The tide of volunteers rushing to assist victims of the recent tornadoes evidently is complicating operations for professional disaster relief organizations and Homeland Security.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/05/10585734-disaster-volunteers-please-curb-your-enthusiasm
The linked article makes it clear only trained rescue workers who are registered are welcome. Understandable to some extent. There are downed power lines, leaking gas lines and other hazards. Unauthorized, unorganized visitors can hamper efforts to deal with them.
Setting up locations that provide clearinghouses and registration of incoming volunteers makes sense as long as the process does not become more important than the mission. It is hard not to remember the aftermaths of Katrina and Haiti where trained volunteers were turned away and government agencies and the large nonprofits appeared more interested in protecting their turf than using any means possible to deal with staggering calamities.
I am not completely convinced that a "leave it to the grownups" approach is productive. People helping people, banding together in joint efforts during times of struggle and disaster, is a survival skill - and one we lose at our own peril.
Here's what I think...
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Rush Limbaugh is full of organic fertilizer
He ridicules women who want contraceptives covered by their health plans, suggesting they "hold an aspirin between their knees."
He suggests they should post tapes of their sexual encounters online.
He refers to them as sluts and prostitutes.
Only one conclusion occurs to me. Rush Limbaugh is full of organic (avian, bovine or equine, take your pick) fertilizer.
As the mother of two long since grown and married daughters, I can still remember how important it was to me that they be informed and comfortable about contraception options both before and after their marriages. Bringing an unplanned, unwanted child into an overpopulated world is not a responsible act. Yes there are women and girls barely out of childhood who chose to do this when faced with the "oops" of an unplanned pregnancy. Some small minority of them (one person in particular comes to mind) end up doing a great job raising their child. Many, many more make a sad hash of it.
Teenagers and unmarried young adults will be sexually active. Of course they will. To think otherwise is to live in an alternative universe. Depriving them of the tools that enable them to prevent pregnancy fails them personally and fails society.
Traditionally it is the female that pays the price for unwanted pregnancies. Misogynistic pundits like Rush Limbaugh do not deserve and should not have a voice in the matter.
Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are full of organic fertilizer.
He suggests they should post tapes of their sexual encounters online.
He refers to them as sluts and prostitutes.
Only one conclusion occurs to me. Rush Limbaugh is full of organic (avian, bovine or equine, take your pick) fertilizer.
As the mother of two long since grown and married daughters, I can still remember how important it was to me that they be informed and comfortable about contraception options both before and after their marriages. Bringing an unplanned, unwanted child into an overpopulated world is not a responsible act. Yes there are women and girls barely out of childhood who chose to do this when faced with the "oops" of an unplanned pregnancy. Some small minority of them (one person in particular comes to mind) end up doing a great job raising their child. Many, many more make a sad hash of it.
Teenagers and unmarried young adults will be sexually active. Of course they will. To think otherwise is to live in an alternative universe. Depriving them of the tools that enable them to prevent pregnancy fails them personally and fails society.
Traditionally it is the female that pays the price for unwanted pregnancies. Misogynistic pundits like Rush Limbaugh do not deserve and should not have a voice in the matter.
Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are full of organic fertilizer.
Monday, February 20, 2012
It's Discouraging
Lately, I haven't had the heart to write about the issues that concern me.
Except for Ron Paul, who hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of being nominated, the Republican candidates continue to focus on the minutia and ignore the staggering challenges our country and our world face.
Access to birth control, a battle I thought convincingly won over 50 years ago has somehow morphed into a religious issue? What kind of b-s is that?
Popular reaction thwarted the passage of SOPA and a dozen bills sprang up to replace it, some of them far worse.
Congresspersons continue carte blanche insider trading despite the "so-called reform" they passed. Seems like Nancy Pelosi and Eric Canter actually have been "comrades in arms" all this time, despite their partisan press releases.
Hundreds of thousands of Occupy demonstrators failed to make the slightest dent in the rhetoric of Washington's lawmakers. The 1 percent will probably shrink to an even more powerful .5 percent. Billionaires are funding our national elections and writing their own tickets into the future.
The Federal Justice system under the Obama administration has cracked down on medical marijuana, protected Wall Street and militarized the nation's police forces.
Hints of an upcoming war with Iran permeate online media.
Hydrofracking appears on the fast track in my home state of New York.
No, I haven't had much heart for writing this blog lately (sigh).
Except for Ron Paul, who hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of being nominated, the Republican candidates continue to focus on the minutia and ignore the staggering challenges our country and our world face.
