Thoughts On Ms. Maddow's Report [revised, 12:16 pm]

I thought the following quotation a fitting preface to what follows:

My favorite observation on engineering comes from Frank E. Mosier, formerly a top executive at Standard Oil, because it recognizes both the possibility of greatness and the impossibility of perfection. In a commencement address at the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering in 1989, Mosier said, “All engineering is glorified failure analysis, and great feats of engineering are nothing more than successful bets that your ideas will be more economical or efficient or beautiful without being disastrous.” (Andrew B. Wilson) 

________________

I promised I would comment on Rachel Maddow's report to which I linked below (June 7, 2010). Part of me wishes I hadn't made such a promise. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that I have little to say that may be interesting.

What Ms. Maddow intends to highlight in her report is that the technology used at present to cap the massive oil leak 5,000 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico appears utterly archaic. She notes the antiquity of the techniques at hand; there is an ironic tone throughout her report. The thrust of her story: things have not changed much in the last 30 years. To her, that's inexcusable.

But is it inexcusable? Is it fair of her to hold such faith in technology's progress? Is her criticism rooted in reality, or has she assumed something religious, namely a belief that mankind is always progressing, or must progress, or can progress, if the collective will and mind are focused on the highest ideals?

I note that nothing has much changed in thirty years in stopping fires. Fire trucks still race through town and city streets, hoses and nozzles are tugged and pulled; water is pumped from tanker or hydrant and aimed to douse flames. Yes, occasionally foam is used, but the method is nearly the same; besides, foam is used only to suppress relatively small conflagrations (except, I believe, at airports). But things have not much changed, really, in the method.

I note too that the electricity coming to my neighborhood comes the way it has for far more than 30 years. Improvements are obvious, but they are relatively minor: the technology has been honed, but not yet perfected, and surely not transcended.

The way water is delivered from well to kitchen tap; this, too, has not changed much over the years, at least here, where I live. There is a pump; the physics of varying pressures still follow the typical pipe-and-hose technologies used seemingly forever. (And while many in my town have wells, the town water system is built on a reservoir/gravity model, a model which is undeniably Caesarean.)

I have sat in airplanes that have not been substantively improved upon -- in any theoretical sense -- for decades: I have sat on airplanes that are perhaps 30 years old. Such planes still roll down long runways; they still roll on round rubber tires, and they still jostle passengers in rough air.

So, one might observe that the BP disaster is to be fixed only one way: by using technologies no one seems able to improve upon.

But there's a wrinkle even here, as it seems things have improved. Ms. Maddow notes that the first disaster analogous to the BP spill, one that occurred in 1979, was only 200 feet beneath the ocean's surface: The Ixtoc well dumped 30,000 barrels per day into the very same Gulf of Mexico, and  it took nearly ten months to bring that well under control.

And yet today, right now, BP is dealing with a well 25 TIMES deeper than Ixtoc; a mere 55 days into the current disaster, the flow of oil is not yet stopped, but it is at least restricted.

Indeed, this morning oil is still leaking at a harrowing rate in the Gulf, but the technology seems  considerably improved since 1979, though, of course, the current state of that technology is not what one would describe as revolutionary. But that BP has managed to capture huge quantities of oil over the past few days says something about the state of technology here, that it is not necessarily as archaic, or as absurdly feckless, as Ms. Maddow portrayed.

Ms. Maddow's report also fails to fully enlarge upon the news event she uses to begin her report: the June 1979 oil spill along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). What is interesting is that the TAPS was opposed for years by environmental groups, and yet such groups' dire predictions about the overall environmental impact of the TAPS have not been fulfilled, as the TAPS has not been an unmitigated environmental disaster. The June 1979 leak was caused by the pipeline settling; there were several leaks that occurred because of settling along the line's impressive length. But there has been nary a significant leak along that line, or surely not as many as predicted. Curiously, some of the leaks occurred as a result of sabotage (e.g., 16,000 barrels in 1978). Even one bullet hole made quite a mess (258,000 gallons in 2001).

But what Ms. Maddow doesn't explore is the obvious, that a leak on land is far less difficult to contain and control than any leak is under water. Is the BP Gulf Oil spill an argument for dry land exploration and drilling? (I ask this, of course, with the assumption that there are no viable alternatives to oil that are at the ready.) Is this an argument that, if ocean drilling is still desired, shallower depths should be preferred? Or are we grateful that, if a disaster should occur at sea, it is as far from land as possible?

Lastly, allow me to quickly explore Ms. Maddow's last assertion that the oil industry is the most profitable industry in the world. (No, it isn't.) But first we need to clarify our terms. What does "most profitable" mean? Does it mean the business that nets the largest number (in $$)? Well, then, perhaps the oil industry is wildly profitable, as some oil companies post quarterly profits in the tens of billions of dollars (though I guess Wal-Mart is now vying for top spot in the "most profitable" category). But "most profitable" in the technical sense refers to those companies who show the largest profits above margin, above their total operating expenses. Those huge numbers seen in the oil industry are only 10% over margin, whereas profits in other industries show profits 20-30% over margin. Not long ago, when everyone was up in arms over Exxon-Mobil's massive profits (as a total number in $$), which were a mere 10% over margin, American Express and Apple were showing profit margins well above 20%. Surely the more profitable businesses are not necessarily those whose quarterly earnings statements show the largest possible dollar amount. If Big Oil is to be loathed for making profits of 10%, why not Big Credit and Big Computer, who "steal" from their customers, enjoying profits of 25 to 35%?

(Please, don't send me links from Forbes or wherever showing me I am wrong here. I am not. There are businesses that are far more "profitable" than the oil industry. Please note, again, how I am using the term, as a percentage of total revenues. [A $1 billion profit sounds impressive, but not if you've spent a $1 trillion to get it.])

