APPLE JUICE AND LABOR ISSUES: HARD CORE

This one sounds like it's apples and apples. But first, let's figure out relationships: in 2007, the company Cadbury Schweppes spun off it's American beverage unit, creating the company Dr Pepper Snapple. Dr Pepper Snapple makes Mott's Apple Juice at its plant in Williamson, New York. Workers at the Mott's plant have been on strike since May.

What's this about? According to a NY Times article, Dr Pepper Snapple wants to cut wages and benefits, despite earning record profits last year. According to Mott's, they want to get their worker's pay and benefits more in line with "local and industry standards," claiming that average pay and benefits are less in the area. The company motive seems to be to further increase profits, based on the "fiduciary responsibility to operate in the best interests of all its constituents, recognizing that a profitable business attracts investment, generates jobs, and builds communities."

Oh what a steaming heap of bullshit! The translation here, in case it's not too obvious, is that corporate greed is the name of the game - "hey, the financial industry got away with it, why not us?" Contrary to Dr Pepper Snapple's statements, the best way to attract investment, generate jobs and build community is to demonstrate that a company can pay and treat it workers well and respectfully and still be profitable. Touting the fact that their workers are well paid and the company is profitable could help lift the "local and industry standards" that are likely less than a living wage.

Wouldn't it be nice to see more companies talking about corporate responsibility in terms of social, economic and environmental sustainability instead of more profits for shareholders (and I bet Dr Pepper Snapple execs aren't taking a pay cut)?

Mott's workers aren't the only ones being set up for a loss; area apple growers are about to start harvesting, and lower production at the Mott's plant - which is still operating with replacement workers but at about 1/3 capacity - can have a devastating impact on growers.

There are some good companies around, but I would say Dr Pepper Snapple isn't on that list.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: WHAT DID YOU EAT TODAY?

Sitting on the back deck, reading the Sunday Times and Oregonian, drinking espressi, and reading about the things we eat. Damn!

Eggs for breakfast? Were they "cage free," "free range," "naturally laid?" According to an article in today's NY Times, 97% of the eggs produced in the USA are from hens in battery cages. Each cage has 7 hens, and the minimum cage floor space for each hen is about the size of my 13-inch MacBook screen. Cage free means the hens aren't in cages, but in a big warehouse where the hens are packed in, each with about 120 square inches of floor space, minimum. Ah, but you can get free range, can't you? Yep. This means the birds in the big warehouse have access to the outdoors through a small door, usually too small for the whole flock, and typically open for limited time each day. Scrambled or sunny side up?

How about some sugar in your coffee? About 30% of sugar produced world-wide is from sugar beets. A recent ruling by a federal judge has put planting of genetically engineered sugar beets on hold - these already grow on about 1 million acres in 10 states in the USA. The biotechnology beets are a product of Monsanto, and they were developed to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup, also produced by Monsanto. Farmers can kill weeds in their beet fields without killing the beets. But the FDA didn't do an environmental impact statement (EIS) before approving the biotech beets, and organic farmers and some organizations worry about these altered beets passing their genes to non-biotech plants. Read about it here.

Did you eat something that could kill you because of your allergies? Ah, now we get to food labeling, and what the labels don't tell you. I was shopping at New Seasons yesterday, and watched a young woman intently studying her iPhone in front of the toothpaste shelves. Turns out she has serious allergies, and was trying to find the hidden ingredients in the many toothpaste choices, including the "natural" ones. It's a difficult task, as described in this article.

Trying to eat healthy foods presents many challenges in modern times. I understand that large-scale production methods are needed to feed the number of people in any city. But do we have to sacrifice our health and morals in order to feed ourselves? Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to go out and buy a few hens for my backyard (been there, done that), but I do have some control over what I buy, and I try to be an informed consumer. Kids need to learn about healthy food in school, and also about eating locally-grown and healthy foods. So I was happy to also see in this morning's paper a column about moves in this direction resulting from U.S. Senate passage of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act.

Enjoy your lunch today. Really!

WHY I DRIVE A ZAP ELECTRIC "CAR"

"Three wheels, six batteries, one extension cord, no gas tank!" That's what I say when asked about my pickup truck. A lot of people think it's "cool," and some, mainly my sons, find endless ways to make fun of me because of it. Even grandson Jake calls it the motorcycle with training wheels.

It's not a very practical vehicle in a number of ways: goes about 20 miles on a full charge, it's a rough ride (especially on Portland's rough streets), it has no vent/fan or air conditioning (it's close to 100 F today), and needless to say, I don't want to think about how it would do in an interaction with a normal car, SUV or truck.

One colleague remarked that I must have a lot of self confidence - this was when I pulled into a job site next to all the big rigs driven by contractors.

So why did I buy it, and why do I drive it? Part of it is certainly image - I like to be a bit quirky in the face of normalcy (hence the hybrid recumbent bicycle with a small red and black propellor thingy I added on the front). But a large part of it is trying to do something logical and practical in an otherwise very strange world.

