Hundreds still missing after Ike: National media silent

Why is our national media completely silent about the hundreds still missing in the wake of Hurricane Ike? In fact -- why is the media for the most part completely ignoring the catastrophic damage, destroyed oil rigs, massive oil leaks, chemical cesspools and environmental destruction that Ike left behind after it crashed ashore in late September? Do they think our memories are that short?

What -- election got your keyboard? Or is it the stock market? Can't you multi-task?

Did your (6) wealthy owners decide that talk of hurricane damage (especially hurricane damage that involved destroyed oil platforms) on top of a crashing economy was just too much for the GOP to bear?

Do a Google search on 'hurricane ike missing' and you'll see this CNN link. Click on it, and - voile - empty page. Is this what you were trying to say, CNN?

Thankfully Dallas thought to inform fellow Texans -- and those of us with internet browsers.

We're the American People...

... and we approve this message!



Love this new ad campaign by we (We Can Solve It.)

They are buying advertising slots on cable television and hopefully soon on network TV to counter the billions of dollars spent by Big Oil to continue their greedy trail of devastation: through our climate, our environment, our economy and forever endangering world peace.

Big Oil just scored another coup when they once again bought our 'Democratic' congress, which yesterday passed their 'drill baby drill' bill. Big Oil continued to pound home their chant that we need to risk our coastlines and public lands to lower gas prices as the pump.

Wrong!

They deliberately failed to mention that this small amount of oil won't be available for 30 years - that, and its only a drop in the bucket compared with what we would need to keep powering America on fossil fuels alone.

Hey, but who's counting? Now Big Oil can drill baby drill their way into even more inflated profits, while leaving oil slicks on our beaches and destroying our public lands -- and what can we do when the price of gas stays right where it is? They got what they wanted, and we're the suckers once again. Aren't we always?

Meanwhile, most of us want to be free of them. We want clean energy and we want it now. Most of us cannot believe that with all of this available technology, we all don't have solar panels on our roofs, or wind mills in our yards. The state of Arizona alone could power most of the country with solar energy - they have sunshine 360 days of the year.

But of course... Big Oil has a death grip on America, and through us, the world.

I love the we coalition because it is the first organized and serious attempt to take our energy future back from the greedy self-interests of Big Oil. We don't really have much choice, and we're running out of time. If you haven't already, get on board. Maybe someday we'll catch up with the rest of the world and have an energy grid that is sustainable, affordable, and green.

Palin: Candidate of Environmental Destruction

I haven't weighed in on Palin, but I know all about her.

She is much more than a 'maverick soccer mom.' She is the queen of aerial wolf hunting, and ranks on par with the ousted Richard Pombo R-CA on the Environmental Destruction chart.

This is the woman who - as governor of one of the most beautiful and environmentally sensitive states in our country - wants to rip the tops off of pristine mountain ranges to mine coal, and destroy the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge with oil wells that won't deliver oil for years (but will make the oil companies happy and much wealthier, as they are currently selling Alaskan oil to China!)

Perhaps her odd 'Christian' belief system comes into play here, along with that basic GOP greed. Maybe, like many of these apocalypse-craving fundamentalists, she finds this beautiful planet inherently evil, rather than a precious and unique gift to mankind and our fellow creatures. I still haven't figured out how these people avoid 'God created the earth, and He saw that it was good.' Apparently, it isn't good enough for their tastes.

Perhaps this is why she sees no evil in blatantly ransacking pristine and irreplaceable Alaskan wilderness for money.

She seems intent in wiping out the entire Alaskan wolf population from the air - as some sort of cowardly, twisted sport - and wants to remove endangered species protection for polar bears as they fight for survival in a world with rapidly shrinking ice fields.

In a nationwide and perhaps worldwide effort, Americans managed to oust environmental nightmare Richard Pombo, R-CA in 2006. Are we now to have his female counterpart sitting one heartbeat away from overseeing environmental destruction nationwide?

I don't think so.

If the media would actually do their job for a change, and investigate this woman - instead of gushing over bulldogs and lipstick like giggling 5th graders - perhaps the nation would learn the truth. But of course, they are paid to do otherwise.

This is why I blog.

The media has betrayed us. Our elected Congress has betrayed our interests. We have no representation now except for ourselves. If no one ever reads a word that I write here, at least I am adding my voice to the collective scream for truth and justice.