Anyhow, just some thoughts. 

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Rachel Maddow: An Interesting Report

I intend to comment on this video more fully in the next day or two. For now, I offer it to you not for political but historical reasons. Does anyone remember this? I am ashamed to admit I've no recollection of this event at all. 

Anyhow, it's very much worth watching. Again, I will discuss the report later. 

Please watch:

BEYOND IRONY

What is the size of my carbon footprint? About the size of Kentucky -- and growing.



Indeed.

When It Leaks It Spills

Is the Gulf Catastrophe technically the result of an oil spill, as many are wont to say, or an oil leak? Just wondering. But doesn't the answer influence the way the issue is framed? 

(Metaphors abound!)

What an issue it is!

"We Shall Restore Science To Its Rightful Place"

Men on the moon, a rover on Mars, a probe in deep space slinging around Saturn; unmanned drones dropping smart bombs on secret caves 8,000 miles away; a manned submarine (Trieste) photographing life in the Mariana Trench seven miles down -- and a hole terminally leaking oil.

I Guess This Means I Made The Guest List

Contratimes has had visitors from high places, but yesterday marked our first visit from the "Executive Office of the President USA." 

Hello, and welcome. 

My WORD: Two Heartbeats Away From The Presidency

Here are the US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's comments as given to a group of Catholics at a meeting last month:

“They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word.’ And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word. 

“And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word. 

“Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

The word 'word' is a beautiful word -- if you think about it.

I could have this wrong, but I heard somewhere that the word 'word' was actually Logos. But what do I know?

A question: Do you think Sarah Palin knows the Greek word for 'word' used by St. John the Evangelist? And do you think Ms. Palin would know the Gospel reference?

Here is the kind of thing that passes for "deeply spiritual" language, particularly for those who stand on the religious left, even the Catholic religious left: "The Word. ... It just covers everything. The Word. Fill it in with anything you want."

What do leftists fill it in with? Who knows?

But we do know this, or at least Speaker Pelosi knows it: "[The] Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy in keeping with the values of the Word."

Giving voice to the Word is what the Word means. Get it?

Word.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

She Is Quite Scary

There is a petition to have her removed from a TV network.

There is an unauthorized biographer -- and harsh critic -- who has rented the house directly next door to her so he might more fully observe her family.

There are the countless remarks weekly made about her in sundry TV programs, newspaper columns, blogs, and "social networking" sites, like Facebook.

The object of all this attention is the apparently inimitable Sarah Palin. But I ask: Why is she such a threat to my leftist peers? Why their fixation, or perhaps more pointedly, their obsession?

The logic of it all seems rather simple. If Sarah Palin is the idiot her critics claim she is, then there is no threat whatsoever. Hers would have to be a rare sort of incompetence to have the power to threaten the country; her inadequacies would really have to be a veil over a well-concealed genius for her to destroy, as her critics fear, the work of the Founding Fathers in the name of her "favorite" Founding Father, which, as you know, is actually "all of them." Thus, the obsession seems remarkably misplaced, and nearly pathological.

I call it the Palin Drone.

But really, why the fear, the anxiety, and the attendant derision? If, as so many of my leftist friends have taught me, one fears what one does not understand, is this corporate angst naught more than a failure of comprehension? Is Ms. Palin too abstruse for my friends to interpret? Is she too foreign for them to find a thread of shared humanity with her, one that ties them, no matter how tenuously, to a common language, history or worldview? Do they really fear her because they fail to understand her?

I don't know anything, really, about Sarah Palin. I had never heard of her until her name was announced -- in late August 2008 -- as the woman then-presidential candidate John McCain chose for his running mate. The first time I heard her speak at length was her quite unforgettable speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Nor would anyone ever confuse me for a Sarah Palin fan. I am simply an outsider looking in through nascent cataracts. But there is one thing I do know in all of this: She is not feared for being stupid. And if she is not feared but merely loathed -- I also thought that folks loathe only what they fear and fear what they don't understand -- I ask, "Why?"

I shall tell you why she is loathed in a moment.

Let me posit that if Ms. Palin is indeed feared because she is incompetent, such fear has nothing to do with her. She is not the object of fear at all. What is the object of fear is the whole process of democracy. For it is democracy that permits, even encourages, the participation of ALL citizens in the legislative process. No voice is too dumb, feeble or poor to be heard. By definition, democracy must allow† even the most insipid or dull to seek public office; if this were not true, then democracy would only be open to the elite, and hence would not be democracy at all. No, no. Democracy by definition contains within itself the means to elect to the highest stations the very stupidest people in the land. It must permit that possible outcome.

But does any reader believe leftists who obsess about Ms. Palin are really worried about democracy? Or is leftist anxiety about Ms. Palin proof that leftists ultimately abhor democracy?

Honestly, I think it all a bit simpler. I believe Ms. Palin is not so much the object of fear but the object of punishment. The obsession is really about retaliation; this is all a tremendous scolding for her sin.

What was that sin? Well, I've told you before; it's a sin she commits nearly every time she speaks in public. Her sin, nearly a mortal sin (she has committed an unpardonable sin, which I will mention presently), is that she laughed at liberals. She dared to poke fun at them. She mocked them. And she did this at the Republican National Convention. She even did it all rather effectively; any objective person knows that Ms. Palin delivered her punchy jokes with aplomb. She was indeed rather funny. Thus, she infuriated the Democratic Party, particularly the leftists in that party.

But let me stipulate that the Democratic Party is not a humorless bunch: they can laugh at themselves. They can be poked. They can be playfully prodded and gently mocked. With one exception. They cannot allow themselves to be mocked by someone they deem stupid. Only the truly bright have permission to be witty, sardonic, satirical. 

