Sligo fast, Sligo slow

Yep, 'tis Sligo at Infinion Raceway, captured on film as I try to speed away from the voices inside my head, heart and soul that scream in unison, "if you really do care for the environment as much as you insist you do, why the hell are you doing THIS?!?"


It's a problem, this duality thing. I proudly hug trees, monitor the yearly West Coast migration of raptors (August through December, I'll certainly have some things to say then), try and walk the line as best I can when it comes to reducing my carbon footprint (way to go, BP, for that campaign, too bad about that federal inquiry though, ya' damn petrol company). I have said previously that I understand the need to balance industry and commerce with healthy living and environmental pro-activity (whew!), and there's nothing I can do to rationalize why I'll get on the racetrack, so I'm ready for a bit of admonishment from any of you holier-than-Sligo. Don't get crazy though...

I've had the fortune and misfortune to have driven in 49 states and 6 countries, right-hand drive and left, and made a couple of weeks worth of (high speed) trips on the autobahn, and, damn it, I know a few things about driving. This holiday weekend is going to be heavy with traffic, as is any good ol' American holiday, and the roads shall host many a driver who has, let's say, less than what he or she should have in the way of long distance driving savvy. Therefore, with this forum as my soapbox (talk about a mix of metaphorsimileanalogy), and based upon my not quite four decades of driving experiences, I shall attempt a three-part missive on driving: this introductional overview, tomorrow's list of helpful hints -- here's a preview: get your under-the-speed-limit-ass out of the left lane, and for the love of god hang up the phone and drive -- then we'll take a break Sunday and do a Sunday kind of post, and resume with a much more serious post about cars, speed, advertising and death beginning next week. Yep, death...it is cars, afterall.

It's not really a big deal to tell complete strangers how to drive; hell, most of us do it every time we get behind the wheel. And, bless my father, he shared a statistic with me that someone passed on to him, to wit: 70% of the people are stupid. This number is easily used to describe any typical gaggle of highway drivers, and perhaps should be adjusted up, for all sorts of reasons. Frankly, many people just don't give a shit that they're a shitty driver, and some even drive poorly just to piss the rest of us all off. Again, many of us experience these drivers on a daily basis, and talk about them with great vigor and/or vile, whether we have someone in the car to listen to us or not. I live in an area where the highway speed limit is 65 mph, a fine highway speed for many reasons, but the highway itself is mostly four-lanes, two north and two south, and has been for decades, even as the surrounding communities have expanded rapidly. I don't want to bring in some of part two's post here, so I'll break this off with this: a pox on you who's universe is so small that your only pleasure is to assume the juvenile role of lane monitor on my and my readership's roads. Asshole.

But I digress...

I don't want to go to far into on-record-universe, but I will say that when I do pass someone, or manuever my way around or past them, it is almost always to GET AWAY FROM THEM, because they're dangerous, either because they want to be dangerous or they don't know how not to be (again, part two, and part three). There are many of us in this part of the country who take driving very seriously, not in a "my car can beat your car" way, but in a "I've seen what the lack of concentration, a bad assumption, or a poorly executed lane change can do to families and friends, and I know I'll see more before I die, but I don't want to die today, and neither should you" kind of way. It may take a little talent, some knowledge and a lot of experience to be a professional driver, but it only takes some effort, knowledge and awareness to be a good driver. I've seen really smart people become idiots behind the wheel, and I've seen firsthand the damage that idiots can do with a ton of metal, where the accelerated mass overcame the friction resistance of the rubber on asphalt, whereupon all hell broke loose, and lives were changed forever.

Well, how's that for wishing everyone a happy holiday. I do wish everyone a safe and happy July 4th, and tomorrow I'll try to put you on the road with some helpful hints, tips and other insights, then, having done that, I shall fortify myself with adult libations and stay on my deck, grill and food within arm's length, for most of the weekend.

Be safe.