Let me explain. My wife and I moved into a very urban neighborhood 9 years ago from a semi-suburban part of the city. We sold one vehicle and became a one car family; I bought a bike and started riding the 5 miles to work every day. We walk a lot in our neighborhood to all the shops, restaurants, pubs, theaters, etc. I signed up for Zip car and used one for times when I had to go to a meeting farther than biking distance, or needed to carry lots of stuff, or had back-to-back meetings with no time in between to bike to the next one. This worked very well.

But I kept looking at the electric car concept, and liked the idea. I saw the Zap cars at a local dealer a couple of years ago and test drove a sedan and "truck," but the prices were high for something I didn't absolutely need. However, I liked the idea, so I kept looking for a good deal on a used one. I finally found my Zap PK (the pickup model) this year, and bought it from a very nice guy who had bought it new and improved it with some important add-ons.

The Zap has worked out well; it's useful for carrying large objects, gets me almost everywhere I need to go in the city, and I guess makes a statement about cars, energy and etc. I don't yet have a good "story" to tell about the sustainability and green footprint of my Zap. It doesn't directly produce harmful emissions, doesn't use petroleum, and presents less danger to others compared to a larger vehicle. But I can only imagine the environmental and social harm done by the manufacturing of a Zap (it's made in China), and the lead acid batteries will need to be recycled properly (I can get a lithium ion battery pack for more than I paid for the Zap!). I just bought a meter to measure how much electricity it takes to charge my Zap, and electricity is produced somewhere and by various methods.

The most important aspect of driving the Zap, however, is the different mind set I have developed. First, I have to plan my trips carefully to be certain I can get home or somewhere else where I can plug it in before running out of juice. This is truly different from having a gasoline vehicle in which I can ignore distance and simply pull into a gas station when I'm getting low on fuel. I don't think many drivers normally plan their trips carefully before leaving home.

Second, driving the tiny Zap gives me a different view of the world of motor vehicles - there are a lot of huge vehicles on the road, and drivers like to drive fast. I can go 45 mph in the Zap, but that's top speed, and I rarely do it (uses a lot of battery power).

Third, if you've ever driven a hybrid car, you know the light bulb moment when you realize that the machine turns off at red lights, waiting in line at the drive-in restaurant, etc. I'm sure there are statistics for how much fuel is consumed and how many tons of emissions are spewed by gas-powered vehicles that aren't moving, and the numbers are certainly large.

Driving the Zap has given me a new vision of urban planning. In this vision, those who want or need a vehicle have small electric cars and trucks to get around the urban area, and only these vehicles are allowed on most streets. Key arterial roads are designated for larger gas-powered vehicles, and these are mostly for service vehicles and travelers going between urban areas (I won't discuss the need for lots more trains and buses here). Strategically located parking garages are on these arterials, and people can park their small electric there when they need their larger vehicle. Life in the city would be slower, quieter, and much more sustainable.

I'm glad to see the major car manufacturers coming out with electric vehicles (EVs); although I don't understand the logic of building electric cars that cost $40,000 like the Chevy Volt. This prices most people out of the market, particularly those who could benefit most from owning an EV.

So if you see me driving by (you won't hear me), flag me down and I'll give you a ride. The Zap is a lot of fun, and I always have a smile on my face when I'm in it.

LIFE'S A BEACH, AND CONTEMPLATIONS THEREON

I find myself, again, standing at the edge of the water looking into and over the waves crashing towards me. I am humbled by the enormity of the ocean, and knowing something about it's complexity of physics, chemistry and biology makes me feel even more insignificant. I am but a speck on the vast edge of the sea, occupying much less area than a singe pixel of a satellite photo on Google Earth. That is tiny.

This overwhelming sense of awe and wonder washes over me when I walk the beach, just as the waves dying on the sand wash over my feet. It ebbs and flows, filling me with wonder at one moment, joy the next, then sadness born of the realization that I am merely an animal whose life is less than the blink of an eye in the scale of this world. I don't completely understand the sadness part; I think it's because I am so naturally curious, so filled with a thirst for knowledge, and knowing that I won't be here long enough to figure it all out.

I always stop and watch the sand in that zone on the beach where waves wash over it. A seemingly random set of patterns actually makes sense if you stop and watch for awhile. The water mobilizes the sand grains and the things mixed in with them; bits of rock, shell, wood, leaves and tiny living animals. As the water recedes, these things sort out by size, shape and density, except for the living animals - they seek shelter until the next wave. The resulting patterns are beautiful art works by nature (although, I know that "art" is something I can label because I'm a human).

The last time we were on this beach, I brought a small net and held it in the water as a wave receded. When I emptied the net into a bucket of water, the water came alive with tiny transparent animals, a kind of shrimp (Mysids, to be geeky about it). You can't see them when you watch the water swirling around your feet, but they are there by the thousands, along with other animals who make their living in the surf zone of the beach. Here's a photo of Mysids taken with the digital microscope I also brought last time (yep, more geekiness).