This then is Ms. Palin's mortal sin, and it is this that the left is bent on making clear to her: She has not understood her place. To the left, Ms. Palin merits ridicule and attack because she fails to see her stupidity; and she fails to see that, by comparison, those she ridicules are far above her station. This is the message leftists must drive home, that stupid people cannot -- and must not -- ever laugh at the them.

____________________

High school comes to mind when I think about this whole drama around Sarah Palin. I am thinking of those kids who believe themselves eminently superior to many of their popular peers. You know the set: the group of quasi-academics racking up good grades, distinguishing themselves from "those other" kinds of people. I am talking about the snob set, those who confuse good grades with moral character and intellectual ability. I am talking, perhaps, about the distinction between the National Honor Society's insouciant ironists (who often seethe with envy) and the apparently less metacognitive jocks (two groups that are not mutually exclusive, of course). Ms. Palin, as you know, was indeed a high school jock; you also know she didn't attend a "real" college. Surely you remember that wickedly self-righteous, "most-likely-to-succeed" group in high school? And surely you see them at work today in all sorts of affairs, public and private, looking down from on high, perhaps even down the aquiline arcs of their glorious noses, no? Surely you hear them now: Sarah Palin is an idiot.

Odd, but Barack Obama strikes me as exactly the sort of person who believes that if he gives an answer today that would have given him an A+ in college yesterday, he has not only given the right answer, he's achieved greatness. In other words, he's the kid in high school who confuses the A+ with real achievement and aptitude.

Granted, I ramble.

___________________

The other day I was thinking that graduating summa cum laude from the greatest school on the planet might actually be meaningless. After all, is it not conceivable that a school could be flat-out wrong about much of what it dispenses as "real" knowledge? If so, it follows that a student could excel at error, at falsehoods. Imagine for a moment the valedictorian at the University of the Flat Earth, or the feted professor emeritus at the College of Alchemy and Phrenology. Surely they both may relish in their many conceits, but their achievements would mean little in the world of the real. What if the "wise" are the fools? Isn't it likely that fools actually believe themselves wise?

Admittedly, I am in the netherlands here. There is little to be gained from such musings. I am a fool, which, I know, proves I am wise.

A fool's conclusion, for sure.

___________________

One last thing. A beef, if you will. It has to do with being judgmental.

Let me put it this way. If someone is going to write that Sarah Palin is a terrible writer, that person better be a better writer than Ms. Palin. If a person is going to call Ms. Palin stupid, he or she better be smarter than the former governor of Alaska.

It's about using measures, for, as you know, "whatever measure you use to judge others will be used against you." If you can't count to 5, you better not be laughing at the person who can only count to 12.

And if you're going to call someone a dope, you better be ready to prove you're more than a mediocrity.

Peace.

†See Raphael Demos' very important comment here. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Mere Conversation

Haste is part of the very essence of blogging (at least a lot of it). Unfortunately in my haste on Friday I failed to make a few salient and ever-convincing points. Forgive me. Indeed, I am failing -- and flailing. 

The topic, of course, was -- and is -- the Sestak Offer, an allegedly dastardly deed in which the Obama Administration -- allegedly -- offered Congressman Joe Sestak a "high-profile position" in the administration in exchange for a political favor, namely, that he abandon his pursuit of the Senate seat held by Arlen Specter.

The current White House explanation for this whole story is offered with simplicity -- and one stunning concession. The simplicity is found in the narrative: former President Bill Clinton merely mentioned to Mr. Sestak that the White House was wondering if he'd consider an "uncompensated" advisory role within Mr. Obama's circle of shakers and movers. The genesis of the idea occurred somewhere in the brain of Mr. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel; it was apparently his idea to enlist his former boss for such an important task as the Sestak query indubitably was.

Others have already pointed out the preposterousness of this narrative. Mr. Clinton is not some lightweight; he's an obvious heavy. Does he really get trundled out to make such a lightweight, unimportant offer to Mr. Sestak? Egads, no.

Moreover, I learned today that the position Mr. Sestak was offered would have required something other than what the administration expected. You see, the current story is that the administration wanted him to keep his seat in the House of Representatives; he could pull double-duty over at the White House "advising" the president, pro bono, on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (or something similar). However, it turns out that the rules at play would have disqualified Mr. Sestak from serving on the board without giving up his seat in the House.

The stunning concession, by the way, comes in the last paragraph of the White House counsel's statement:

There have been numerous, reported instances in the past when prior Administrations -- both Democratic and Republican, and motivated by the same goals -- discussed alternative paths to service for qualified individuals also considering campaigns for public office. Such discussions are fully consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.

In other words -- well, you already know those words.

By the way, one thing is clear: the White House admits it offered Mr. Sestak something. 

A Contratimes Replay: Remembering The Color Red

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, I replay a Contratimes essay that first appeared 5 years ago. It was written in the midst of the great debate about the legitimacy of then-President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq. Recall with me that such a period was a particularly contentious one. Allegations were made that the war was created on false pretexts and intelligence data were "fudged"; such allegations intensified when it was learned there were no weapons of mass destruction. Curiously we hear little complaint about Iraq right now; by comparison, we hardly hear a thing about Afghanistan or Pakistan, though Barack Obama has escalated military action in both those countries. Recall, too, that in the middle of the last decade there was a common meme, almost a slogan, that crossed the lips of many critics of the Iraq War: "I support the troops, I just don't support the war."

