Her fingers furtively picked through the little heap of attic dust, scavenging for any scrap of him she'd overlooked these past twenty years.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Recollections
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
'ol Scrooge
The man with thick glasses, wrapped in a blanket, watches alone, Scrooge in flickering b&w. He pushes his glasses back up after dabbing his eyes.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Another Hint Fiction
My son insisted carrying the heavy sack. Halfway to the hole
Blaize slid out, he fell on top of her. She lay breathless, he inconsolable.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wicked Short Short Stories
Does Robert Swartwood's Hint Fiction of 25 wordes or less qualify as a short story? Here's the NPR Story that got me thinking about wicked short fiction.
My Hint Fiction
Martel whispered, “Man, she’s pregnant.” “You’re wrong, “ I said. Our eyes drew the other's out from the corners of the lounge. Martel was right.
"Dad, I stopped to get water, my car's overheating." "Son, there's a hole in the hose." "I'll fix it later, I just need some water now."
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Corporate Oxymorons
This corporate speak stuff always reminds me of Orwell's Double Speak and the Ministry of Peace in 1984. Perhaps in this particular case Animal Farm is the more similar!
Here's the scenario: several weeks after Hannaford grocery store bought out the independently owned community grocery store in my community, Garden Street Market, the flyer below is distributed by mail to residents of the community.
Here's the scenario: several weeks after Hannaford grocery store bought out the independently owned community grocery store in my community, Garden Street Market, the flyer below is distributed by mail to residents of the community.
"Great! Hannaford gets it!" I think.
My first trip into the Hannaford big box, several times larger than Garden Street Market, I'm looking everywhere for the Harris Farm Milk, the local dairy, the milk I bought every week from Garden Street Market...the dairy that has cows that look just like Bessie above.
No Harris Farm milk. I ask at the register. "We don't carry that," the cashier says. "It's the local dairy," I say, "I bought it every week at the local store, Garden Street Market, the one Hannaford bought out..."
No Harris Farm Milk for you!!
Undaunted, an email is forwarded to customer service at Hannaford. A product research specialist returns my email with an apology for my inconvenience, assurances that the manager will be contacted regarding my request for milk from the local dairy, etc. etc. I have since received two customer service surveys from Hannaford asking how satisfied I was with the handling of this.
Hmmm. No Harris Farm Milk for you!
Each week, I dutifully ask the cashiers for the local dairy's milk, and each week I am told they don't carry it, and now I see the "Local Milk is a Keeper" on the reusable bag they sell at the cash registers, no doubt manufactured somewhere locally... offshore.
The independent convenience store, The Landing Store, now carries Harris Farm Milk, from the local dairy. They don't send out flyers in the mail asking for donations to support local dairies (whose products they don't sell), or sell reusable bags with pictures of New England cows, manufactured in China. They sell the local dairy's milk and put the glass bottles in a paper bag so they won't break when I stick them in the pannier on my bike for the ride home.
Keep local farms by shopping from local independent merchants that really get it.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Teach the Family to Fish
Recently, my brother Mike, totally exasperated with the prospect of oil washing ashore on the western coast of Florida, where he lives, wrote on his Facebook page "Boycott BP!!!" Seems like a no brainer doesn't it these days. I wrote back, "I'll add this to my boycott of Exxon."
As the Exxon Valdez fiasco played out from 1989 to their termination of clean-up activities in 1991, leaving hundreds of miles of coast still devastated by the 11 million gallon crude spill, even this skeptical writer could not have imagined that 20 short years later Exxon would post nearly $20 billion in annual earnings, down $5 billion from the year prior. Exxon must indeed be grateful for our collective short-term memory as American consumers.
No doubt there are many of us who will never purchase Exxon or BP products again if it can be helped, and neither company will notice. One reporter said last week that BP earns nearly $24 billion annually, and that the worst case scenario would be that BP spends 1 1/2 year's earnings on clean-up.