And then there is sand. Amazing stuff, sand. How many grains of sand are on the beach? We sat in the sand today, and I let hands full of dry grains sift through my fingers, trying to imagine how many there were. I looked at this photo I took of sand grains last time we were on this beach (yes, the digital microscope again).

According to the scale in the photo, a grain of sand on this beach is approximately 0.25 millimeters in diameter. A quick calculation, and I came up with this number: one cubic inch of sand from this beach has somewhere around 1,061,208 grains of sand. Each of these grains of sand was part of molten rock deep within the planet millions of years ago, came to the surface and formed land, was eroded or broken loose and carried by wind and water ultimately to the ocean, where it was cast upon the shore for me to walk and sit on. Talk about feelings of insignificance!

I am amazed, and again greatly saddened, by the fact that the human species has now altered the physics, chemistry and biology of the world's oceans. I'm not talking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm talking about the effects of unbridled dumping of chemicals and trash into streams, rivers and oceans; emissions of climate altering carbon into the atmosphere; wanton depletion of stocks of fish. I could go on, but suddenly, I don't feel so insignificant anymore.

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Additional reading -

ocean acidification article

Tuna's End

forage fish article

forage fish as cat food and animal feed

A DAY LEARNING ABOUT CONFLICT MINERALS

It was a beautiful Sunday morning on vacation in Ashland, Oregon. Coffee, the Sunday NY Times, on the front porch of the rented house with my wife and good friends (and their dog, Harry). I always start Sunday morning with Frank Rich and then the rest of the NYT Week in Review section. I know - why ruin a Sunday - but it's what I do, and for some reason I enjoy getting my intellectual juices going this way every Sunday.

Nick Kristof's column today was not a pleasant read, but it was educational. I learned that my smart phone and my laptop might have minerals in them that came from the Congo, and play a role in the brutal horrors there, including rape, disfigurement, and mass murder.

Sunday afternoon we went to the theater to see a production of "Ruined," by Lynn Nottage. This powerful and disturbing play centers around women in Congo who are victims of brutality at the hands of competing military forces and a society where women victims of these brutal acts are outcasts. The topic of conflict minerals is woven through the play (although not the main theme).

So now I'm looking on the web to learn more, including what I can do as a consumer about this. I have learned that Nokia, the maker of our smart phones, has been working since 2001 on being certain that their suppliers don't source these minerals from conflict zones. I'm going to check about Apple, the maker of my laptop. I'm going to send emails to these companies encouraging them not to use conflict minerals. I'll also email my elected reps about this.

I guess the bottom line is that as a consumer, I have a responsibility to understand what I'm buying and make smart choices. Unfortunately, this is not an easy task in this complex global economy.

OIL POACHING INCREASES SLIGHTLY OVER LAST YEAR

Illegal poaching of oil from the Gulf Oil Pool increased slightly over the previous year, according to figures released by the Gulf Oil Pool Authority. GOPA figures show that oil poaching in the year ending December 31, 2035 was 12,231 barrels higher than in 2034. A GOPA spokesperson gave assurances, however, that improved monitoring and enforcement measures would result in reductions of illegal pumping, particularly in remote areas.

The GOPA has gathered data on illegal pumping from the Pool since two years after its formation in 2020. The massive Gulf Oil Pool project was completed in 2020 with the installation of the final section of sea curtain that formed the Pool. The sea curtain project was a collaborative effort of the United States and Mexico after the two countries nationalized the floating oil resources in the Gulf of Mexico following the creation of what was then known as the BP Vent, a man-made and seemingly perpetual flow of petroleum from deep beneath the Gulf floor.

Enclosing many thousands of square miles of floating oil, the Gulf Oil Pool sea curtain stretches from Naples, Florida, to Bahia del Mariel, just west of Havana, Cuba (the 51st state of the United States since nationalization by the USA following Operation Democratic Annexation by Walmart), to a point of land north of Cancun, Mexico. Official oil pumping facilities at locations in both countries were authorized by GOPA following the Gulf Oil Pool Allocation Summit of 2018.

In a related development, GOPA scientists recently reported results of a 5-year study of fishery resources in the Gulf Oil Pool. Presenting at the annual GOPA Slick Science Symposium, researchers provided details of their studies of fish evolution, in which they have found indications that a variety of fish (and shellfish) species are adapting to and evolving in the petroleum-rich marine environment of the GOP. Ancillary studies by marine seafood scientists have shown that these new species of fish and shellfish are not only edible, they can by fried without the addition of cooking oil due to the naturally high level of oil in the tissue.

HUMANS AND NATURE: LESSONS FROM THE BOGS

Tim Robinson, author and resident of Roundstone, Connemara Ireland, has wandered and studied the bogs of that region for many years. I have read and re-read the following passage many times, pausing to think about climate change, unbridled development and, most recently, oil spills.

