are killing ourselves... we are killing the birds!
Photo from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
When the Cosco Busa cargo ship spilled 58,000 gallons of oil off San Francisco bay two months ago, within a week over 1,500 birds were dead or dying from the effects. While I have been familiar with photos of oil covered birds for decades, I didn't really know what the actual effects were -- I guess I thought the birds would then suffocate. I still imagine that's part of it -- but more. They lose their waterproofing. (Another irony...) They become incapable of faring cold and water. Listen to rescue workers discuss the scene on NPR here.
It is an overwhelming disconnect -- this one between us and the life -- the earth life -- we are part of. The overwhelming disconnect. As ever, when I feel that drowning in the person-ness we live in, I turn to poems.
Eagle Poem
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadly growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
Joy Harjo, “Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War. Copyright �© 1990 by Joy Harjo. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.
From the Poetry Foundation Website.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Backwards
Backwards: at or towards the back or rear. in a manner or order or direction the reverse of normal.
I looked up the definition of this common word this morning because I wanted to try to get at the relationship between actual movement and the nature of movement. I guess I need to pull out the OED, but at least this is a start -- in any event, the idea of powering things with coal seems "backward" in both regards.
An administrative judge on Friday affirmed a controversial permit granted to Longleaf Energy Associates LLC for a coal-fired power plant in southwestern Georgia, the first to be approved in the state in 20 years.
This from Energy Law 360 -- which, it turns out, costs $3,000 a year after the first trial week -- so it's only headlines from here on out.
The language of the story --
The Energy Law headline reads:
Ga. Judge OKs First Coal-Fired Plant Permit In 20 Yrs.
The headline in the article in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reads:
Environmentalists Lose Bid To Stop Coal Plant.
Language -- Energy Law puts the issue in context -- history -- they put it into the legal realm with the word permit.
Atlanta Journal and Constitution puts the emphasis on the negative -- they get the environmental issue right up front.
The thing about headlines is -- they are often misleading -- they are almost never written by reporters, and it is their job to get you to read the story, not to report the story. Still they can often give away a lot about emphasis and goal.
This from the legal abstract:
VIII.
That granting this petition will prevent waste, avoid the drilling of unnecessary wells, promote orderly development and protect coequal and correlative rights of all owners in the Mobley Creek Field.
Coal. I sort of try to imagine the pollution of Dickens' streets magnified to the level they would be given our daily energy requirements now. In the last few days I've been noticing a cropping up of stories about nuclear energy plants. It's scary -- there would be the hope that we would move forward with our new understandings about global -- environmental and resource -- energy consumption. What if that's not where we are headed at all?
We go back to what is known -- places, objects, people -- what we know how to do, where we know we can find fuel and power. We go back despite the dangers -- despite the known effects. What is known is always less scary than the abyss of the future we can't fathom or recreate.
Backwards.
In my pursuit of definition this morning, I came across a site where a guy recorded Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" in both directions. You can listen at http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm
I'd always heard about this, but never heard... very strange... I swear language and information have a life of their own...
Forward
“If there’s a bustle in you hedgerow, don’t be alarmed, now, it’s just a spring clean for the May queen. Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road your on.”
Backward
Oh here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give those with him a 666, there was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.
I looked up the definition of this common word this morning because I wanted to try to get at the relationship between actual movement and the nature of movement. I guess I need to pull out the OED, but at least this is a start -- in any event, the idea of powering things with coal seems "backward" in both regards.
An administrative judge on Friday affirmed a controversial permit granted to Longleaf Energy Associates LLC for a coal-fired power plant in southwestern Georgia, the first to be approved in the state in 20 years.
This from Energy Law 360 -- which, it turns out, costs $3,000 a year after the first trial week -- so it's only headlines from here on out.
The language of the story --
The Energy Law headline reads:
Ga. Judge OKs First Coal-Fired Plant Permit In 20 Yrs.
The headline in the article in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reads:
Environmentalists Lose Bid To Stop Coal Plant.
Language -- Energy Law puts the issue in context -- history -- they put it into the legal realm with the word permit.
Atlanta Journal and Constitution puts the emphasis on the negative -- they get the environmental issue right up front.
The thing about headlines is -- they are often misleading -- they are almost never written by reporters, and it is their job to get you to read the story, not to report the story. Still they can often give away a lot about emphasis and goal.
This from the legal abstract:
VIII.
That granting this petition will prevent waste, avoid the drilling of unnecessary wells, promote orderly development and protect coequal and correlative rights of all owners in the Mobley Creek Field.