Here follows "Remembering The Color Red" (with note):

________________

[Today is Memorial Day, and there is much to remember, and much for which to be grateful. Today is a Thanksgiving Day of sorts, a day of gratitude for heroism, strategic genius, strength, and even death. Not senseless death, not ruthless genius, not heroism based on lies; but the noblest acts of the human spirit, which always manifest themselves in risk and sacrifice.]

You've seen the flag, thousands of times, or perhaps too many times to count. It's arguably a gaudy piece of fabric, like so many strips of cloth pasted together, with staid geometry. It's the sort of thing a child might make, and hardly the kind of thing one would expect of an artist. Picasso would not come up with such a design, nor would Pollack or Warhol or Wyeth. It's a child's creation it seems, deliberate and direct. A stick figure of simple ideas.

What are those ideas? Thirteen stripes for thirteen colonies; fifty stars of fifty states floating in a blue field of vigilance, perseverance and justice; white for purity and innocence, red for hardiness and courage.

It's all pretty simple.

But the dominating color of the flag is not justice blue or innocent white; it is the hardy, courageous red, the red of bloodshed, of bloody knuckles, barked shins, and bulleted bodies. It is the red of bellicosity, of fighting heartily and hardily, with courage and pride, for what is blue and white, for the pure and innocent; the vigilant and the just.

It is only sensible that red dominates, as this country is built on the blood of others, countless, mostly faceless and nameless others, who fought and died for ideals we are free to mock and rebuke in legal and social safety, if we choose. We are free to live because others freely died; their loss being our gain, and therefore their gain as well.

Any living thing on this planet stands in and is rooted in death, in the bloodshed and battles of life. The giant pines outside my windows grip the earth in their sinewy, rooty grasp, rooted in the life-giving death and decay which is soil. There is no escaping the fact that everything alive is alive because of countless deaths, countless invisible battles for survival. America's ideals stand tall quietly sipping the blood of the buried ages past.

So the flag is red, blood red, and there is no white purity or blue vigilance without that bold primary color.

Currently, blood, American military blood, is dripping in desert sand in a far-away land. It is being bound and mopped up in pure white gauze with blue vigilance, but it is dripping nonetheless. What comfort is there to the dead and wounded if we, as many Americans do, tell them we support them as heroes yet the reason for their heroism is stupid or a lie or illegal? What meaning does it give an amputee or quadripelegic or blind soldier to tell him or her that, though honored for losing some part of his or her life, they did so for deception? What sense is there in such paradox -- that a man is a hero for doing the immoral or false thing?

"Oh, I support the troops, I just don't support the war."

It's not unlike telling your child that you support his interest in playing baseball, you just don't support the game. You find the game stupid, immoral, illegal, dishonest -- but -- you support his participation. Yes, you just love your daughter's interest in the cello, you just think the cello and Beethoven and Bach are all lies and abuses of power.

One wonders how such parents could ever cheer at baseball games, or applaud at the end of cello recitals. Most parenting experts would consider such duplicity bad parenting, sending out the double-binds of mixed messages. Undoubtably it would be considered by astute therapists a form of child abuse.

Consider, though, this possibility to frame an allegedly unjust war. Consider that our soldiers were sent in to battle as antibodies are sent into fight infection; or that they are sent in as scalpels to remove a malignancy. And what if they discover there is no infection or malignancy, no "weapons of mass destruction"? Would the doctors who sent them in be considered fools, primarily when all the evidence, and even the patient, point to a considerable problem? Would it all be for naught if the reasons were empty and vain?

No, for the precise reason that when the scalpels opened the patient's body, and the antibodies coursed through her veins, other tumors were discovered and removed, and other infections subdued. Doctors could then be heard telling their patient afterwards, "Well, the scans showed a tumor on your liver and an abscess on your bladder, but when we opened you up, we discovered our mistake: You had a malignancy on your stomach and an abscess on your spleen."

For sure countless folks might be tempted to yell out, "Liars! Cheats! Surgery-mongers! You went in on false pretenses. You fudged the MRI data, you fixed the diagnostics around preconceived ideas!" But they'd be fools.

Today remember what it is that makes protest possible, and what it is that makes Thanksgiving necessary. It's Memorial Day. Remember.

Remember that it is a red day for a reason. And, lest we forget, let us remember too that all the states were red in the very beginning.

Peace.

©2005 Bill Gnade/Contratimes

"I Will Have To Get Back To You On That"

There is simply no way the alleged "conversation" between Joe Sestak and Bill Clinton is even remotely the complete story.

Readers know that Mr. Sestak, a Democrat, claims the White House offered him a major job in the Obama Administration if he would withdraw from running for the US Senate seat held by Arlen Specter. If his claim is true, the offer is a felony and, quite possibly, an impeachable offense. 

Here's my answer to the big revelation about Mr. Clinton: No White House would spend more than three months building a stonewall around a discussion that was essentially harmless. If Mr. Clinton and Mr. Sestak met and their discussion was legal, casual, informal and innocuous, the White House would have immediately declared it so. However, anyone paying attention knows that the White House, particularly through its media conduit, Robert Gibbs, spent months promising a clarification was imminent -- and then the clarification never came. Mr. Gibbs constantly promised an "answer," and then never gave one. 

Moreover, it's complete buffoonery on display when the White House tells us that it offered an aspiring politician an "unpaid" position in the White House as an "advisor." Are you kidding? Mr. Sestak has ambitions, and he even has prospects. Does anyone believe such a man would be swayed by an offer to serve somewhere without pay? Is this White House so stupid not to know that a man who might attain a US Senate seat would never surrender that possibility for an advisor's seat in the White House? Do you believe the White House is that incompetent? If so, how profound is that incompetence? If not, what level of deceit are you willing to countenance? 

It appears that two administrations, or, at least one administration and one former president, are colluding in an effort to cover an egregious misdeed. 

