Unconscious Mutterings - week 382

You say... I think:

• 1.Cream :: corn
• 2.Be with you :: I wanna be
• 3.Pancakes ::  I hop
• 4.Believe ::  make
• 5.45 :: less than 6
• 6.Eat :: out
• 7.Background :: check
• 8.Pane :: window
• 9.Aim :: messaging
• 10.Collapse :: dead tired

Get your own list here

Penvy?

I have so not blogged much in the past couple of weeks and I'm going to catch up today, so look out!

For starters, I want to thank Suzanne Frischkorn for adding a new and amusing word to my vocabulary. Suzanne linked today to a blog post at Tough Love From Tayari and Tayari linked Urban Dictionary and the word is penvy.  Definition number one is my favorite...   the wave of nausea that hits you when you read about forthcoming books by people you went to college or even once slept with that came out to great acclaim while you haven’t written anything in….ever. Coined in a contest at The Old Hag and picked up with days by the online writing community.



While perusing the trades for new releases to stock her bookstore, Janine was overcome with penvy at the sight of her ex-boyfriend's picture next to what would probably be his second bestseller.
 

~0~

 

I noticed that Beth Ann Fennelly (extraordinary poet) will be one of several  instructors at the Sixth Annual Clarksville Writers’ Conference ...  July 28 – 31, 2010  Her presentation is titled “4 Ways Writers Can Use Sound to Make Meaning."  That sounds so fascinating.  I wish I knew someone going and taking notes, or better still, going myself.
 

~0~

 

 

Poetry for A Sunday Morning

 

A Few Thought Not on Poetry

At the left is a photograph of just a small portion of what the recent oil spill in the Gulf region is like.  It's evidence of a much larger - might I venture catastrophic accident from an off shore drilling site. 

I'll make my case for catastrophic on this basis.  We know factually that the Exxon Valdez oil spill in spring of 1989 was small potatoes compared to the current Gulf spill. Some 20 years later The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council continues to monitor the impact and reports that some areas remain as toxic to wildlife as they did just after the spill.  By size comparison, Exxon's spill was surpassed in size by the BP Gulf spill by the end of it's first week and it remains an active spill in spite of all efforts to control it and begin the cleanup. 

I've heard criticism in the past week or so that the government response is not unlike that of the government's response to Katrina.  I'm not sure I believe that is a fair comparison because we knew how to lift people from house tops. We know how to distribute food and water. To mobilize and move people. You see, no one seems knowledgeable about how to stop this spill for certain.

One might expect that if government is going to authorize and regulate off-shore drilling, they would first have a clear idea what to do in such cases. That also implies that the industry itself knows and convinces the government that there are methods to deal effectively with accidents such as this. We know now that even BP is using the trial and error method of abating the spill. I will assume that other industry giants are no more knowledgeable or they would be sharing their knowledge, after all the outcome of this spill cleanup will impact the future drill prospects for them. There should be no industry secrets here.

Yes, I believe the government is ill repaired for regulating the oil industry, but it is also clear they require regulation. Such a problem is however not simply a problem of the Obama Administration, but clearly a systemic problem that spans many administrations and places far to much reliance on the oil companies to "do the right thing."

The damage to the economic, ecological, and health of the Gulf Coast states is immeasurable. Not for the short term but for decades maybe centuries. No plan for dealing with such accidents is no different from licensing nuclear power plants with no thought given to how you decommission one or what you do in the case of an accident.

It was not that long ago people seemed to think it was somehow Unamerican to not be a part of the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.  How is it that being stewards of our environment is unpatriotic?

Confession Tuesday on Wednesday

I confess I’m late! Hurry with me, I must get to the confessional.


Yes reader, I’m a day late with my confession, but I will argue with good reason.


My daughter has been in town and we did some things together yesterday which kept me away from the computer until late last night. So I confess that I did miss the mark on Tuesday but ask for special dispensation as I was doing a fatherly thing.


I have to confess that before we saw my daughter off this morning I was a bit teary eyed, though I kept myself together in here presence. I have the capacity to get like that at times. When my grandmother was alive, and lived out of the area, I would get misty eyed every time we left her place to return home. I could keep it together till we got on the road and then it would just hit me. ~0~


While Meghan was here, we went to see the exhibit Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race that is currently in Kansas City at our National Archives. The exhibit is a part of the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum and Meghan visited the Museum some years ago in Washington D.C. and has always raved about what a magnificent exhibit they have. Hence when I learned this was here through sometime in June we made plans to see it during her stay.


The exhibit was not quite what I expected but it was time well spent. I of course was aware of the concept of the “master race” that was a part of Hitler’s purge of Jews but I must confess I was not really aware of the extent to which this view was prevalent within parts of German society prior to Hitler assuming control. Equally of surprise to me was that there were societies even in this country that were subscribing to the ideology of eugenics or “good birth" (eradicating those deemed undesirable so as not to allow them to be part of the gene pool).


I was amazed at how much traction this ideology had gained in the public and how much widespread support it had within scientific communities. When I see how easy it is for individuals who collectively espouse such shallow views as say the “birthers” today to embrace and propagate their views and I compare that to the wide level of acceptance eugenics enjoyed by intellectuals and scientists, I confess that it sends shivers up my spine. Such blind faith in an ideology with no consideration of the ethics involved is scary.


I did not mean for my Tuesday Confession on Wednesday to be such a downer, but as the saying goes, it is what it is.


Thanks for listening.

Tonight I was thinking...

Dreams are connected circuits—

 a marriage of fantasy and authenticity;

 of fright and quietude.

Auld Lang Syne

On a lesser day
I’d be working with the masses
and you would not be privy
to what I am saying—
but a lesser day this is not.
Today I hopped a ride
over town and joined you
and others and was touched
by your laughter and smile.
The cloudy sky had broke wide
open by the time we parted.
As I dove into the east
I left behind the topaz ball
slowly descending
like the Times Square ball
on New Year’s eve and I thought
how I celebrate you each time
we are together—
and how departing is like
saying goodbye to the passing year.

Clever Fake BP T-Shirt: "We're bringing oil to American shores."

Oh my...how true.  This shirt is available from Dispair Wear