I serve the earth; the trees, the oceans, and wildlife everywhere. This is my purpose in life, over and above everything else (but followed closely to my allegiance to our Constitution and democracy - also under attack from the very same people.)

This women would destroy everything that I - and many all across the planet - hold sacred. I don't walk into Palin's church and empty my garbage can on her alter. Nature is my church, and she would willingly desecrate it for money.

It is time to vet this woman, once and for all.

Wiping out our neighbors

After more than 20 million years on the planet, the Yangtze river dolphin is today officially declared extinct, the first species of cetacean (whale, dolphin or porpoise) to be driven from this planet by human activity.

An intensive six-week search by an international team of marine biologists involving two boats that ploughed up and down the world's busiest river last December failed to find a single specimen.

We suck.

Human Species: F

Cannot get along with other creatures. Kills without discretion, often without noticing and seldom for food or protection. Kills other members of own species at random. Pollutes its own environment, food and water supply. Will render itself extinct within the next century due to a gross inability to adapt to its environment.

Fighting for democracy and the environment...

... every single day.

I'm tired. If I'm not posting a lot of new content out here, it is because I am once again engaged in an almost endless (and probably useless) letter-writing campaign to save Net Neutrality, Utah's gorgeous White River Canyon; berating my congressman (blue dog) for obstructing the impeachment investigation of Dick Cheney, and basically hurling myself against the brick wall of neocon government. Bruised and sore, I have little else to say when I come out here.

So, I guess I'll just share a few of my recent responses to my non-responsive government.

My recent letter to the head of the FCC, concerning Net Neutrality:

Now that our media has become 'corporate,' and covers nothing but Paris Hilton morning, noon and night, we have been driven to the Internet; not only for real news, but a chance to speak out and discuss that fading concept... democracy.

Remember democracy? Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost?" Or perhaps James Madison, who said "The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty." Or perhaps Abraham Lincoln: "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

We don't get 'real facts' on television news these days. It's not as much what they say, as what they refuse to cover. We are subjected to an endless stream of mindless 'entertainment' and propaganda. Why? Because television news is 'owned' by someone who has a vested interest in controlling what we think.

Nor do we get anything close to a democratic discussion via television. We get exactly what Rupert Murdoch and others like him want to us know: no more, no less. And no one asks us what we want. No one asks us what we think.

There was a day when we managed to do OK for ourselves without the Internet. But in our current climate of rampant corruption, and the storming of our Capitol by corporate lobbyists, the Internet is the last place for the people to find out the real news, and discuss the current state of our nation and democracy. And as such a place of freedom and open discussion, I fully expected it would be next in the target sight of big corporations. How not? I've read Machiavelli.

Net Neutrality is essential to free speech, equal opportunity and economic innovation in America. Since the FCC removed this basic protection in 2005, the top executives of phone and cable companies have stated their intention to become the Internet's gatekeepers and to discriminate against Web sites that don't pay their added tolls. What a surprise, since this has already been implemented by the postal service (with no input by us, the 'people' I might add.)

This kind of corporate approach to controlling our mail is already putting a crunch on independent newspapers and magazines -- all to the benefit of the big corporations like Times Warner. By the way... how did Times Warner suddenly become so powerful that they were able to influence the operations of our postal service? Obviously our democracy is indeed on its last gasp.

This fundamental change to the Internet would end the open discussion of democracy as we know it. It would damage my ability to connect with others, share information and participate in our 21st century democracy and economy. The FCC must ensure that broadband providers do not block, interfere with or discriminate against any lawful Internet traffic based on its ownership, source or destination.

My letter to the BLM expressing my 'concerns' about oil drilling in the White River Canyon:

My God! I've hiked in those canyons... how dare you? That is GOD'S country, not another oil slick-in-waiting.

We entrust BLM to take care of our land! It is your responsibility to provide the highest level of protection for the White River Canyon area - not allow it to be trashed. We got rid of Pombo, and you're still at it. Appalling.

During its 1996-1999 wilderness inventory of this area, BLM found that over 16,000 acres of this area met all the requirements for protection as designated Wilderness. But I guess that was in the days when the BLM actually cared for the land - and protected it for future generations.