Coal. I sort of try to imagine the pollution of Dickens' streets magnified to the level they would be given our daily energy requirements now. In the last few days I've been noticing a cropping up of stories about nuclear energy plants. It's scary -- there would be the hope that we would move forward with our new understandings about global -- environmental and resource -- energy consumption. What if that's not where we are headed at all?
We go back to what is known -- places, objects, people -- what we know how to do, where we know we can find fuel and power. We go back despite the dangers -- despite the known effects. What is known is always less scary than the abyss of the future we can't fathom or recreate.
Backwards.
In my pursuit of definition this morning, I came across a site where a guy recorded Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" in both directions. You can listen at http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm
I'd always heard about this, but never heard... very strange... I swear language and information have a life of their own...
Forward
“If there’s a bustle in you hedgerow, don’t be alarmed, now, it’s just a spring clean for the May queen. Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road your on.”
Backward
Oh here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give those with him a 666, there was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Vehicles 2
I think I must still be on vacation -- I'm coming up with the most off topic stories this week -- though that really was the idea -- that through the varied nature of all of this I might find some sort of larger information...
Monday, one group of writers settled their part of the writers strike out in LA. The AP reports this morning:
A metaphor is a vehicle of understanding -- and in order to employ one, not only does understanding and history have to come from its source, but it has to translate instantly into depth for the audience.
It's the same kind of problem as, let's say, Opec...
As if to imply the public is more aware of the situation in the middle east than the situation in Hollywood. I think it's amazing that the oil industry is being used as a metaphor for the entertainment industry.
Monday, one group of writers settled their part of the writers strike out in LA. The AP reports this morning:
The United Artists deal could begin to drive a wedge between the producers alliance and independent production companies that want to get their writers back on the job, said Daniel J.B. Mitchell, a professor of management and public policy at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Other companies could follow United Artists' lead and reach side deals with the guild to continue production while the strike endures, then sign on for whatever terms the alliance eventually reaches with writers, Mitchell said.
But here's what interests me:''It's the same kind of problem as, let's say, OPEC. You have a group of people that has a common interest in having a common front, where they want to keep oil prices up,'' Mitchell said. ''There's always somebody who says, `You guys keep oil prices up, and I'll sell more than my quota. You do the heavy lifting, and I'll just reap the reward.'''
I'm very interested in how language and ideas travel around the country. Trends of language build in the public arena -- the media and the lexicon of now; that momentum quickly translates into awareness and power.A metaphor is a vehicle of understanding -- and in order to employ one, not only does understanding and history have to come from its source, but it has to translate instantly into depth for the audience.
It's the same kind of problem as, let's say, Opec...
As if to imply the public is more aware of the situation in the middle east than the situation in Hollywood. I think it's amazing that the oil industry is being used as a metaphor for the entertainment industry.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Boundaries 2
I'm still thinking about boundaries -- about where they exist and don't.
The Oil Drum reported,
Today, someone in the NYMEX pit session paid $100 a barrel for front month crude oil.
That just means the price didn't stay there, but it got there. Big Deal (as in it is -- as in, it's no.)
The article on Bloomberg said:
``This is the culmination of everything that we talked about last year,'' said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York. ``Various geopolitical problems have deteriorated overnight, in particular Nigeria and Pakistan. Commodities, and in particular oil, have become safe havens in a dangerous world.''
Nigeria, The Middle East, Venezuela... And: Prices rose 2.9 percent last week partly because of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister. Pakistan borders Iran, which holds the world's second- biggest oil reserves, and is located along the Arabian Sea, where tankers travel before entering the Persian Gulf.
These things between us -- between here and there, you and me, up and down -- I'm much more interested in the way we travel over, and yet these markers seem to hold some undeniable psychological weight. It's not at all unlike New Year's day itself, really -- here we are, it's all the same as it was yesterday...
link to the Poetry Foundation Archive
Robert Duncan, “Passage over Water” from Selected Poems. Copyright 1950 by Robert Duncan. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
The Oil Drum reported,
Today, someone in the NYMEX pit session paid $100 a barrel for front month crude oil.
That just means the price didn't stay there, but it got there. Big Deal (as in it is -- as in, it's no.)
The article on Bloomberg said:
``This is the culmination of everything that we talked about last year,'' said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York. ``Various geopolitical problems have deteriorated overnight, in particular Nigeria and Pakistan. Commodities, and in particular oil, have become safe havens in a dangerous world.''