As to our own effects on the ground we stand on, our powers of creative destruction and destructive creativity are enmeshed inextricably. Intellect calls on the remotest fields of knowledge - even the mysteries of cosmic rays and quantum physics - to let us look into the depths of the bog. What was darkness and burial is opened into views of an ur-landscape, a clean scoured world of rock, quickly enveloped in flowers and forests; then a shadow is glimpsed between the trees; one can feel the ground quake at the fall of a grain of wheat pollen. A new species has arrived, carrying a dreadful weapon, the intellect. An arms race has begun, the axe evolves from stone to bronze to iron to steel. Great woods with all their sighs and cries go down into silence; the animals succumb: yesterday the bear, wolf, boar, deer, eagle and today the grouse, the golden plover. The soil is coerced into fruitfulness for a while and abandoned when it falls exhausted. Cultures and religions succeed one another; the coming of intellect (borrowing that word to stand for symbolic communication, communal memory, cumulative innovation) tumbles us into a rate of development beyond the adaptive capacities of biological evolution. Intellect is a new factor, arising out of nature but wrecking its equilibria. Ice Ages were so slow-moving that animals and plants could retreat before them and survive, but intellect is a raging fire. And now intellect, discovering its own effects, acquires a guilty self-consciousness. At the last moment we try to conserve some shreds of nature, which are in fact the waste products of our economy. Our wastelands are so beautiful and so tender we wonder if we should enter them at all. Should we stand here discussing the origins of the bog, knowing that a footprint in sphagnum moss lasts a year or more, that the tuft of lichen we crush unseeingly has taken decades to grow? Sometimes when a snipe leaps from under my feet and goes panicking up the sky, I am appalled at my own presence in a place so old and slow and long -suffering as Roundstone Bog.

Tim Robinson. 2006. Connemara: Listening to the Wind. Penguin Books

OIL SPILL SOLUTION?

copyright P. Fishman

May 2010

WHOSE OIL SPILL IS IT?

It's ours! All of us; we want it, we demand it, we pay the consequences for it.

It's easy, way too easy, to point fingers at the evil oil companies like British Petroleum, and chastise them for polluting the Gulf of Mexico with their ultra-profit-making oil. But perhaps we need to take a time out from blaming and take a close look in the mirror of humankind. Look around, and everything you see has a relationship to oil. If the oil spigot were shut off right this moment, would you be OK without it? How loudly would you complain if your life style were suddenly that of the rural poor in the Third World?

Here's an animation of the Gulf oil spill (up until May 2). Scary!

And here's a map of oil platforms in Gulf of Mexico.

Almost 4,000 active wells/rigs. And guess what, there are lots of oil spills every year in the Gulf of Mexico, from U.S. as well as Mexican wells.

And lest we think the Gulf of Mexico was a pristine place before this recent/on-going spill, the New York Times reminds us otherwise. In a short, illustrated article, we are reminded that the impact of humans has already taken a huge toll on the environment in the Gulf: hypoxic, or dead zones on the Gulf floor caused by algae blooms resulting from agricultural runoff conveyed by the Mississippi River; human population increase of 45% between 1980 and 2003 that has replaced habitat with development; 2,000 to >6,000 barrels of oil spilled annually into the Gulf by oil production (that's >2,000,000 gallons between 1996 and 2009); erosion of wetlands at a rate of about one football field every 38 minutes resulting from channelization of the Mississippi River and it's wetland replenishing sediment; and many, many tons of trash (lots of plastic) dumped into the Gulf, even though it is illegal.

I'm not saying it's therefore OK to let the oil keep spilling, or to drill baby drill. I am saying that we (and particularly the greenies among us) should not just be critical of BP, we should also demand a real energy policy in this country - and the rest of the world - that is logical and rational. As long as we are a petroleum culture, we will continue to get what we ask for - oil, lots and lots of oil - everywhere.

WHAT THE FROCK

I just can't bite my tongue any longer. It is well, well past time that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church deal with child abuse by priests. The number of abusing priests is a small percentage of the clergy, but the effects on children, the adults they become, and whole communities is huge. The continually unfolding news about abusive priests in Ireland, Germany, the United States and other countries, and the myriad failures of Church officials, including, it appears, the present Pope, to deal with these child molesters is chilling.

The Catholic Church is a huge enterprise with a very top-down corporate structure. It appears to be, overall, a wealthy organization that owns properties throughout the world. It has been paying settlements totaling many millions of dollars, with a lot more in the pipeline.

Not to be outdone by other large corporate entities, the Church has also jumped on the bailout bandwagon. While in Ireland recently, I picked up a daily newspaper that had two major stories on the front page. Above the fold was an article about one of the largest Irish banks, AIB, that has been bailed out by Irish taxpayers to the tune of $3.5 billion, and they need more - that's right, they are too big to fail.