Last week, Carly Fiorina the ex-CEO of Hewlett Packard said of incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat of California), who she is trying to unseat, "Barbara Boxer does not understand that families are more important than fish. Of course we all want to protect our environment, but common sense tells us there must be a balance." (The complete NPR story can be read here.)
That is why this sort of boycott really won't work, not yet anyway. Many of us saw sad compelling photos and videos of countless birds, sea otters, fish, and a myriad of other wildlife struggle and die in oil saturated water and beaches of Alaska 21 years ago. It wasn't enough to get us out of the SUV, commuting less to work, swap the bicycle for the car on close errands, buying vegetables from farms close to home instead of those shipped across country via truck... families are after all, as Ms. Fiorina stated, mor important than fish. Perhaps Senator Boxer recognizes that the balance may lie in our unchallenged family values.
Bill McKibben a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont and author of Earth: Making A Life On a Tough New Planet, explained it this way in Living on Earth, "The reason we're not getting further in Washington, the reason that we're making bad compromises with industry on these bills is because there's not enough public outrage, and not enough public action."
Perhaps, like in many parts of Louisiana, the fish are vital to the family, and just as important. There was not enough public outrage 19 years ago when Exxon abandoned a woefully incomplete clean-up job it had botched from the moment the Valdez ran aground spilling 11 million gallons of oil. There may still not be enough outrage as we watch nearly half a million gallons per day leak into the Gulf, and fall prey to the same lies told to consumers, affected residents, and legislators by corporate oil executives seeking to "get their lives back." If there was enough outrage, we might take the money saved from a couple SUV tanks of BP or Exxon gas, purchase a US-made bicycle, and pedal with the family to the local farm stand, or to shop downtown at a local store.
Oh yeah, we'd boycott BP (Amoco)and Exxon products.
As the Exxon Valdez fiasco played out from 1989 to their termination of clean-up activities in 1991, leaving hundreds of miles of coast still devastated by the 11 million gallon crude spill, even this skeptical writer could not have imagined that 20 short years later Exxon would post nearly $20 billion in annual earnings, down $5 billion from the year prior. Exxon must indeed be grateful for our collective short-term memory as American consumers.
No doubt there are many of us who will never purchase Exxon or BP products again if it can be helped, and neither company will notice. One reporter said last week that BP earns nearly $24 billion annually, and that the worst case scenario would be that BP spends 1 1/2 year's earnings on clean-up.
Last week, Carly Fiorina the ex-CEO of Hewlett Packard said of incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat of California), who she is trying to unseat, "Barbara Boxer does not understand that families are more important than fish. Of course we all want to protect our environment, but common sense tells us there must be a balance." (The complete NPR story can be read here.)
That is why this sort of boycott really won't work, not yet anyway. Many of us saw sad compelling photos and videos of countless birds, sea otters, fish, and a myriad of other wildlife struggle and die in oil saturated water and beaches of Alaska 21 years ago. It wasn't enough to get us out of the SUV, commuting less to work, swap the bicycle for the car on close errands, buying vegetables from farms close to home instead of those shipped across country via truck... families are after all, as Ms. Fiorina stated, mor important than fish. Perhaps Senator Boxer recognizes that the balance may lie in our unchallenged family values.
Bill McKibben a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont and author of Earth: Making A Life On a Tough New Planet, explained it this way in Living on Earth, "The reason we're not getting further in Washington, the reason that we're making bad compromises with industry on these bills is because there's not enough public outrage, and not enough public action."
Perhaps, like in many parts of Louisiana, the fish are vital to the family, and just as important. There was not enough public outrage 19 years ago when Exxon abandoned a woefully incomplete clean-up job it had botched from the moment the Valdez ran aground spilling 11 million gallons of oil. There may still not be enough outrage as we watch nearly half a million gallons per day leak into the Gulf, and fall prey to the same lies told to consumers, affected residents, and legislators by corporate oil executives seeking to "get their lives back." If there was enough outrage, we might take the money saved from a couple SUV tanks of BP or Exxon gas, purchase a US-made bicycle, and pedal with the family to the local farm stand, or to shop downtown at a local store.