Nigeria, The Middle East, Venezuela... And: Prices rose 2.9 percent last week partly because of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister. Pakistan borders Iran, which holds the world's second- biggest oil reserves, and is located along the Arabian Sea, where tankers travel before entering the Persian Gulf.
These things between us -- between here and there, you and me, up and down -- I'm much more interested in the way we travel over, and yet these markers seem to hold some undeniable psychological weight. It's not at all unlike New Year's day itself, really -- here we are, it's all the same as it was yesterday...
Passage over Water
We have gone out in boats upon the sea at night,
lost, and the vast waters close traps of fear about us.
The boats are driven apart, and we are alone at last
under the incalculable sky, listless, diseased with stars.
Let the oars be idle, my love, and forget at this time
our love like a knife between us
defining the boundaries that we can never cross
nor destroy as we drift into the heart of our dream,
cutting the silence, slyly, the bitter rain in our mouths
and the dark wound closed in behind us.
Forget depth-bombs, death and promises we made,
gardens laid waste, and, over the wastelands westward,
the rooms where we had come together bombd.
But even as we leave, your love turns back. I feel
your absence like the ringing of bells silenced. And salt
over your eyes and the scales of salt between us. Now,
you pass with ease into the destructive world.
There is a dry crash of cement. The light fails,
falls into the ruins of cities upon the distant shore
and within the indestructible night I am alone.
link to the Poetry Foundation Archive
Robert Duncan, “Passage over Water” from Selected Poems. Copyright 1950 by Robert Duncan. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Boundaries
This year, a decision will be handed down in a case: "New Jersey V. Delaware."
New Jersey is supporting oil-giant BPs building of a natural gas facility edging into Delaware's land. I found this article on what might be my new favorite website, Energy Law 360.
“The intense opposition to LNG comes from the theory, quite mistaken, that LNG tankers are large bombs susceptible to blowing up and taking out major East Coast cities,” [said Stephen L. Teichler, an energy partner at Duane Morris LLP's Washington, D.C. office.].
And get this!
“Delaware considered legislation authorizing the National Guard to step in to protect Delaware’s borders from encroachment. And one New Jersey legislator even explored the seaworthiness of the decommissioned battleship New Jersey, currently docked as a museum on the Camden waterfront, in the event the state was forced to repel an armed invasion by Delaware."
Very strange thought. While state autonomy often seems to surface in regards to laws, the idea of one state taking up arms against another -- and using national resources to do it -- seems extremely unsettling this New Year's morn...
This story reminded me of another one I noticed during my brief oil spill Hiatus --
I don't know -- boundaries is such a hot button word in pop-psychology -- maybe that's what I'm intrigued by. Over dinner the other night I was discussing Zionism with a man (the same man working to save Sanskrit) who thought Israel should just kick all the Palestinians out tomorrow. I'm a Zionist -- in practice, but not in theory.
That distinction has so much to do with the world. There are so many decisions that make sense in the moment, that make no sense with any sort of larger look at the world. What is at stake, what is forfeited through the requirement of autonomy, is just too big.
While I completely understand the need for self-protection, I also really think that no solutions can come maintaining an "us and them" mentality -- anywhere. There is no ownership, there is no time line. There is an I and a larger. Like the conversation about Americans and American poetics again -- where does the I fit in so that one (a person, a state, a country, an issue, a people, a world, a lover) is neither inflated nor diminished -- connected through communication; not alienated inside of it.
We are people -- who benefit from wealths and suffer from consequences -- living on this earth, in these homes, bodies and lungs. Better together.
New Jersey is supporting oil-giant BPs building of a natural gas facility edging into Delaware's land. I found this article on what might be my new favorite website, Energy Law 360.
“The intense opposition to LNG comes from the theory, quite mistaken, that LNG tankers are large bombs susceptible to blowing up and taking out major East Coast cities,” [said Stephen L. Teichler, an energy partner at Duane Morris LLP's Washington, D.C. office.].
And get this!
“Delaware considered legislation authorizing the National Guard to step in to protect Delaware’s borders from encroachment. And one New Jersey legislator even explored the seaworthiness of the decommissioned battleship New Jersey, currently docked as a museum on the Camden waterfront, in the event the state was forced to repel an armed invasion by Delaware."
Very strange thought. While state autonomy often seems to surface in regards to laws, the idea of one state taking up arms against another -- and using national resources to do it -- seems extremely unsettling this New Year's morn...