Things we need to know

Over the last year or so, several prominent news pubs, including Time, Newsweek, several newspapers and CNN all ran major stories about the seas and the effects of over fishing, and about the steady rise in aquaculture, known more widely as fish farming. The reports were all solid, very important and had that "this is really serious, right now" sense of urgency and a close-to-runaway train feel.

Any presentation to the masses (the masses that read, at least, or watch at least one news program) that promotes and explains the values of science, environment and the global connection of, well, everything (again, I refer everyone to the "Nothing Disappears" principle) is a good thing...even if the biggies mentioned at the top of this post were LATE in getting said presentation out there to the masss audience. Two guys, and their associates, had spent the last six years documenting both the overfishing and aquaculture situations, and they did it so well that last year they beat out March of the Penguins for best documentary at Hollywood's most important enviro awards ceremony. Now, the Penguins may have marched to the tune of seventy, eighty million bucks at the box office, and I'm not suggesting that it wasn't a fine, fine film, I'm just saying that you need to know about the work of Habitat Media, their award-winning documentaries Empty Oceans, Empty Nets and Farming the Seas, and the guys who made the documentaries, Steve Cowan and Barry Schienberg.

People who make documentaries certainly don't do it for the money. They like money, and most of them certainly wish they had money, and they're definitely not trying to avoid making money. They just have this drive, this focus, to share something with people who are interested in a particular subject, or who could be interested in it if they knew about it. If they knew about it. PBS aired Steve & Barry's documentaries, and continue to air them around the yearly environment week time frame (good gosh, someone give me those dates!), so lots of people have seen the documentaries, and they're available on DVD, so more people can see them, if they know about them. And, lest ye be fooled, the actual mechanisms that go into getting your stuff on PBS prevent you from making much money even when it gets a national broadcast. That whole, long list of sponsors before and after a program is the financial motor that drives the piece to completion -- getting the piece over the air is another beast entirely, and I'll write about that in the future.

We do have the now-iconic, love him or hate him or find him somewhat amusing, Mr. Moore to recognize for raising the overall level of awareness about, and the audience numbers for, documentaries, and the available delivery platforms for accessing them have never been larger. The current (there's a pun here, for those who follow TV and the next mentioned person) docu man of the moment is private citizen Al Gore; the critics love his film, people are paying to see it, the subject matter is important, and the whole rising tide lifts all boats thing is true. And yep, documentaries have a point of view, even a slant, on their subject matter, and that's the way it's supposed to be, because it is where art meets commerce, and as long as the damn film isn't a damn lie, the filmmakers' point of view NEEDS to be there...otherwise why bother.

Farming the Seas and its predeceessor are really important now, because the federal government is working with big-buck entities (as if the feds would work with small-change chumps, but I digress) to support the growth of aquaculture on the same scale as conglomerate-controlled agriculture, and plans are already well underway to begin using vast tracts of our oceans -- the water within our international boundaries -- to put together some massive fish farms. It's not that the whole concept is a bad idea, but, well, you should see Farming the Seas and do a little reading up on it (I'll get some links together) so that when it hits the big media outlets again as a story, your critical thinking skills can come into play and you'll have a better sense of those unseen, hidden aspects of things of which you should always be aware (ref, the very first post of this blog).

Steve & Barry and all the other people who sacrifice personally, emotionally and financially to go after a story and package it up for us need to be recognized and thanked. If you know people like these guys, or you feel strongly about a documentary that we truly need to see, let everyone know. Let me know, specifically, documentaries you feel strongly about -- one way or the other -- and I'll add it to the Story & Pictures "See This" list, and send a link (if you know of one) so people can buy it, see it, find out about it and whatnot.

And yet again the media is the problem.

The President, his spokesguy, Snow -- what a great name for this administration's spokesguy -- and other mouths in and around the White House are pissed and calling for the villagers to take up torches and pitchforks against the NY Times, because the paper revealed to us commoners the secret snooping being done of world financial records, snooping that's been going on for five years, since just after 9/11. Treason, off with their heads, and other shit like that is wafting out of the Oval Office like smoke out of an RJ Reynolds office building.

