Political Rants

Money spill.

Now hear this – this is a four-star freaking disaster. We need Superman… or Aquaman, perhaps.

It is possible – just possible – that by the time I post this screed, the “top kill” method BP cooked up out of last-minute desperation (to save their skins) will have stopped the oilcano. It is also possible that it will have done nothing. In the mean time, millions upon millions of gallons of oil sludge and other chemicals (including dispersants) are sloshing about the Gulf, invading wet lands, fouling beaches, destroying underwater biosystems, and otherwise making life impossible for people and other creatures along the Gulf coast. It’s clear that the environmental consequences of this spill will be with us for a good many years.

It’s also clear that this spill was the result of negligence in the extreme; of greed carried to a fatal crescendo. BP and its hirelings were in a tremendous hurry and cut corners drastically. Combine that with the obvious fact that these people do not know how to deal with a well blow-out one mile under the surface and you have the makings of an environmental crime of historic magnitude. You also have the crime of manslaughter, at least, with the deaths of 11 workers in that initial explosion (the photographs of which are flabbergastingly reminiscent of World War II naval battle photography). As with the pirates who own Massey Energy, BP execs must be held accountable, as well as the contracting firms that aided them.

It shouldn’t stop there, of course. The administration needs to seriously clean house. I personally think Salazar should go, but more importantly, the regulatory structure must be strengthened and in a sense reimagined to execute an effective watchdog function, instead of facilitating what amounts to experimental oil exploration with no regard to possible consequences. This will be an important measure of whether or not Obama represents a departure from the Bush years, during which large segments of the federal government – including parts of the regulatory structure – were either staffed with industry sympathizers or outsourced entirely to private interests. If the president is willing to stand up to the energy industry (now that they can provide unlimited resources to any candidate who runs against him in two years), that might augur well for the future of our coastlines, mountains, and rivers.

If, on the other hand, he fails to challenge them sufficiently, he will need a little encouragement from you and I. I’m just saying – this shit has simply got to stop.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Lawn robots.


It’s not just the noise, man. It’s just a stupid thing to do. For one thing, we don’t HAVE a lawn. For another, it’s three o’clock in the freaking morning!

Oh, hi. Sorry… I was reading Marvin (my personal robot assistant) the riot act. Not that he needs to be reminded of its contents – It’s been posted on a spike inside his memory banks for a good many years now. Nevertheless, I felt he needed reminding because he’s been unusually disruptive of late. Sure, there have been times when Marvin’s programming has gone south or when he’s unduly under the influence of nefarious telemetry from alien planets (don’t think it doesn’t happen, because it does!). Only recently he’s been trying his hand (or robotic claw, more properly speaking) at a number of different small enterprises, hoping to make a marginal living in these hard times. (What exactly he needs money for, I don’t know. Perhaps some kind of automatonic inebriants.)

I don’t know for sure, but I think this may have something to do with his having been trapped in a virtual mine shaft with the man-sized tuber for the better part of a month. (Even an electronic brain can go crazy. Just ask the robot on Lost in Space.) Whatever the cause, Marvin is obsessed with new ventures. He opened up a flower stand in front of the Cheney Hammer Mill last week, assisted by the man-sized tuber (who knows a thing or two about flowers, being what amounts to an enormous tulip bulb himself). When he heard about the president’s plan to send men to an asteroid in the distant future, he desperately attempted to put himself on the short list for the trip, thinking the rewards to be great (like many pentagon contracts). Both of these, of course, fell flat.

Okay, so I’m in the studio, pounding on the keys, trying to make something that sounds vaguely like music. I hit the playback button, and I hear this grinding sound that bears no resemblance to the one emitted by my aging Oberheim rack unit. It was, in fact, motor noises being picked up by an ambient mic. So I go upstairs and see Marvin mustering a small army of robots – I don’t mean five or six normal robots, but about 40 to 50 toy-sized automatons, all with little purring lawn mowers. He apparently crimped the little suckers into being the muscle behind his new landscaping business, and they were practicing on the Hammer Mill courtyard. Which is made of cobblestones. Genius!

Now that all their mower blades are dull, I’m guessing Marvin will talk the best of his little crew into putting together a band. He’ll likely call it, “Marvin and the Lawn Robots”. So great – Big Green brings him up from nothing, and now he’s competing with us.

Political Rants

Backlash.

A few brief and sullen meditations this week. Not much to say, really, but I’ll say it anyway.

‘Lection Show. Primary day was a bit underwhelming, to say the least. Not surprised to see Arlen Specter voted down. Just a bit too much political opportunism there to survive, I suppose. Never been very keen on him, I must admit. He was one of the decisive votes in pulling serious infrastructure spending out of the stimulus package last year, as I recall. And it’s hard for me to forget his spirited defense of Justice Thomas, whose bitter judicial philosophy (such as it is) we have been saddled with for the past two decades (and will likely have to live through for another two). John Murtha’s seat stayed in Democratic hands – that’s a disappointment to some.

So was Rand Paul’s victory in Kentucky, against an establishment candidate avidly supported by Cheney, McConnell and others. While Paul has gotten himself tangled into knots with some absolutist libertarian positions, he shares his father’s disdain for both of our useless wars. That, at least, would be an embarrassment for his party… and a well-deserved one, at that. He would also be one of the only truly anti-war senators. Hard to fault him for that.

What I can fault him on, though, is the logical outcome of his extreme libertarianism, which his recent comments illustrate. He’s troubled by what he sees as a heavy handed approach to BP by the administration, since that violates his sense of the total separation of the public and private spheres. For one thing, it’s amazing to me that he would consider what’s happening between Obama and BP overly intrusive or burdensome to the oil giant. If anything, it’s way too cozy and too permissive. Personally, I think they should break BP into a million pieces and cash each fragment in as a downpayment on the damage they’ve done through their greed and negligence. But Paul refuses to acknowledge human agency in either the BP undersea oil volcano, or the Massey Energy mine disaster, or I imagine any similar circumstance. “Accidents happen”, and when they do, government looks for people to “blame”.

In that respect, he sounds severely unhinged. But only because he’s willing to say out loud what many right-wing politicians and tea party “patriots” (i.e. former Bush voters) are thinking quietly to themselves.

luv u,

jp

Weird ass music since 1986