This story reminded me of another one I noticed during my brief oil spill Hiatus --
OIL SPILL SETS OFF BORDER DISPUTE: The environmental disaster wrought by last week's oil spill in the Kerch Strait off southern Russia, as reignited a border dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the region. Ukraine's foreign minister has blamed the tragedy, in which several sailors and thousands of birds and other wildlife perished, on the two country's failure to reach an agreement on navigation and the delimitation of borders in the strait and the Sea of Azov. Moscow has said that giving Ukraine control over the Kerch Strait, which Ukraine claims falls within its borders, would harm Russian security and economic interests.
This was a very small story in the midst of a roundup of top Russian news stories -- when I went to read the article it was, understandably, in Russian. But the issue is clear -- disaster sets in when people try to make boundaries in lieu of common sense.I don't know -- boundaries is such a hot button word in pop-psychology -- maybe that's what I'm intrigued by. Over dinner the other night I was discussing Zionism with a man (the same man working to save Sanskrit) who thought Israel should just kick all the Palestinians out tomorrow. I'm a Zionist -- in practice, but not in theory.
That distinction has so much to do with the world. There are so many decisions that make sense in the moment, that make no sense with any sort of larger look at the world. What is at stake, what is forfeited through the requirement of autonomy, is just too big.
While I completely understand the need for self-protection, I also really think that no solutions can come maintaining an "us and them" mentality -- anywhere. There is no ownership, there is no time line. There is an I and a larger. Like the conversation about Americans and American poetics again -- where does the I fit in so that one (a person, a state, a country, an issue, a people, a world, a lover) is neither inflated nor diminished -- connected through communication; not alienated inside of it.
We are people -- who benefit from wealths and suffer from consequences -- living on this earth, in these homes, bodies and lungs. Better together.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Reserves
This week I had two conversations about oil reserves -- one was with a friend who works in the economic sector -- and another who works for Care.
The first said the largest driving force of the price of oil was the situation in Venezuela, a story I've been trying to understand for weeks. Venezuela is producing less and less oil.
A May article from Peak Oil quoted government numbers and said:
The IEA reported that Venezuelan oil production dropped by 40,000 b/d in April to 2.35 million. The transfer of the Orinoco heavy crude projects to government control has increased the uncertainty about the future of Venezuelan production. Last month, Orinoco heavy crude oil enhancing projects supplied only 455,000 bpd -compared to their 630,000 bpd capacity- because of both "nationalization" and compliance with the OPEC production.
My friend said that Chavez was concentrating on the people inside of the country and letting the oil field languish (I don't think he used the word languish...). I said that is a good thing, isn't it? I felt like Shirley Temple. He was talking about the economy of the world.
My friend who works with Care was talking about another country where mining (not oil, it's true) operations were stalled because of money distribution issues. She said, "All that energy is in the ground, not doing anybody any good."
re·serve (r
-zûrv
)
Known to be exploitable...
language again.
The Army Reseves
The Federal Reserves
reserved demeanor
reserved table
reserved for you
Future and containment reside in every definition.
Yes, maybe containment is entirely disruptive in the present.
Yes, maybe containment is a way to stop suffering in the present.
Yes, maybe containment is keeping what resides from doing good in the present.
My son was up, screaming, from 1-4.
I'm dizzy, and calling on my own reserves today.
The first said the largest driving force of the price of oil was the situation in Venezuela, a story I've been trying to understand for weeks. Venezuela is producing less and less oil.
A May article from Peak Oil quoted government numbers and said:
The IEA reported that Venezuelan oil production dropped by 40,000 b/d in April to 2.35 million. The transfer of the Orinoco heavy crude projects to government control has increased the uncertainty about the future of Venezuelan production. Last month, Orinoco heavy crude oil enhancing projects supplied only 455,000 bpd -compared to their 630,000 bpd capacity- because of both "nationalization" and compliance with the OPEC production.
My friend said that Chavez was concentrating on the people inside of the country and letting the oil field languish (I don't think he used the word languish...). I said that is a good thing, isn't it? I felt like Shirley Temple. He was talking about the economy of the world.
My friend who works with Care was talking about another country where mining (not oil, it's true) operations were stalled because of money distribution issues. She said, "All that energy is in the ground, not doing anybody any good."
re·serve (r
-zûrv)8. An amount of a mineral, fossil fuel, or other resource known to exist in a particular location and to be exploitable.
Known to be exploitable...
language again.
The Army Reseves
The Federal Reserves
reserved demeanor
reserved table
reserved for you
Future and containment reside in every definition.