The article below the fold was about one of the Catholic dioceses in Ireland. The Bishop has asked the 100,000 parishioners to contribute $85,000 per year for the next 20 years to pay for ongoing legal cases and settlements related to child abuse claims. That's right, the Church wants to be bailed out by it's "taxpayers" because it's too big to fail! And why shouldn't they use the same ploy as the big banks? After all, they have both done the same thing - screwed (figuratively and literally, respectively) the people who rely on them and trust them, kept the perpetrators employed and given them bonuses (either money or more victims to abuse), and tried their best to hide the evidence. Never mind that Ireland is in it's worst recession since the 1930's, with unemployment at 12.5 percent.

And so, to the leaders of the Catholic Church I have to say: you guys (yes, guys) pay your debts, clean your house, and don't ask your members to bail you out. Priests should keep their frocks closed, or be defrocked.

THE MODEL FOR DISASTER RESPONSE: ISRAELI ARMY MEDICAL TEAM IN HAITI

There's a lot of Israel-bashing out there. This MSNBC news story shows what the mainstream media tend to ignore about Israel, its humanitarianism efforts around the world.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NOTE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA AND DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVES: IT'S NOW OR NEVER!!

By all signs, the end is near for America - seriously. Rome is burning, and you Dems are furiously fiddling. Hey Barack! Hey Democrats! It's time to get a backbone! We, the people of America, are sick and tired of your political pussy-footing. Just do it! Damn it!

If the President and the elected Democrats would read this post, I'd tell them to read today's column by Bob Herbert. I'd tell them that this moment is it; this moment is the one that really matters for the future. Stop the theatrics, roll up your sleeves, bar all lobbyists from entering your offices, take off the Beltway Blinders you've grown so accustomed to wearing, and take a good close look at reality.

America is sinking; we've hit the iceberg. Don't bail out the iceberg; bail out America! Damn it! You should have taken over the banks that are "Too Big to Fail" and reorganized them to help the people, not the corporations. You should have bailed out the homeowners who were duped by the Wall Street Bandits, not the Bandits. You should have put money into massive job stimulating programs, not into Wall Street executive's bonus accounts. You should have pushed through real health care reform, not some complex sop to the Medical Industrial Complex.

Maybe it's too late to think you Dems even have a spine and can do anything meaningful. How wonderful that the Supreme Court has upheld the corporationpersons right of free speech. That means you electeds will now be even more controlled by these corporationpersons than you already are.

And Mr. President, with all due respect, you've got the bully pulpit - use it! Enough of this "bipartisan" crap. It doesn't work. Washington is a polarized battlefield video game upon which corporate interests move their pieces by remote control, fueled by massive buckets full of cash, with organized special interest groups cheerleading on the sidelines. The Republican Party is intellectually and morally bankrupt; you Dems appear to be just plain afraid.

To help you put things in perspective, let's look at some numbers for how Americans are doing in the State of Oregon:

Population (2008): 3.8 million people

Poverty level for a 4-person family: $22,050 or less annual income

Poverty rate (2008): 13.6% (516,388 people)

Child poverty rate (2008): 17.5% (148,000 kids)

Child homelessness: 44th worst in the USA; 22,688 homeless children (2.65% of children)

1 in 26 kids (4%) don't know where their next meal will come from

Unemployment rate (December 2009): 11% (approx. 418,000 people)

Number of people whose unemployment benefits will run out (2010): January: 2,500; February: 2,500; March: 15,000

Number of Oregonians without health insurance (2007-08): 16.5% (626,500 people)

This is stunning. This is drastic. This is getting worse, not better. This is not America!

OK, so you lost the 60 votes in the Senate. That's tough, but you need to toughen up. Don't react by weakening the already crappy health care bill. Don't start quaking like an aspen leaf in a breeze. Stand up for the American people. If the Republicans want a fight, take it to them! You've got to stop dancing to the string tugs of money and politics and start acting for the people of this country.

Damn it!

WILL GOOGLE BE THE UNDOING OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY?

Today's column by Thomas Friedman in the NYT made the proverbial light bulb go on over my head. Tom talks about two Chinese economies that exist side-by-side: "Command China," which is the Communist Party and affiliates; and "Network China," represented by internet-savvy entrepreneurial companies, mostly in Shanghai and Hong Kong. It's an interesting column, worth reading.

The light bulb in question is related to the item I posted a few days ago; Google taking on the Chinese government over internet censorship and using Google searches to go after Chinese dissidents. I think the internet Pandora's Box has been opened in China, and the result has to be a major change in Chinese society. Google just might be the proxy Western World Warrior that pushes things to the tipping point.

I've thought about a young Chinese woman who became our friend in Beijing; let's call her Ginger. Ginger left China shortly after we were there to go to university in Australia and get a degree in business. She was soon on Facebook, and I imagine she uses the internet a lot for school and social networking. What will it be like for Ginger when she returns to Beijing and finds that her internet access - her googling - isn't the same as it was in Australia because her government blocks certain sites? Multiply this by many thousands of young Chinese who go abroad for school, and the large numbers in-country who are able to find ways around the government censorship.