This is America at its hopeful best. 

If someone were to tell me that we are witnessing a Democratic effort to sabotage Mr. Obama, I would not be one bit surprised. Old Clinton henchman James Carville recently turned on Mr. Obama; and now we have Mr. Clinton right in the thick of a scandal. 

Behold, all things are new. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

"But Make No Mistake": Thoughts On An "Unprecedented" Oil Leak

I recall a story of a man who once walked on water. But could he walk on oil? Perhaps it is too late for such questions.

*

We're all oil experts now.

*

The president said this yesterday:

The American people should know that from the moment† this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort. As far as I’m concerned, BP is responsible for this horrific disaster, and we will hold them fully accountable on behalf of the United States as well as the people and communities victimized by this tragedy. We will demand that they pay every dime they owe for the damage they’ve done and the painful losses that they’ve caused. And we will continue to take full advantage of the unique technology and expertise they have to help stop this leak.

But make no mistake: BP is operating at our direction.

"But make no mistake." Mr. President, who would do that?

Should I be reassured by Mr. Obama's utterly convoluted language? He must think so, despite the fact his words make no sense. If "the moment this disaster began the federal government has been in charge of the response effort" is meant as a true statement, then how is it possible that "BP is responsible for this horrific disaster"? And if we take Mr. Obama at his word, that "BP is operating at our direction," then this disaster -- and EVERY failed attempt at resolving it -- have come directly from the White House. 

What is evident is Mr. Obama once again uses language appropriate for a super-hero cartoon. He desperately wants to appear omniscient, omni-competent, and all-powerful: from the "moment this disaster began" he and his administration have been "in charge." In over-reaching, trying to gain control of the narrative and deflect accusations he's out of touch and incompetent, Mr. Obama has unwittingly admitted that this whole thing is his fault. He's been "in charge" from the "moment this disaster began." Such a disastrous defense about his handling of a real disaster! "BP is operating at our direction." Holy crap!

Mr. President, this event, this disaster, is like nearly everything you've encountered in your administration; at least according to your own words, this disaster qualifies as another one of those burdens apparently too big for you to handle, being utterly, as you so often say, "unprecedented." How many issues have you faced that you've had to describe as "unprecedented" solely to mask your weaknesses?  

However, I don't think this oil disaster is so much unprecedented as it is un-presidented. 

"But make no mistake..."

Indeed, Mr. President, we beg you to heed your own words. 

For once. 

† Sounds like Congress ought to call for an immediate investigation. Where are the 9/11 Truthers when you need them? Surely here we have a president admitting that the federal government has been in charge of this disaster since the "moment" it began. Damning rhetoric, really. No? 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Just Plain Goofy

My most recent Facebook status update:

The other day I walked into a Rent-A-Center and asked the clerk where I might go to rent a few peripheries.

I later went to Custom Carpet Centers and asked if I could just purchase the carpet edges.

Both establishments showed me the exit and asked me to stay outside their perimeters.

So now I have two new franchise ideas.

Peace and mirth.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Dow's Dive Into Ocean's Eleven

Last Thursday, when the Dow suddenly nose-dived into what, for a moment, seemed sure oblivion, I joked afterwards that the whole thing reminded me of good old-fashioned espionage and intrigue. You know what I mean. You know those moments in film and TV history when, as security guards -- or even the bad guys -- are watching surveillance cameras, there is that little blip on the screens that is dismissed as nothing? The irony, of course, is deliciously fun, as we know, as viewers of such fine theatrics, that the blip indicates that moment when some hacker has seized control of the software; a new feed is being looped through, and the images on the screens are not only fake, but no one detects the system as a whole is no longer under the control of those who once controlled it.

Last Thursday's momentary blip looked a bit like that very moment when a hacker's rogue program seized control of a set of servers, only to restore things to the look of normalcy in a matter of minutes.

It seems amazing that such a sophisticated trading system like the Dow could have been so vulnerable to a data entry error. Initial reports, as you recall, were that the cause of the sudden and drastic downturn was because some trader mistyped something, perhaps entering a billion when only a million was intended.

But now it seems the cause of last Thursday's crash that was not a crash -- now called the "Flash Crash" -- is still unknown. Check out "Did a Big Bet Help Trigger 'Black Swan' Stock Swoon?" in Monday's Wall Street Journal. 

Pulling My Leg Without His

Last night, somewhat desperate for a crunchy snack, I sped northward to buy some corn chips -- organic, of course -- so I could make nachos. It was a bit late, so I had to shop at a mini-mart in a town in which I rarely shop since the nearest market was already closed. (It wasn't that late -- it was about 8:30.)

Boring, I know. 

But while I was in the store, I bumped into a man who is a Facebook friend; he represents another person I don't really know who nonetheless solicited my friendship on that fine social networking site. Gladly, I joined him in conversation. I told him I was sorry to hear about the death of Bekah, a 16-year-old girl I learned -- through Facebook -- he knew quite well, as he had been a long-time friend of Bekah's family. 

I noticed during our conversation that his left foot was not in a shoe, but in one of those open-toed booties one gets from the doctor; his sock-covered toes protruded. Odd, though, that he barely mentioned the problem: there was an ulcer on the ball of his foot. Instead he mentioned his right leg and foot, neither of which I had mentioned or noticed; both that foot and lower leg, he told me, had recently been amputated due to complications from diabetes. Now, he said, he had a prosthesis made of titanium. 

Obviously, I was shocked by the news. My instant response was to moan and then hug him, which I did. But his whole persona, his whole being, was just buoyant, even giddy. He was happy, jolly, bright. He was not upset, not one whit. He shared with me the whole ordeal; he told a story of going to get the prosthesis by himself and, despite the doctor's orders, drove himself home, without any practice: 

"The doctor did not know I had driven myself to his office," he exclaimed, "without even having a right foot! I told him, 'Hey, Doc, I got here without a foot, so I think I can get home with one!'" My friend just bellowed as he told his story.  

