maura

PA: Urgent Actions Thursday, but Don't Wimp Out

2012-02-14T14:52:00.000-08:00

A bunch of people, including me, tried to get the word out to muster opposition to a heinous bill foisted hastily upon the Pennsylvania public and environment by the gas industry in collusion with its political cronies (and mainstream media).

But Governor Corbett signed the bill, HB1950 (attached as a Word document), almost the minute it hit his desk yesterday. The bill is purported to be about taxes on the gas industry, but it holds some very disturbing, precedent-setting language that bolsters the gas industry's exemptions from oversight and its lack of liability for harms it causes. The mere passage of such a bill should send chills down your spine, whether you live in Pennsylvania, in a downstream state (NJ, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV), a neighboring state (NY, OH), or a little farther away, because air and water know no state lines.

Just read this short section, buried on page 98 (my bold):

(10)  A vendor, service company or operator shall identify the specific identity and amount of any chemicals claimed to be a trade secret or confidential proprietary information to any health professional who requests the information in writing if the health professional executes a confidentiality agreement and provides a written statement of need for the information indicating all of the following:
(i)  The information is needed for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment of an individual.
(ii)  The individual being diagnosed or treated may have been exposed to a hazardous chemical.
(iii)  Knowledge of information will assist in the diagnosis or treatment of an individual.
(11)  If a health professional determines that a medical emergency exists and the specific identity and amount of any chemicals claimed to be a trade secret or confidential proprietary information are necessary for emergency treatment, the vendor, service provider or operator shall immediately disclose the information to the health professional upon a verbal acknowledgment by the health professional that the information may not be used for purposes other than the health needs asserted and that the health professional shall maintain the information as confidential. The vendor, service provider or operator may request, and the health professional shall provide upon request, a written statement of need and a confidentiality agreement from the health professional as soon as circumstances permit, in conformance with regulations promulgated under this chapter.
(c)  Disclosures not required.‑‑Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a vendor, service provider or operator shall not be required to do any of the following:
(1)  Disclose chemicals that are not disclosed to it by the manufacturer, vendor or service provider.
(2)  Disclose chemicals that were not intentionally added to the stimulation fluid.
(3)  Disclose chemicals that occur incidentally or are otherwise unintentionally present in trace amounts, may be the incidental result of a chemical reaction or chemical process or may be constituents of naturally occurring materials that become part of a stimulation fluid.
(d)  Trade secrets and confidential proprietary information.‑‑
(1)  Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a vendor, service company or operator shall not be required to disclose trade secrets or confidential proprietary information to the chemical disclosure registry.

There's more; fracking can now legally occur near residences, and there are fewer restrictions than ever.

Delaware Riverkeeper is planning a day of resistance in several towns THIS THURSDAY, February 16. Please join. This cannot be permitted to stand.

Delaware Riverkeeper's call to action is way too mild, though.

Shouting "Shame on you" at people who have no shame is a waste of breath. Don't be fooled into thinking that such wimpy action will affect anything.

Instead, vow to learn and use "nonviolent direct action" -- what I call creative peaceful resistance (CPR), a term that is very appropriate in this life-or-death situation.

We need to tell these "legislators" that we will actively work to remove them from office, and some citizens and attorneys have to start figuring out how to remove this abomination as soon as possible from Pennsylvania law -- to recall it, rescind it, override it, throw it out, replace it with a law that actually protects people and nature rather than lining the pockets of a few crooks. And do some research and find the laws these crooks are already breaking -- they surely are committing crimes in standing Pennsylvania law, and if they're not, Pennsylvania needs a new law that makes fracking -- and the poisoning of people and the environment on which they depend for survival -- a crime. A growing number of New Yorkers support the draft of a law that makes fracking a crime, introduced by FrackBusters NY and Sovereign People's Action Network (full disclosure: I contributed to its writing); Pennsylvanians should waste no time in drafting their own.

It's especially urgent that all physicians and health professionals commit what I call CIVIL DEFIANCE (not "disobedience," because that would assume these creeps deserve our obeisance for some reason) and refuse to abide by this immoral, disgraceful "law."

---------------

The following is from Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

Protest HB1950 and the Takeover of Municipalities by Gas Development.

Three “lunch hour” protests being held at offices of elected representatives who voted for HB1950, selling us out to the gas industry. Please go to the one nearest you!

