Tag Archives: hydrofracking

Political Rants

New year, old news.

This year is starting out very much like the last one ended. Here are a few of the ways I’m thinking of.

Conflict in Syria. Juan Cole reports that 2013 may have been the bloodiest year thus far in Syria, with an estimated 73,000 killed in the ongoing civil war, and more than 130,000 since the conflict started. This ongoing disaster is, in many ways, a regional conflict with a Syrian focus, as one representative of the International Crisis Committee put it recently. The only solution, it seems, is for the warring parties to say “enough”, to agree to some means of saving what’s left of their country, even if it means Assad remains in power. That would be a hard pill for many to swallow, but what is the alternative? As Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United States put their ample resources into fighting a proxy war with Iran, the Syrian people are caught in the middle. Six million refugees and no end in sight. Time to push the extremists aside and sue for peace.

Oil BoomEnergy refugees. While talking heads praise the fracking-fueled resurgence of America’s energy sector, people in places like Casselton ND are paying the price, driven from their homes in the middle of winter by the dramatic derailment and explosion of a sludge-oil train laden with fracking chemicals. This is the latest in a series of toxic spills as the country hurriedly ramps up production of the last-century fuels that are destroying our atmosphere in pursuit of short-sighted economic growth. Once again, it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs … if by that we mean, profits, profits, profits for the oil and gas industries and the corporations that support them.

Unemployment. The long-term unemployed are playing without a net this new year, thanks to a useless Congress intent on blaming the victims in a financial crisis they helped create and have bent over backwards working to prolong. I’d say the chances are close to nil that the House will pass an extension when they return to what’s euphemistically referred to as “work” in their little world, but miracles happen … particularly if you call to complain.

I’ll continue this noxious list next week. Stay tuned.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Sand and salt.

Non-stop fun here in the land of the free. No coincidence that this is the week they dedicated the George W. Bush presidential library. Some of the key “decision points” of his presidency were in play this week. Let’s start with a honking big one.

Syria. Bush’s political allies (and many in the “muscular” liberal establishment) have been pushing for wider involvement in the Syrian conflict for a good long while now. This week, unconfirmed reports of the use of sarin gas by the Assad regime surfaced this week, by way of the Israeli and French intelligence services, for the most part. The Obama administration intelligence services seem ambivalent and non-commital on this evidence, but not so Admiral … I mean Senator John McCain and some of his clones, who really really really wants another mid East conflict on his resume of error.

Mac is back
Mac is back!

McCain is once again proving why he would have been a catastrophic president. He affects to believe that creating a “safe zone” in northern Syria and arming the fractious opposition (which includes a strong element of jihadi fighters from the Gulf) will not lead to a broader confilct that will commit us to another long-term occupation of a Middle Eastern state, ignite a broader international war, and generally result in another Iraq-like catastrofuck. I say, let’s just drop McCain on Syria, since he’s so eager to put someone’s life on the line. And if chemical weapons are a “red line”, we should have drawn it before using white phosphorus and depleted uranium munitions in Iraq. If Syria goes to the Hague, they should be in line right behind us.

Seneca Lake. A blockade by activists at the site of a salt cavern natural gas storage site being established by Inergy LLP resulted in arrests a few weeks ago. One of those arrested, Sandra Steingraber, was interviewed on the Capital Pressroom radio program this week along with her attorney. This project involves storing natural gas shipped in from outside the state in salt caverns left from old salt mining operations. Similar facilities across the nation have caused sinkholes, water pollution, etc., and now they want to site this thing on the largest of the Finger Lakes. Steingraber and her fellow protesters are fighting the good fight on this one. Pumping natural gas into geologically questionable formations beneath one of the largest fresh water lakes in the region seems like, well, not a real good idea.

Energy coporations and faulty intelligence. It’s like Bush all over again.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Background noises.

Oww. Did you feel that? I did. Feels like another podcast coming on. I always imagine this is somewhat akin to launching a new naval ship, except that THIS IS BIG GREEN is full of holes the minute it gets lowered into the water. Oh well…

Things have been kind of noisy around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, actually. Pretty hard to finish a podcast with all that clanging, drilling, truck traffic, occasional machine gun, etc. What, with Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm now using our adopted home as a platform for hydrofracking, I suppose I should expect as much. Some might think hydrofracking and music production aren’t necessarily compatible, but that’s …. well, that’s just plain ignorant and insensitive. To some people’s ears, the sound of extractive enterprise is melodious and enchanting. And the smell … just like flowers.

Not that Big Green has always required complete silence while working on an album. Far from it, my friends. Just listen to our first two albums. You can hear someone eating lunch in the background of just about every song. It’s only gotten worse over the years, as more people congregate in the cultural Mecca that the Hammer Mill has become over these last twelve years. Our podcast is a good illustration of that. Last month, I think you could hear a truck backing up through most of our incoherent rambling. Unless it was Marvin (my personal robot assistant) making that beep, beep, beep as he rolled backwards in terror and revulsion during a particularly noxious tirade.

Noxious tirades – not a bad name for a collection of podcast excerpts.

Then, of course, there’s all that noise in the background of our “first draft” recordings, included in each episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN. That thing that sounds like a banjo in “Fallin’ Behind”? Yeah, well… that was a banjo. But it might just as well have been the hot water pipes just above our mastering deck, down in the sub-basement studio we call home. Hey, they’re first drafts. You expect a little bit of rough, don’t you? Otherwise they would be finished productions, right? THAT COMES LATER.

Not much later, admittedly. Have to get to work on that. Expect a new album sometime later this year…. assuming we haven’t been hydrofracked to kingdom come by then.