Yes, maybe containment is entirely disruptive in the present.
Yes, maybe containment is a way to stop suffering in the present.
Yes, maybe containment is keeping what resides from doing good in the present.
My son was up, screaming, from 1-4.
I'm dizzy, and calling on my own reserves today.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Vehicles
Last night I talked to a scholar who's working to save Sanskrit as a written language. He told me that the conversation in academia is still weather or not Western people can understand any other culture -- the theory of "Orientalism," if I understand correctly, implies that by trying to understand we further subjugate. It's an argument, he said, he finds insulting. "We are spending our lives studying it," he said -- so to say it is impossible... Furthermore, it is simply a distraction from the real linguistic research. The two most renowned journals in the world in this field of research don't publish in Sanskrit, and this man, a Lecturer at Brown, is working with a software company and with the Indian government to put the language into HTML form now. This language, which is the link to a vast culture and literature, is moving toward extinction like the albatross.
But I'm not sure we can -- understand anyone else. We can study, we can read, we can even live with and like and for another, but understanding -- Where does understanding lie? In the head? In memory? In muscle memory?
What caught my eye this morning was a Times story about motorcycles in Laos -- cheap ones, from China:
In Laos, Chinese Motorcycles Change Lives.
For years, getting this prized produce to market meant that someone had to carry a giant basket on a back-breaking, daylong trek down narrow mountain trails cutting through the jungle.
That is changing, thanks in large part to China.
Villagers ride their cheap Chinese motorcycles, which sell for as little as $440, down a dirt road to the markets of Luang Prabang, a charming city of Buddhist temples along the Mekong that draws flocks of foreign tourists. The trip takes one and a half hours.
Motorized transportation is New to them. Imagine.
I've talked some here about what it would mean to roll back transportation -- transportation for travel and connection and time efficiency -- but today I'm trying to imagine what life would look like if I really could not go anywhere farther than I can walk.
Somehow I'm also reminded of a story from a beautiful book by Leah Hager Cohen, "Train Go Sorry." The story is about a deaf child who learns sign language -- I read it a long time ago -- maybe 20 years, actually, but my recollection is that the child was older -- maybe 5 or 8 by the time she/he learned the language. I don't remember if the family resisted or if the language simply wasn't taught where they were -- but at any rate there is a beautiful moment where the child tells a joke. The first joke, and the parents laugh. In this moment there is joy at the future, and also a complete understanding of all that was missing for those people without language -- communication that we take for granted.
Language and transportation -- the connection is easy. What moves, what travels, what connects. These are our only tools for moving through this world connected.
I am constantly reminded of the luxury of the contemplation.
Because I can speak, because I can read, because I can get in a car and drive 20 minutes to dinner. Because I live in this country... I can decide to stop e-mailing for a day or driving -- dabble in restriction. Because it is a game for me -- I have everything I need and, I think it's true, I cannot understand a life where that safety is not present. Innocence, I think -- I can imagine but I cannot understand.
Connection and disconnection seem, again, to be central. Isn't it amazing that we are living in a world where language is being lost and transportation is being discovered... Who would give up transportation? Who would give up communication? Would we really talk about it if we understood what that meant?
But I'm not sure we can -- understand anyone else. We can study, we can read, we can even live with and like and for another, but understanding -- Where does understanding lie? In the head? In memory? In muscle memory?
What caught my eye this morning was a Times story about motorcycles in Laos -- cheap ones, from China:
In Laos, Chinese Motorcycles Change Lives.
For years, getting this prized produce to market meant that someone had to carry a giant basket on a back-breaking, daylong trek down narrow mountain trails cutting through the jungle.
That is changing, thanks in large part to China.
Villagers ride their cheap Chinese motorcycles, which sell for as little as $440, down a dirt road to the markets of Luang Prabang, a charming city of Buddhist temples along the Mekong that draws flocks of foreign tourists. The trip takes one and a half hours.
Motorized transportation is New to them. Imagine.
I've talked some here about what it would mean to roll back transportation -- transportation for travel and connection and time efficiency -- but today I'm trying to imagine what life would look like if I really could not go anywhere farther than I can walk.
Somehow I'm also reminded of a story from a beautiful book by Leah Hager Cohen, "Train Go Sorry." The story is about a deaf child who learns sign language -- I read it a long time ago -- maybe 20 years, actually, but my recollection is that the child was older -- maybe 5 or 8 by the time she/he learned the language. I don't remember if the family resisted or if the language simply wasn't taught where they were -- but at any rate there is a beautiful moment where the child tells a joke. The first joke, and the parents laugh. In this moment there is joy at the future, and also a complete understanding of all that was missing for those people without language -- communication that we take for granted.