Oh yeah, we'd boycott BP (Amoco)and Exxon products.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
A Command Performance
In the 7 weeks since the tragedy on April 6 which killed 29 miners, Mr. Blankenship has earned nearly a 1/2 million dollars as CEO of a union-busting company that has been cited 600 times for safety violations in the past 18 months alone, and is a vocal opponent of industry regulations.
Mr. Blankenship will earn nearly $16,000 each day he is scolded by lawmakers on Capitol Hill--many of whom share his opposition to tighter regulations and industry employees represented by unions.
For Blankenship's ability to sit before lawmakers, concerned citizens, and the grieving families of the 29 non-union Massey employees, and state with a straight face that safety comes before profits at Massey, he deserves every penny, for a command performance few could replicate.
What a disgrace!
This author would welcome the identification of Massey products and companies that use them so this educated consumer may choose not to contribute to the millions of dollars Blakenship earns at the helm of a company that repeatedly flaunts safety, regulation, and lawful employee representation. As for the pots calling the kettle black, on Capitol Hill, don't waste ALL your pious indignation and finger waggling on Blankenship, BP Oil is just coming ashore.
Pension Fund managers from several states vote against 3 Massey board members re-election. http://articles.courant.com/2010-05-14/business/hc-digbizbrf0514.artmay14_1_pension-massey-stock-re-election-at-next-week
Proposal for the Boycott of Massey Energy on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Proposal-For-the-Boycott-of-Massey-Energy/115593658451644#!/pages/Proposal-For-the-Boycott-of-Massey-Energy/115593658451644?v=info&ref=mf#info_edit_sections
Mr. Blankenship will earn nearly $16,000 each day he is scolded by lawmakers on Capitol Hill--many of whom share his opposition to tighter regulations and industry employees represented by unions.
For Blankenship's ability to sit before lawmakers, concerned citizens, and the grieving families of the 29 non-union Massey employees, and state with a straight face that safety comes before profits at Massey, he deserves every penny, for a command performance few could replicate.
What a disgrace!
This author would welcome the identification of Massey products and companies that use them so this educated consumer may choose not to contribute to the millions of dollars Blakenship earns at the helm of a company that repeatedly flaunts safety, regulation, and lawful employee representation. As for the pots calling the kettle black, on Capitol Hill, don't waste ALL your pious indignation and finger waggling on Blankenship, BP Oil is just coming ashore.
Pension Fund managers from several states vote against 3 Massey board members re-election. http://articles.courant.com/2010-05-14/business/hc-digbizbrf0514.artmay14_1_pension-massey-stock-re-election-at-next-week
Proposal for the Boycott of Massey Energy on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Proposal-For-the-Boycott-of-Massey-Energy/115593658451644#!/pages/Proposal-For-the-Boycott-of-Massey-Energy/115593658451644?v=info&ref=mf#info_edit_sections
Friday, April 16, 2010
Stoking the Coal Fire
Did anyone else catch the end of Wednesday morning's NPR story on the tragedy at Massey's Upper Branch Mine? For those with the stomach, here it is again. NPR quoted S&P Equity as reporting that Massey Energy was again, a good buy for investors. S&P Equity wrote, "We believe that the financial impact of the Upper Big Branch mine tragedy to Massey Energy will be immaterial."
This must be comforting news to the families who lost loved ones--at least the shares of stock they own in the company that cost their loved one's their lives won't decrease in value as a result of the repeated pattern of safety violations and negligence perpetrated by Massey Energy against its employees and the communities they live in.
If the stock price of Massey Energy remains unaffected by the 29 lives lost in the largest U.S. mining disaster in decades, then it must be a safe bet that CEO Don Blankenship, will continue receiving the $19.7 million annual salary he receives at the helm of the 4th largest energy company in the U.S. Mr. Blankenship earns more PER DAY than the Massey employees who were killed earned per year.