"How dare the media put our very existence in jeapordy? We would have told you ourselves, but we knew that you wouldn't understand, so we decided that you would understand that we knew you wouldn't understand, so we didn't tell you, and now you're going to get it. Heck, we're even thinking of putting all you NY Times people in jail, maybe pair you up with some of those evildoers."

Okay, fine. Let's try this: the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and all the other major news distributors should stop covering the White House from the White House. Don't go to the briefing room, don't accept any of the pictures supplied by the administration, just go ahead and get your news from the wire, like many other news distributors do. S'okay, I think everything will be better, actually. These revelations that come down the pipe don't come about because of your face-to-face with Snow, or Chumpney, or Rummy, certainly not from Dubbney, anyway, so it's not really a loss there. The big stories come from people who know about these questionable actions and programs, and they have 'misgivings' about them, which is why they talk to you reporters. And these people who divulge these dark, deep secrets, they certainly don't make their contacts with the hard working investigative journalists via the White House, so, go ahead, you newspaper bastards, just leave. Let's see how things go without you.

Think I'll miss those beautiful pictures, the one's the peons who work in that Big House set up? Naw.

For everyone out there who may not be aware of it (this includes my father-in-law, who wouldn't believe what I'm about to write anyway), the stellar shots that appear in newsmags and papers, like the proud Dubya marching across the carrier flightdeck, 'victory' banner in the background, those shots are certainly captured by professional photographers, but they ain't left to chance. The angle, the lighting, the background, the colors, that shit is all laid out well ahead of time, and the people who capture those precious, historic moments are positioned by helpful helpers to do just that...just like one-on-one interviews with, say, the First Lady, how all those questions are cleared way before the interview takes place, just like Time, Newseek and other big mag cover stories about prominent, world-famous people are thoroughly reviewed, and mostly approved, by the subjects of the interview before anything gets into print.

Thus, my suggestion to the major journalism players is to leave the Administration to its own devices. Let 'em alone in there, and continue to do the great service that you do for us concerned readers, finding out the truly important shit that we truly need to know about, and that we wouldn't otherwise know because there are things that OBVIOUSLY the Administration has serious doubts about or they wouldn't go sneaking past the members of their own party-heavy committees and subcommittees to put these programs in place.

On another note, I didn't mention the Wall Street Journal in the above screed, because that's a newspaper with an agenda, and the agenda, in part, is about catering to a readership that does not include any of us making less than, oh, a decent, mid-six-figure level of yearly compensation. That agenda includes a particular slant on the news, and, ergo, that newspaper is welcomed in the White House with many open arms, and they might as well stay there. For instance, the WSJ had a few disingenuous, and flat out WRONG things to say about that nice Mr. Gore's latest film, and a wonderful breakdown of a smackdown of said WSJ piece can be found at http://thinkprogress.org/.

Ladies and gents, the whole climate change thing is just so well supported, why does the doubt persist? Oh wait, that's right, there's that whole big money, big industry, special interests fossil fuels thing...

Aspirations, oscillations and (bullshit) revelations

Aspirations

From the Washington Post: Deputy FBI director John Pistole also said that the talk of attacking the 110-story Sears Tower was "aspirational rather than operational".

So, anyone out there had any aspirations lately, any that you've said out loud that you might have second thoughts about? Anything nasty on your mind? Here's my understanding about what happens if you say to someone, "I'm thinking about blowing away the president": if the Secret Service hears about your vocalized aspiration, they'll come and talk to you, ask you about what you said, ascertain the level of your aspirations, so to speak. I'm not sure, but I don't think you're arrested for that. I'm not saying I know that for certain; it could be that making that kind of statment is akin to making a joke in an airport about a bomb. The authorities take that pretty seriously. And, if you've been out buying guns and ammo, nitro or other such neffarious things, you're in for a rough time from the Feds, and, maybe, rightly so. But, the seven reality-challenged men who have been arrested as the latest cell of terrorists hadn't done anything but talk about what they were going to do (at least, according to news/media reports, relying on statments by the FBI and other authorities). They haven't purchased bomb-making materials, a cache of guns, poison gas, nor any of the other 'usual' materials necessary to cause mayhem on a serious scale.

