Daily Music Selection“A beautiful spam-driven commentary called ‘perception.’” Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. two thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After three minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
CNN reported Sunday morning (5/30) that BP’s ‘Top Kill’ scheme to staunch the flow of oil gushing from the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico has failed. (Read the CNN story and see the video here.) Next up, BP plans yet another ‘cap’ that won’t work any better than the first one. Carol Browner, former head of the EPA and an adviser to President Obama, has confirmed that this is the worst environmental catastrophe in American history. For an appreciation of just how horrible and far-reaching is this disaster, read “10 Things You Need (But Don’t Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill,” by Dana Perdomo, Alternet, here. I have to wonder: How much is BP playing us? I’ll bet gas will be up to $5 a gallon by the end of summer and it will be blamed on the big oil spill BP and their corporate colleagues will rake in even more billions while the oil continues to flow from the bottom of the Gulf. The only thing that will stop this from happening again is criminal prosecutions for negligent homicide, gross malfeasance, and fraud, with senior BP execs going to jail and the US government seizing…
“And while BP has repeatedly stated that it will pay all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs and verifiable claims for other loss and damage caused by the spill, the Florida Congressional delegation has repeatedly asked BP to place $1 billion in an escrow account to reimburse states and countiesinstead the states have received $25 million block grants, plus $70 million to help with advertising campaigns.” – Rick Outzen, “Shocking BP Memo, and the Oil Spill in the Gulf,” The Daily Beast, May 25, 2010. $70 million for ‘advertising campaigns’ while people in the Gulf region are suffering the effects of the worst oil disaster in history? What are they going to ‘advertise’ that massive oil spills are good for you?
I met Drew Patterson when I was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Woodmont in Nashville. I was playing, actually practicing, guitar in the sanctuary. He complimented me and asked to hear more. From that moment on I had made a friend who was more supportive than anyone I have ever known… Anyone.
This adaptation of a Woody Guthrie song was created by a friend to be used in protest of Toxic High-volume Slick-water Hydro-Fracking in the Marcellus Shale, but it speaks to a much wider aspect of our violated economy. This Land Was Your Land (sung by landmen) This land was your land but now it’s my land from clearcut forests to the Gulf and tar sands. From poisoned deserts to 3 Mile Island… This land was made for industry. This land was your land but now it’s my land from credit default swaps to Super Wal-marts, from factory farming to Iraq, my ex-darling… This world was made for industry. This land was your land but now it’s my land you signed the paper we’re in a hurry. We gave you money so what’s your worry? This earth was made for industry. As I went walking a crystal creek bed heard water chanting the rocks were dancing saw children swimming the hillside singing this land was made for you and me. Adapted by John Burger, 2010
HERD ABOUT IT! by Ana Grarian Ana was in Syracuse last night for a presentation on “Green Infrastructure”. The presentation was about retrofitting Syracuse to better handle runoff water so that it didn’t cause pollution of lakes and streams, and presented less erosion. Storm water runoff sweeps pollutants from hard surfaces directly into streams, or is channeled through the storm sewers into the municipal waste system. This rapid influx of water means the treatment plants are overtaxed and end up discharging untreated sewage into the water. One of the goals is to make the water in local streams suitable for people to touch without getting sick.
Sen. Rand Paul Dead; Author of Controversial Bill Special to the Louisville Courier-Journal July 5, 2014 Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) died yesterday afternoon from food poisoning that investigators say he contracted from contaminated meat at his favorite Washington restaurant, the exclusive Le Petomane. Autopsy results concurred that the filet mignon cooked medium-rare consumed by Sen. Paul contained large amounts of deadly E-coli bacteria. Sen. Paul will be remembered for co-sponsoring, with Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the controversial Paul-Bachmann Restoring Our American Freedoms Act that, as well as allowing racial segregation in private businesses open to the public once again, also eliminated the Dept. of Agriculture and ended government inspection of meat and other food products. President Palin signed the act into law just a month before Sen. Paul’s untimely death. The Senator’s life might yet have been saved, but public ambulance service was discontinued following passage of last year’s Republican-sponsored National Personal Responsibility Act, which Sen. Paul also avidly supported. A spokesman for Paul’s office said he had forgotten to renew his private ambulance subscription due to his hectic Senate schedule. Instead, a very ill Sen. Paul was put into a cab by his wife and died in transit to…
