A real, live Sharron Angle flyer, via the Reid campaign. Aside from the usual objections to the truly disturbing, inaccurate hysteria reflected herein, I wish she wouldn’t even try to use big words like ‘egregious’.
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Sign Sanity
Well I didn’t make it to the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear today but my son did and saw this wonderful sign. I am reminded of another sign that we had in our front yard at the beginning of the Iraq war that said “Peace is Patriotic”. It greatly incensed our neighbors, who took it down and then surrounded our front door with signs that said, “I stand with President Bush”. I guess we’ve evolved a tad:
Photo by Adam T. Cook
I posted my thoughts about the rally on the FPN site here.
Elect Or Genuflect? The Choices Going Forward
There is a whole lot to dislike about the electoral process in the United States. The low point for me is usually the few days before the election when the pundits start telling us who will win. Last night on Twitter, The Nation’s Greg Mitchell declared Feingold’s race in Wisconsin a loss. Sort of like someone telling you how a movie ends before you’ve seen it, only in this case we are active players in the drama that has very real consequences, It would be nice if the pollsters and the media at least had the polites to let us vote before telling us who we voted for.
But that is probably a bit of old-fashioned genteelness on my part. There has been little discussion this election cycle on the veracity of electronic voting results even it has been proven over and over again that those results can easily be tampered with. Are we really voting when we vote on Tuesday? Hard to say. And courtesy of SCOTUS, with a lineup that is a result of said tamper friendly machines and the stolen election of 2000 allowing the former monkey in chief to name some very bad choices to the Court, our elections can now be easily bought and sold by corporations that spend unfathomable amounts of money that comes from who knows where on candidates that tell us our $20 contributions are important because they represent the people.
Back in 2007, I wrote a column for the Louisville Eccentric Observer called Voting Your Bliss that looked at the primary process that was in full swing in the runup to the 2008 election. In it, I included a quote from the ever observant Wendell Berry,
This is a crisis of our democratic system—to give the people a vote but not a choice is a procedure common to modern dictatorships—but it is a crisis that has been officially unnoticed for a long time.
In this election it is very clear that we have a crisis. We are once again faced with some very bad choices, often between total nut cases and candidates who spend an enormous time trying to walk a center line tightrope and fit into the system rather than acting on their true beliefs or ours. In Voting Your Bliss I wrote about the need for independent, thinking candidates and the need to reinsert real, meaningful dialog into our elections,
As voters we need to demand choices that meet our needs rather than accept candidates who have sold their souls to the highest bidder…The party faithful will smile indulgently and remind us not to throw away our votes on these fringe candidates. But supporting these candidacies is not a question of throwing away our vote and it is precisely what we need to do because they give us something to vote “for” and a chance to reclaim our democracy.
We need to insist that the pressing issues confronting this country be addressed and that our candidates not be beholden to those whose agenda is the destruction of the planet and its people. It’s time to vote our bliss and not our angst.
During this election cycle, I have had several friends who have taken on one of the responsibilities of being citizens in this country and have run for office. They have done so even though the likelihood of getting elected has been small. I know these people and that they are highly principled thinking folk who we would do well to elect. The result of that being that I’ve given more money to candidates this election cycle than I ever have before, and mostly to candidates who stand little chance of winning. Why do that when I don’t expect that they can win? For the simple reason that we need to reframe the body politic so that the right people can win, so that voices who say what needs to be said are heard, not thrown out of two-party debates or marginalized because they don’t have a corporate pac or media cronies behind them.
In a column written later in the 2008 election cycle, I added this thought,
Until we gain the political will to demand that our votes count and that all candidates are given a fair chance, our electoral process will continue to be a sham rather than the exercise of democracy by we the people that it was meant to be.
There is a substantial chance that the results of this election will wreak significant harm on our enfranchisement. At this point, aside from making the best possible choices we can in a lousy horse race on Tuesday, it is time to quit accepting the system as the way it needs to be. It isn’t working and with each election cycle, it is getting worse and worse. Going forward we need to quit playing the game and drinking the koolaid and insist on an electoral process that finally represents the people.
Barack Obama told us that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Perhaps we’d better quit waiting.
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Postscript: Just after posting this I came across Saturday Night Live’s parody of The Rent Is Too Damn High Party, hilariously close to the truth, watch, enjoy, think.
Testament–Why I Am Testifying At The EPA Coal Ash Hearings
Several weeks ago, I signed up to testify at an environmental hearing, something that I’ve never done before. Why? Not because of any special expertise, although I’ve been involved and concerned about environmental issues all of my life, and written about this issue multiple times on my blog and elsewhere.