LET ME BE CLEAR here, I'm not condoning terrorism or anarchy on our shores, but the powers that be here are moving ever closer to the Orwell-ian culture of 'thought crimes', and that's a very serious situation indeed. Whether you want to re-read (or read, if younger than a certain age) "1984", or watch Minority Report, the Thought Police approach to law and order, or the enactment -- by legislation or by a quiet, secret signing of a directive -- of prevent-a-crime-that-hasn't-been-committed-yet kind of policing is a mind-bending nightmare that shouldn't be ignored. It's just so damn close to really happening on a much broader scale that we need to be aware that there's an administration, that nasty cabal, that continues to find success in keeping a huge chunk of otherwise rational people looking over their shoulders because "evil doers" (give me a moment while I vomit), are capable of popping up everywhere. I know there are terrorists, I know most of them are in Iraq, and I know that the seven knuckleheads might have been on the road to death and destruction, but let's keep an eye on this story, because if it falls off the media radar, it will be because there was nothing there to begin with, and that will be scarier, in one sense, than an army of phantom evil doers.

Oscilations

From the L.A. Times comes a report about the melting waaayyyy-faster-than-anticipated Greenland ice sheet: "Two miles thick and broad enough to blanket an area the size of Mexico, [it] shapes the world's weather..." Essentially, this is a bad thing, really bad, and another (yes, yet another) example of the planet moving towards a state of hostility towards life, at least the kind of life that allows us to, well, live.

In all the give and take about climate change, of which all but the most mutton-headed agree is an increasing, not-good kind of thing, there's a very simple principle that is overlooked, and it's anchored in the natural laws of the universe: nothing disappears. Let me write that again: nothing disappears.

Things 'change state', but they don't go away. The most obvious example is water to steam. The laws of thermodynamics essentially state that 'creating' energy is actually the transferance of energy from one place or state to another, and that what you put into something you do by taking it from somewhere else. That whole cycle of life thing is more than a philosophy, and it needs to be taken just a tad more seriously. I understand the need for balance between industry and the environment -- I am after all, using electricity, silicon, plastic, lead, phosphor, glass and a crapload of other stuff to create these words, and you are using the same to read them. BUT, for those non-believers, doubters, futurists (as in, "fuck it, I won't be around when everything goes to hell anyway") and just plain grumpologists, the very mechanics of the micro- and macro universe (they're the same thing, by the way) make the truth/facts impossible to ignore.

Keep using energy to manufacture and distribute massive amounts of carbon dioxide around the globe, and the teeter-totter of life's playground will finally, sooner than we'd like, just teeter, or totter, but it will not do both.

Nothing disappears.

Revelations

Rep. Santorum, and those with a vested interest, have found the WMD, and SURPRISE, the Administration is rummaging through bank accounts.

Okay, okay, Santorum didn't find them, but he did get his mits on a previously classified document that describes the discovery of 500 munitions, weapons of sarin and mustard gas agents. SecState Rummy says, "They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found."

I can barely go here, but I will: intell officials describe the weapons as produced before the '91 Gulf War, and there's no evidence to date of chemical munitions manufactured since then. Let's kill this story, okay? Someone tell Fox and Limbaugh not to get all orgasmic about this.

As for the bank accounts thing, Chenney's pissed off because, dang, the MEDIA has let the cat out of the bag again. Did anyone really think, especially after the Ma Bell is a spy thing, that the Admin wasn't nosing around the financial end of things. A WMD inspector, who was also a U.S. intell agent, who I've been working with on a story or two, told me some time ago that a senate committee asked him his recommendation for cutting off the terrorists at the knees, and he responded with, "kill the accountants". He wasn't kidding.

More on this whole thing in future posts.

since i'm still futzing with formats, i've decided to make the "Where does this take you?" series an additional weekly post, as opposed to having it at the bottom of the blog.

change is constant.