Global information sharing and social networking is the new reality, and the future. The technology moves much faster than most of us have the mental capacity to match. The future looks very different from the now, and it will be a changed context from the present. I see the disconnect between the old and the new/future as a major driver of conflict in the world today. Extreme forms of nationalism, religion, and politics try to preserve the past from the onslaught of the future, and this is a losing battle. Within a generation or two from now, many of the "battles" of the day - such as gay marriage, Jihadism and all the others - will seem silly.

The Communist rulers of the Peoples Republic of China will hang on for as long as they can, and from what we've seen, it could turn brutal and ugly. But change is inevitable, and the internet - driven by the Google giant - is the change agent.

MUSINGS FOR JANUARY 2010

Human Frailty. The devastation in Haiti is a brutal reminder of our frailty and mortality, as well as our shortcomings. The pain and suffering of the Haitian people, coupled with our own individual feelings of helplessness to do something - anything - meaningful to help them, is a humbling feeling. We've donated money; we'll donate more. But somehow this doesn't help me feel that things will change in the long run. A 7.0 earthquake will certainly kill people anywhere, as one did in California in 1989, even though the building codes in California require seismic safety. But the level of devastation in Haiti, and the level of unpreparedness to deal with it, is unacceptable, and is directly linked to the failure of government to provide for it's citizens. I'm one of the very fortunate people in the world; I can afford to sit here with my laptop pondering the fate of humanity. I am dogged, however, by a feeling in my gut that the human animal probably won't ever get it's act together.

Did Johnson & Johnson Kill my Mother-in-Law? The federal government filed a complaint against Johnson & Johnson yesterday alleging a massive kickback scheme to promote the use of one of it's expensive drugs. Federal prosecutors, using information provided by two whistle-blowing former J&J employees, allege that the corporation paid off Omnicare, Inc., the largest dispenser of prescription drugs in nursing homes, to push the use of Risperdal for elderly patients. Risperdal is a powerful schizophrenia drug, and Omnicare pharmacists pushed it's use for elderly patients with signs of Alzheimer's disease. Risperdal has been found to increase the risk of death in the elderly.

My mother-in-law died last June in a nursing home where she lived after a stroke 11 years earlier (don't get me started about how the for-profit medical system failed to provide the measures that could have kept her stroke from being so debilitating). I think she might have been put on Risperdal for a time during the past 1-2 years for some signs of dementia. I think my wife finally decided to take mom off the drug because of what she felt could be negative symptoms. We'll never know if Risperdal was a factor in mom's death, but I'm angry that, once again, corporate greed outweighs any sense of right and wrong.

Google Stands Up to China. We were in China last year, and the Chinese people are warm, friendly and generous. But the Chinese government is something else, and I think we, as Americans, have been too afraid to challenge the Chinese government because of their control of our economy. So when Google decided to stand up and say "enough" to the Chinese government, I cheered. Google has told the Chinese that, unless they stop controlling web access and using google searches to persecute Chinese dissidents, the company will pull it's services out of China. OK, so the cynic might say that this is a purely business decision by Google; I'd like to think otherwise.

Neanderthal Cosmetics. This just in from the world of archaeology: Neanderthal people might have used make-up. Archaeologists have found what appear to be hand-crafted sticks of pigment that might have been applied to the skin as makeup. But why is this discovery so surprising? I mean, think about it; if you looked like that, you'd use makeup too!

So now I'm wondering if these archaeologists will find evidence that the first Republicans were Neanderthals. This would certainly make sense to me, based on the present-day behavior of this group. And, um, this adds context to the saying about "putting lipstick on a pig."

The Real Reason Palin is on Fox News. Yes, she's there, lipstick and all! I watched the first Palin appearance on Fox news - Palin the Political Commentator (common tater?). Well, I actually only lasted for 3-4 minutes before I had to hit "stop." This was classic Palin: down-home, gussied up, and dumb as a stump. Her stuff was funny, in a heart-sickening way; I mean, you couldn't write stuff this funny, really. Which led to my realization of what Fox is doing - Palin is the Fox News answer to Jon Stewart! Fox News is now directly competing with the Daily Show for the top comedy-as-news show. I think they have a chance.

Is the Bra Bomb Next? OK, this is a sensitive topic, but it has to be spoken out loud. First there was the shoe bomb, then there was the undies bomb; what's next? I think it's intuitive that the bra bomb will be next. So will airport security start profiling women with large breasts? And the bra, because of its two compartments, provides a new paradigm for design. For example, one cup could be filled with Pepsi, the other cup filled with Mentos, with a tube and valve gizmo connecting them. Yikes!

MR. HATEY ON HAITI

Leave it to Pat Robertson. According to this butthead, the people of Haiti are "cursed" because they "made a pact with the devil" to get rid of the French. What??? I always thought earthquakes were caused by shifting tectonic plates, but now I find out that the devil is behind it - or is it god punishing the Haitians for allying with he-who-cannot-be-named?