Rather, it is because I am a citizen of this country who lives in an area that is deeply and detrimentally impacted by the poor regulation of the coal industry and the toxic impact it has on our environment. The Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of holding hearings throughout the country regarding proposed plans to regulate coal ash ponds like the one that was breached in Tennessee in 2008, causing horrific damage. This week there will be a hearing in Louisville, KY where I live.
Currently, these ponds are virtually unregulated. But despite being a news reading junkie, until the Tennessee disaster, I had no idea these things even existed, let alone that their owners were apparently on the honor system in regard to their safety.
This map, via the Sierra Club, gives a great graphic understanding of how many of these disposal sites there are in the U.S. (see here as well for an excellent list of resources to learn more about this horrific problem).
So call it an act of patriotism, or just a variation on the subject matter of my usual ranting and raving, but I decided to participate and to tell the Environmental Protection Agency that as a citizen, I expect them to do what their name implies. Here is my testimony:
Testimony for the EPA Coal Ash Residuals Public Hearing
Louisville, KY Sept. 28, 2010My name is Lucinda Marshall and I’ve lived in Louisville, KY for more than 20 years and I’m appalled that it wasn’t until after the Tennessee coal ash disaster that I became aware that we have toxic coal ash ponds right here in metropolitan Louisville.
According to the Sierra Club, in the state of Kentucky alone we have 44 ponds at 17 plants, 7 of which are rated as high hazards, and 5 as significant hazards. This is unacceptable.
After the incredible damage caused by the Tennessee pond breach, I am particularly horrified that these things are located in the middle of a large population center such as Louisville. If such a disaster happened here, the damage it would cause would be unimaginable and far worse than the Tennessee disaster.
Given that, I absolutely can’t understand how the EPA can consider anything but the most stringent guidelines for these facilities with the ultimate goal of making them illegal. It is beyond belief that these wastes are still considered exempt from such regulation.
There has been report after report documenting the highly negative impact that coal has on our environment as well as on human health. I am particularly concerned about the impact on pregnant women and children.
And all that talk about how coal is good for the economy? That sure hasn’t worked out so well in Kentucky which remains one of the poorest, least educated and least healthy states in the nation and no amount of building golf courses where amputated mountaintops used to stand will change that.
The people of Kentucky, the southeast and the entire nation deserve the right to a clean environment that is not being poisoned because of corporate malfeasance and greed and it is incumbent on the Environmental Protection Agency to do what its name implies and stringently regulate coal ash disposal.
Thank you.
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(Note: There is a three minute time limit on on testimony that is presented publicly, thus the brevity of my statement, much more can and should be said.)
A Time To Turn Away
In a moment completely severed from reality, Vice President Joe Biden went on The Colbert Report the other night and thanked former President Bush for honoring the people who serve in the military.
“Mr. President, thank you,” Biden said of Bush during his interview in a “Colbert Report: Been There Won That” special. “You’ve honored these guys, you’ve honored these women, you’ve honored these troops. And I’ve known you your entire eight years as president. I’ve never known a time when you didn’t CARE about happened. We disagreed on policy. But you deserve a lot of credit, Mr. President.”
Why he did that is truly a mystery. Credit for what exactly? Indeed we should be disagreeing about policies that include lying to the American people about the reasons for going into a war that has been a huge contributing factor to our economic disaster and has cost so many lives. And imagine if instead of honoring the lives of soldiers, we honored the lives of civilians? Our civilians, their civilians. The civilians who reportedly had their fingers turned into trophies by some of our hash smoking defenders,
Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret “kill team” that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.
Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.
And combat mission over or not, Iraq is still game on, with private contractors and other troops still very much in residence in Iraq and the horrors experienced by Iraqi civilians because of our actions being woefully unaddressed. One wonders what it is the Pentagon thinks it is defending. Apparently not freedom of the press:
Defense Department officials are negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir they say contains intelligence secrets, according to two people familiar with the dispute.
Meanwhile a judge who obviously has a better grip on the Constitution than the Pentagon does, courageously rules the obvious that should have been understood and rectified years ago rather than a hate-filled ongoing national debate,
In a blockbuster legal decision, a California judge last night declared the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bars gay and lesbian soldiers from serving in the US military to be unconstitutional, saying the ban violated the first amendment rights of homose
xuals and harmed the effectiveness of the armed forces.
But never mind all that, will he or won’t he, America waits breathlessly,
An anti-Islamic preacher backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, angrily accusing a Muslim leader of lying to him Thursday with a promise to move an Islamic center and mosque away from New York’s ground zero. The imam planning the center denied there was ever such a deal.
To borrow the famous words of Phil Ochs, it is time to turn away from this.
FedEx–We’re Sending You This Invoice (Via The USPO) Because Your Name Is Similar To The Person We’re Supposed To Bill
I should have known something was up when FedEx sent me a letter via the U.S. Postal Service, but really you gotta love this–they want me to pay this bill because my name is similar (sort of) to someone else’s. No, don’t think so.