There are things we know, things we know we don't know...

What's the tone of everything that will follow here? That's rhetorical, y'know; it's meant to take up a little digital space whilst I put the final tweaks on stating my perspective on what my missives 'do'.

It's all about perspective, a view of things from different vantage points. I've got a zen buddhist perspective on life, and part of that perspective is analgous to a Japanese garden (yeah, I'm going in a lot of parallel directions here, so bear with me and sit back for a moment or two). Without going into the actual philosophy of why a Japanese garden is designed the way it is, and the whole tranquility thing, one of the design elements is the rocks-as-islands in an ocean of pebbles, and in order to see all of the islands, you have to shift your position, because the placement of the islands hides other islands from view. Want to appreciate all of the beauty? Want to get the complete picture? Then you have to accept that there is something unseen, and you need to move around the garden if you want to see all of the islands.

Perspective.

There's a line that I'll always try not to cross, accept when absolutely necessarry, and that's the preach line (for a stellar example of a when a particular sermon SHOULD be preached, have a look at the heartfelt ode to young men presented on Vincenzo's by RW on Father's Day). I figure there are enough preachers preaching all sorts of shit at us, and many of them make millions of dollars preaching at us from their media pulpits on Fox, CNN, and other churches of loud opinions. I like to try and point out things, maybe give some direction, a little guidance, and let everyone go off and find out things on their own.

This is what I mean by perspective.

Due to my thirty years of working in and around the media industry, in many of its different guises, I have a few insights on things and, therefore, feel the need to share these insights with y'all on occasion. Sometimes I'll share media insights, much as Maureen Dowd shared with her readers when she wrote about the President's televised speech from New Orleans post-Katrina, and how much lighting and other accoutrement was brought in to keep the video production values high, because if you're delivering your speech from hell on Earth, you want to make sure the backdrop is as pretty as possible (if anyone can find the link to her NY Times piece on that, let me know and i'll put it in here).

Other times, I'll share insights about, well, insights, about how to look at things, at people, at stories, differently. For instance, as a writer, I've learned the value that 'place' has next to interviews. You can get all the 'facts' from interviewing someone, in person or on the phone (email interviews are another case entirely, and they'll come up in later posts), but going to a place, observing the environment connected to the interview subject, can provide a perspective that could never be uncovered otherwise. I've been following a story for quite a long time, and it involves a young person with a pretty severe handicap. We've got a heck of a relationship by now, and I know this person really, really well, but when this person was still in high school, I arranged to follow this person around school for the day, because I knew it was important, because I'd find out something that I couldn't find out any other way.

I observed lots of things: the relationships with other students, the motorized wheelchair scooting down the hall between classes, the assistance with opening books, stuff like that. Nothing of great revelation there.

The great revelation was what I didn't see: since the student is a tetraplegic (quadriplegic is an older term now), the list of what didn't happen was so much more insightful than anything else: no passing of notes; no leaning over and whispering to someone; no tossing something across the room; no turning around to see what the commotion was about in the back room The absence of these otherwise normal student activities from my observed student's life was a revelation.

It shifted my perspective.

If you're going to promote yourself as knowing something, make sure you know it from different persectives, is all I'm saying (ah, shit, I know I'm saying a lot more than that, but you know what I mean...). "Less conjecture, more insights" is a nice mantra. Opinions are fine, and positions are necessary, but know what the hell you're talking about, and make the attempt to form your opinions and stake out your position based on really giving a shit on being as accurate as you can be. You watch CNN? Then at least linger on Fox every now and then. Can't stand a person's politics? Leave some room to love the person. Don't like today's post? At least check out tomorrow's. Impressed by the statistics they just threw at you? Find out where they came from (the Cato Institute? Heritage Foundation? Insurance Industry Association?).

Doesn't that beautifully lit building all aglow behind the President look really pretty against the darkness of hell? Ask why.

I'll help you shift your perspectives, you help me shift mine, we'll all have a good time...or something like that.