Mr. Blankenship earns that kind of money, because he understands what it takes to keep the stock price of an energy company like Massey steady, in spite of the 29 deaths 2 weeks ago, the 16 deaths between 2000-2007, the thousands of citations levied against the Upper Branch Mine for both safety and environmental negligence, the growing concern over mountaintop mining promoted by Massey Energy, and millions of dollars in contested EPA fines. Yes, Mr. Blankenship, knows how to play this game--he is not surprisingly anti-union, anti-regulation, and routinely lines the pockets of election campaigns for officials like Brent Benjamin who would eventually help overturn a $50 million judgement against Massey Energy.
S&P Equity is absolutely right. Unless we as educated consumers, outraged citizens, and voters commit to demanding immediate change, miners who make less in one year than Mr. Blankenship makes in one day, will continue to die, so CEOs like him can take home $380,000 per week and keep the stock prices of their companies "immaterially" affected by the social devastation caused by their unmitigated greed.
It is time to demand that pension fund managers holding Massey Energy stock over the dead bodies of those 29 recently killed employees, insist on Blankenship's firing and criminal prosecution. We must demand that the EPA collect the millions of dollars owed by Massey Energy for past-due safety and environmental citations. Finally, as educated consumers and compassionate citizens we must refuse to do business with companies like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Wendy's, and Arby's who support companies like Massey Energy that repeatedly exploit and endanger their employees while contributing to the destruction of our communities and environments.
For more information on companies to boycott or ways to get involved, visit Boycott Mountaintop Removal Supporters or http://www.ilovemountains.org/.
This must be comforting news to the families who lost loved ones--at least the shares of stock they own in the company that cost their loved one's their lives won't decrease in value as a result of the repeated pattern of safety violations and negligence perpetrated by Massey Energy against its employees and the communities they live in.
If the stock price of Massey Energy remains unaffected by the 29 lives lost in the largest U.S. mining disaster in decades, then it must be a safe bet that CEO Don Blankenship, will continue receiving the $19.7 million annual salary he receives at the helm of the 4th largest energy company in the U.S. Mr. Blankenship earns more PER DAY than the Massey employees who were killed earned per year.
Mr. Blankenship earns that kind of money, because he understands what it takes to keep the stock price of an energy company like Massey steady, in spite of the 29 deaths 2 weeks ago, the 16 deaths between 2000-2007, the thousands of citations levied against the Upper Branch Mine for both safety and environmental negligence, the growing concern over mountaintop mining promoted by Massey Energy, and millions of dollars in contested EPA fines. Yes, Mr. Blankenship, knows how to play this game--he is not surprisingly anti-union, anti-regulation, and routinely lines the pockets of election campaigns for officials like Brent Benjamin who would eventually help overturn a $50 million judgement against Massey Energy.
S&P Equity is absolutely right. Unless we as educated consumers, outraged citizens, and voters commit to demanding immediate change, miners who make less in one year than Mr. Blankenship makes in one day, will continue to die, so CEOs like him can take home $380,000 per week and keep the stock prices of their companies "immaterially" affected by the social devastation caused by their unmitigated greed.
It is time to demand that pension fund managers holding Massey Energy stock over the dead bodies of those 29 recently killed employees, insist on Blankenship's firing and criminal prosecution. We must demand that the EPA collect the millions of dollars owed by Massey Energy for past-due safety and environmental citations. Finally, as educated consumers and compassionate citizens we must refuse to do business with companies like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Wendy's, and Arby's who support companies like Massey Energy that repeatedly exploit and endanger their employees while contributing to the destruction of our communities and environments.
For more information on companies to boycott or ways to get involved, visit Boycott Mountaintop Removal Supporters or http://www.ilovemountains.org/.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Secular Socialism...Boo!
At the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, GOP leaders such as Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Liz Cheney took turns explaining why Obama was doing such a horrible job as Commander-in-Chief. Gingrich was quick to paint Obama as the new Voodoo chieftain of "the most radical administration in American history." Gingrich used the term, certain to become the new bogeyman epitaph, "secular socialist machine." Sounds pretty bad doesn't it?