Your recent decision to allow 60 wells to be drilled within this area could sacrifice its wilderness values to oil and gas development, like so many other special places in the West that are irreplaceable. We need to get off of fossil fuel anyway -- and here you are, destroying what is left of our wild beauty so that another filthy rich oil company can get even richer. I am sick of this. BLM must reverse its course on this planning effort and commit to protecting the magnificent resources present in the White River Canyon area. This is OUR LAND. WE THE PEOPLE.

Do I sound angry enough? You have no idea.... no idea. You'd put an oil well or perhaps a coal mine in the Grand Canyon if you thought you could get away with it.

BLM needs to make the following corrections to its analysis before moving forward with this planning effort:

* BLM should prepare a comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS). Without doing so, BLM will continue to fail to fully analyze the impacts of these gas wells on the many values present in the White River Canyon area.

* BLM must take into account the many new gas wells, roads, pipelines, and compressor stations recently constructed to the north, east, and west of the White River wilderness inventory area. BLM must study the combined and cumulative impacts of this existing development and the proposed new development.

* BLM must take a hard look at the proposed project's impacts to the area's outstanding opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation and its abundant natural quiet and overall naturalness of the area. The agency must then consider how best to protect these important public values.

The natural resources present in the White River Canyon are irreplaceable. And they belong to the people. Last I checked, that was us... not the oil companies or Bushies.

BLM's decision to discount its own findings about the wilderness character of the area and instead sacrifice yet another area for a small amount of oil and gas is a mistake and flat out WRONG. BLM must complete a full EIS, analyze the full impacts drilling will cause in this area, and fully protect the valuable wilderness qualities of this important area.

My comments when I signed yet another petition to impeach Cheney - comments going to my blue dog, no doubt:

I'm tired of asking. There is 'partisan' and there is LAW. We are a nation that purports to hold law and our Constitution above all else. PROVE IT.

Don't ever throw 'partisan' at me as an excuse for failing to defend my Constitution and my democracy from a tyrant - yes, we all know what he is - because I have already left the Democratic Party over this after a lifetime of 'party loyalty,' and I will side with a former Reagan administration official, a general -- anyone who is serious about saving my country, before I will bow to the cowering political weakness of any party.

I don't care how many lobbyists are demanding that you do nothing. I'm demanding that you defend us, defend the Constitution, defend the rule of law. Over 50% of Americans agree with me... at least that many, and the number is growing by the day, as we overcome the bias of the corporate media. If Democrats expect to 'sweep' into office in 2008, they damn well better do something to show they deserve that honor.

And yes, sorry I can't hide it any more, but I'm mad as hell. I don't quit a political party after a lifetime over nothing... only when that party betrays me, betrays our troops overseas, and betrays my country. I keep hearing that the 'blue dogs' are obstructing. If you aren't going to hunt, then get out of the way. Democracy, coming through... like a freight train.

This time we really mean it

Yes, it turns out climate change is not only real, it could wipe us all off the face of the planet.

And yes, some of us were already aware of this fact. For the rest (including the Bush White House,) scientists in the United States, speaking via the UK (where newspapers will actually report this news) have stated the civilization is in "imminent peril:"

Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.

They also implicitly criticise the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for underestimating the scale of sea-level rises this century as a result of melting glaciers and polar ice sheets.

Instead of sea levels rising by about 40 centimetres, as the IPCC predicts in one of its computer forecasts, the true rise might be as great as several metres by 2100. That is why, they say, planet Earth today is in "imminent peril".

Well actually they say that the planet is in peril, but I'm guessing the planet will still be here; it is we who will be missing from this watery picture.

The unnatural "forcing" of the climate as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threatens to generate a "flip" in the climate that could "spark a cataclysm" in the massive ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, the scientists write.

Dramatic flips in the climate have occurred in the past but none has happened since the development of complex human societies and civilisation, which are unlikely to survive the same sort of environmental changes if they occurred now.

"Civilisation developed, and constructed extensive infrastructure, during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end," the scientists warn. Humanity cannot afford to burn the Earth's remaining underground reserves of fossil fuel. "To do so would guarantee dramatic climate change, yielding a different planet from the one on which civilisation developed and for which extensive physical infrastructure has been built," they say.

Basically -- this means that we have to stop using that oil we keep fighting over, and we have to stop using it now.