Why tell you this? First, I find myself once again reminded of what I forget nearly every day: People are suffering all around me. Seriously, I, at least emotionally, forget this about life; I maintain a fairly sensitive mind to such things, but I swear I just forget that life is fraught with pain and peril. The crosses some people bear are just too much for me to countenance; the burdens some folks carry shake me to the core. Yes, I am often guilty of running from that which I fear, namely, the sorrows of the world. Indeed, half the time I  think I'm deliberately shutting such things out solely to protect my unexpressed belief (or idol) that my happiness can only be found in this life -- IF there is no such thing as pain, suffering or death. 

Second, I tell you this because I am also amazed at how beautifully some people carry those brutal crosses. The man with whom I chatted last night actually made me feel better; he was the jolly, buoyant and happy son of God. His faith, in fact, was intractable; his trust in God was not dire and grave, but powerfully rooted in gratitude and joy. In fact, he even laughed at my joke I tried to make as he got into his car: "Now, if you get pulled over for speeding and the cop asks -- 'What, do you have a lead foot?' -- you can say, "No, officer, I have a titanium one." My friend not only yelled out my punch line as I spoke it -- the two of us joined in unison -- he just guffawed, with a full heart, as he climbed into his vehicle. 

Can you imagine meeting someone who has just endured an amputation (he lost his foot and lower leg in October) who puts you at such ease you feel comfortable enough joking about that amputation? Had I followed my little foray into humor with some silly remark, like, "I am sorry. That was clearly a lame joke", I am certain he would have approved. Honestly, his joy was almost surreal: under no other circumstances I can consider would I dare attempt what would normally be deemed a faux pas. And yet he invited and accepted that attempt.

So, from the midst of tragedy and pain, a one-legged man handed me fistfuls of joy. That's a true gift. 

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

A Fine Note

Yesterday's post, "The End Of Everything," was not, I hope readers realize, a serious proposal to essentially turn the world into a slave camp. But it was a serious look at where I think some people are likely to steer humanity in the not-so-distant future. I am sure I am ignorant not only of the specifics but even the generalities; I know, however, that I am not wrong about the spirit that is pushing humanity toward what is touted as progress. That spirit IS an enslaving one, dressed as emancipation, fairness, equality. 

A Perfect Crisis To Solve: The End Of Everything

Maybe we should just get on with it. 

Let's abandon a cash-based society, and let's abandon personal ID cards, passports, and the like. And then let us install a king, someone to ensure that all is fair, just, and efficient. Let's just get to where we're all going, without delay. 

First, let's wipe out the cash system, including all debt, and install a personal points-based system. If we create a comprehensive Value Schedule, wherein every known occupation, job or service is given a universal  and standardized value, we might be able to begin rescuing ourselves. At the same time, we ought to establish a comprehensive regional value schedule; e.g., the United States of America, no longer federalized under itself but under an international body, will be given an operating value based on a number of things, like GDP, GNP (former), debt and other liabilities, monies owed; historical, cultural and political value, infrastructure, and so forth. This will be "locally" managed via a Washington, DC-based management structure or satellite office.

Each "citizen" will also be assessed similarly and given a rating that will codify social standing, educational status, and economic and fiscal responsibility. 

Commerce will occur strictly digitally; there will only be the trading of numbers, or points, based on one's yearly allotment of personal points accrued, which will be a function of one's occupational or service value. All general education teachers, let's say, in grade school will be allotted 6,000,000 points per annum; this will be a universal and fixed value. Deductions can be made via embedded ID chips, ideally carbon- and not silicon-based; scanners and various processors, including wireless ones, will permit commercial exchanges. Warning signals will go off during every transaction should a person approach his or her budget limit (for a given month or year).

Since EVERY item in any exchange will have a fixed value universally, and since inventory will be managed by a central processing center, profits will be unnecessary: everything will be managed to a point. Costs and expenses will be rendered out-dated terms; values will only matter, and these will always be maintained according to the strictest logarithms and analyses. Also, no profits will be necessary to protect against future losses or sudden spikes in material costs since all variables will be known, managed and maintained. For example, a barrel of oil will always possess a constant, universal value.

As for the World Economy Commercial Exchange Units (WECEU) -- embedded micro-chips that process all transactions between persons and licensed commercial entities -- these will possess detailed information of each person involved in any transaction, in all travel, and in any medical service. WECEUs will maintain a direct connection to any person's DNA: each unit will, for medical purposes, contain sensors to monitor such things as blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen absorption, nutrition, weight; it will also include a built-in set of emergency capacities, such as a defibrillator, and an auto-dialer for emergency help. All units will constantly upload medical information to a central health department.

All travel will be coordinated and monitored through a WECEU; since every micro-ship will be a GPS unit, any border crossing (so-called), or transition from one Regional Zone to the next, will be known and recorded, and hence will maintain efficiency and protection. Security will be guaranteed.

WECEUs will be embedded at birth for young arrivals, though all their commercial capacities will be deactivated until adolescence. For those already born, a simple procedure will allow any world citizen to be included in the World Economic Securities Union (WESU). However, for those who are not in the ruling or management class, chips will be embedded in their foreheads; every person in this Grade, known as Service Grade Delta, will not be allowed to scan or process themselves in financial transactions; they will have to place their foreheads -- with eyes open -- over scanner processors that read both the WECEU and retinas of all enrolled participants. Those who are chosen to be in the leadership or management Grade, Service Grade Alpha, shall have their chips embedded in their hands; this entitles them to self-scanning. For travel, various scanning devices will be used as people move about regardless of Service Grade. 