As for history - let's see if I can get this straight: the Haitians made a pact with the devil to get rid of French colonialism. Does that mean that Americans also made a pact with the devil to get rid of the English? Are we also doomed to eternal suffering because of it? Are the September 11 terrorist attacks, the financial crisis, the reign of Cheney-Bush and all the other ills we've experienced caused by our pact with the devil? Have we really gone to hell in a hand-basket?

I say to hell with Pat Robertson!

SEA LIONS ORGANIZE FOR MASSIVE COLUMBIA RIVER DEMONSTRATION

We humans are confused and perplexed by the sea lions who are "missing" from Pier 39 in San Francisco, a major haul-out and tourist attraction since 1989. There were 1,700 lions at Pier 39 in October, 2009 - by Thanksgiving, there were fewer than two dozen. Meanwhile, at Sea Lion Caves, a tourist attraction on the Oregon coast, there are more sea lions than anyone can remember ever seeing. Are these the "missing" San Francisco sea lions?

To find out what's going on, I got in touch with my friend Sammy C. Lion, who is frequently in the Portland area while on fishing trips up the Columbia River. I asked Sammy what's going on, and this is what I found out.

The sea lions are massing off the Oregon coast for a huge demonstration at Bonneville Dam, in the Columbia River, this spring when the salmon migrate upriver. Based partially on their anger over the killings of their relatives by humans with the federal government (part of a court-sanctioned plan to prevent sea lions from eating salmon by killing them), and based partially on inspiration from the movie "Avatar" (Sammy and some friends snuck into an iMax theater recently), the sea lion clans of the eastern Pacific are banding together to put an end to the madness, once and for all. "We're tired of being blamed for the decline of salmon" said Sammy. "We've been following salmon up the Columbia for millennia, and it's never been a problem. We shared them with the humans who lived on the river, and it wasn't until recently that other humans screwed up our river."

Sammy wouldn't tell me any details of the planned demonstration, but I'm guessing that thousands of sea lions will mass at the base of Bonneville in a show of force designed to demonstrate that nature can fight back. "We're all part of a delicate web of life on this Earth," said Sammy, "and it's way past time you humans understand that it doesn't all belong to you."

Sammy promised to keep in touch (I loaned him one of my waterproof cell phones), so I hope to keep you all posted.

MYSTERIES OF THE INTERNET: PHLEGM

I've always been fascinated by the internet, particularly things like google. It's difficult to wrap my brain around the concept of millions of people doing millions of searches all the time. I've read about some of the large server facilities - huge warehouse buildings filled with computers and HVAC systems, humming away 24/7, using massive amounts of electricity. The Cloud.

So it was with awe and wonder that I made a discovery today that set my imagination whirling. I checked the traffic on my blog using StatCounter; I do this once in awhile just to see where the hits (the few I get) are from. StatCounter has a google maps link that displays a symbol on a world map for the location of every server from which my blog has been visited during the past few weeks. (I use the free version of StatCounter, so I have a limited amount of data storage.) There are a lot of symbols from all over the world displayed today for my blog - cool.

Then I looked at the statistics display that lists the city and country for each hit, and for most hits the post that was viewed. And there it was, a wondrous mystery of the internet unfolding before my eyes. Of the 48 hits listed for October and November (I told you, it's not a popular blog...), 16 - that's one third - were on a post I'd made on February 28, 2009, over 8 months ago! And what was this suddenly popular (relatively) post? It was The Importance of being Phlegmish, of course!

These hits on my phlegm post were from:
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA
Bronx, New York USA
Portland, Oregon USA
San Antonio, Texas USA
Vienna, Austria
Winnipeg Canada
Lawrence, Massachusetts USA
Littleton, Colorado USA
Artarmon, New South Wales Australia
Middleton, Ohio USA
Boulder, Colorado USA
Fort Wayne, Indiana USA
Kenya (no city listed)
Chatham, New Jersey USA
Killingworth, Connecticutt USA
Louisville, Kentucky USA

Once my laughter subsided, I began to investigate further. For many of these hits, StatCounter shows a link for the source, and these in turn show what search terms led the searcher to my post. I looked at a number of these links. One search was for "coughing up clear sticky fluid in the morning." Seems obvious enough. But the majority were for: "old man lucas had a lot of mucus." Yes, the title of a song by Kinky Friedman, often performed by Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew Boys. (By the way, looks like Kinky is running for Governor of Texas in 2010.) I mentioned Kinky and his song in the Phlegmish post.

So I know what people were searching for, but why? Why are so many (again, this is relative) people looking on the internet for a song by Kinky Friedman about an old man with a lot of mucus? It remains a mystery, but here's my guess: some world radio program or internet site did a story about Kinky Friedman, and played or mentioned his famous song (you've heard it many times, right?). And this prompted folks to search for it on the internet. And their search led some of them to my humble blog.