Yes, now: even before we completely run out. Yes -- before 'peak oil.' And yes, even before Exxon, Chevron, BP and Halliburton are done making their a killing on it. It appears mass planetary extinction and a total annihilation of civilization trumps most financial killings, even when the profits are going to bloated, greedy oil companies.

Ah, if only we mere mortals could get their attention...

Dr Hansen said we have about 10 years to put into effect the draconian measures needed to curb CO2 emissions quickly enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperature. Otherwise, the extra heat could trigger the rapid melting of polar ice sheets, made far worse by the "albedo flip" - when the sunlight reflected by white ice is suddenly absorbed as ice melts to become the dark surface of open water.

The glaciers and ice sheets of Greenland in the northern hemisphere, and the western Antarctic ice sheet in the south, both show signs of the rapid changes predicted with rising temperatures. "

The albedo flip property of ice/water provides a trigger mechanism. If the trigger mechanism is engaged long enough, multiple dynamical feedbacks will cause ice sheet collapse," the scientists say. "We argue that the required persistence for this trigger mechanism is at most a century, probably less."

(Bush leans back in his chair and grins at Dick. "Well heck - we got like, maybe a whole century before this happens, right? I mean - before everybody dies? I know I won't be around. Dick - you won't be around either, right?")

John Denver is dead

Last weekend my husband and I found ourselves watching a PBS special about the life and music of John Denver.

I haven't thought about John for a long, long time. His music played such an integral part in my life; most especially when I was 'out in the wilds' as a child, and later in my 20s. For some reason, John Denver became my 'bard of nature;' his songs a musical soundtrack for my wanderings in the overgrown fields, forests and rocky creeks of Southern Indiana.

Even as a small child, I connected with the lyrics of 'Country roads;' I understood his message immediately, because it resonated. In those days there were no Sony Walkmen, iPods or CD players. I carried his words and music in my head, or sang quietly to myself as I swayed in the wind, at the top of a towering neighborhood sycamore.

But then I was an 'strange kid;' I chose to spend hours, even entire days wandering around in the nearby fields and forests alone, rather than playing with other kids in my neighborhood. Something in those trees, in the forest fed my soul. I felt less alone among the branches, birds and wild things than I ever felt with people.

And I sensed, even when I was little, that John Denver somehow understood me; maybe better than my own parents.

When I was 27, I took a leave of absence from my job in the city, and traveled all around the West in an old, beat-up Volkswagon camper.

My friends and family thought I was crazy, and worried for my safety. At that time in my life, I wasn't very concerned about potential danger on the road. I had been sick for months, and the doctor informed me that I had some strange condition called 'SAD;' meaning I needed light - like a plant or a tree - to live. Imagine that.

Honestly, all I really knew or cared was that I had to somehow get out of Chicago, where I had been living a netherlife of endless illness, gloom and ice. The greater part of my soul was starving and dying in the dark, paved-over grayness of the city.

He was born in the summer of his 27th year,
comin' home to a place he'd never been before

I traveled for three months; throughout the Southwest, to the California cliffs and beaches, up into the painted desert, and the high, 'Rim Country' of Northern Arizona, through the canyons of Utah, and of course, into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I seldom saw another soul, and went for weeks at a time without speaking. I stayed off main roads, out of popular camp grounds, carried all of my food and water, and basically lost myself in nature.

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away,
on the road and hangin' by a song

One night, as I sat alone at my camp fire, I happened to witness one of the most beautiful sights I have ever beheld. A storm was moving in from the West, and the sun was setting behind one solitary rain cell.

Suddenly the sky was lit with a brilliant orange and yellow, and yes - the falling rain was backlit with a fiery red glow that turned glistening raindrops into blazing drops of molten lava, showering down as from a volcano.

In the Colorado rocky mountain high, I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky

I sat there alone, in awe.... overwhelmed with a sense of profound clarity and gratitude. The vision was a gift and a promise; a promise of hope, and a permanent solution to the man-made grayness of the city. In that moment and in that place, I became one with something greater than myself; something so big, so powerful and achingly beautiful that all of my simple problems ceased to matter.

Talk to God and listen to the casual reply

In that moment, without realizing it, I started humming 'Rocky Mountain High.' I laughed out loud when I realized how... perfect the lyrics were. It wasn't hard to imagine John sitting across the campfire, strumming his guitar and smiling, sharing in that moment of power and transcendence. The experience spoke to the very heart of his message:

Go outside... everything you seek is out there, all around you.