Language and transportation -- the connection is easy. What moves, what travels, what connects. These are our only tools for moving through this world connected.
I am constantly reminded of the luxury of the contemplation.
Because I can speak, because I can read, because I can get in a car and drive 20 minutes to dinner. Because I live in this country... I can decide to stop e-mailing for a day or driving -- dabble in restriction. Because it is a game for me -- I have everything I need and, I think it's true, I cannot understand a life where that safety is not present. Innocence, I think -- I can imagine but I cannot understand.
Connection and disconnection seem, again, to be central. Isn't it amazing that we are living in a world where language is being lost and transportation is being discovered... Who would give up transportation? Who would give up communication? Would we really talk about it if we understood what that meant?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
My Rooms
I'm still stuck on this idea of connection and disconnection. I'm interested in learning more about why and how I do things --
I think it's easy for me (us -- people -- countries -- friends -- consumers) to get entirely out of sync with what's even in my own home. What do I do daily?
There's a complaint of Americans -- of American poets -- of women and of women poets -- that we are too narcissistic as a culture -- I,I,I,I and on that way forever. But I think there's a backlash too -- and as is the case with anything like narcissism the problem is not thinking about the self, it's the size and scale we see that self become. Grandiose and nothing.
By the same token, I'm trying to figure out some bit of my own attachment to this life. There have been, over the last few years all sorts of experiments by authors looking to follow this same line of thought -- someone living off food only from their community -- someone living exactly as the bible says. Because if we don't look at what we do -- if we don't take it out of the norm -- than we can't understand it; even the little bit that we can. I want to have an idea of a Nigerian home and also of my own. A poet said to me last year -- the trick is to really understand our own privilege and learn how to appreciate it and to use it -- not to our own benefit but to everyones.
It's really hard to balance -- there is something out of alignment if we say I have an impact; there is something out of alignment if we say I don't have an impact.
In the pursuit of balance, this morning, I went through and found one thing in every room I love made out of oil and one thing I think is completely wasteful. I did it in the order I generally wake up and start the day --
My room.
I have a ring I love that is inlaid with rubber -- I bought it from a RISD student in a street fair 20 years ago.
Yoga pants.
Kids Rooms.
Markers.
Baby Alive.
Bathroom.
Toothbrush.
Sample packets from Kiehls.
Kitchen.
Garbage bags.
Zip lock bags.
Office (my dining room).
Plastic bags that allow my journal to be sold in bookstores. (ack)
Disposable mechanical pencils.
Living Room.
My slippers. They have really heavy soles and I wear them everyday.
Plant holders.
I think it's easy for me (us -- people -- countries -- friends -- consumers) to get entirely out of sync with what's even in my own home. What do I do daily?
There's a complaint of Americans -- of American poets -- of women and of women poets -- that we are too narcissistic as a culture -- I,I,I,I and on that way forever. But I think there's a backlash too -- and as is the case with anything like narcissism the problem is not thinking about the self, it's the size and scale we see that self become. Grandiose and nothing.
By the same token, I'm trying to figure out some bit of my own attachment to this life. There have been, over the last few years all sorts of experiments by authors looking to follow this same line of thought -- someone living off food only from their community -- someone living exactly as the bible says. Because if we don't look at what we do -- if we don't take it out of the norm -- than we can't understand it; even the little bit that we can. I want to have an idea of a Nigerian home and also of my own. A poet said to me last year -- the trick is to really understand our own privilege and learn how to appreciate it and to use it -- not to our own benefit but to everyones.
It's really hard to balance -- there is something out of alignment if we say I have an impact; there is something out of alignment if we say I don't have an impact.
In the pursuit of balance, this morning, I went through and found one thing in every room I love made out of oil and one thing I think is completely wasteful. I did it in the order I generally wake up and start the day --
My room.
I have a ring I love that is inlaid with rubber -- I bought it from a RISD student in a street fair 20 years ago.
Yoga pants.
Kids Rooms.
Markers.
Baby Alive.
Bathroom.
Toothbrush.
Sample packets from Kiehls.
Kitchen.
Garbage bags.
Zip lock bags.
Office (my dining room).
Plastic bags that allow my journal to be sold in bookstores. (ack)
Disposable mechanical pencils.
Living Room.
My slippers. They have really heavy soles and I wear them everyday.
Plant holders.
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