All personal telecommunications devices, formerly known as cellphones, and all personal computing devices, shall be completely linked to each person's WECEU; every personal possession that operates mechanically will be strictly and centrally programmed to work only when used by recognized, programmed WECEUs. This will reduce or eliminate identity theft and fraud. Moreover, all motorized vehicles, and all guns, will be directly linked to personal WECEUs. Without that personalized link, no vehicle or gun will function. 

Lastly, let's combine all these features of the WESU through a centralized system modeled after Google; let this system be governed, ultimately, by a king until such time the system is perfected, capable of maintaining fairness, justice, and economic justice for all entirely on its own.

Let's solve our debt crisis now, by turning the world into something akin to a prison, though a happy prison, one chosen freely when, in one voice, the people speak. 

_________

There you have it. The recipe for the end of the world. At least it will be a fair end. 

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

The Unifying Theory in Christ

I did not know Larry well. He was a year ahead of me in high school. I knew his wife, Linda; she was in my high school class. She's even my Facebook "friend." But I didn't really know him, and, honestly, I barely know his wife. 

After high school, Larry was "saved." He became a "new man in Christ." He would go on to pastor a local church, the Antrim Church of Christ. He and his wife would go on to have nine children; they even had some foster kids, I believe. He supplemented his minister's salary with a job at Kimball Physics; a few years ago he moved the whole family down to Texas so he could learn more about his faith in a Christian academic setting. He returned to NH to continue preaching the gospel; he worked at a local pizza joint to make ends meet.

And then his wife said goodbye to him at his funeral not much more than a week ago, on Saturday, May 1, 2010. Larry Warren was dead of a cancerous tumor to the brain. He was 49.

All this past week, Linda has posted scripture verses and other words of encouragement and gratitude on her Facebook page. One box beneath her profile picture said this: "God is now seeing fit to change all that I have known. My life is in His hands."

Yesterday morning, Saturday, May 8, 2010, Larry and Linda's 16-year-old daughter was killed in a car crash near her home.  Their daughter, Bekah, by all accounts was a lovely, lovely young woman. I did not know her (I know none of the children, really). My wife taught Bekah; my wife thought her "a sweet, sweet girl." (My wife has taught or worked with several of Larry and Linda's kids; two are enrolled in my wife's school right now, with one on the way up from the elementary school in a few years.)

This is not my loss, nor is it my grief, at least in the strictest sense. But Christians are called to "weep with those who weep"; when one part of the Body of Christ hurts, the whole Body hurts.

Joy and pain: the unifying theory of the Body of Christ, bound together in love, hope, faith.

Pray for the Warrens, their family, their friends, and their little church. 

Obama's Census Choice

I found this Washington Post essay very interesting. Check out Elizabeth Chang's "Why Obama should not have checked 'black' on his census form." It's a very engaging read.

I thought this especially interesting:

I also wonder: Aren't people supposed to fill out their census forms accurately? Why else are we doing it? If everyone put down on the form how they "identified," I don't know what kind of count we'd wind up with, but clearly it would not reflect the racial makeup of the United States. As many have argued, race is an almost useless construct, so that might not matter, except in one very important area: If every biracial person chose one race, as Obama did, or as people had to do before the forms were changed in 2000, the census would portray a society more divided than it actually is. I'm all for tossing the whole racial-classification bit now, but I also know that if we fill out our forms accurately, the numbers will someday do that for us by quantifying the ridiculousness of race. In the meantime, if we aren't going to get rid of the racial category, we need to do it right.

This is quite incisive too:

[T]here is an important consequence when our president does not acknowledge half of his heritage, or, more basically, the mother and grandparents who raised him, or even his commonality with his sister, who is also biracial, though with a different mix. If the most powerful person in this country says that because society thinks he looks black, he is black, it sends a message that biracial children have to identify with the side they most resemble.

Very provocative, no? If you doubt me, read the comments that follow Ms. Chang's piece.



Blessings!

Escalation

The Times Square bomber blew it. He failed; he was thwarted, not by law enforcement, but by his own incompetence.

Note what the NY Post reports this morning about the motive behind the failed bombing:

It was payback.

The Connecticut man charged yesterday with the botched Times Square car bombing confessed to trying to slaughter innocent people in retaliation for US drone attacks that wiped out the leadership of his beloved Taliban, The Post has learned.

Admitted terrorist Faisal Shahzad -- who copped to training in explosives in the past year with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the leading extremist Islamic group in his native Pakistan -- said he was driven to evil by the slew of deaths among leaders of the terror group, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday.

Now read what one Congressman and former Democratic presidential candidate had to say two weeks ago about drone attacks in Pakistan:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) forcefully criticized President Obama’s drone strikes in Pakistan as inspiring the anti-American sentiments they seek to quell, touching upon a consequence of the policy rarely discussed in the media but well-recognized in the region.

“I do not support the drone attacks,” Kucinich told Raw Story, arguing that they are pushing the United States “into an area of unaccountability that would lead to blowback, where we actually lose friends, where we help inspire anti-American sentiments and fanaticism and radicalism.”

Note the date of Rep. Kucinich's remarks -- April 19, 2010. But there's more from the same report:

President George W. Bush initiated the policy in 2005 with the intention of wiping out spillover militant activity from the Afghanistan war into western Pakistan. The attacks have been used with greater frequency under his successor, according to The Associated Press.

The policy’s unintended consequence of fueling anti-American sentiments is seldom debated, but Pakistani leaders and citizens are acutely aware of the brewing backlash.