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams,
seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand,
the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

I never quite recovered from that trip. I never returned to 'normalcy.' The lessons I learned in the wilds remain more real than this keyboard, this office, and even this house. The trees outside the window constantly beacon to me. I can never 'unlearn' the lessons of the mountains.

This is a terrible time to be a lover of nature. It has become a time of fear and grief, as many beautiful places are attacked, destroyed, and many creatures pass from existence at the hands of a lost humanity.

Watching John Denver's life story and reconnecting to the music was painful. It served as just another reminder of how drastically things have spiraled into darkness. I was reminded of a happier time and place; and perhaps of innocence lost.

The music brought back memories that somehow mock me with their stark contrast to our present day. The tranquility and peace I felt while lying under a thick forest canopy and listening to the birds. A spontaneous shout of joy upon seeing an eagle soaring high above a rugged canyon. The reverent awe I felt while standing on the root of a massive, ancient redwood.

I never felt the slightest bit 'alone' or lonely in those days, because I was at one with everything. I have no other way to express it. I never thought of time, of space, of death or of endings. I never once wondered if I might somehow live too long, or see too much.

As we watched the history of his life, John's music was suddenly a painful reminder of a time when I still had hope.

John Denver is dead. I can feel it in my heart, and see it in the devastation all around us. John is nowhere to be found in the incomprehensible behavior of my government; in these greedy, lawless corporations and their rampant destruction of our wilderness, aerial gunning of wolves, smoke stacks spewing filth into the sky, and the poisoning of our food and water.

John Denver fell from the sky like a comet; and managed to avoid watching the dark approach of catastrophic climate change, and the thoughtless destruction of our last remaining wild places. He'll never ache for the plight of drowning polar bears. Some days I wish I had been so lucky.

Yet I know that while he was alive, he saw plenty of damage and destruction, and he harbored his own fears for the places that he loved. Because of course, that too came out in his songs.

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear,
of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

Somehow he kept the faith. While he lived, John managed to keep hope alive; for himself, and for so many of us who took solace in his songs.

As I sit here listening to 'Sweet Surrender' - my favorite Denver song - I can't help but wonder why something that should have been so very easy, turned out to be so very hard.

Sweet, sweet surrender; live, live without care; like a fish in the water, like a bird in the air...

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Traveled by many, remembered by few
Lookin' for something that I can believe in
Lookin' for something that I'd like to do with my life

There's nothin' behind me and nothin' that ties me to
Something that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more than enough
To just be here today, and I don't know

What the future is holdin' in store
I don't know where I'm goin' I'm not sure where I've been
There's a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin', I don't need to see the end

Sweet, sweet surrender, live, live without care
Like a fish in the water, like a bird in the air.

John Denver is dead. Long live John Denver.

Ha! They've got Ted Stevens!!

Breaking news (and yes, I'm dancing around my desk... this is a major victory for the environment. TAKE HIM DOWN!)

Sen. Stevens Told to Keep Records for Graft Probe
By Paul Kane
The Washington Post

Thursday 07 June 2007

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, disclosed in an interview that the FBI asked him to preserve records as part of a widening investigation into Alaskan political corruption that has touched his son and ensnared one of his closest political confidants and financial backers.

Stevens, who is famous for bringing home federal earmarks for Alaska when he was Appropriations Committee chairman, was not previously known to be linked to the Justice Department's probe, which has uncovered evidence that more than $400,000 worth of bribes were given to state lawmakers in exchange for favorable energy legislation.

Investigators have used secret recording equipment, seized documents and cooperating witnesses to secure the indictments of four current and former state lawmakers, including the former state House speaker, shaking the core of Alaska's Republican Party.

Two executives of a prominent energy company have pleaded guilty to bribery and extortion charges and are cooperating with the inquiry, which is being run by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section and includes two federal prosecutors and FBI agents based in Anchorage.

"They put me on notice to preserve some records," Stevens said in a brief interview about his legal team's discussions with the FBI. He declined to say what kinds of records were involved but confirmed that he had hired lawyers and that his son, former state Senate president Ben Stevens, "is also under investigation."