This got me wondering, did any of these folks really have a clue what was being said, with the term "secular socialist," or was everyone just reacting to words supercharged in the vernacular of evangelical capitalists?
Take the word secular, heretofore tossed in front of another Voodoo word, humanist. You may remember these heathens as the people who insisted on doing good in the world based on a moral code that didn't necessarily include a God as the evangelicals understood God. Definitely radical stuff.
These secular radicals aren't as new as Gingrich et al. might have us believe. It was secular radicals like Locke and Voltaire over 200 years ago, that influenced the secular radicals that founded the United States, and wrote a secular Constitution to govern the new Republic. Mr. Gingrich may recollect from his historical study that many of the preeminent founders of this country were by no means orthodox Christians. In fact Washington, Franklin, Hancock, LaFayette, Hamilton, and others, practiced Freemasonry--a very tolerant, inclusive form of deism that many evangelical capitalists might call secular today.
The United States was, in fact, founded by thinkers who recognized the importance and value of secularism in democracy.
Really, is socialism still a nasty word? It's been kicked around recently and brandished almost as much as it was in Senator McCarthy's time--back when we were convinced that folks like Pete Seeger would bring us to our political knees!
Let's look at the top 30 countries in the Economic Freedom of the World Index. This index measures what capitalist's hold near and dear to their hearts. GOP leaders like Palin, Gingrich, and Cheney will find at least some common ground in the values of countries that promote economic freedom among their citizens. At least 22 of the top 30 countries in the Economic Freedom of the World Index have a form of Universal Health Care System. This criteria alone, according to many of the evangelical capitalists, make them socialists. This 'socialist' list includes: New Zealand; Japan; Germany; Belgium; United Kingdom; Kuwait; Sweden; Canada; United Arab Emirates; Netherlands; Finland; Luxembourg; Denmark; France; Australia; Ireland; Portugal; Cyprus; Iceland; Hong Kong; Singapore; and Switzerland. In spite of the fact that they all have universal health care, and are socialists in at least this one regard, they are also some of the strongest allies to the United States. Some might even be secular socialists.
Before you folks pack up your Obama slam-fest there in New Orleans, maybe you can explain to the citizens of that fine city how they might have fared after the hurricane with a radical administration of secular socialists in office? Booga! Booga!
This got me wondering, did any of these folks really have a clue what was being said, with the term "secular socialist," or was everyone just reacting to words supercharged in the vernacular of evangelical capitalists?
Take the word secular, heretofore tossed in front of another Voodoo word, humanist. You may remember these heathens as the people who insisted on doing good in the world based on a moral code that didn't necessarily include a God as the evangelicals understood God. Definitely radical stuff.
These secular radicals aren't as new as Gingrich et al. might have us believe. It was secular radicals like Locke and Voltaire over 200 years ago, that influenced the secular radicals that founded the United States, and wrote a secular Constitution to govern the new Republic. Mr. Gingrich may recollect from his historical study that many of the preeminent founders of this country were by no means orthodox Christians. In fact Washington, Franklin, Hancock, LaFayette, Hamilton, and others, practiced Freemasonry--a very tolerant, inclusive form of deism that many evangelical capitalists might call secular today.
The United States was, in fact, founded by thinkers who recognized the importance and value of secularism in democracy.
Really, is socialism still a nasty word? It's been kicked around recently and brandished almost as much as it was in Senator McCarthy's time--back when we were convinced that folks like Pete Seeger would bring us to our political knees!
Let's look at the top 30 countries in the Economic Freedom of the World Index. This index measures what capitalist's hold near and dear to their hearts. GOP leaders like Palin, Gingrich, and Cheney will find at least some common ground in the values of countries that promote economic freedom among their citizens. At least 22 of the top 30 countries in the Economic Freedom of the World Index have a form of Universal Health Care System. This criteria alone, according to many of the evangelical capitalists, make them socialists. This 'socialist' list includes: New Zealand; Japan; Germany; Belgium; United Kingdom; Kuwait; Sweden; Canada; United Arab Emirates; Netherlands; Finland; Luxembourg; Denmark; France; Australia; Ireland; Portugal; Cyprus; Iceland; Hong Kong; Singapore; and Switzerland. In spite of the fact that they all have universal health care, and are socialists in at least this one regard, they are also some of the strongest allies to the United States. Some might even be secular socialists.
Before you folks pack up your Obama slam-fest there in New Orleans, maybe you can explain to the citizens of that fine city how they might have fared after the hurricane with a radical administration of secular socialists in office? Booga! Booga!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Reloading the Sound Bites on Universal Health Care
Waking up this morning to a NPR story on the gathering by "Tea Party" supporters in Searchlight Nevada got me wondering, again, who are these folks, threatened by health care reform, calling this law and Obama socialist?
For starters, they are in the minority. According to a recent Gallop Poll Americans approved the health care reform bill by 9%--49% approved health care reform while 40% disapproved.
This group may be confused about which countries are socialist and what socialism is. Here is a map of the countries around the world with universal health care:
This map appears on the Web site Freebase.com.
This writer is no expert on geography, but I don't recall US allies, such as most of Europe, Japan, and Australia, being predominantly socialist. If, like this writer, you too are geographically challenged, a list of countries with universal health care appears at this site, truecostblog.com. Countries like Japan, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, Israel, all have universal health care. Many of them have had it for decades, with no sign of financial or social ruin.
In fact, it appears from the map, that by endorsing universal health care, the US leaves the ranks of countries such as Africa and Communist China, who like the US, do not have universal health care, and joins the ranks of most of our historic allies in Europe.
Lastly, for those folks aligning themselves with the "Tea Party" this writer is curious if they recently looked at their grade school history books? Wasn't the Tea Party, a reaction of US colonists to paying taxes to England without representation in the colonies? This might be similar to a situation where US politicians, like those in England during the time of US colonization, were more responsive to the lobbying efforts of a wealthy few, corporations, and an aristocratic class.
If the Gallop Poll is accurate, and more of us are interested in health care reform, and the US is still a democracy, then the real Tea Party occurred when health care reform was delivered to the hands of average taxpayers from those of wealthy corporations and lobbyists, by a president, elected by the majority of the US voters.
For a review of the historical facts of the Boston Tea Party refer to this brief account in Wikipidia. As for the "Tea Party's" references to Woodstock at the gathering in Search;ight... I'm truly at a loss for words.
For starters, they are in the minority. According to a recent Gallop Poll Americans approved the health care reform bill by 9%--49% approved health care reform while 40% disapproved.
This group may be confused about which countries are socialist and what socialism is. Here is a map of the countries around the world with universal health care:
This map appears on the Web site Freebase.com.This writer is no expert on geography, but I don't recall US allies, such as most of Europe, Japan, and Australia, being predominantly socialist. If, like this writer, you too are geographically challenged, a list of countries with universal health care appears at this site, truecostblog.com. Countries like Japan, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, Israel, all have universal health care. Many of them have had it for decades, with no sign of financial or social ruin.
In fact, it appears from the map, that by endorsing universal health care, the US leaves the ranks of countries such as Africa and Communist China, who like the US, do not have universal health care, and joins the ranks of most of our historic allies in Europe.
Lastly, for those folks aligning themselves with the "Tea Party" this writer is curious if they recently looked at their grade school history books? Wasn't the Tea Party, a reaction of US colonists to paying taxes to England without representation in the colonies? This might be similar to a situation where US politicians, like those in England during the time of US colonization, were more responsive to the lobbying efforts of a wealthy few, corporations, and an aristocratic class.
If the Gallop Poll is accurate, and more of us are interested in health care reform, and the US is still a democracy, then the real Tea Party occurred when health care reform was delivered to the hands of average taxpayers from those of wealthy corporations and lobbyists, by a president, elected by the majority of the US voters.
For a review of the historical facts of the Boston Tea Party refer to this brief account in Wikipidia. As for the "Tea Party's" references to Woodstock at the gathering in Search;ight... I'm truly at a loss for words.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