Thursday, February 16
Noon to 1:00 pm – Near Senator McIlhinney'sOffice (215-489-5000): North Main and Court Sts., Doylestown, PA 18901

Noon to 1:00 pm -- Sen. Ted Erickson’s office, 5037 Township Line Rd., Drexel Hill, PA (noon to 1pm on Thursday)

11:30 am -- Sen. Tim Solobay’s office, 68 E. Pike St. Canonsburg (at the Canonsburg Borough Bldg.)

WE NEED YOU THERE: Please come join your fellow constituents to express your outrage and disappointment that the PA Legislature has now made HB1950 into law. This so-called "Impact Fee" law has gutted municipal controls of gas drilling and related operations by preempting municipal zoning, forcing municipalities to allow gas wells, frack waste pits, pipelines, and other gas-related operations anywhere in a municipality, even residential neighborhoods, next to schools and day care centers, reservoirs and parks. This complete takeover of municipal rights by the State and drilling interests was approved by a majority of the PA Legislature.

We’ve targeted a few elected representatives who voted for the Bill, some who pledged to vote against it like Senators McIlhinney and Erickson, to feel the heat of the public’s shock and disapproval. This travesty must be protested--join us to tell those who voted for this devastating law "Shame on you for selling us out to the gas industry!" Other events will follow wherever constituents want to speak up; please try to take your lunch hour with us at one of these protests on Thursday.

Please make and bring along signs to express your concerns: "Shame on you Sen ______", "PA Leg has sold our rights to drillers", "HB 1950 takes away rights", "polluters/frackers get free pass", etc.

Please also write a letter to your Representative - share your concerns with those who voted for this bad law and thank those who stood up for you and clean water and air: http://www.delawareriverkeeper...

You can see how your PA legislator voted here:
Senate roll call --- http://www.legis.state.pa.us/C...
House roll call --- http://www.legis.state.pa.us/C...

Industry Colludes with Pennsylvania Legislature

2012-02-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

Pennsylvania's state legislature haseffectively signed a death warrant for some number of residents, who knows how many. Corbett’s about to make it official. Pennsylvanians: Fight back — or suffer the consequences.

Thefracking industry has written a bill that gives itself legal permission topoison Pennsylvanians—and keeps doctors who treat them once they’re poisonedfrom telling anyone else what poisoned them. The bill also essentiallypermits all gas drillingand processing activities anywhere, including in residential areas.

It’sall being sold as an “impact fee” bill. Counties that want the income will signon — and that probably means most counties will.

Theindustry was helped in this covert operation by crooks in political office.Those political criminals should be held accountable (more on this below).

The174-page bill, HB1950,was signed in both the House and Senate of the state’s General Assembly, and onFriday (2/10/12) the Senate passed it to Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett forsignature.

Thisis yet the latest egregious example of industry-state denial of municipalities’right to protect themselves. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this isthe legal permitting of murder — and legalization of coerced suicide.

Therecan be no question that the legislators who signed it are in collusion withindustry. They are corrupt. There can be no other explanation. These peoplehave an obligation to protect the citizens of Pennsylvania, and not only arethey not doing so, but they are also denying citizens the right to protectthemselves—and denying physicians and nurses the ability to protect theirpatients!

Andif this outrage does not get Pennsylvanians (and everyone) out in the streets,in Harrisburg at the governor's mansion demanding a veto, and at the offices ofstate legislators, demanding a reversal of the bill’s passage, I do not knowwhat will.

As Berks-Mont News reported on January 25, Pennsylvaniamunicipalities currently do “have the legal right to decide where and how gasdevelopment occurs. Both the Municipalities Planning Code and the StateConstitution vest municipalities with the authority and responsibility toaddress local environmental and public resources. State Supreme Court rulingshave also made it clear that the state Oil and Gas Act allows municipalitiesthe right to use zoning codes to restrict the location of gas wells.”

This law negates those rights and completely strips communitiesof their rights to self govern. This is a blatant abrogation of the UnitedStates constitution and all the hackneyed assertions that We the People haveany say any longer in crafting U.S. law.

The Guilty Parties

Thebill’s primary sponsor in the House (Assembly) was BrianEllis (R-District 11). The 19 cosponsors included SamuelH. Smith (R-66), MikeTurzai (R-28), StanSaylor (R-94), and DaveReed (R-62). But take special note of the three Democrats who cosponsored: KenSmith (D-112), MarcJ. Gergely (D-35), and PaulCosta (D-34). (Contact info for some of them is below, but I hope someonewill take the time to create an easy-to-navigate, easy-click way to call thesecreeps out all at once; I don’t have the time or technical expertise.)