“The Pakistan Government and anti-US elements are condemning the US drone attacks as violation of their sovereignty and innocent tribal people being killed,” remarked D. Suba Chandran, deputy director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, in a recent op-ed. “They argue that these attacks result in increasing anti-American feelings and the Taliban gaining local support.” [bold added for emphasis]

But why refer to these news items? What concern is this of Contratimes? Perhaps it's because the media are roaming about like a roaring lion looking for some reason to blame this all on George W. Bush and, well, domestic issues. Maybe in anticipation of this, we get this from The Wall Street Journal:

Faisal Shahzad was losing his Connecticut home to foreclosure, disliked President George W. Bush, and was an almost invisible presence at the American university where he earned two degrees.

Those are some of the details in the still-emerging portrait of the man who authorities say has implicated himself in the botched Times Square bomb plot.

Barack Obama, according to all sources (really), escalated the drone program; it is the current president who has expanded the "War on Terror," going beyond Iraq and Afghanistan and on into Pakistan. But somehow you will see that the failed attack in Times Square will be explained by pointing out Bush's many alleged failures -- "Bush's War" and "Bush's Recession" -- and his aggressive, Texas cowboy rhetoric and posturing. We won't hear anything, at least from the paper of record -- The New York Times -- that Faisal Shahzad "disliked" Barack Obama. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Crude Thoughts, Naturally Man-Made

Crude oil, a naturally occurring substance found beneath the earth's toughest outer layers, is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

It's a bad thing. At least it's a bad thing if one looks at it a certain way.

But if something is not a bad thing, does it necessarily follow that it is a good thing? I have my doubts; I also have my doubts that the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is as disastrous as one might think. I am not saying it is not a short term disaster; I am not naïve. I am suggesting, just for reflection, that it might not be a long term one (and I mean long).

Crude oil is natural. Crude oil has seeped or percolated up from the ocean floor or earth's crust -- naturally -- for thousands of years. According to Wikipedia's entry on petroleum, crude oil was even found along the banks of one notable river -- the Issus.

More than four thousand years ago, according to Herodotus and confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was employed in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon; there were oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), and a pitch spring on Zacynthus ( Ionian islands, Greece ). Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society.

One article I read discussed how the biosphere breaks down crude oil; the article noted that high-pressure water-spraying as used in the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound "cleaned" up much of the crude that gathered on the shorelines, but the method washed away countless organisms that would have cleaned up the oil -- over time -- much more effectively. Another suggested that even cleaning animals covered in crude did little, as the animals died anyway, mostly from the stress of being handled by humans. One expert said that such clean up really "just makes us feel better."

This is not some attempt on my part to minimize what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. That is an ugly mess, at best. But how would we be talking if the cause of this "disaster" had been an earthquake below the sea floor? Surely such a thing could happen, where a natural event unleashes a natural substance that proves toxic to the flora and fauna of the planet. In fact, volcanoes are similarly toxic; such catastrophes wreak havoc on living things rather frequently. (Interesting, too, that volcanoes create places where life can begin.) What would the media and politicians be doing if this was not the "fault" of "Big Oil", which is "fueled" by our grotesque dependence on carbon-based energy resources? If there was no one but Nature to blame (one could blame Nature even now), what would the news frenzy look like?

No doubt this post can be dismissed as a mere thought experiment, an exercise in what-ifs and what-nots. I get that. Oh, well. But I do think a discussion about the distinction between "natural" and "unnatural", or between what is natural and what is man-made, is one worth having. I dare say it may lead to some very interesting conclusions.

Peace.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Wondering Allowed

If you have not yet seen the advertisement shown below on TV, you will. It is a catchy sort of montage; it has an almost "We Are The World" quality to it, or even a touch of "Farm Aid."

Tell me, now that you've viewed it, what do you think? To what human quality or characteristic is the director appealing? What is it designed to do, not in terms of its end, but its means? What is it trying to do to you?

I note that this is a montage featuring some of the earth's wealthiest people. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who played Elaine Benis on "Seinfeld," is a fabulously rich person, and this even without her acting career: her father, Gerard Louis-Dreyfus, was a billionaire. Of course, I am not faulting her. I am grateful that people can know and experience vast wealth in their personal lives. But why would rich people come together for a video campaign highlighting a particular social need in Africa (primarily)? Why couldn't it be a video campaign featuring poor people? Why not middle class folks? Why not Africans themselves?

Some of these celebrities make $10 per second (and far more) -- while they sleep. Indeed, a pill used to treat HIV may only cost 20 cents, but 20 cents is 20% of every dollar a person earns: two pills are nearly half of every dollar earned. In other words, for some people, 40 cents is a lot of money... for some people. Is this the appeal, that I should feel bad for having "extra"?

But again, I return to this one thing: To what sentiment, quality, virtue or even vice is the director of this ad appealing? What effect does he seek to have -- on you?

Lastly, if I am not mistaken, the backers of this video advertisement are part of the (Product)Red project. This, then, is not an appeal to you to give your money to charity. It is an appeal to you to go purchase products, generally fairly high-end products, that are made by manufacturers participating in the (Product)RED project.

By the way, that's one expensive lunch bag (they cost about $.025 apiece). Pop!

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

I Don't Get It

I have stared at this Tom Toles cartoon and wondered: What the hell is he saying? Seriously, the problem must be with me. Click on it for yourself and note how far you fall short:

How Climate Change Skeptics See the Oil Spill | The Atlantic Wire

Should I strain myself to interpret Mr. Toles' subtlety? Would it be worth anything if I did?

Honestly, the cartoon strikes me as utterly puerile, the sort of thing one might find in a quarterly journal at a junior high school.

Non causa pro causa fallacies abound...shamelessly.

Peace. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.