Access to birth control, a battle I thought convincingly won over 50 years ago has somehow morphed into a religious issue? What kind of b-s is that?
Popular reaction thwarted the passage of SOPA and a dozen bills sprang up to replace it, some of them far worse.
Congresspersons continue carte blanche insider trading despite the "so-called reform" they passed. Seems like Nancy Pelosi and Eric Canter actually have been "comrades in arms" all this time, despite their partisan press releases.
Hundreds of thousands of Occupy demonstrators failed to make the slightest dent in the rhetoric of Washington's lawmakers. The 1 percent will probably shrink to an even more powerful .5 percent. Billionaires are funding our national elections and writing their own tickets into the future.
The Federal Justice system under the Obama administration has cracked down on medical marijuana, protected Wall Street and militarized the nation's police forces.
Hints of an upcoming war with Iran permeate online media.
Hydrofracking appears on the fast track in my home state of New York.
No, I haven't had much heart for writing this blog lately (sigh).
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Globalization and the Environment
"We are in the age of globalization." It is the new paradigm. Global trade, global communication, global culture, global threats and global rewards, global environmental crisis.
Our planet's population is soaring. That population's demands on the global environment are exponentially expanding.
The hideous debris swept to sea by last Spring's tsunami in Japan is heading toward the Americas. The radiation emitted by the nuclear disaster caused by that tsunami probably hit our shores months ago. Workers toil under slavish conditions in China, India and other developing countries to supply North America and other "first world" nations with the wonders designed by Apple Computer, Microsoft and a myriad of other multinational corporations.
The ancient mountains and rich habitats of West Virginia and Kentucky are crushed into oblivion to feed our nation's hunger for cheap energy. The water supplies of continents are sacrificed to agribusiness, energy development and industrial waste to feed, shelter and indulge the hungry consumers of nations rich and poor.
Wars are waged to procure declining supplies of oil. Wars are waged to procure productive land and valuable mineral resources. Melting icecaps raise ocean levels and swamp low-lying land masses, displacing their occupants. Carbon emissions from every country on the globe spew into the already saturated atmosphere. Free market capitalism, the one true religion of the twenty-first century, demands ever increasing levels of consumption of the planet's finite resources for throw-away products that clog landfills and create continental-sized oceanic dead zones.
It's every country and man for himself out there as the human race rushes toward its terrifying confrontation with the inevitable results of debasing its environment on a global scale.
If we must have globalization, surely global regulation in our specie's self interest might be a good idea? Screw nationalistic jingoism if the price is survival.
Our planet's population is soaring. That population's demands on the global environment are exponentially expanding.
The hideous debris swept to sea by last Spring's tsunami in Japan is heading toward the Americas. The radiation emitted by the nuclear disaster caused by that tsunami probably hit our shores months ago. Workers toil under slavish conditions in China, India and other developing countries to supply North America and other "first world" nations with the wonders designed by Apple Computer, Microsoft and a myriad of other multinational corporations.
The ancient mountains and rich habitats of West Virginia and Kentucky are crushed into oblivion to feed our nation's hunger for cheap energy. The water supplies of continents are sacrificed to agribusiness, energy development and industrial waste to feed, shelter and indulge the hungry consumers of nations rich and poor.
Wars are waged to procure declining supplies of oil. Wars are waged to procure productive land and valuable mineral resources. Melting icecaps raise ocean levels and swamp low-lying land masses, displacing their occupants. Carbon emissions from every country on the globe spew into the already saturated atmosphere. Free market capitalism, the one true religion of the twenty-first century, demands ever increasing levels of consumption of the planet's finite resources for throw-away products that clog landfills and create continental-sized oceanic dead zones.
It's every country and man for himself out there as the human race rushes toward its terrifying confrontation with the inevitable results of debasing its environment on a global scale.
If we must have globalization, surely global regulation in our specie's self interest might be a good idea? Screw nationalistic jingoism if the price is survival.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
What does "Classified" Mean, Really?
There are two very cogent reasons for classifying documents. The first, and official one, is to protect our national security. The second, unstated one, is to conceal the crimes committed by our government officials and employees.
I just read the following Washington Post article about the government's prosecution of the whistle blower who blew the top of the Guantanamo water boarding scandal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/former-cia-officer-charged-in-leaks/2012/01/23/gIQA3AhTLQ_story.html
The prosecution of John Kiriakou indicates our government makes no distinction between the official and the unofficial reasons for classification in its regard for the seriousness of the crime of publishing classified material.
Kiriakou's crime was releasing "classified" government information. Very bad. Much worse than the criminal behavior by government officials that was revealed.
The individuals who ordered or committed the torture are not prosecuted. Those who revealed it are.
The phrase "national security" is such a useful umbrella.
I just read the following Washington Post article about the government's prosecution of the whistle blower who blew the top of the Guantanamo water boarding scandal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/former-cia-officer-charged-in-leaks/2012/01/23/gIQA3AhTLQ_story.html
The prosecution of John Kiriakou indicates our government makes no distinction between the official and the unofficial reasons for classification in its regard for the seriousness of the crime of publishing classified material.
Kiriakou's crime was releasing "classified" government information. Very bad. Much worse than the criminal behavior by government officials that was revealed.
The individuals who ordered or committed the torture are not prosecuted. Those who revealed it are.
The phrase "national security" is such a useful umbrella.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Constitutional Amendment Against Citizens' United?
While comedian/satirists Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart use a SuperPac to demonstrate the dangerous and absurd levels of political skulduggery permitted by the Supreme Court's Citizens' United decision, growing voices are heard urging a Constitutional amendment to negate the Court's decision.
Proponents are urging passage of an amendment that decrees only people are people with rights under the Constitution. Ah, and this will fix our system? A system in which power speaks to power and money creates power?
Even if such an amendment could survive the arduous ratification process, its power to alter the influence of money on American government is questionable. We already have amendments that guarantee freedom of peaceful assembly (ask the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators how well that works), freedom of speech (unless you are exchanging information and files over the Internet), freedom from unlawful search and seizure (unless you choose to travel by air or Homeland Security suspects you're a terrorist).
Other protected rights that are now routinely ignored include the right to face your accuser in a court of law; the right to a trial by a jury of your peers, the right not to be detained without formal charges.
Doesn't appear to me Constitutionally protected civil liberties are taken very seriously by our government. Why would one more be any different?
Proponents are urging passage of an amendment that decrees only people are people with rights under the Constitution. Ah, and this will fix our system? A system in which power speaks to power and money creates power?
Even if such an amendment could survive the arduous ratification process, its power to alter the influence of money on American government is questionable. We already have amendments that guarantee freedom of peaceful assembly (ask the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators how well that works), freedom of speech (unless you are exchanging information and files over the Internet), freedom from unlawful search and seizure (unless you choose to travel by air or Homeland Security suspects you're a terrorist).
Other protected rights that are now routinely ignored include the right to face your accuser in a court of law; the right to a trial by a jury of your peers, the right not to be detained without formal charges.
Doesn't appear to me Constitutionally protected civil liberties are taken very seriously by our government. Why would one more be any different?
Saturday, January 21, 2012
While we were celebrating... .
While the online community was celebrating its victory over SOPA and PIPA, the Justice Department struck quickly and lethally at Megauploads, one of the largest file-sharing websites on the planet, proving that it DID NOT NEED SOPA and PIPA to police the Internet pretty much any way it deemed prudent and necessary.
Forget democratic protests. Forget the protests of Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and a slew of other sites. The Justice Department managed to get arrest warrants executed in foreign countries, web servers shut down, assets confiscated the very next day after the online community convinced U.S. legislators to back off!
What is that about? Pretty much the same thing as the indefinite detention permitted in recent legislation that Obama signed with a signing statement that he "would not pursue it."
Question. If it is the executive branch's job to enforce the laws, and the President of the United States is the "boss" of the executive branch, how the hell is the Justice Department determining the means of enforcement rather than the Oval Office? Just where is the tail that is wagging the dog and how, tell me how, can that tail be cut off?
You might want to check out the CSM article linked below.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0121/If-feds-can-bust-Megaupload-why-bother-with-anti-piracy-bills
Forget democratic protests. Forget the protests of Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and a slew of other sites. The Justice Department managed to get arrest warrants executed in foreign countries, web servers shut down, assets confiscated the very next day after the online community convinced U.S. legislators to back off!
What is that about? Pretty much the same thing as the indefinite detention permitted in recent legislation that Obama signed with a signing statement that he "would not pursue it."
Question. If it is the executive branch's job to enforce the laws, and the President of the United States is the "boss" of the executive branch, how the hell is the Justice Department determining the means of enforcement rather than the Oval Office? Just where is the tail that is wagging the dog and how, tell me how, can that tail be cut off?
You might want to check out the CSM article linked below.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0121/If-feds-can-bust-Megaupload-why-bother-with-anti-piracy-bills
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