IfCorbett signs this bill into law, he will simply confirm what anybody who’sbeen paying attention already knows: He cares not for the people or future ofhis state.

IfCorbett signs, Pennsylvania activists can kiss goodbye all the tens ofthousands of hours of hard work done by countless volunteers working to stopfracking from further devastating their state, which until the recent arrivalof this industry was quite beautiful and relatively unpolluted. All those hoursspent in researching all aspects of fracking, from public health to physics,from environment to economics; in planning forums and community meetings;educating legislators; debunking industry lies; investigating and challenging unscrupulous politicians; exposing corruptNGOs (“Big Greens”); going door-to-door talking to neighbors; writing locallaws to protect communities; and forming coalitions across townships, counties,states, and nations.

Dorothy Bassett Picks theBill Apart

Ilearned about this from Dorothy Bassett (with my boldfaces and a coupleparentheticals), who read the bill in its entirety and synopsizes thus:

“[Thebill] includes verbiage that says that when a patient comes in, sick due toexposure to chemicals, doctors have to request in writing info on [thechemicals patients might have been] exposed to (think of the time — andtreatment delays involved in this process!) and then have to keep it confidential. Also, the industry doesn't have to reveal compounds that haveformed when all these chemicals and materials from underground come together,nor do they have to report exposure to heavy metals, radioactive substances,etc., from below.

Given theproblems with airborne and waterborne carcinogenic and neurotoxic substancesfrom this industry's open pits of toxic wastes, compressor stations, and thelike, this means that entire communities will still be exposed to chemicalsthat one or more people have had to see a doctor for, and that the doctors willhave to keep it quiet while the communities are at risk.

The factthat the industry has included verbiage in this bill that prevents doctors fromrevealing the chemicals their patients were exposed to:

1.indicates that the industry knows that much of the substances they

areusing are a threat to public health- enough so that emergency

room andother physicians would see cases of toxic exposure to

frackingand related chemicals and substances on a regular basis, i.e.

that thisis not a safe process;

2.indicates that the industry wants to keep it quiet - they know that

if thehealth risks of their activities due to chemical exposure (in

air andwater) were to become public there would be such enormous

outcrythat they would be - appropriately - shut down;

3. [showsthat industry knows fracking/ms] is a human rights and a civilrights violation to the residents and workers affected, and would ultimatelycontribute to a public health catastrophe;

4. wouldguarantee that other individuals [and] families in the area would not be warnedthat they are being exposed on an on-going basis to highly hazardous chemicalsthat have made other individuals ill —often seriously and irreversibly ill.

The billalso says that the industry will NOT provide information on compounds createdby the chemicals or the interaction of the chemicals with things below groundor any of the substances that come up from underground.

Thismeans that they'd provide info only on the frack fluids — which the doctor hasto keep confidential — NOT on what's sitting in frack pits, for example.Considering that strontium. barium and arsenic are common problems, along withnaturally occurring radioactive substances, and brine, doctors won't know thatthe health problem could be coming from these substances from below ground. If theydon't know this, they won't be able to test for or treat for exposure tohazardous compounds formed by this soup of chemicals, heavy metals, NORMs,brine and bacteria from far beneath the surface.

Thebill requires that local ordinances “Shall allow well and pipeline locationassessment operations, including seismicoperations and related activities.” Localities “may not impose conditions,requirements or limitations on the construction of oil and gas operations . . .” The bill makes sure that not only can municipalities not ban fracking, butthey can’t even regulate how the poisonous operations and their harmful sideeffects will be situated and rammed down our throats.

Make Corbett Realize HisPolitical Future Is at Stake

Nowthere is one option available under current law: GET TOGETHER AND STOP CORBETT FROM SIGNING THISHORRIFIC BILL.

Should he sign this bill, the governorof Pennsylvania joins all the legislators who voted for this heinous"bill" as party to murder — because people will die from fracking (infact, quitea few already have).

If he does sign, I see only onealternative: civil defiance from as many people as can be mustered inPennsylvania, to occupy Harrisburg and dog these criminal politicians —especially the three Democrats and 17 Republicans who cosponsored this bill andCorbett — for the long haul. It must not be just a one-day event, but anongoing demonstration of our rejection of our government's collusion in our ownpoisoning.