I only hope that these people I don't know from far corners of the Earth read the post, instead of clicking away from it without stopping to read it, to learn a little bit about me, to marvel themselves about the wonders of the internet, a place where weirdos can post strange scribblings that are forever out there, in the Cloud, 24/7 - until the world goes dark.

IS OBAMA DOING OK?

Folks - we need to chill out, and we need to heat it up. I, like many of you, am a news junkie. I read the newspaper every day (well, almost every day), and I usually end up being upset, pissed off, and gloomy about the state of the world around me. (In fairness, I sometimes find articles about good things happening, and this lifts my spirits.)

But I have to tell you, the incessant chatter about "Obama is not doing such and such," and "Obama isn't keeping his campaign promise about so and so," is starting to get on my nerves. Yeah, I have some questions about what the guy is doing and why, but then - hang on a second - look at what he inherited from the Cheney-Bush Cabal. I'm serious about this; Cheney and little Bush wreaked incredible havoc on this country and this world, and these things don't just go away on the day a new administration is sworn in. If we stop for a minute and consider the state of affairs Obama inherited, it's a wonder the man isn't just wandering around in circles babbling incoherently to himself!!

The Obama administration has been in office for 10 months, that's 10.4% (one tenth) the time Cheney-Bush was in office. Look carefully at the Obama administration record to date; they have accomplished a lot, considering the mess they walked into. We elected Obama; now we need to give him our continuing support. Will he always do everything each of us wants? No. Will he be as progressive, liberal, radical or whatever each of us wants him to be? Never. Will he represent the values and goals of the people who elected him better than Cheney-Bush did? Every time!!

So people, let's chill out in the ranting and raving and bloviating department, and let's heat up in the activism department. The Republican Party, and especially the right wing of the Party, have truly lost their way - or maybe they've found their way - when it comes to the good of the people. But if we sit back and let them grab the headlines, let them sow the seeds of doubt, let them control the conversation, well....then they'll win the game. If we let down our guard, they win. And we know the kind of world they want - we lived in it for eight long, brutal years.

Yes we can. Yes we will. Keep saying it - keep doing it.

ANIMAL STORIES

Do Frogs get Lonely?

One day last summer, Sherry came back from the Fred Meyer garden store with a tray of small bedding plants. When we removed the small plastic pots from the cardboard tray, there was a small green frog huddling in the corner. It was a chorus frog (formerly known as a tree frog). The plants were from a nursery in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, and this is a native species. Well, we don't keep pets anymore, and we live in a very urban area, so what to do with the little guy/girl? I carried her/him to the backyard, our Garden of Tranquility, and released him/her on a flat rock in our water feature. She/he crawled under a rock and hasn't been seen since.

However, over the past few weeks, there is a frog calling from the corner of the Garden of Tranquility where the water feature is. It's a very plaintive call, almost haunting in it's loneliness. Is our frog lonely? Is it trying to find a companion, a mate? What should we do to help? Is it legal for me to capture another wild chorus frog for our garden, and if so, how do I know if we need a male or female - how do we even tell the difference?? Life has knotty problems.

Eats Shoots and Leaves

A panda walks into a bar...... Well, no, actually that's just a joke. But I think about pandas every time I have to thin our bamboo landscape screen next to the house. Bamboo is an amazing grass. Ours, the black bamboo, sends new shoots out of the ground every May (we call them "the Aliens"), and these things grow about 10 feet in 3 weeks. Amazing! Every year I spend a day or more thinning - which is the easy part. Then I have to cut the bamboo thinnings into pieces small enough to fit in the green yard debris recycling can. This takes hours of tedious work.

Our sister-in-law Jill volunteers at the zoo. I asked her once to ask the zoo folks if they want my bamboo cuttings for the pandas, or the giraffes, or anyone. I knew they wouldn't - and they didn't - because, well, how do they know I haven't sprayed the heck out of the bamboo with poison?

I need a panda. Not as a pet - remember, we don't do pets anymore - but maybe once or twice a year. A panda yardwork helper, with an appetite. Anybosy know one I can call?

GUILTY OF ECOCRIMES?

OK, this is a confession - I think I've committed a crime against the environment, but I'm not sure.

I was puttering around the house the other day, and looked under a bathroom sink for something. For some reason, I decided to take everything out from under the sink - you know - cleaning mode set in. And there they were, several almost-empty plastic bottles of shampoo, liquid soap, hair conditioner. I hesitated. The correct thing to do is rinse them thoroughly and recycle them. But it takes a lot of time, and water, to get all that sudsy stuff out of each bottle. "Which is worse" I pondered, "throwing the bottles in the trash (egads), or using so much water?"

I threw them in the trash, thus saving water and time.

But now I feel guilty. Every time I hear a car door close outside our house I get nervous - is it the Portland Eco Cops? Will they just give me a warning, or will I do hard time? What should I plead: temporary insanity? Conflict of eco-logic? Not guilty? Or should I confess my crimes and take whatever punishment I deserve?

Oops....gotta go hide, I just heard a car door slam.