In case you can’t read that gem of a note, it begins, “Fed Ex was unable to bill the account for the party indicated on the shipping document or the account number was missing. Therefore we are invoicing you for the charges associated with this shipment.”
Just goes to support my theory that I should stick to writing about the truth because I am definitely not creative enough to make this stuff up.
Website Downtime
For reasons beyond my control, our server will be down Friday night for planned maintenance. Please be assured that I’m aware that the site is down (as I believe our email will be as well). Once we are down, if warranted, I’ll post any other information on the Reclaiming Medusa Facebook page, so please be sure to check there, we expect to be back up on the site Saturday morning.
After We Blacken Our Fish, We Marinate It In Corexit And It’s Still Okay To Eat. Really (Not).
Guess, what, no worries about that nasty Corexit dispersant stuff toxing out the seafood you eat. Never mind that the stuff has been banned in Europe, if the FDA says it is safe, well by golly, it must be safe, safer than dish soap even:
How cool is that--it kills the fish which then float right up to shore, no need to worry about whether you can catch it with your trusty fishing rod any more.
“The ingredients include propelyne glycol, a chemical permitted by FDA as a food additive and used in medicines, cosmetics and toothpaste; 2-butoxyethanol, which is found in cleaners, liquid soaps and cosmetics and quickly degrades in the environment; and a proprietary form of sulfonic acid salt, which is “moderately” toxic to freshwater fish and invertebrates but which the manufacturer says degrades quickly. In addition, Corexit contains volatile organic solvents that are made from crude oil and are not considered by the FDA to pose a public health concern because they do not accumulate significantly in the flesh of fish, according to Ireland.”
Want a side of fries with that? And just in case you don’t believe the FDA, here’s a video of a dude who works for Nalco, the company that makes Corexit demonstrating how it works. You can tell that it is perfectly safe cuz he’s wearing the industrial strength rubber gloves while he does the demonstration.
“The FDA is not monitoring fish and shellfish for the presence of Corexit in seafood because it is not considered a health risk, Ireland said.”
Well that is convenient, then we don’t have to worry for another 20 years that there might be health risks that don’t show up immediately because even if we all suddenly keel over and die, we won’t be able to blame it on the Corexit because no one bothered to study it. But I’m sure BP and the Feds were looking out for our best interests and just didn’t want to waste any money on silly ol’ monitoring.
And shame on the WaPo for just giving them a pass on this in their coverage.
We Know Depleted Uranium Is Highly Toxic And We’ve Known For A Long Time
While I”m delighted to see this piece in Truthout about the horrors of depleted uranium, it erroneously refers to, 
“a previously undisclosed 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.”
Not quite. I wrote about it here in 2005,
“It is the military’s use of Depleted Uranium that should cause the most alarm. Not only is the evidence of irreparable harm becoming undeniable, it is also quite clear that the U.S. government has been aware of the lethality of these weapons for quite some time. Despite denials of health risks, a 1950 Army pamphlet states, “Although there is negligible danger from uranium and plutonium outside the body, it is possible for dangerous amounts of these elements to enter the body through the lungs, the digestive system, or breaks in the skin.” (14) An FAA Advisory Circular written in 1984 stated, “if particles are inhaled or ingested, they can be chemically toxic and cause a significant and long-lasting irradiation of internal tissue.” In 1990, U.S. Army Armaments, Munitions and Chemical Command (AMCCOM) reported that depleted uranium is a “low level alpha radiation emitter, which is linked to cancer when exposures are internal.” AMCCOM’s radiological task group also pointed out that the “long term effects of low doses [of DU] have been implicated in cancer, there is no dose so low that the probability of effect is zero.” The risk to our own military personnel was spelled out in a 1993 letter from the U.S. Army Surgeon General stating that, “When soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust, they incur a potential increase in cancer risk.” And in 1995, a U.S. Army U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute report to Congress says that depleted uranium has the potential to generate “significant medical consequences”. (15)”
So enough already, we’ve known about the risks for decades, at least back to 1950, it is time to stop using these toxic chemicals. Not only do they harm our “enemies” in ways that violate the Geneva Convention, not to mention human decency, they also harm our own soldiers and citizenry and while the first part of that might be hard to understand, being our own collateral damage defies all logic.
Addenda: Truthout has changed their wording to, “little-known”, which is much better wording. I think an issue this does bring up is that it isn’t so much that this stuff is un-disclosed than that it is there,hiding in plain sight. It just requires some digging and some persistence by the media to make sure that it gets seen. In that, I am appreciative that Truthout is bringing it up and broadening the base of people who are aware of these atrocities.
Pete Seeger’s BP Ballad
All I can really say is that I hope I am this righteous when I’m 90:
