MotherSpeak is beginning a new project, "This is who I am, this is where I live." This project will raise and share the voices of indigenous people in the US, Vietnam, South Africa (the Zulu of Valley of a Thousand Hills) and Palestine. And we will look at the land upon which these communities live using the lens of what is happening to the land now and what there is to learn about how to apply lessons of history, ecology, and justice that gives us the tools to reconstitute and/or conserve other natural environments.
We will share the project's progress here and, in that spirit, invite you to learn more about US indigenous people. (If you did not see the Heron's Head article, here it is again.)
Meanwhile, here is an upcoming event in California:
Indians: Vallejo's plans for park desecration. Look for more on this event soon after it happens we'll report on it here!
Meanwhile, meet Ariel Luckey and Free Land, Shellmound Part 1 and Part 2. Hold onto your hat...and your heart! This is an amazing, honest, and emotional performance you do not want to miss.
Calling all sentient beings
MotherSpeak's basic premise is that we -- all sentient beings -- are connected as one living entity on a living planet. This video proves this point - again!
Say What? "...a relatively small leak compared to the volume of water in the Gulf..."
And, as usual Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury has a good way of getting his points across. Take his "statistically meaningless poll" as BP CEO Tony Hayward doesn't seem overly alarmed about the Gulf oil spill, noting "It's a relatively small leak compared to the volume of water in the Gulf." Following his lead, let's shake off the impulse to view the event negatively and look for a silver lining in the inky gloom.
Recognizing the connections: To Baghdad from Palestine to more destruction
...Rarely have a house and a man seemed to intersect so seamlessly. Born in 1919 to a Christian family, Mr. Jabra settled in Baghdad after the 1948 war that his fellow Palestinians call the nakba, or catastrophe.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
More on BP's "responsive" and "responsible" ways...
A few weeks ago I quoted Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard, saying, “BP, from Day 1, has attempted to be a very responsive and very responsible spiller.”
I wrote that it was a matter of time before We, the People discover that we are on the hook for the clean up of this massive Deepwater Horizon "spill" (isn't it more like a deluge?) As the story of this catastrophe unfolds I notice that, along with the lies and finger-pointing associated with this catastrophe there are all sorts of similarities to past spills.
Exxon
Last year, on the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez, Greg Palast reminded us that on the fateful night "Captain Joe Hazelwood...was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disasbled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate."
Palast continues, "The Fable of the Drunken Captain serves the oil industry well. It falsely presents America's greatest environmental disaster as a tale of human frailty, a one-time accident. But broken radar, missing equipment, phantom spill teams, faked tests -- the profit-driven disregard of the law -- made the spill an inevitability, not an accident.
BP
Now we hear another tale of "human frailty", this one the usual sort of corporate power struggle and saving time - that means, saving money.
A critical piece of equipment, an annualer, was damaged several weeks ago and pieces of it started coming out of the well. The annualer is used to seal the well for pressure tests which determine if dangerous gas is seeping. A damaged annualer means the pressure tests do not show accurate data. According to a recent 60 Minutes show, the morning of the explosion there was a very public argument on the rig between the Transocean manager and the BP manager about having subcontractor Halliburton place three concrete plugs in the drilled column. Transocean wanted to do it with 'mud' in the column to keep the pressure contained. The BP manager wanted to do it before the concrete was set as it expedites the subsequent steps.
In other words, it is faster to do it this way.
BP wanted to do it faster...therefore cheaper.... and won the argument. They used the blow-out protector that had the damaged annualer. A couple of hours later the explosion killed 11 people and today, the public doesn't really know how much oil is actually spewing into the Gulf below the surface: BP was reluctant to allow independent researchers to measure amounts of oil under the surface.
By the way, there's talk that BP may be, by law, liable for only $75 million of the harm done by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
Toxic testing grounds
Then there are the experiments that are unique - so far -- to this spill. The British Telegraph reports that Louisiana officials accused BP of turning the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic testing-ground after winning permission for experimental chemical methods of fighting the oil slick...then cutting Governor Bobby Jindal's administration out of deliberations over the use of chemical dispersants.
Alan Levine, the head of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals, said "We don't have any data or evidence behind the use of these chemicals in the water [and we are] basically using one of the richest ecosysystems in the world as a laboratory," complained
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive officer, told WAFB Channel 9 news station that the chemical has undergone "lots of testing" and is biodegradable. "We believe it's a very effective way of containing this spill until such time as we can eliminate the leak," he added.
But Robert Barham, the state's Secretary of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, stated that it has not been used at such depths before - BP's leak stems from a pipe one mile below the surface - and that its potential impact and consequences are unknown. This includes how it travels through the water over time.
"We're very disappointed in their approach," he said of BP and the EPA. "The federal procedures call for a consensus between federal authorities, the responsible party and the states involved. When we met and expressed our concerns, apparently they decided to go without us."
Chevron
Meanwhile, federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in Manhattan recently granted a petition by Chevron to issue a subpoena for hundreds of hours of footage from a documentary about the pollution of the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador and the oil company’s involvement.
Film director Joe Berlinger must turn over more than 600 hours of footage from his documentary “Crude,” released last year, chronicles the Ecuadorians who sued Texaco (now owned by Chevron) saying the operations of the companies’ oil field at Lago Agrio contaminated their water.
Chevron claims Mr. Berlinger’s footage could show improper collaboration in Ecuador’s legal system that could show Chevron as a victim of political influence in that country.
Chevron's lawyer, Randy M. Mastro, said:
Shell
Undaunted, Shell Oil will drill the first-ever large wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort in the Arctic Sea this summer, defying calls for a moratorium on offshore exploration in the pristine wilderness following the Gulf of Mexico disaster. They hope to get at an estimated 27bn barrels of oil and gas.
But, don't worry as Shell chief executive Peter Voser told shareholders that it would only drill there if it thought it could be done "safely and responsibly".
"The characteristics of the offshore fields are different to those in the Gulf of Mexico – we go less deep so there is less pressure," he said. "The world needs these fossil resources in the longer term." Voser said Shell had spent $2bn (£1.38bn) to secure the permits.
Some good news...
A new poll by Pew casts doubt on that idea that the US holds center-right political positions. It shows widespread skepticism about capitalism and hints that support for socialist alternatives is emerging as a majoritarian force in America’s new generation.
Carried out in late April and published May 4, 2010, the Pew poll, arguably by the most respected polling company in the country, asked over 1500 randomly selected Americans to describe their reactions to terms such as “capitalism,” “socialism,” “progressive,” “libertarian” and “militia.” The most striking findings concern “capitalism” and “socialism.” We cannot be sure what people mean by these terms, so the results have to be interpreted cautiously and in the context of more specific attitudes on concrete issues, as discussed later.
Pew summarizes the results in its poll title: “Socialism not so negative; capitalism not so positive.” This turns out to be an understatement of the drama in some of the underlying data.
Yes, “capitalism” is still viewed positively by a majority of Americans. But it is just by a bare majority. Only 52% of all Americans react positively. Thirty-seven percent say they have a negative reaction and the rest aren’t sure
A year ago, a Rasmussen poll found similar reactions. Then, only 53% of Americans described capitalism as “superior” to socialism.
Meanwhile, 29% in the Pew poll describe “socialism” as positive. This positive percent soars much higher when you look at key sub-groups, as discussed shortly. A 2010 Gallup poll found 37% of all Americans preferring socialism as “superior” to capitalism.
Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of Corporation Nation and Greed to Green writes in a recent article "Capitalism: Big Surprises in Recent Polls."
He writes, "If socialism means a search for a genuine systemic alternative, then America, particularly its youth, is emerging as a majoritarian social democracy, or in a majoritarian search for a more cooperativist, green, and more peaceful and socially just order.
Either interpretation is hopeful. It should give progressives assurance that even in the “Age of the Tea Party,” despite great dangers and growing concentrated corporate power and wealth, there is a strong base for progressive politics. We have to mobilize the majority population to recognize its own possibilities and turn up the heat on the Obama Administration and a demoralized Democratic Party. If we fail, the Right will take up the slack and impose its monopoly capitalist will on a reluctant populace.
Hooray! Now let's mobilize!
And listen to this week's radio show, "Oil spills, then and now...."
I wrote that it was a matter of time before We, the People discover that we are on the hook for the clean up of this massive Deepwater Horizon "spill" (isn't it more like a deluge?) As the story of this catastrophe unfolds I notice that, along with the lies and finger-pointing associated with this catastrophe there are all sorts of similarities to past spills.
Exxon
Last year, on the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez, Greg Palast reminded us that on the fateful night "Captain Joe Hazelwood...was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disasbled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate."
Palast continues, "The Fable of the Drunken Captain serves the oil industry well. It falsely presents America's greatest environmental disaster as a tale of human frailty, a one-time accident. But broken radar, missing equipment, phantom spill teams, faked tests -- the profit-driven disregard of the law -- made the spill an inevitability, not an accident.
BP
Now we hear another tale of "human frailty", this one the usual sort of corporate power struggle and saving time - that means, saving money.
A critical piece of equipment, an annualer, was damaged several weeks ago and pieces of it started coming out of the well. The annualer is used to seal the well for pressure tests which determine if dangerous gas is seeping. A damaged annualer means the pressure tests do not show accurate data. According to a recent 60 Minutes show, the morning of the explosion there was a very public argument on the rig between the Transocean manager and the BP manager about having subcontractor Halliburton place three concrete plugs in the drilled column. Transocean wanted to do it with 'mud' in the column to keep the pressure contained. The BP manager wanted to do it before the concrete was set as it expedites the subsequent steps.
In other words, it is faster to do it this way.
BP wanted to do it faster...therefore cheaper.... and won the argument. They used the blow-out protector that had the damaged annualer. A couple of hours later the explosion killed 11 people and today, the public doesn't really know how much oil is actually spewing into the Gulf below the surface: BP was reluctant to allow independent researchers to measure amounts of oil under the surface.
By the way, there's talk that BP may be, by law, liable for only $75 million of the harm done by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
Toxic testing grounds
Then there are the experiments that are unique - so far -- to this spill. The British Telegraph reports that Louisiana officials accused BP of turning the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic testing-ground after winning permission for experimental chemical methods of fighting the oil slick...then cutting Governor Bobby Jindal's administration out of deliberations over the use of chemical dispersants.
Alan Levine, the head of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals, said "We don't have any data or evidence behind the use of these chemicals in the water [and we are] basically using one of the richest ecosysystems in the world as a laboratory," complained
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive officer, told WAFB Channel 9 news station that the chemical has undergone "lots of testing" and is biodegradable. "We believe it's a very effective way of containing this spill until such time as we can eliminate the leak," he added.
But Robert Barham, the state's Secretary of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, stated that it has not been used at such depths before - BP's leak stems from a pipe one mile below the surface - and that its potential impact and consequences are unknown. This includes how it travels through the water over time.
"We're very disappointed in their approach," he said of BP and the EPA. "The federal procedures call for a consensus between federal authorities, the responsible party and the states involved. When we met and expressed our concerns, apparently they decided to go without us."
Chevron
Meanwhile, federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in Manhattan recently granted a petition by Chevron to issue a subpoena for hundreds of hours of footage from a documentary about the pollution of the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador and the oil company’s involvement.
Film director Joe Berlinger must turn over more than 600 hours of footage from his documentary “Crude,” released last year, chronicles the Ecuadorians who sued Texaco (now owned by Chevron) saying the operations of the companies’ oil field at Lago Agrio contaminated their water.
Chevron claims Mr. Berlinger’s footage could show improper collaboration in Ecuador’s legal system that could show Chevron as a victim of political influence in that country.
Chevron's lawyer, Randy M. Mastro, said:
We are very gratified by the judge’s decision...[t]hrough this kind of discovery, we have been exposing corruption, fraud and a travesty of justice going on in Ecuador. This evidence will be critical to determining Ecuador’s violation of international law and its denial of due process and fair treatment to Chevron. [This footage] represented “an extraordinary film record of exactly the kinds of abuses that have tainted the judicial process in Ecuador.”
Shell
Undaunted, Shell Oil will drill the first-ever large wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort in the Arctic Sea this summer, defying calls for a moratorium on offshore exploration in the pristine wilderness following the Gulf of Mexico disaster. They hope to get at an estimated 27bn barrels of oil and gas.
But, don't worry as Shell chief executive Peter Voser told shareholders that it would only drill there if it thought it could be done "safely and responsibly".
"The characteristics of the offshore fields are different to those in the Gulf of Mexico – we go less deep so there is less pressure," he said. "The world needs these fossil resources in the longer term." Voser said Shell had spent $2bn (£1.38bn) to secure the permits.
Some good news...
A new poll by Pew casts doubt on that idea that the US holds center-right political positions. It shows widespread skepticism about capitalism and hints that support for socialist alternatives is emerging as a majoritarian force in America’s new generation.
Carried out in late April and published May 4, 2010, the Pew poll, arguably by the most respected polling company in the country, asked over 1500 randomly selected Americans to describe their reactions to terms such as “capitalism,” “socialism,” “progressive,” “libertarian” and “militia.” The most striking findings concern “capitalism” and “socialism.” We cannot be sure what people mean by these terms, so the results have to be interpreted cautiously and in the context of more specific attitudes on concrete issues, as discussed later.
Pew summarizes the results in its poll title: “Socialism not so negative; capitalism not so positive.” This turns out to be an understatement of the drama in some of the underlying data.
Yes, “capitalism” is still viewed positively by a majority of Americans. But it is just by a bare majority. Only 52% of all Americans react positively. Thirty-seven percent say they have a negative reaction and the rest aren’t sure
A year ago, a Rasmussen poll found similar reactions. Then, only 53% of Americans described capitalism as “superior” to socialism.
Meanwhile, 29% in the Pew poll describe “socialism” as positive. This positive percent soars much higher when you look at key sub-groups, as discussed shortly. A 2010 Gallup poll found 37% of all Americans preferring socialism as “superior” to capitalism.
Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of Corporation Nation and Greed to Green writes in a recent article "Capitalism: Big Surprises in Recent Polls."
He writes, "If socialism means a search for a genuine systemic alternative, then America, particularly its youth, is emerging as a majoritarian social democracy, or in a majoritarian search for a more cooperativist, green, and more peaceful and socially just order.
Either interpretation is hopeful. It should give progressives assurance that even in the “Age of the Tea Party,” despite great dangers and growing concentrated corporate power and wealth, there is a strong base for progressive politics. We have to mobilize the majority population to recognize its own possibilities and turn up the heat on the Obama Administration and a demoralized Democratic Party. If we fail, the Right will take up the slack and impose its monopoly capitalist will on a reluctant populace.
Hooray! Now let's mobilize!
And listen to this week's radio show, "Oil spills, then and now...."
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Next year in Jerusalem? Sixty three years after the Nakba
In the binary view of war or peace it is the cruelest irony that May 14 commemorates Independence Day in Israel while May 15 commemorates the Nakba, or Catastrophe, in Palestine..and on the very same land.
Sixty-three years ago, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from 531 towns and villages. Today, there are an estimated seven million Palestinians still living in 58 registered refugee camps throughout the Middle while millions endure collective punishment in the Occupied Territories.
This, despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states that every person “has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Not only has Israel never accepted this basic human right for Palestinians as a basis for peace negotiations, it has successfully undermined these rights by ignoring them – and convincing the international community to follow suit.
What is changing, although so slowly it must feel inconsequential to those directly affected, is the historical narrative of “a land without a people for a people without a land” that blossomed during and after World War II and still thrives today.
“God is not a real estate agent”
Ziad Abbas, associate director of MECA, grew up in Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. His family and more than twelve hundred others were expelled violently from their village, Zachariah near Jerusalem (now Kfar Zacharia) in October 1948.
Abbas says, “That God gave the empty Promised Land to his Chosen People is a romantic and convenient myth...and inaccurate. God is not a real estate agent.”
Abbas conducted an oral history that shares witness reports from local villages. He talked to the daughter of the woman who, along with three men and a child, were abducted from Zachariah by Zionist militias. The men were executed and the woman and child sent back to the village with a terrible message: they intend to kill us all; we must flee for our lives.
Walid Khalidi, Ilan Pape, and Rosemary Esber are among the sources of this more accurate history that is replacing the binary, cartoon-heroic versions taught in schools and communities around the world. Even Zionist historians agree that the 1948 expulsions – referred to euphemistically as “transfers” by perpetrators – were violent and wide-spread and followed the ethnic cleansing strategy laid out in the Haganah's master Plan Dalet (“D” in Hebrew). The Zionist version of this same history fully embraces the views of Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, et al that cleansing Palestine of ethnic Arabs is a basic requirement for a successful Jewish state. Murder, mayhem, usurpation of land and property, cultural destruction, and banishing Palestinians to refugee camps were fully sanctioned and justified; they continue to this day.
What goes around, comes around
There was nothing organic in how the Jewish state was founded, little that grew out of diverse people working over time toward generative solutions while respecting differences. Rather it was violent rush to fill the spaces left by living, breathing, loving human beings terrified for their lives leaving behind generations of orchards, fields, gardens, and memories.
Anyone with an open mind who actually visits Israel and the Occupied Territories quickly understands that nothing is simple here. Beneath the surface energy of “can-do” Israelis and awed Holy Land pilgrims lies a deeply complex multi-culture...with a highly stratified class system that reflects the country's founding ethos.
Associate professor of cultural anthropology Smadar Lavie grew up in Jaffa as a lower-middle class Arab Jew, or Misragi. A college professor once told her that her mind was “too untamed.” This meant, Lavie says, “I asked too many questions about Zionism – and everything in Israel is filtered through the sieve of Zionism.”
Lavie said in a recent radio interview, that Arab Jews, like her mother from Yemen, and others from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and north Africa, were brought to Israel to swell the numbers of Jews, as place-holders to inhabit the homes and land left by terrified Palestinians, and as workers for Ashkenazim, or European Jews. Considered “dirty Arabs” – upon arrival in Israel they were sprayed with DDT – Misragim children often were taken from parents “for their own good” and put in boarding schools; even babies were taken from mothers and given to childless Ashkenazim.
Dislocated from their native lands and cultural bearings kept Misragim complaint and available to work at menial jobs for minimum wage. Misragim still fill this function in Israel; they are over-represented in lower levels of the military, as grunts, check-point attendants, and as enforcers.
Moreover, Lavie states that, despite the stereotype depicted on television of settlers as “Brooklyn Cowboys”, many Misragim live in the settlements ...and are happy to do so if urban slums are their alternative. The group tends toward right-wing politics and the benefits offered by right-wing politicians, such as airy, affordable homes in disputed areas. Nevertheless, Misragim are, for the most part, politically powerless. “Misragi women,” says Lavie, “try to 'marry up' so as to access higher level careers or society.”
Tragically, what could be an alliance between Palestinians and Misragim, based on shared Arab roots and language, does not happen.
“The hegemony of Ashkenazim includes the intellectual, political, professional, business, and industrial classes. This privileged group is mobile and has access to alternative living arrangements in Europe and the United States if things get too bad in Israel.”
The Misragim, on the other hand, cannot return to their ancestral, predominantly Moslem, lands. In addition, Palestinians do not look to Misragim for a political solution; they look to Ashkenazim even though very few of that elite speak Arabic or mix socially with Palestinians. Furthermore, says Lavie, “the face of day-to-day oppression – at the check points, in military and police vehicles, and so on, is Misragi – or 'Schwartzes' (Blacks) as we are known in Israel.”
The two-state pipe-dream
The two state solution – an Ashkenazi promoted pipe-dream that also holds sway within the US political elite and military-industrial and business classes – has failed. When this becomes clear even to those who can still afford to ignore such “facts on the ground”, Ashkenazim will depart Israel for greener pastures – as they did, for example, after South Africa's apartheid regime crashed.
Nothing is simple in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Will Palestinian history repeat itself, this time for the Misragim pawns in the Zionist grand plan, who will be left to face the consequences of the plunder of the last 63 years?
And read another excellent article on the Nakba by Dina Jadallah
Sixty-three years ago, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from 531 towns and villages. Today, there are an estimated seven million Palestinians still living in 58 registered refugee camps throughout the Middle while millions endure collective punishment in the Occupied Territories.
This, despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states that every person “has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Not only has Israel never accepted this basic human right for Palestinians as a basis for peace negotiations, it has successfully undermined these rights by ignoring them – and convincing the international community to follow suit.
What is changing, although so slowly it must feel inconsequential to those directly affected, is the historical narrative of “a land without a people for a people without a land” that blossomed during and after World War II and still thrives today.
“God is not a real estate agent”
Ziad Abbas, associate director of MECA, grew up in Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. His family and more than twelve hundred others were expelled violently from their village, Zachariah near Jerusalem (now Kfar Zacharia) in October 1948.
Abbas says, “That God gave the empty Promised Land to his Chosen People is a romantic and convenient myth...and inaccurate. God is not a real estate agent.”
Abbas conducted an oral history that shares witness reports from local villages. He talked to the daughter of the woman who, along with three men and a child, were abducted from Zachariah by Zionist militias. The men were executed and the woman and child sent back to the village with a terrible message: they intend to kill us all; we must flee for our lives.
Walid Khalidi, Ilan Pape, and Rosemary Esber are among the sources of this more accurate history that is replacing the binary, cartoon-heroic versions taught in schools and communities around the world. Even Zionist historians agree that the 1948 expulsions – referred to euphemistically as “transfers” by perpetrators – were violent and wide-spread and followed the ethnic cleansing strategy laid out in the Haganah's master Plan Dalet (“D” in Hebrew). The Zionist version of this same history fully embraces the views of Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, et al that cleansing Palestine of ethnic Arabs is a basic requirement for a successful Jewish state. Murder, mayhem, usurpation of land and property, cultural destruction, and banishing Palestinians to refugee camps were fully sanctioned and justified; they continue to this day.
What goes around, comes around
There was nothing organic in how the Jewish state was founded, little that grew out of diverse people working over time toward generative solutions while respecting differences. Rather it was violent rush to fill the spaces left by living, breathing, loving human beings terrified for their lives leaving behind generations of orchards, fields, gardens, and memories.
Anyone with an open mind who actually visits Israel and the Occupied Territories quickly understands that nothing is simple here. Beneath the surface energy of “can-do” Israelis and awed Holy Land pilgrims lies a deeply complex multi-culture...with a highly stratified class system that reflects the country's founding ethos.
Associate professor of cultural anthropology Smadar Lavie grew up in Jaffa as a lower-middle class Arab Jew, or Misragi. A college professor once told her that her mind was “too untamed.” This meant, Lavie says, “I asked too many questions about Zionism – and everything in Israel is filtered through the sieve of Zionism.”
Lavie said in a recent radio interview, that Arab Jews, like her mother from Yemen, and others from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and north Africa, were brought to Israel to swell the numbers of Jews, as place-holders to inhabit the homes and land left by terrified Palestinians, and as workers for Ashkenazim, or European Jews. Considered “dirty Arabs” – upon arrival in Israel they were sprayed with DDT – Misragim children often were taken from parents “for their own good” and put in boarding schools; even babies were taken from mothers and given to childless Ashkenazim.
Dislocated from their native lands and cultural bearings kept Misragim complaint and available to work at menial jobs for minimum wage. Misragim still fill this function in Israel; they are over-represented in lower levels of the military, as grunts, check-point attendants, and as enforcers.
Moreover, Lavie states that, despite the stereotype depicted on television of settlers as “Brooklyn Cowboys”, many Misragim live in the settlements ...and are happy to do so if urban slums are their alternative. The group tends toward right-wing politics and the benefits offered by right-wing politicians, such as airy, affordable homes in disputed areas. Nevertheless, Misragim are, for the most part, politically powerless. “Misragi women,” says Lavie, “try to 'marry up' so as to access higher level careers or society.”
Tragically, what could be an alliance between Palestinians and Misragim, based on shared Arab roots and language, does not happen.
“The hegemony of Ashkenazim includes the intellectual, political, professional, business, and industrial classes. This privileged group is mobile and has access to alternative living arrangements in Europe and the United States if things get too bad in Israel.”
The Misragim, on the other hand, cannot return to their ancestral, predominantly Moslem, lands. In addition, Palestinians do not look to Misragim for a political solution; they look to Ashkenazim even though very few of that elite speak Arabic or mix socially with Palestinians. Furthermore, says Lavie, “the face of day-to-day oppression – at the check points, in military and police vehicles, and so on, is Misragi – or 'Schwartzes' (Blacks) as we are known in Israel.”
The two-state pipe-dream
The two state solution – an Ashkenazi promoted pipe-dream that also holds sway within the US political elite and military-industrial and business classes – has failed. When this becomes clear even to those who can still afford to ignore such “facts on the ground”, Ashkenazim will depart Israel for greener pastures – as they did, for example, after South Africa's apartheid regime crashed.
Nothing is simple in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Will Palestinian history repeat itself, this time for the Misragim pawns in the Zionist grand plan, who will be left to face the consequences of the plunder of the last 63 years?
And read another excellent article on the Nakba by Dina Jadallah
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Ultimate in Online Fraud Scams! (Several Days Worth, plus a pic!)
Everybody loves -- or trusts -- a man in uniform?
Here is the ultimate email scam to seize an opportunity to cash in The War on Terror (that is, for us Little Guys since the Big Guys cashed in years ago or are continuing to cash in). Pretty soon I expect a similar email from Afghan war lords!
First Contact - Day 1
I received a response, plus a photo of "Sgt. Jeff Frawley"... and then another email from a second person. Guess they figure I'm an easy touch.
From Sgt. Jeff Frawley
I don't know whose son this is... or how these scammers got this kid's pic. I figure this is some kind of a hazing episode that is common in the miitary. I will research and see what turns up.
Meanwhile, word it out that there is an easy mark... Here is a follow up from Sgt. Jimmy Roberts
Let's see what comes next...
Here is the ultimate email scam to seize an opportunity to cash in The War on Terror (that is, for us Little Guys since the Big Guys cashed in years ago or are continuing to cash in). Pretty soon I expect a similar email from Afghan war lords!
First Contact - Day 1
Re:FROM: Sgt. Jeff Frawley,Two Days Later
This is Sgt. Jeff Frawley, an American soldier; serving in 1st Armored Division in Iraq, We are lucky to recover some funds belonging to Saddam Hussein’s family. The total amount is US$12 Million dollars in cash, mostly 100 dollar bills, the money has been kept somewhere outside Baghdad for sometime but with the increase troop by the president Barack Obama, we are afraid that the money will be discovered hence we want to move this money to you for save keeping pending the completion of our assignment here.
We are ready to compensate you with good percentage of the funds, No strings attached, just for you to help us move it out of Iraq. Iraq is a war zone, so we plan on using diplomatic means to deliver the money to you, with military cargo, using diplomatic immunity. If you are interested I will send you the full details, my job is to find a good partner who we can trust that can assisting us on this very matter. Can we trust you? When you receive this letter, kindly send me an e-mail signifying your interest.
This is risk free.
With regards from,
Sgt. Jeff Frawley.
I received a response, plus a photo of "Sgt. Jeff Frawley"... and then another email from a second person. Guess they figure I'm an easy touch.
From Sgt. Jeff Frawley
Hello Friend,
Thanks you very much for your honest response to my mail, I found myself in this opportunity and with our position we had no any other option than to give out this blind trust. I believe nothing happen on earth by chance, our destiny are in God’s hand. As much as you will assure us that I and my partners will have our 60% as soon as you receive this fund through diplomatic courier delivery at your door step. I will appreciate if we can confide in you for this business that will profit us both. I want to assure you that this project will not in any way bring any harm to us rather everlasting joy in our fortune lives. Please my dearest friend this fund is all our Hope of securing our financial stability we have to treat everything concerning this transaction with uttermost secrecy to avoid any raise of eyebrow until this money is delivered to you through diplomatic courier delivery. We are going to cover the shipment of the fund (Consignment) out of Iraq legally, you have a little role to play in this project and that is to receive the fund (Consignment) and keep our 60% of the money safe with you pending our arrival to meet you. I want you to keep this project as top secret and very confidential since you understand my position and what is going on in Iraq presently.
We shall take total care of everything involved here to see that the delivery of this consignment is made safely and legally. You will only receive the consignment and keep our share for us pending our arrival to meet you after our mission here in Iraq. Because of trust we have accepted to give you 40% of the fund while I and my colleague share 60 % among us.
You must know that the content of the consignment is well kept as top secret and very confidential. As regards to this, We intend to deposit this consignment with a Diplomatic International Courier Org here in Iraq so that the consignment can depart from Iraq immediately to you, The diplomatic Courier Org will combine the consignment with their Cargo diplomatic vessel direct to you, it must be hand to hand delivery because we must make sure that the consignment is delivered to you in person.
You fully understand our condition here in Iraq and the source of this fund so therefore, you must not let the courier company or the delivery agent know the content of the box because we are not going to disclose the content of the box in case you are been asked you must maintain that the box contains some Family valuables although no body is going to ask you any questions because I'm going to ship the consignment with my real names, you know that we are American soldiers on duty here. The opening numbers will be release to you as soon as you confirm the receipt of the consignments.
Since you did not send us your contacts information, we request that you send it to enable us work on the delivery arrangement of these consignments to you immediately with the diplomatic Courier Org for onward delivery.
1, your full names......................................
2, your office and home address.................
3, direct telephone number.................
If possible your passport or ID card........................
Iraq is a war zone and this money is no longer safe to keep here any longer.
Please you should understand that we are American Soldiers and we are not allowed to any of our personal contents while on duty, what we use here is Military Radio for duty calls and report and what so ever we discussed on Radio is coded to the Monitoring Control Department in United States, So therefore we may not have the chance to call you on phone for security reasons.
We shall keep you posted as soon as we conclude on the delivery arrangement of the consignments with the Diplomatic Courier Org as soon as we receive your contacts information’s.
In case you need anymore clarification, you get back to us immediately. Attached is my Picture for your view.
Best regards,
Sgt. Jeff Frawley
Meanwhile, word it out that there is an easy mark... Here is a follow up from Sgt. Jimmy Roberts
FROM: Sgt. Jimmy Roberts, An American Soldier currently in Iraq.
Important Message,
My name is Sgt. Jimmy Roberts, I am an American soldier, I am serving in the military of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq, as you know we are being attacked by insurgents everyday and car bombs. We managed to move funds belonging to Saddam Hussein's family. The total amount is US$18 Million dollars in cash, mostly 100 dollar bills, this money has been kept somewhere outside Baghdad for sometime but with the proposed troop withdraw by president Barack Obama, we are afraid that the money will be discovered hence we want to move this money to you for safe keeping pending the completion of our assignment here. You can go to this web link to read about events that took place there:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm
We are ready to compensate you with good percentage of the funds, No strings attached, just for you to help us move it out of Iraq, the safety of you and your family is guaranteed. Iraq is a war zone, so we plan on using diplomatic means to shipping the money out as military cargo, using diplomatic immunity. If you are interested I will send you the full details, my job is to find a good partner that we can trust and assist us. Can I trust you?
When you receive this letter, kindly send me an e-mail signifying your interest including your confidential telephone number for quick communication also your contact details will be needed for the shipment.
This is 100% risk free.
With regards from,
Sgt. Jimmy Roberts.
Let's see what comes next...
Friday, May 7, 2010
Fort Point Gang
It was my first time there although the Gang gathers every Thursday. This Thursday -- the closest Thursday to May Day -- was also the annual commemoration of folks who have passed on.
Gang members - about 30 or so - remembered their friends and colleagues as each name was read out loud and a red carnation was either tossed into the waves or threaded into the fence.
The Fort Point Gang originated in 1978 with seven men - Joe Passen, Bill Bailey, Al Richmond, Lou Goldblatt, Frank Jones, Jack Olsen, and Jim Kendall -- all lifelong labor activists, union leaders, and former members of the American Communist Party whose lasting friendships had taken root many years before in San Francisco, a union stronghold. (Purchase the book, "Better Red: The Writing and Resistance of Tillie Olsen and Meridel Le Sueur" for more.) All now have plaques on several wooden benches at the Point to remember them.
After the event, the group went off for lunch.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Mother's Day for Military Moms
(Also published in Truth Out for Mother's Day 2010)
In America, Mother's Day falls on May 9 this year. In Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon it fell on March 21, and in Afghanistan it fell on March 8, where it is also celebrated as the first day of spring. Israel forgoes Mother's Day in favor of Family Day, celebrated on February 14 this year.
I take an interest in these countries because, while my son served in the US Army, I visited them to understand more deeply the effects of war.
Mother's Day has not been the same for me since my son deployed for three tours of duty, one to Afghanistan and two to Iraq. I barely remember those kinder, gentler celebrations when my young kids proudly presented me, under strict order to stay in bed, slightly charred pancakes on a flower-bedecked tray. Now I remember when few Americans could locate Afghanistan on a map yet the prevailing sentiment held that bombing that country was “righteous”...and Colin Powell used flip charts to preach the gospel of Iraqi WMDs...and civil dissent was akin to treason.
My son is out of the Army now, honorably discharged, and moving on with his life. I have stayed in touch with many war-affected families; in the US this I relatively easy to do.
The US
Adele Kubein's family immigrated to the US from Jordan. Her daughter, M'kesha joined the National Guard and deployed to Iraq where she was gravely wounded. After years of military medical treatment, this young woman will get what she has repeatedly asked for: to have her constantly painful leg amputated. She will be able, then, to walk beyond the half block from her home where she lives with her profoundly deaf and disabled son.
M'kesha became a mom despite her base commander orders to abort that new life conceived in Iraq. She refused and is, Adele says, “a caring and attentive mother. My grandson is a beautiful child that we will have to care for the rest of our lives. He may be M'kesha's spiritual path of atoning for the killing she was forced to do as a National Guardswoman in Iraq.
M'kesha writes her way back to the land of living beyond war wounds. A recent poem begins:
Rita Dougherty's son Ryan was an Army lieutenant trained as a nuclear engineer at West Point. He almost died in an attack on a Stryker, the armored vehicle designed to be impregnable to first generation IEDs...but not to the next generation version that pierced through the vehicle's floor, his seat, and his hips and legs. He fought infection in his critically wounded leg for months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center then for years in a Warrior Transition Unit (WTU).
At this point, Ryan is exhausted from dealing with the WTU, recovering from eighteen surgeries so far, and regularly using Methadone to ease his pain. He wants to get on with his life and has been accepted at Harvard in the fall.
Rita supports her son's decision to have his leg amputated. And sometimes the military medical teams agree to do it, and sometimes they do not. Ryan's case worker warns him that a prosthetic limb may not fit him when his is sixty.
Rita says, “I am stunned! What a thing to tell a 27 year old. Who knows what to expect in 30 years? I certainly hope we will be light years then from the sort of care WTUs provide today!”
At twenty-one years old, single mom and Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson was not physically wounded in war. In fact, she never deployed although she fully intended to accompany her unit from Georgia's Hunter Army Airfield to Afghanistan in October 2009. She had followed the directions outlined in the Army's Family Care Plan and her mother was set to care for Hutchinson's month-old boy, Kamani. But a family emergency intervened and Hutchinson's mother was unable to follow through. Specialist Hutchinson asked her commander for an extension of time to find a trusted caregiver for her child. On November 4, her commander refused. On November 6, when she missed her flight to Afghanistan, Army officials took Kamani from his mother, placed him in foster care, arrested Hutchinson, and read her court martial charges: desertion, dereliction of duty, missing movement, failure to obey orders, and insubordination.
Hutchinson found an attorney and their request for discharge in lieu of court martial was granted on February 13, 2010. Today, she and Kamani live together in California; Alexis will enroll in community college this summer.
The Middle East and Afghanistan
It is not easy to stay in touch with Iraqis in Iraq and Syria ...nor Afghans in or out of their country or in refugee camps. Their situation remains dire as their countries' social fabric unravels and war-induced diasporas continue.
On the other hand, while Palestinians lose their homes to Israeli demolition orders and military attack, they are a people determined to remain on their land. This year on Mother's Day in Hebron, Mazin Qumsiyeh's mother went to the eye doctor and, while driving her home, his sister was cited for what Israeli soldiers say was an illegal turn. The fright made his mother burn the dinner and temporarily smoke the family out of their home.
Meanwhile, Qumsiyeh participated in protests and commemorations. He reports that during the 30-hours leading up to and following Mother's Day over 100 Palestinians were injured and four killed: two 19-year-old farmers were shot dead near Nablus for carrying what Israeli soldiers say were “deadly tools” – actually, it was a shovel for digging; two 16-year-old boys, Mohammed and Useid Qadus, died of gun shot wounds in Burin village.
About 300 female Palestinian political prisoners spent Mother's Day behind bars. Fatma Abu Rahima's husband, Adeeb, is one of thousands of male political prisoners. The family was not permitted to visit him. Then again, their 17-year-old daughter, Alaah, could not have walked there. The doctors find nothing physically wrong with her; they suggest her troubles are psychosomatic.
I do not long for the lost innocence of earlier years. If I long for anything, it is that more women heed Julia Ward Howe's call of 1870:
Listen to the radio show: Mother's Day during War
In America, Mother's Day falls on May 9 this year. In Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon it fell on March 21, and in Afghanistan it fell on March 8, where it is also celebrated as the first day of spring. Israel forgoes Mother's Day in favor of Family Day, celebrated on February 14 this year.
I take an interest in these countries because, while my son served in the US Army, I visited them to understand more deeply the effects of war.
Mother's Day has not been the same for me since my son deployed for three tours of duty, one to Afghanistan and two to Iraq. I barely remember those kinder, gentler celebrations when my young kids proudly presented me, under strict order to stay in bed, slightly charred pancakes on a flower-bedecked tray. Now I remember when few Americans could locate Afghanistan on a map yet the prevailing sentiment held that bombing that country was “righteous”...and Colin Powell used flip charts to preach the gospel of Iraqi WMDs...and civil dissent was akin to treason.
My son is out of the Army now, honorably discharged, and moving on with his life. I have stayed in touch with many war-affected families; in the US this I relatively easy to do.
The US
Adele Kubein's family immigrated to the US from Jordan. Her daughter, M'kesha joined the National Guard and deployed to Iraq where she was gravely wounded. After years of military medical treatment, this young woman will get what she has repeatedly asked for: to have her constantly painful leg amputated. She will be able, then, to walk beyond the half block from her home where she lives with her profoundly deaf and disabled son.
M'kesha became a mom despite her base commander orders to abort that new life conceived in Iraq. She refused and is, Adele says, “a caring and attentive mother. My grandson is a beautiful child that we will have to care for the rest of our lives. He may be M'kesha's spiritual path of atoning for the killing she was forced to do as a National Guardswoman in Iraq.
M'kesha writes her way back to the land of living beyond war wounds. A recent poem begins:
“Welcome home soldier,
you're just in time for the recession.”
They hand me
a fist full of medals,
a quilt sewn by some unknown women,
a teddy bear,
in a paper packet.
This is my guide
to becoming a civilian again...
Rita Dougherty's son Ryan was an Army lieutenant trained as a nuclear engineer at West Point. He almost died in an attack on a Stryker, the armored vehicle designed to be impregnable to first generation IEDs...but not to the next generation version that pierced through the vehicle's floor, his seat, and his hips and legs. He fought infection in his critically wounded leg for months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center then for years in a Warrior Transition Unit (WTU).
At this point, Ryan is exhausted from dealing with the WTU, recovering from eighteen surgeries so far, and regularly using Methadone to ease his pain. He wants to get on with his life and has been accepted at Harvard in the fall.
Rita supports her son's decision to have his leg amputated. And sometimes the military medical teams agree to do it, and sometimes they do not. Ryan's case worker warns him that a prosthetic limb may not fit him when his is sixty.
Rita says, “I am stunned! What a thing to tell a 27 year old. Who knows what to expect in 30 years? I certainly hope we will be light years then from the sort of care WTUs provide today!”
At twenty-one years old, single mom and Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson was not physically wounded in war. In fact, she never deployed although she fully intended to accompany her unit from Georgia's Hunter Army Airfield to Afghanistan in October 2009. She had followed the directions outlined in the Army's Family Care Plan and her mother was set to care for Hutchinson's month-old boy, Kamani. But a family emergency intervened and Hutchinson's mother was unable to follow through. Specialist Hutchinson asked her commander for an extension of time to find a trusted caregiver for her child. On November 4, her commander refused. On November 6, when she missed her flight to Afghanistan, Army officials took Kamani from his mother, placed him in foster care, arrested Hutchinson, and read her court martial charges: desertion, dereliction of duty, missing movement, failure to obey orders, and insubordination.
Hutchinson found an attorney and their request for discharge in lieu of court martial was granted on February 13, 2010. Today, she and Kamani live together in California; Alexis will enroll in community college this summer.
The Middle East and Afghanistan
It is not easy to stay in touch with Iraqis in Iraq and Syria ...nor Afghans in or out of their country or in refugee camps. Their situation remains dire as their countries' social fabric unravels and war-induced diasporas continue.
On the other hand, while Palestinians lose their homes to Israeli demolition orders and military attack, they are a people determined to remain on their land. This year on Mother's Day in Hebron, Mazin Qumsiyeh's mother went to the eye doctor and, while driving her home, his sister was cited for what Israeli soldiers say was an illegal turn. The fright made his mother burn the dinner and temporarily smoke the family out of their home.
Meanwhile, Qumsiyeh participated in protests and commemorations. He reports that during the 30-hours leading up to and following Mother's Day over 100 Palestinians were injured and four killed: two 19-year-old farmers were shot dead near Nablus for carrying what Israeli soldiers say were “deadly tools” – actually, it was a shovel for digging; two 16-year-old boys, Mohammed and Useid Qadus, died of gun shot wounds in Burin village.
About 300 female Palestinian political prisoners spent Mother's Day behind bars. Fatma Abu Rahima's husband, Adeeb, is one of thousands of male political prisoners. The family was not permitted to visit him. Then again, their 17-year-old daughter, Alaah, could not have walked there. The doctors find nothing physically wrong with her; they suggest her troubles are psychosomatic.
I do not long for the lost innocence of earlier years. If I long for anything, it is that more women heed Julia Ward Howe's call of 1870:
Arise, all women who have hearts!
...Say firmly:
We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
...From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
Listen to the radio show: Mother's Day during War
Palestinian Agro-Resistance
Today, I share Vivien Sansour's article, "Palestinian Agro-Resistance."
Vivien Sansour is the Producer Relations Manager and Life Style Writer for Canaan Fair Trade. She has appeared on Raising Sand Radio and you can listen to her there.
Abu Adnan does not talk about a global movement to save the earth. He doesn’t know much about Greenpeace or the Kyoto Protocol; but he does know everything about keeping his soil healthy and fertile, and the terraces he builds to protect his soil make his mountainous piece of land a visual paradise.
Read the article >>
Vivien Sansour is the Producer Relations Manager and Life Style Writer for Canaan Fair Trade. She has appeared on Raising Sand Radio and you can listen to her there.
When the last day of your life comes, plant the seedling that’s in your hand. -- Palestinian Proverb
Abu Adnan does not talk about a global movement to save the earth. He doesn’t know much about Greenpeace or the Kyoto Protocol; but he does know everything about keeping his soil healthy and fertile, and the terraces he builds to protect his soil make his mountainous piece of land a visual paradise.
Read the article >>
Friday, April 30, 2010
BP: "...very responsive and responsible spillers"
Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry marshaled the Coast Guard, the federal on-scene coordinator of the massive oil spill in the Gulf Coast, and said, “BP, from Day 1, has attempted to be a very responsive and very responsible spiller.”
A week later and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano calls it “a spill of national significance” and creates command posts in Louisiana and Mobile to manage the impact along Alabama, Mississippi and Florida coastlines.
The US Air Force sends two C-130 planes to Mississippi to await orders to spray chemicals on the spill.
The US Navy marshals more than 1,000 people, scores of vessels and aircraft, plus 50 contractors, 7 skimming systems, and 66,000 feet of inflatable containment boom.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declares a state of emergency and requests the participation of the National Guard.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar orders an immediate review of the 30 offshore drilling rigs and 47 production platforms operating in the deepwater Gulf, and plans to send teams to conduct on-site inspections.
The White House's senior advisor David Axelrod and Good Morning American announce no new offshore drilling until there is an “adequate review...No additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what happened here and whether there was something unique and preventable here.”
BP, meanwhile, markets its business: “Beyond petroleum ...sums up our brand in the most succinct and focused way possible. It’s both what we stand for and a practical description of what we do: take concrete actions to push traditional boundaries and meet the challenges of our time in a sustainable way.”
Don't forget that, amid the spreading disaster and unctuous officials, 11 people are still missing, presumed dead – and that BP said the spill would amount to about 1,000 barrels a day, then upped that amount to 5,000 barrels ( that is, more than 200,000 gallons) a day.
Soon we will learn the spill and its effects are far larger than stated ...then we'll learn the monetary costs of the clean...and it will be accepted that We, the people, will foot the financial and environmental bill.
And, thanks to Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry, BP can add another phrase to their brand message: “we are a very responsive and responsible spiller.”
This picture illustrates one good reason to keep the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole, and the nuke in the juke.
Horizon Deepwater Blowout (Photo: U.S. Coast Guard)
A week later and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano calls it “a spill of national significance” and creates command posts in Louisiana and Mobile to manage the impact along Alabama, Mississippi and Florida coastlines.
The US Air Force sends two C-130 planes to Mississippi to await orders to spray chemicals on the spill.
The US Navy marshals more than 1,000 people, scores of vessels and aircraft, plus 50 contractors, 7 skimming systems, and 66,000 feet of inflatable containment boom.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declares a state of emergency and requests the participation of the National Guard.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar orders an immediate review of the 30 offshore drilling rigs and 47 production platforms operating in the deepwater Gulf, and plans to send teams to conduct on-site inspections.
The White House's senior advisor David Axelrod and Good Morning American announce no new offshore drilling until there is an “adequate review...No additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what happened here and whether there was something unique and preventable here.”
BP, meanwhile, markets its business: “Beyond petroleum ...sums up our brand in the most succinct and focused way possible. It’s both what we stand for and a practical description of what we do: take concrete actions to push traditional boundaries and meet the challenges of our time in a sustainable way.”
Don't forget that, amid the spreading disaster and unctuous officials, 11 people are still missing, presumed dead – and that BP said the spill would amount to about 1,000 barrels a day, then upped that amount to 5,000 barrels ( that is, more than 200,000 gallons) a day.
Soon we will learn the spill and its effects are far larger than stated ...then we'll learn the monetary costs of the clean...and it will be accepted that We, the people, will foot the financial and environmental bill.
And, thanks to Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry, BP can add another phrase to their brand message: “we are a very responsive and responsible spiller.”
This picture illustrates one good reason to keep the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole, and the nuke in the juke.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Welcome to Ohlone Territory - The Second Event of a Four Year Ceremonial Cycle
Few who live in the San Francisco Bay region know that more than 10,000 people from at least nine Ohlone tribes once flourished here. Or that they are applying for tribal recognition. Or that the largest living Ohlone tribe, with 2,000 members, migrated from Mission Dolores in 1834 and now lives in Pomona California. This tribe, the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel, supports a thriving Ohlone cultural life including a song and dance group and weekly sweat lodge healing ceremonies.
Very few public schools teach much, if anything, these days about the history of the bay's original inhabitants nor do they mention that descendants of these people continue to live, go to school, hold down jobs, and celebrate their heritage in many local communities...or why this story is ignored. Truth is, the actual story is one that can't be shared with small children – or the squeamish. It involves murder, mayhem, and massacres; not the sort of thing a “dominant culture” wants to confront full-on.
Welcome to Ohlone Territory was the second event of the four year ceremonial cycle that began April 15 and, along with the grand opening of the 100 percent off-the-grid Eco-Center, included a ceremony for healing the land at Heron's Head Park in the Bay View Hunter's Point district. In the future, site partner, Arc Ecology, will present a series of classes about the Ohlone ecology that shaped the Franciscan habitat for 10,000 years.
The history of this area is rich and complex. It includes a Department of the Navy shipyard that is now a Superfund site slowly being turned over The City for development. California Senate Bill 18 of 2005 stipulates that Ohlone tribal members whose names are listed with the Native American Heritage Commission are to be included in planning development of Hunters Point Shipyard. Yet, when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors amended their General Plan in 2006 to allow for this development no Ohlone representative was contacted. This, despite the draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) stating that there are at least four, and probably five, Ohlone village sites within the development boundaries and another 16 within one-quarter mile.
Ann Marie Sayers is Tribal Chair of Costanoan Indian Canyon and the only Ohlone that has succeeded in obtaining title to her ancestors’ land. She said, “The sites affected by the development are extremely significant and are believed to be burial or ceremonial sites. In addition to protecting these sites, we also want to work with the local community to protect their health, the land and the fragile Bay marine environment.”
For some Ohlone attending the event this is the first time they have ever been on this small piece of land that juts into the bay. It is significant that, when those building the sweat lodge prepared to dig the earth to make the pit and to use that earth as an alter the groundsman was reluctant. He suggested the layer of clay with which the Navy capped its toxic contaminants may be breached. That the pit is six inches deep says much about how land has been remediated here...and how little protection there is for the health of humans and other creatures when development beckons. Although the Ohlone builders choose to go ahead with the sweat lodge, this incident encapsulates Ohlone concern: the fragmentation of our Earth, the contamination of what remains, and how to restore balance to the land and it's First People.
Thursday, April 15
The first night of the event begins with fire, fresh air, sea water, and a small group of people descended from those assumed by popular culture to have disappeared long ago.
Daniel and Russel, both Rumsen, drove together to Heron's Head from Santa Cruz. Sixteen minutes before sundown Daniel stopped his van at the entrance to the park. He laughed ruefully through the window and told co-organizer Neil Maclean waiting at the gate, “We made it! I wasn't sure we would when we were stuck in traffic an hour ago. ”
Their van is packed to the gills with gear for the next three days. Right now, though, it is sundown and Daniel must hurry to light the fire that will burn continuously until Sunday.
Later, a small group sits around the fire on the spit that is the last remaining mud flat on the San Francisco side of the bay. Daniel faces each of the four directions as he sings and his voice and those of his companions accompany the beat of his drum then swirl with the wind into the dark. Across the narrow estuary of Lash Lighter Basin, seagull chatter almost drowns out the hum of fork lifts in The City's successful Pier 94 recycling center.
It is appropriate that such elements come together in this way on this first night: a piece of land with spectacular views reclaimed for the local community from the Navy, a recycling center that diverts useable consumer goods from waste dumps, a solar generated Eco-Center, and people fired up for another, more natural, more inclusive way of being.
Daniel tells the Rumsen Ohlone creation story:
An Ohlone man sits on the beach and watches the tide rise. All day long he'd had the feeling that something was different about this day, that something big was going to happen. An object floated toward him and he suspected this might be it. When it was close enough, he saw a feather and reached for it. He fell back as a huge eagle, symbol of his people, rose out of the water, spread its wings, and towered over him. Then the eagle handed him a small hummingbird and told him to take it as his wife. Dumbfounded,the man asked, “How can I take such a small creature as a wife?”
The eagle said, “Find a flea or a tick on your body and give it to the hummingbird to eat.”
The man did so and, when the hummingbird ate, she turned into a beautiful woman whom he took as his wife. Their children began the Rumsen tribe.
A wise woman once said, “Our new world is already germinating in the shell of the old. When the dying shell falls away, we will see fresh green shoots....”
What she did not say was that seeds are passed down from the very old world too...What if indigenous renewal is the harbinger of new directions rooted in ancient traditions?
Friday April 17
After dinner a group gathers near the fire within which bake, since sundown yesterday, twenty four lava rocks about the size of cantaloupes. They will glisten red hot when they are removed and placed in the sweat lodge pit.
Willow saplings, bent and shaped into a half circle, form the sweat lodge; the circle completes under the earth. Three layers of heavy cloth lie over the wood frame and are held down with rocks at the base. Heavy fabric covers the entry way.
Upon the altar rests a package of tobacco, sage, two antlers to maneuver the hot rocks in the lodge, and a bear skull.
There is a symmetry to the alignment here: the lodge entrance, the pit, the altar, the fire, and the open space beyond face east. This sacred area is restricted to the fire-keeper and ceremony leaders. Anyone who needs to traverse the area must do so in a clock-wise fashion, no one but the fire keeper can cross the sacred zone between the altar and the fire, the view to the east space must remain open.
Tony Cerda, the Rumsen chief, welcomes the group, conducts the sweat lodge ceremony and leads the praise singing then each participant says a few words, throws tobacco into the flames, and passes, clockwise, around the fire.
This is not a stilted or authoritarian ceremony; an easy camaraderie flows within the rituals, no one grandstands. A large fluffy dog and his owner walk along the spit and the dog bounds into the ssacred area; it is welcome as a spirit visitor.
More people arrive after dinner. Iron Woman – her name is melodic in her native tongue – talks about her evolution toward the Sun Dance... and her participation in 16 of these grueling events that include
fasting, dancing, singing and drumming, and experiencing visions; often the dances culminate in hanging from skin pierced on the dancer's chest. Other Sun Dances join in sharing memories of their experiences. Steve recites his epic poem about Sun Dancing that includes the line, “if I did not dance I would be in jail or dead by now.” Overcome with Steve's words, Iron Woman sobs. Then she talks about being a mother watching her son dance: “it is difficult for us mothers to see our sons and know what they are going through.”
Steve invites those who will enter the sweat lodge to prepare. Tony leads the prayer and sings. Before participants enter the lodge each is smudged with sage – back and front, and under feet – then she or he bends and crawls into the dark dome.
Two men rake a stone out of the fire, dust ash from it so that it does not contaminate the air within the lodge, and pass it to Steve inside who maneuvers it with antlers into the pit. With six stones placed, a splash of water over the rocks creates steam and the entry way is closed. Voices murmur within followed by singing.
...Other Voices
Michael and Cynthia drove here from Los Angeles. Michael is Rumsen Ohlone, Cynthia is from a Plains Indian tribe. Michael says, “Cynthia is my “wing man” which means she helps me when things get tough. I learn from Tony too, especially about patience. Yesterday, for example, we were supposed to practice drumming for this event. But one man arrived at our home high and drunk. He fell in the bathroom and threw up there; it was a mess. Children were watching this and I was so angry I wanted to throw him out. Instead, Tony talked very gently with this man and showed him so much compassion that I calmed down too. Now I feel I can manage my anger and experience it differently.”
Cynthia explains Michael's wing man reference. “The bear and eagle team up in the Bear Dance that replicates the bear awakening from hibernation in the spring or preparing for hibernation in the fall. The eagle, or wing man, uses its wing to clear dark or negative energy that the bear may accumulate during the dance. The eagle lightly brushes the bear with its wing then flies that energy away and releases it back to the mineral world.”
Henry is sixteen, the youngest of a family of four children; his father died when Henry was ten. The young man gives the impression that he is too shy to talk but he opens up readily when approached. He learned from fasting and a vision quest that he is a bear and, tomorrow night, he will participate in the Bear Dance. AJ is about the same age as Henry and, as an eagle, will be Henry's wing man during the dance. Tonight AJ is the fire-keeper and ensures the fire burns well and hot. Later, when AJ joins the group in the sweat lodge another young man takes over the fire-keeper's duties.
David is Anglo and learns from Native Americans and others about how to honor our Earth. He describes the sequence of ceremonial events in a manner peculiar to his culture – as a linear process with set, measurable steps – yet corrects himself now and again with a brief nod to cultural difference: “Each group honors Mother Earth slightly differently... I'm not sure how this group will conduct its ceremonies...let's see how things develop....”
Saturday April 17
The mood around the fire in the late afternoon is easy. After the ceremonial circle to welcome guests breaks up, Tony shares a joke.
A snail describes to a judge a collision he witnessed between two tortoises. “I could see the two tortoises were on a collision course as they came down the path. They couldn't see one another but I could see a head-on in the making...”
The judge asks, “And what happened?”
The snail replies, “I don't know. It happened too fast!”
As more people arrive and cluster around the lodge, the earlier small group intimacy gives way to an air of anticipation: the evening's community sweat followed by the dancers'-only sweat, singing, Acorn and Bear Dancing; after the dance the bears will sweat once more before the lodge is dismantled.
The dancing takes place in a location some distance from the sweat lodge and delineated by a circle of trimmed grass edged with four flags. Burning logs carried in a brazier from the lodge fire wait in the center of the circle while the dancers prepare. Observes and supporters stand in a circle chanting to the beat of a slow drum while paint is applied to the dancers: black and white streaks on back and chest, arms, chin, and cheeks.
Then a line of singing dancers enters the dance arena at the eastern entryway and spirals around the fire. After several Acorn Dances honoring the tribe's women, Tony invites everyone to join the dance and Steve describes the moves. The circle expands to include all participants then shrinks and grows, shrinks and grows as it weaves in and out and upon itself.
Meanwhile, beyond the dance zone, two Bears prepare: a stretch of a foreleg here, the tying of a ribbon there to ensure the bear head does not move during the dance, a shared joke followed by low laughter.
Then the Acorn Dance is over and four men takes turns around the fire to prepare the space for the bears: each presents a prayer and a handful of sage into the fire. Finally, groaning and roaring, the bears shuffle in and circle to the beat of the drum. Dim firelight plays over fur, deep black, brown, and gold.
Here we are, in the dark, on a spit of reclaimed land around which birds call and a cool wind penetrates jackets while damp ground works its way through boots and shoes. Out there, on the hillside that is Bay View Hunter's Point, behind the defunct power station put out of business by local community pressure, occasional gunshots ring out and echo over the inlets. The bears dance on and on...
Sunday April 18
The lodge is gone. The circle of cantaloupe stones, cold now, stacks in the exposed fire pit. An empty turquoise pack of tobacco lies on the altar in front of the once proud fire. Wind from the east wafts smoke into the faces of those on the western arc of the circle of people around the dying fire that has not been fed since last night's final sweat ceremony. Each person in turn says a few words of thanks; some simply say, “To my ancestors.” One woman expresses her feelings of deep pride and gratefulness that so many young people participate in these ceremonies: “This truly honors our ancestors and gives hope for our Ohlone future.”
The circle breaks. Someone says, “Show time, dancers!”
Those who will perform the public dance at the grand opening of Eco-Center – they already wear ceremonial dress – slowly walk to that venue. Those who remain pack their gear, chat quietly, or say their goodbyes.
Soon the area is empty of people. What remains are a series of circles: green grass defines the area covered by the sweat lodge, brown grass surrounds it, trampled down by the days' activities; the circular pit with a pyramid of stones; the empty altar in front of the fire, another circle created by celebrants walking, clockwise, around it. The open space beyond is clear and sunny. Birds wheel overhead or forage at the shore.
EcoCenter opens
A long line of visitors waits to tour the interior of EcoCenter, learn about the water use and storage system – only rainwater collected into huge metal tanks is used here – and climb the temporary ladder up to the roof to view the native plant sod roof and admire the view.
Tony Cerda leads a series of Acorn Dances for the public opening of the EcoCenter. Participants and observers that attended last night's Bear Dance might feel exposed in the bright morning sunshine. At the same time, the subtle nuances of the dances can't be missed as are in the enveloping dark. One dancer twitches his feathers as he backs into the circle then swings around to face the center, the angle of another dancer's head and shoulders, so birdlike, brings tears to the eyes. There is gusto and verve to the dances even as some young women dancers project an air of shyness, perhaps even reluctance.
Chief Tony Cerda ends the session with a loud call to recognize this tradition: “When someone tells you that there are no Ohlone left, you tell them not only do they live but that you saw then dance here today!”
Portland Depaves... more GMO .... poetry in Basra
In Portland, hundreds of Oregonians removed pavement and plan to replace it with urban farms, trees, and native vegetation.
Sign the Letter to Keep GMO out of Food - Food Democracy Now
May 3 is another hurdle in keeping GMO our of food. We face the latest assault on our food, or at least on our ability to know what is in our food, and look at how food standards are decided.
Poets Jack Hirschman and Agnetta Falk recently returned from Basra, Iraq where they met and mingled with Iraqi poets and poets from all over the world...all there to share in the creative world of poetry.
Links
Listen to Raising Sand Radio show.... (high bandwidth version - takes a while to download...or cut/paste this link for a low bandwidth version - downloads faster....)
Sign the Letter to Keep GMO out of Food - Food Democracy Now
May 3 is another hurdle in keeping GMO our of food. We face the latest assault on our food, or at least on our ability to know what is in our food, and look at how food standards are decided.
Poets Jack Hirschman and Agnetta Falk recently returned from Basra, Iraq where they met and mingled with Iraqi poets and poets from all over the world...all there to share in the creative world of poetry.
Links
Listen to Raising Sand Radio show.... (high bandwidth version - takes a while to download...or cut/paste this link for a low bandwidth version - downloads faster....)
The Green Mayor has Toxic Sludge on his Hands
Gavin Newsom's reputation as “the green mayor” is going down the drain, contaminated by the toxic sludge on his hands.
With Mayor Newsom's blessing, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission distributed 80 tons of “organic biosolid compost” to city residents, community gardens, and the Parks and Recreation Department in 2007.
On May 17, 2008 it conducted its third Great Compost Giveaway – “5 gallons for every green thumb!” – claiming that “all food scraps, garden clippings, and soiled paper that residents have been piling into green bins had been transformed into rich, soil-enhancing compost that is perfect for landscapes and containers.” One trusting resident commenting on the Giveaway's website writes, “I made out like a bandit last year! Garden looks great because of it. When is this year's Great Compost Giveaway?”
Problem is, this substance is not organic! Moreover, the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) regulations strictly forbid the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer or soil amendment, no matter if composted or otherwise treated.
John Stauber is author of Toxic Sludge is Good for You and an advisory board member to Organic Consumers Association (OCA). He says, “In the mind of the public “organic” represents the highest standard of integrity, purity, and healthfulness.”
But the EPA's January 2009 “Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey” found San Francisco's sludge contains heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, PCBs, flame retardants, and endocrine disruptors.
Stauber adds, “That the sewage industry and the SFPUC misuses the word “organic” destroys ordinary peoples' trust and credibility. It is the same sort of public relations spin that hoodwinks farmers around the country.”
While writing his book, Stauber heard from a worried Water Environment Federation spokeswoman. “We don't call it sludge anymore,” she said. “What's more, it is no longer toxic. It is now a natural organic compost we call 'biosolids'. We work with the EPA and major public relations firms to give biosolids away free to farmers. Your book title will scare them.”
Indeed, the sewage sludge industry had held a contest in the early 1990s to rename sewage sludge; the term “organic biosolid compost” won and has been used ever since. Had the SFPUC called this substance what it is, treated sewage, no one would show up for even a sniff-test. “SFPUC engaged in fraudulent deception and OCA is fighting to ensure “organic” cannot be used this way.”
In 2009 the Center for Food Safety and the Resource Institute for Low Entropy Systems (RILES) petitioned Gavin Newsom, in his official capacity as mayor, and Ed Harrington, in his official capacity as SFPUC general manager, to suspend the Giveaway program.
Nevertheless, Newsom and notables like restauranteur Alice Waters went along with PUC spokesman Tony Winnicker's statement that, “San Francisco's biosolids compost is safe, tested, and great for plants [and is] tested for metals and other contaminants and meets or exceeds all standards.”
Mayor Newsom went further and claimed the substance is safe and healthy...and that he'd be happy to eat food grown in it. Does this mean his PlumpJack business associates use it for their products?
Unfortunately, the mayor's intractability undermines other successful green programs he supports, including Recology's city-wide paper, plastic, glass, and food scraps recycling programs.
On March 4, 2010 OCA's bay area organizer John Mayer rallied a grass roots action against the mayor and the SFPUC charging they were purposefully duping residents. Mayer says, “San Francisco's “organic biosolid compost” is about one third sewage sludge and two thirds wood chips.”
That same day SFPUC announced they were temporarily suspending the Giveaway. They emphasized that is was not because the OCA team, dressed in haz mat-suits, dumped a load on the steps of City Hall and made national and international headlines.
There is a silver lining to the black cloud over sludge-stained Mayor Newsom: a recognition that public organizations and mayors crying “green” doesn't make them green...or that wishing away toxic realities makes them disapper. Stauber says, “There is little, if any, attention when farm animals die from this stuff. But there is national and international attention when the green mayor of San Francisco is caught fooling urban gardeners and foisting toxics on them.”
John Mayer and OCA concur and support any gardener who wants SFPUC and The City to clean up their gardens. Mayer says, “This is a pretty cut and dry case where people took the stuff because it was said to be organic; it is not organic and they've admitted it is not organic. The PUC must take it back.”
Trust betrayed
“Ordinary people,” says Stauber, “tend to think of sewage treatment plants as magical places where water from industrial, residential, and medical toxins is treated so people can re-use it. It is true that sewage plants remove as many pathogens as they can: about 50 percents of it. They give the remaining mounds of sewage sludge that is too toxic to incinerate, landfill, or dump in the ocean to farmers – free! – to spread on America's fruited plains.
Sludge reaches right in to the White House too. After the Obama's moved in, Michelle Obama had the White House garden soils tested; they revealed elevated levels of lead. Previous administration had used sewage sludge there.
Once this substance – containing thousands of hazardous synthetic chemicals from medications to sprays used upon fruit and vegetables – is dumped in any garden it is not easy to remove.
Extrapolate what went on in San Francisco and at the White House and to thousands of unsuspecting farmers around the country...recognize that only about one percent of our Earth is fertile enough to produce crops capable of feeding the world's population...then consider the far-reaching implications.
Moreover, Stauber says that the majority of progressive environmental groups operating back in the 1990s were so focused on preventing sludge from being dumped into the ocean and were so enthusiastic about cleaning up our water that “they took a dive on this issue and allowed the EPA to spread it on land. Most national environmental groups are still not involved in the fight to stop spreading “organic biosolid compost” on farmland.”
They are not the only ones fooled. Stauber says, “A lot of my friends in the environmental community have drunk the biosolid kool-aid and say, “Gee this is just nutrient recycling.” But this is not just human manure – or “Humanure” as we call it – this is toxic sludge from industrial, medical, residential, and other waste.”
Solutions to Pollutions?
John Stauber concludes that the entire sewage process as now constituted is archaic. “We cannot afford to contaminate our clean water with our waste and send it to plants that pull out the toxics then spread it on our farmlands. We already spend hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars moving this stuff around instead of, for example, separating humanure from the truly toxic stuff and safely composting what we can. We will spend hundreds of billions more dollars to figure this out... and we had better start sooner rather than later.
Despite the cliché, everything is connected. Humans are smart enough to look at the big picture and integrate generative solutions. We can no longer pretend these problems don't exist...or think we will solve them with more bigger, better, brighter technology... or export our waste to other countries. Ordinary Americans can – must insist upon the opportunity – to confront our mistakes directly...and our elected officials must deal honestly with residents who are ready, willing, and able to collaborate.
In San Francisco a first step toward healing the credibility gap between local government and residents is for the mayor and the PUC to take back their not-so-free Giveaways.
Listen to the radio show with Organic Consumer Association John Mayer and John Stauber.
With Mayor Newsom's blessing, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission distributed 80 tons of “organic biosolid compost” to city residents, community gardens, and the Parks and Recreation Department in 2007.
On May 17, 2008 it conducted its third Great Compost Giveaway – “5 gallons for every green thumb!” – claiming that “all food scraps, garden clippings, and soiled paper that residents have been piling into green bins had been transformed into rich, soil-enhancing compost that is perfect for landscapes and containers.” One trusting resident commenting on the Giveaway's website writes, “I made out like a bandit last year! Garden looks great because of it. When is this year's Great Compost Giveaway?”
Problem is, this substance is not organic! Moreover, the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) regulations strictly forbid the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer or soil amendment, no matter if composted or otherwise treated.
John Stauber is author of Toxic Sludge is Good for You and an advisory board member to Organic Consumers Association (OCA). He says, “In the mind of the public “organic” represents the highest standard of integrity, purity, and healthfulness.”
But the EPA's January 2009 “Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey” found San Francisco's sludge contains heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, PCBs, flame retardants, and endocrine disruptors.
Stauber adds, “That the sewage industry and the SFPUC misuses the word “organic” destroys ordinary peoples' trust and credibility. It is the same sort of public relations spin that hoodwinks farmers around the country.”
While writing his book, Stauber heard from a worried Water Environment Federation spokeswoman. “We don't call it sludge anymore,” she said. “What's more, it is no longer toxic. It is now a natural organic compost we call 'biosolids'. We work with the EPA and major public relations firms to give biosolids away free to farmers. Your book title will scare them.”
Indeed, the sewage sludge industry had held a contest in the early 1990s to rename sewage sludge; the term “organic biosolid compost” won and has been used ever since. Had the SFPUC called this substance what it is, treated sewage, no one would show up for even a sniff-test. “SFPUC engaged in fraudulent deception and OCA is fighting to ensure “organic” cannot be used this way.”
In 2009 the Center for Food Safety and the Resource Institute for Low Entropy Systems (RILES) petitioned Gavin Newsom, in his official capacity as mayor, and Ed Harrington, in his official capacity as SFPUC general manager, to suspend the Giveaway program.
Nevertheless, Newsom and notables like restauranteur Alice Waters went along with PUC spokesman Tony Winnicker's statement that, “San Francisco's biosolids compost is safe, tested, and great for plants [and is] tested for metals and other contaminants and meets or exceeds all standards.”
Mayor Newsom went further and claimed the substance is safe and healthy...and that he'd be happy to eat food grown in it. Does this mean his PlumpJack business associates use it for their products?
Unfortunately, the mayor's intractability undermines other successful green programs he supports, including Recology's city-wide paper, plastic, glass, and food scraps recycling programs.
On March 4, 2010 OCA's bay area organizer John Mayer rallied a grass roots action against the mayor and the SFPUC charging they were purposefully duping residents. Mayer says, “San Francisco's “organic biosolid compost” is about one third sewage sludge and two thirds wood chips.”
That same day SFPUC announced they were temporarily suspending the Giveaway. They emphasized that is was not because the OCA team, dressed in haz mat-suits, dumped a load on the steps of City Hall and made national and international headlines.
There is a silver lining to the black cloud over sludge-stained Mayor Newsom: a recognition that public organizations and mayors crying “green” doesn't make them green...or that wishing away toxic realities makes them disapper. Stauber says, “There is little, if any, attention when farm animals die from this stuff. But there is national and international attention when the green mayor of San Francisco is caught fooling urban gardeners and foisting toxics on them.”
John Mayer and OCA concur and support any gardener who wants SFPUC and The City to clean up their gardens. Mayer says, “This is a pretty cut and dry case where people took the stuff because it was said to be organic; it is not organic and they've admitted it is not organic. The PUC must take it back.”
Trust betrayed
“Ordinary people,” says Stauber, “tend to think of sewage treatment plants as magical places where water from industrial, residential, and medical toxins is treated so people can re-use it. It is true that sewage plants remove as many pathogens as they can: about 50 percents of it. They give the remaining mounds of sewage sludge that is too toxic to incinerate, landfill, or dump in the ocean to farmers – free! – to spread on America's fruited plains.
Sludge reaches right in to the White House too. After the Obama's moved in, Michelle Obama had the White House garden soils tested; they revealed elevated levels of lead. Previous administration had used sewage sludge there.
Once this substance – containing thousands of hazardous synthetic chemicals from medications to sprays used upon fruit and vegetables – is dumped in any garden it is not easy to remove.
Extrapolate what went on in San Francisco and at the White House and to thousands of unsuspecting farmers around the country...recognize that only about one percent of our Earth is fertile enough to produce crops capable of feeding the world's population...then consider the far-reaching implications.
Moreover, Stauber says that the majority of progressive environmental groups operating back in the 1990s were so focused on preventing sludge from being dumped into the ocean and were so enthusiastic about cleaning up our water that “they took a dive on this issue and allowed the EPA to spread it on land. Most national environmental groups are still not involved in the fight to stop spreading “organic biosolid compost” on farmland.”
They are not the only ones fooled. Stauber says, “A lot of my friends in the environmental community have drunk the biosolid kool-aid and say, “Gee this is just nutrient recycling.” But this is not just human manure – or “Humanure” as we call it – this is toxic sludge from industrial, medical, residential, and other waste.”
Solutions to Pollutions?
John Stauber concludes that the entire sewage process as now constituted is archaic. “We cannot afford to contaminate our clean water with our waste and send it to plants that pull out the toxics then spread it on our farmlands. We already spend hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars moving this stuff around instead of, for example, separating humanure from the truly toxic stuff and safely composting what we can. We will spend hundreds of billions more dollars to figure this out... and we had better start sooner rather than later.
Despite the cliché, everything is connected. Humans are smart enough to look at the big picture and integrate generative solutions. We can no longer pretend these problems don't exist...or think we will solve them with more bigger, better, brighter technology... or export our waste to other countries. Ordinary Americans can – must insist upon the opportunity – to confront our mistakes directly...and our elected officials must deal honestly with residents who are ready, willing, and able to collaborate.
In San Francisco a first step toward healing the credibility gap between local government and residents is for the mayor and the PUC to take back their not-so-free Giveaways.
Listen to the radio show with Organic Consumer Association John Mayer and John Stauber.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Compost: the highest tech method to preserve our planet and our health
Wrote this article to accompany this week's radio show. Listen to the show.
Mayor Gavin Newsome passed a mandatory source separation ordinance in June 2009, that requires residents and businesses to separate organics and recyclables from their garbage. It came into effect in October and is the first of its kind in the U.S. Six months later, more than 300 cities and universities across the US are replicating this program and collecting food scraps and taking them to modern composting facilities.
Robert Reed, Public Relations Manager for Recology which is contracted to haul the waste says this “essentially makes sure that no matter where you go in San Francisco, you’ll have opportunities to recycle and compost through the city’s curbside programs.”
As an added inducement, this city is the only one in the country where collection trucks give passersby a view into the truck. Or, at least, the 3-D artwork decorating the trucks give the impression of transparency. “This program, Recycling Changes Everything, encourages people to pause...and look at their garbage. And when they do that,” says Reed, “they see paper, metal, glass, and food scraps, that is, a mixture of resources that should be reused, recycled and composted.”
More than 225,000 households, 4,000 businesses, and about 46 percent of San Francisco’s 8,500 apartment buildings participate. The collections go to Recology's Jepson Prairie Organics in Vacaville, north of San Francisco, where over a period of 60 days they're turned into compost. What's more, this compost comes in custom blends, made with recipes that add different amendments for specific uses and locations.
Reed agrees city dwellers sometimes must learn to overcome the “yuck factor”, that initial reluctance to handle what was heretofore thrown away. “Something as simple as an apple core doesn't simply disappear, it goes somewhere else. We suggest people take a more responsible attitude to that apple core and other waste. It is really a fork-in-the-road moment: toss it away and it goes to a landfill – where it'll produce methane gas; or put it into a compost cart where it can end up doing wonderful things to the soil for 200 vineyards in five different counties.”
Soil scientist, viticulturist, ecologist, and agronomist Bob Shaffer uses San Francisco compost in his daily life and in his work consulting with viticulturists in California's Napa and Sonoma counties. He explains, “Compost is organic matter and water that's been mixed up in a proper ratio that makes bacteria and fungi happy so that they consume organic matter. This produces heat, a little CO2, a little water vapor, and humus, the same humus that is in the soil. Humus holds an enormous amount of water. But it is fragile. It is always being created or destroyed; some of it is two thousand years old and some of it is two days old.”
Shaffer mentions that, in the classic book published in 1936, Soils and Men, the USDA and fifty reputable soil scientists announced that from 1900 until 1936 our nation had lost much soil fertility by not returning organic matter to the soil. They warned, “This is nothing short of an emergency.” They pleaded with cities around the country to recycle food scraps back to farms, stating that it was imperative that we take advantage of this rich resource. Since that time we have lost vast amounts of humus in our farming soils.
Today, a growing number of farms using compost made from food scraps produce better quality food at a lower cost. Only there are not enough such farms. Moreover, Schaffer says, “Even though I love farming it is hard on the environment. The word “care” is particular to how we need to farm now. Good farmers understand how to care for the land and how to care for animals. I travel a lot and I notice that the big farms are difficult to manage and to care for in a way that produces food that is capable of producing human health.”
Humus is still a mystery to science. Shaffer says, “As a forty-year long composter and farmer I recognize that of all the creatures on the earth, only bacteria and fungi can make humus – that mystical substance that also holds water. I can only make the conditions under which I know bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and protozoa can make humus for me.”
According to Shaffer, this is a point the chemical fertilizer manufacturers miss. Back in the early days, he says, “Honest men in these companies were simply trying to concentrate the weight to enable shipping the materials. Synthetic triple grade fertilizers were not intended to be used at thousands of pounds per acre as they are used today, or to be used as a primary input. Advertising and marketing told the farmer that this was all he needed. So he stopped making cover crops, he stopped making compost.”
Cover crops are those plants with long roots that heal soil. Beneath the visible plant above the ground the roots take photosynthate and exude about half of that sugar to the soil around its roots to provide nutrients to the bacteria and fungi. These in turn provide available minerals and other materials to the plant as well as prevent disease. Plus, the cycle of living and dying roots maintains humus.
In a recent radio interview Shaffer admitted, “I love compost. But I can put down compost for a lifetime and if I don't grow a diversity of plants along with cover crops, compost won't work right.”
According to Shaffer, “Compost is nothing short of the highest tech, cutting edge method to preserve our soils, preserve our ability to raise food and to feed ourselves, and to preserve our health in current science. There is nothing that comes close to the necessity for us to learn more about compost as quickly as possible and to apply this technology. Yet we only know a certain amount about humus. It is the enigma in soil. It does not have a regular chemical formula. It is made of colloids, materials so small that we can barely examine them. All the top scientists working in the field agree that it is a highest priority to figure this out given the reality of our current world. We humans do well to remember that only about one percent of the earth actually is rich enough to farm productively.”
Chateau Montelena vineyard uses compost made from food scraps collected from San Francisco restaurants and city homes. The mustard plants in the tract in the foreground did not receive compost. The lush tract in the background did receive compost. (Photo by Larry Strong, courtesy of Recology.)
Mayor Gavin Newsome passed a mandatory source separation ordinance in June 2009, that requires residents and businesses to separate organics and recyclables from their garbage. It came into effect in October and is the first of its kind in the U.S. Six months later, more than 300 cities and universities across the US are replicating this program and collecting food scraps and taking them to modern composting facilities.
Robert Reed, Public Relations Manager for Recology which is contracted to haul the waste says this “essentially makes sure that no matter where you go in San Francisco, you’ll have opportunities to recycle and compost through the city’s curbside programs.”
As an added inducement, this city is the only one in the country where collection trucks give passersby a view into the truck. Or, at least, the 3-D artwork decorating the trucks give the impression of transparency. “This program, Recycling Changes Everything, encourages people to pause...and look at their garbage. And when they do that,” says Reed, “they see paper, metal, glass, and food scraps, that is, a mixture of resources that should be reused, recycled and composted.”
More than 225,000 households, 4,000 businesses, and about 46 percent of San Francisco’s 8,500 apartment buildings participate. The collections go to Recology's Jepson Prairie Organics in Vacaville, north of San Francisco, where over a period of 60 days they're turned into compost. What's more, this compost comes in custom blends, made with recipes that add different amendments for specific uses and locations.
Reed agrees city dwellers sometimes must learn to overcome the “yuck factor”, that initial reluctance to handle what was heretofore thrown away. “Something as simple as an apple core doesn't simply disappear, it goes somewhere else. We suggest people take a more responsible attitude to that apple core and other waste. It is really a fork-in-the-road moment: toss it away and it goes to a landfill – where it'll produce methane gas; or put it into a compost cart where it can end up doing wonderful things to the soil for 200 vineyards in five different counties.”
Vineyards in Northern California apply compost made from food scraps to grow cover crops such as mustard and beans. Cover crops such as mustard stimulate microbial activity and help turn farms into carbon sinks. (Photo by Larry Strong, courtesy of Recology.)
Soil scientist, viticulturist, ecologist, and agronomist Bob Shaffer uses San Francisco compost in his daily life and in his work consulting with viticulturists in California's Napa and Sonoma counties. He explains, “Compost is organic matter and water that's been mixed up in a proper ratio that makes bacteria and fungi happy so that they consume organic matter. This produces heat, a little CO2, a little water vapor, and humus, the same humus that is in the soil. Humus holds an enormous amount of water. But it is fragile. It is always being created or destroyed; some of it is two thousand years old and some of it is two days old.”
Shaffer mentions that, in the classic book published in 1936, Soils and Men, the USDA and fifty reputable soil scientists announced that from 1900 until 1936 our nation had lost much soil fertility by not returning organic matter to the soil. They warned, “This is nothing short of an emergency.” They pleaded with cities around the country to recycle food scraps back to farms, stating that it was imperative that we take advantage of this rich resource. Since that time we have lost vast amounts of humus in our farming soils.
Today, a growing number of farms using compost made from food scraps produce better quality food at a lower cost. Only there are not enough such farms. Moreover, Schaffer says, “Even though I love farming it is hard on the environment. The word “care” is particular to how we need to farm now. Good farmers understand how to care for the land and how to care for animals. I travel a lot and I notice that the big farms are difficult to manage and to care for in a way that produces food that is capable of producing human health.”
Humus is still a mystery to science. Shaffer says, “As a forty-year long composter and farmer I recognize that of all the creatures on the earth, only bacteria and fungi can make humus – that mystical substance that also holds water. I can only make the conditions under which I know bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and protozoa can make humus for me.”
According to Shaffer, this is a point the chemical fertilizer manufacturers miss. Back in the early days, he says, “Honest men in these companies were simply trying to concentrate the weight to enable shipping the materials. Synthetic triple grade fertilizers were not intended to be used at thousands of pounds per acre as they are used today, or to be used as a primary input. Advertising and marketing told the farmer that this was all he needed. So he stopped making cover crops, he stopped making compost.”
Cover crops are those plants with long roots that heal soil. Beneath the visible plant above the ground the roots take photosynthate and exude about half of that sugar to the soil around its roots to provide nutrients to the bacteria and fungi. These in turn provide available minerals and other materials to the plant as well as prevent disease. Plus, the cycle of living and dying roots maintains humus.
Bob Shaffer displays mustard's long roots that provide nutrients to bacteria and fungi. (Photo by Larry Strong, courtesy of Recology.)
In a recent radio interview Shaffer admitted, “I love compost. But I can put down compost for a lifetime and if I don't grow a diversity of plants along with cover crops, compost won't work right.”
According to Shaffer, “Compost is nothing short of the highest tech, cutting edge method to preserve our soils, preserve our ability to raise food and to feed ourselves, and to preserve our health in current science. There is nothing that comes close to the necessity for us to learn more about compost as quickly as possible and to apply this technology. Yet we only know a certain amount about humus. It is the enigma in soil. It does not have a regular chemical formula. It is made of colloids, materials so small that we can barely examine them. All the top scientists working in the field agree that it is a highest priority to figure this out given the reality of our current world. We humans do well to remember that only about one percent of the earth actually is rich enough to farm productively.”
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Signs of the times
Two signs that echo a frightening meta-message: The human community has groups of people that exist simply to service the needs of other groups of people.
In northern Italy: a warning to motorists to look out for prostitutes.
“I saw this sign and had to slow down to get a proper look,” said resident Dino Vezino, 34.
“Does it mean I have to look out for prostitutes crossing or that they are available around here?” Read more >>
In southern California: a warning that drivers might encounter people frantically darting across lanes of traffic to evade border security. Read more >>
Apparently, we (those of us fortunate enough not to be in these situations) are fine enough with this state of affairs that we accommodate it.
Or is it just me being over-finicky and "idealistic"?
A far ranging solution would be to address the underlying causes of prostitution and "illegal" immigration.
Perhaps human communities and systems that addressed the trade in young women...and addressed why families must leave their homes and seek work elsewhere...
This solution might also surface why the current financial meltdown... and paint a picture that helps ordinary people stand up and against blatant greed.
In northern Italy: a warning to motorists to look out for prostitutes.
“I saw this sign and had to slow down to get a proper look,” said resident Dino Vezino, 34.
“Does it mean I have to look out for prostitutes crossing or that they are available around here?” Read more >>
In southern California: a warning that drivers might encounter people frantically darting across lanes of traffic to evade border security. Read more >>
Apparently, we (those of us fortunate enough not to be in these situations) are fine enough with this state of affairs that we accommodate it.
Or is it just me being over-finicky and "idealistic"?
A far ranging solution would be to address the underlying causes of prostitution and "illegal" immigration.
Perhaps human communities and systems that addressed the trade in young women...and addressed why families must leave their homes and seek work elsewhere...
This solution might also surface why the current financial meltdown... and paint a picture that helps ordinary people stand up and against blatant greed.
World Bank Loan update
Today, April 8, the World Bank will decide on the loan to South Africa's Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom). It is a big day as it determines the direction South Africa takes for the next 30 years or so.
We'll keep updating on this story. Meanwhile, here are the voices of Prof. Patrick Bond and activist Desmond D'Sa:
World Bank coal loan to South Africa? No thanks!
We'll keep updating on this story. Meanwhile, here are the voices of Prof. Patrick Bond and activist Desmond D'Sa:
World Bank coal loan to South Africa? No thanks!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
MotherSpeak Structure
This blog is part of the MotherSpeak "hub". The nodes are:
MotherSpeak - the center of it all is fiscally sponsored by Peace Development Fund. You are invited to make a donation any time and you will receive your IRS donor credit from PDF.
This blog derives from the book, Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror. (Buy it and help a sister out! or donate $50 to MotherSpeak and receive the book as a premium and an IRS tax credit!.)
The author, Susan Galleymore, is founder of MotherSpeak, creator of the nodes, and host of the weekly radio show, Raising Sand Radio, under MotherSpeak Media...
and the Cato Ridge Environmental Coalition which is one node of MotherSpeak's environmental arm (think of this as Mother Nature's arm of MotherSpeak) Other nodes include keeping tabs on the Restoration and Rehabilitation of the Superfund site formerly Naval Air Station, Alameda, California, learning about and educating on composting, developing green and sustainable communities, and keeping tabs on unsustainable fossil fuel developments.
For those more oriented towards pictures:
MotherSpeak - the center of it all is fiscally sponsored by Peace Development Fund. You are invited to make a donation any time and you will receive your IRS donor credit from PDF.
This blog derives from the book, Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak about War and Terror. (Buy it and help a sister out! or donate $50 to MotherSpeak and receive the book as a premium and an IRS tax credit!.)
The author, Susan Galleymore, is founder of MotherSpeak, creator of the nodes, and host of the weekly radio show, Raising Sand Radio, under MotherSpeak Media...
and the Cato Ridge Environmental Coalition which is one node of MotherSpeak's environmental arm (think of this as Mother Nature's arm of MotherSpeak) Other nodes include keeping tabs on the Restoration and Rehabilitation of the Superfund site formerly Naval Air Station, Alameda, California, learning about and educating on composting, developing green and sustainable communities, and keeping tabs on unsustainable fossil fuel developments.
For those more oriented towards pictures:
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Holy Crude! Is it true?
Shell Oil apologizes for messing up the environment:
Watch and listen
In a parallel but more equitable universe this could be true. Alas, not in this one but the idea behind the hoax is good. Perked me up for a moment or two!
Thanks to the creators!
Watch and listen
In a parallel but more equitable universe this could be true. Alas, not in this one but the idea behind the hoax is good. Perked me up for a moment or two!
Thanks to the creators!
The World Bank and the Four Horsemen of Climate Change: Apocalypse Now?
Read my article below, ...then tell U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to ensure the U.S. votes against any World Bank loans for dirty coal.
World Bank and the Four Horsemen of Climate Change: Apocalypse Now?
Senator John Kerry described President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma as “the four horsemen of climate change.” It is, Kerry said, “a powerful signal to see [them] agree on a meeting of the minds.”
As the World Bank prepares to vote April 8 on a $3.75 billion dollar loan to South Africa's parastatal Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom) Kerry's language evokes a powerful vision: the apocalypse of business-as-usual disguised as “clean coal.”
Rocks of ages
The World Bank is positioned better than most to know the true, externalized costs of coal fired energy. Indeed, in 2007 the Bank acquiesced to China's request to excise mortality information from its report, “Cost of Pollution in China”: about 350,000 to 400,000 people die prematurely each year from high air-pollution levels; 300,000 die from exposure to poor air indoors; another 60,000 deaths are attributed to poor water quality.
As a geologist and engineer by profession climate change horseman Premier Wen knows that coal fires have burned for centuries along China's 5000 kilometers mining belt. They contribute up to three percent of annual global carbon emissions, about 360 million metric tons, as much as all the cars and trucks in the US.
China's government intends to extinguish fires to meet its own target of 20 percent reduction of carbon emission over three years. But it takes from months to years to put out one fire. Then, small private mining companies working under cover of dark often fail to replace the soil after extracting coal; spontaneous combustion occurs at 80 degrees Celsius. Yet China seems intent to cut greenhouse gas emissions by putting out fires rather than introduce energy saving measures.
Climate change horseman President Zuma's South African government inherited the decades old coalfield fires at Witbank (renamed Emalahleni).
Two years ago, unemployed mother Thandi Mthlango and her young son scavenged for coal to heat their home on land pocked with subsidence from underground fires and acid mine drainage. He was in a trench when it collapsed and crushed him to death.
There is no one to blame; even assigning responsibility is tough as former owners of Emalahleni's seven abandoned mines are long gone; apparently they cannot be traced.
A German consultancy estimated that it would cost at least R1 billion to rehabilitate the area, way beyond the funding capacity of the city council as it mulls relocating squatters crowded on the toxic land. But where? Town planner Eric Parker says the region is “sterilized”. In the video report UnderMined, he laughs ruefully and says he sees one bright spot: local cattle are acclimated. “But, if you bring a new cow from somewhere else, it dies. We have a super breed of resistant cows!”
Climate change horseman Prime Minister Singh's Ministry of Coal controls Coal India Limited (CIL), the world's largest coal mine. But, in November or December 2010 financial investors anywhere could own a piece when CIL presents an initial public offering (IPO). It intends to invest the proceeds of US $1 billion to $1.5 billion in joint ventures in Australia, Indonesia, US, and South Africa. Chairman Bhattacharya told Economic Times, “Our focus is to invest our funds in acquiring assets that deliver energy to our country...in a viable manner.” This includes relocating 400,000 people from mining town Jharia who suffer breathing disorders, skin disease, and compromised health from the fumes emitted by fires.
Singh's government has been criticized for its attitude. But, India's coal is worth US$12 billion and relocating the poor is cheaper than implementing environmental controls.
The unaffordable luxury of clean earth
South Africa's finance minister Pravin Gordhan knows the externalized costs of coal fired energy and believes they are unavoidable. He wrote recently in a Washington Post op ed:
If there were any other way to meet our power needs as quickly or as affordably as our present circumstances demand, or on the required scale, we would obviously prefer technologies -- wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear -- that leave little or no carbon footprint. But we do not have that luxury if we are to meet our obligations.
South Africa has one of the planet's most energy-intensive economies and Eskom plans a five year, $50 billion dollar expansion to increase capacity. Its Kendal plant is already the largest coal-fired power station in the world. If approved, over $3 billion of the Bank loan will go toward constructing 4800 MW Medupi, the first so-called super-critical clean coal plant in Africa and the fourth largest coal-fired power plant in the world that, as advertised, will use “some of the most efficient, lowest-emission coal-fired technology available.”
Analyst Patrick Bond says Eskom’s bid for the loan comes “at a time of intense controversy surrounding Eskom’s mismanagement. In its last annual reporting period, the company lost R9.7 billion, mainly due to miscalculations associated with hedging aluminium prices and the South African currency. Both the chair and chief executive officer lost their jobs late last year amidst unprecedented acrimony.” Moreover, “Eskom's continuation of inexpensive prices to several large export-oriented metals or mining multinational corporations, headquartered abroad, and offering the world's cheapest electricity, [is] heavily subsidised by all other – mainly poor – users in South Africa.”
He refers to Nersa, National Energy Regulator of South Africa, recently tapping ordinary South Africans for power rate increases of 25 percent for each of the next three years.
Gordhan assures the public that the “rest of the loan, $745 million, will be invested in wind and concentrated solar power projects, each generating 100 megawatts, and in various efficiency improvements.” He avoids the government's 2003 White Paper that states that by 2013 four percent of electricity – 4700 MW based on Eskom's projected electricity consumption – must come from renewable energy. Eskom's three year plan – unveiled after Nersa's country-wide community meetings in January – states that only 400 MW will come from such sources.
Gordhan concedes the loan “faces stiff opposition.” Civil society around the world reminds him that Medupi adds an estimated 25 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year to Eskom’s 40 percent share of South Africa’s overall total greenhouse gas emissions. There is also the real possibility that, if South Africa's currency crashes again – as it has five times since 1996 – repayment in US dollars is more expensive than in South African rands.
The South African government can afford the luxury of R8.4 billion to construct five new stadia and refurbish five others for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. There are further, yet undisclosed, costs to improve public transport, implement special safety measures for tourists' security, and “beautify” (by hiding or removing tens of thousands of shack dwellers). Why can't it afford to clean up environmental degradation that results from generating electricity?
The US is the largest World Bank funder. Send a powerful signal to climate change horseman Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to intervene. Then buckle up for a wild ride along the unexplored path of real energy sustainability. In the long run it affords more security than tripping down the World Bank's yellow brick road of business as usual.
World Bank and the Four Horsemen of Climate Change: Apocalypse Now?
Senator John Kerry described President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma as “the four horsemen of climate change.” It is, Kerry said, “a powerful signal to see [them] agree on a meeting of the minds.”
As the World Bank prepares to vote April 8 on a $3.75 billion dollar loan to South Africa's parastatal Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom) Kerry's language evokes a powerful vision: the apocalypse of business-as-usual disguised as “clean coal.”
Rocks of ages
The World Bank is positioned better than most to know the true, externalized costs of coal fired energy. Indeed, in 2007 the Bank acquiesced to China's request to excise mortality information from its report, “Cost of Pollution in China”: about 350,000 to 400,000 people die prematurely each year from high air-pollution levels; 300,000 die from exposure to poor air indoors; another 60,000 deaths are attributed to poor water quality.
As a geologist and engineer by profession climate change horseman Premier Wen knows that coal fires have burned for centuries along China's 5000 kilometers mining belt. They contribute up to three percent of annual global carbon emissions, about 360 million metric tons, as much as all the cars and trucks in the US.
China's government intends to extinguish fires to meet its own target of 20 percent reduction of carbon emission over three years. But it takes from months to years to put out one fire. Then, small private mining companies working under cover of dark often fail to replace the soil after extracting coal; spontaneous combustion occurs at 80 degrees Celsius. Yet China seems intent to cut greenhouse gas emissions by putting out fires rather than introduce energy saving measures.
Climate change horseman President Zuma's South African government inherited the decades old coalfield fires at Witbank (renamed Emalahleni).
Two years ago, unemployed mother Thandi Mthlango and her young son scavenged for coal to heat their home on land pocked with subsidence from underground fires and acid mine drainage. He was in a trench when it collapsed and crushed him to death.
There is no one to blame; even assigning responsibility is tough as former owners of Emalahleni's seven abandoned mines are long gone; apparently they cannot be traced.
A German consultancy estimated that it would cost at least R1 billion to rehabilitate the area, way beyond the funding capacity of the city council as it mulls relocating squatters crowded on the toxic land. But where? Town planner Eric Parker says the region is “sterilized”. In the video report UnderMined, he laughs ruefully and says he sees one bright spot: local cattle are acclimated. “But, if you bring a new cow from somewhere else, it dies. We have a super breed of resistant cows!”
Climate change horseman Prime Minister Singh's Ministry of Coal controls Coal India Limited (CIL), the world's largest coal mine. But, in November or December 2010 financial investors anywhere could own a piece when CIL presents an initial public offering (IPO). It intends to invest the proceeds of US $1 billion to $1.5 billion in joint ventures in Australia, Indonesia, US, and South Africa. Chairman Bhattacharya told Economic Times, “Our focus is to invest our funds in acquiring assets that deliver energy to our country...in a viable manner.” This includes relocating 400,000 people from mining town Jharia who suffer breathing disorders, skin disease, and compromised health from the fumes emitted by fires.
Singh's government has been criticized for its attitude. But, India's coal is worth US$12 billion and relocating the poor is cheaper than implementing environmental controls.
The unaffordable luxury of clean earth
South Africa's finance minister Pravin Gordhan knows the externalized costs of coal fired energy and believes they are unavoidable. He wrote recently in a Washington Post op ed:
If there were any other way to meet our power needs as quickly or as affordably as our present circumstances demand, or on the required scale, we would obviously prefer technologies -- wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear -- that leave little or no carbon footprint. But we do not have that luxury if we are to meet our obligations.
South Africa has one of the planet's most energy-intensive economies and Eskom plans a five year, $50 billion dollar expansion to increase capacity. Its Kendal plant is already the largest coal-fired power station in the world. If approved, over $3 billion of the Bank loan will go toward constructing 4800 MW Medupi, the first so-called super-critical clean coal plant in Africa and the fourth largest coal-fired power plant in the world that, as advertised, will use “some of the most efficient, lowest-emission coal-fired technology available.”
Analyst Patrick Bond says Eskom’s bid for the loan comes “at a time of intense controversy surrounding Eskom’s mismanagement. In its last annual reporting period, the company lost R9.7 billion, mainly due to miscalculations associated with hedging aluminium prices and the South African currency. Both the chair and chief executive officer lost their jobs late last year amidst unprecedented acrimony.” Moreover, “Eskom's continuation of inexpensive prices to several large export-oriented metals or mining multinational corporations, headquartered abroad, and offering the world's cheapest electricity, [is] heavily subsidised by all other – mainly poor – users in South Africa.”
He refers to Nersa, National Energy Regulator of South Africa, recently tapping ordinary South Africans for power rate increases of 25 percent for each of the next three years.
Gordhan assures the public that the “rest of the loan, $745 million, will be invested in wind and concentrated solar power projects, each generating 100 megawatts, and in various efficiency improvements.” He avoids the government's 2003 White Paper that states that by 2013 four percent of electricity – 4700 MW based on Eskom's projected electricity consumption – must come from renewable energy. Eskom's three year plan – unveiled after Nersa's country-wide community meetings in January – states that only 400 MW will come from such sources.
Gordhan concedes the loan “faces stiff opposition.” Civil society around the world reminds him that Medupi adds an estimated 25 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year to Eskom’s 40 percent share of South Africa’s overall total greenhouse gas emissions. There is also the real possibility that, if South Africa's currency crashes again – as it has five times since 1996 – repayment in US dollars is more expensive than in South African rands.
The South African government can afford the luxury of R8.4 billion to construct five new stadia and refurbish five others for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. There are further, yet undisclosed, costs to improve public transport, implement special safety measures for tourists' security, and “beautify” (by hiding or removing tens of thousands of shack dwellers). Why can't it afford to clean up environmental degradation that results from generating electricity?
The US is the largest World Bank funder. Send a powerful signal to climate change horseman Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to intervene. Then buckle up for a wild ride along the unexplored path of real energy sustainability. In the long run it affords more security than tripping down the World Bank's yellow brick road of business as usual.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Goodbye Guinea Fowl, Hello Truck Stop
This week I learned that the land I grew up on will be a truck stop as of mid-February 2010. Each day after that up to 32 trucks with trailers, those eighteen wheelers that terrify motorists as they race along the N3, will drive over the land where once stood our horse stables, pigsties, and my grandfather's cow shed. Soon I will wonder if it is true that I once played barefoot here and watched the penny stinker grasshoppers leap, the shongalolos curl into spirals, and the snake swallow the frog. Alas, these memories, taken for granted back then, have not been passed on....
This time next month the unique veld grass that only grows on this plateau, in this part of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, in this section of KwaZulu Natal, will be replaced by tar and macadam and encircled by a high brick wall. The thorn- and corral trees will be gone, chopped down, roots dug up, and hauled to a waste dump to rot slowly among discarded papers and toys, food scraps, and plastic bottles.
I worry about the weaver and Hoopoe birds and the flock of four adult guinea fowl with two new chicks that live in the scrub and bush among the razor wire under the electric fence that, until this week, separated Thor Chemical from our land.
It is not as if this was a pristine environment. For decades, Assmang – called Ferralloys during my youth – belched smoke most days and flared most nights on the western horizon. Despite the black dust that cakes our buildings that facility is as familiar and as annoying as an old relative puffing a pipe on the back porch.
It was a shock when Thor Chemical arose on what was also once my grandfather's land...and a further shock when it contaminated the region with toxic waste. Then, three years ago and despite “the process” required when a new facility is built – the EIAs, meetings to gather input from Interested and Affected Parties, and local residents' outcry against the facility – Chlor Chem chlorine manufacturing plant went up across the road where my grandfather grazed and dipped his small herd of Jerseys.
Melvin, a nice enough man who owns the truck stop, represents the much vaunted South African entrepreneur. He must be relieved that, somehow, his trucking business was not subject to “the process.” And, if it was, it flew so low under the radar that we – right next door living lives that eschew the entrepreneurial spirit that digs into, dumps upon, fills, burns, and sucks dry the land – knew nothing about his truck stop's imminent arrival. Melvin dreams, not of shongalolos, penny stinkers, and guinea fowl but of his 32 trucks speeding along the nation's roads. He worries, not about flora and fauna, but that his cargo – perhaps plastic bottles filled with syrupy liquid, or reams of paper from many pulp and paper mills, or kids' toys imported from China – arrive on time and on budget at Makro, Super Spar, Click's and Game.
Truth is, my grandfather could have been Melvin. He, too, was an entrepreneur, out to make a buck, feed his family, and leave something by which to remember him. He believed in owning land and he bought as much as he could afford from someone who'd bought and sold it from someone else, all the way back to the English king's land grant to George Cato. Back then wild creatures abounded: Duiker and other buck, leopard, civets, lynx, snakes, chameleons, fowl, frogs, thousands of species of birds, beetles, mantis, grass hoppers, spiders, ants.... My grandfather dug up a portion of the land, conveyed it into a rock crusher, graded it according to the formula of his day, and sold it to spec housing developers.
Indeed, entrepreneurs like my grandfather and Melvin – decades apart in how they conduct business – are the global norm and follow the multi-generational mindset to dig, build, trade, promote, and bequeath plots of land despite the loss of indigenous flora and fauna.
It just so happened that King Shaka's tactics in this region had left the area underpopulated at the time the English king's land grant displaced indigenous communities. Nevertheless, as I walk around to photograph the last of the thorn and corral trees, stroke the veldt grasses, and warn the guinea fowl to find safer ground, my heavy heart reminds me that I share these feelings of loss, and anger, and impotence, and sadness, and fear – with millions of others who have seen their histories disappear under the mindset that admires tar and macadam, brick and block, smoke and smog. I haven't seen a wild Duiker for years while chameleon and mantis, sensitive to environmental pollution, disappeared long ago.
This is how people the world over lose that which few of us recognize as the only human heritage worth working to maintain: our natural environment. As they say, lives ends not with a bang but a whimper.
This time next month the unique veld grass that only grows on this plateau, in this part of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, in this section of KwaZulu Natal, will be replaced by tar and macadam and encircled by a high brick wall. The thorn- and corral trees will be gone, chopped down, roots dug up, and hauled to a waste dump to rot slowly among discarded papers and toys, food scraps, and plastic bottles.
I worry about the weaver and Hoopoe birds and the flock of four adult guinea fowl with two new chicks that live in the scrub and bush among the razor wire under the electric fence that, until this week, separated Thor Chemical from our land.
It is not as if this was a pristine environment. For decades, Assmang – called Ferralloys during my youth – belched smoke most days and flared most nights on the western horizon. Despite the black dust that cakes our buildings that facility is as familiar and as annoying as an old relative puffing a pipe on the back porch.
It was a shock when Thor Chemical arose on what was also once my grandfather's land...and a further shock when it contaminated the region with toxic waste. Then, three years ago and despite “the process” required when a new facility is built – the EIAs, meetings to gather input from Interested and Affected Parties, and local residents' outcry against the facility – Chlor Chem chlorine manufacturing plant went up across the road where my grandfather grazed and dipped his small herd of Jerseys.
Melvin, a nice enough man who owns the truck stop, represents the much vaunted South African entrepreneur. He must be relieved that, somehow, his trucking business was not subject to “the process.” And, if it was, it flew so low under the radar that we – right next door living lives that eschew the entrepreneurial spirit that digs into, dumps upon, fills, burns, and sucks dry the land – knew nothing about his truck stop's imminent arrival. Melvin dreams, not of shongalolos, penny stinkers, and guinea fowl but of his 32 trucks speeding along the nation's roads. He worries, not about flora and fauna, but that his cargo – perhaps plastic bottles filled with syrupy liquid, or reams of paper from many pulp and paper mills, or kids' toys imported from China – arrive on time and on budget at Makro, Super Spar, Click's and Game.
Truth is, my grandfather could have been Melvin. He, too, was an entrepreneur, out to make a buck, feed his family, and leave something by which to remember him. He believed in owning land and he bought as much as he could afford from someone who'd bought and sold it from someone else, all the way back to the English king's land grant to George Cato. Back then wild creatures abounded: Duiker and other buck, leopard, civets, lynx, snakes, chameleons, fowl, frogs, thousands of species of birds, beetles, mantis, grass hoppers, spiders, ants.... My grandfather dug up a portion of the land, conveyed it into a rock crusher, graded it according to the formula of his day, and sold it to spec housing developers.
Indeed, entrepreneurs like my grandfather and Melvin – decades apart in how they conduct business – are the global norm and follow the multi-generational mindset to dig, build, trade, promote, and bequeath plots of land despite the loss of indigenous flora and fauna.
It just so happened that King Shaka's tactics in this region had left the area underpopulated at the time the English king's land grant displaced indigenous communities. Nevertheless, as I walk around to photograph the last of the thorn and corral trees, stroke the veldt grasses, and warn the guinea fowl to find safer ground, my heavy heart reminds me that I share these feelings of loss, and anger, and impotence, and sadness, and fear – with millions of others who have seen their histories disappear under the mindset that admires tar and macadam, brick and block, smoke and smog. I haven't seen a wild Duiker for years while chameleon and mantis, sensitive to environmental pollution, disappeared long ago.
This is how people the world over lose that which few of us recognize as the only human heritage worth working to maintain: our natural environment. As they say, lives ends not with a bang but a whimper.
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