We need to tell all of these crooks in nouncertain terms that they have lost the support of Pennsylvania voters and willnever get another term. And will be brought up on criminal charges. And we needpeople to start building the legal case against them. Start with the PennsylvaniaCrimes Code Section 25, Section 2502, in which “Murder of criminal code, inwhich “Killing by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind ofwillful, deliberate and premeditated killing, is considered “Murder of thethird degree.”

And that is a crime in any civilized society.Slow poisoning or quick: The only difference is that it will be impossible foryou to prove the link between frackers and your kid’s cancer when it developsfive or seven or twelve years from now, and the frackers and politicians whocolluded with them will be off the hook.

Don’t let that happen, Pennsylvania. Your verylives are at stake.

RESOURCES

Governor Tom Corbett's contact info:

phone (717) 787-2500 fax (717) 772-8284

online form to reach Corbett

HB 1950 BILL Current Status

Passed (Houseof Representatives) on Nov 17, 2011

First Reading(Senate) on Dec 7, 2011

Second Reading (Senate) on Dec 12, 2011

Referred toCommittee (Senate) on Dec 12, 2011

Third Reading(Senate) on Dec 14, 2011

Referred toCommittee (House of Representatives) onDec 14, 2011

Sent toExecutive on Feb 10, 2012

20Sponsors

STAN SAYLOR (sponsor)

414 MainCapitol Building Post Office Box 202094
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-783-6426

District
15 South Main Street 2nd Floor
Red Lion, PA 17356
Ph: 717-244-9232

Dave Reed

128 MainCapitol Building Post Office Box 202062
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-705-7173

District
550 Philadelphia Street
Indiana, PA 15701
Ph: 724-465-0220

Ken Smith (D-112)

28B EastWing Post Office Box 202112
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-783-1359

District
1414 Monroe Avenue
Dunmore, PA 18509
Ph: 570-342-2710

Marc Gergely (D-35)

325 MainCapitol Building Post Office Box 202035
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2035
Ph: 717-783-1018

District
1540 Lincoln Way
White Oak, PA 15131
Ph: 412-664-0035

District
1705 Maple Street Suite 110
Homestead, PA 15120
Ph: 412-476-3046

Paul Costa (D-34)

323 MainCapitol Building Post Office Box 202034
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-783-1914

District
519 Penn Avenue
Turtle Creek, PA 15145
Ph: 412-824-3400

Here’s the whole list of House cosponsors:

3 Democrats

Name	District
Ken Smith 112

Marc J Gergely 35

Paul Costa 34

17 Republicans

Name	District
Brian L Ellis 11

Dan Moul 91

Dave Reed 62

Garth D Everett 84

Jim Christiana 15

Jim Marshall 14

Mike Turzai 28

Mike Vereb 150

Randy Vulakovich 30

Richard R Stevenson 8

Samuel H Smith 66

Sandra Major 111

Seth M Grove 196

Stan Saylor 94

Susan C Helm 104

Will Tallman 193

William F Adolph Jr. 165

Josh Fox Arrest at House Hearing

2012-02-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, documentary filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested at a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment (stop to breathe here, don't give up) that was ostensibly hearing testimony about the EPA's three-year supposed study on the pollution of people.

The hearing was called to "review the EPA's approach to ground water research."

That research -- on the contaminations in Pavillion, Wyoming, that have been wreaking havoc on the lives of animals and "ordinary Americans" like those Josh Fox documented in his 2010 film Gasland -- was "called into question" by a bunch of crooks or idiots in the House who couldn't tell a scientific study from a can of industrially produced beer.

The committee published a statement that didn't even acknowledge Josh's name, let alone his fame or the fact that he testified on fracking before the Senate at Senator Greg Ball's public hearing last August, and at other governmental hearings: "Section 9(j) of the Committee’s rules expressly states that 'Personnel providing coverage by the television and radio media shall be currently accredited to the Radio and Television Correspondents' Galleries.' The individual removed was not accredited by the House Radio and TV Gallery and had refused to turn off his camera upon request by Capitol Police.”

Crock of crud. Josh Fox had attempted to receive credentialing to film the proceedings -- and received no response. No doubt he was ignored because those who have the power to grant such credentials fear him and those with whom he is allied.

That means they fear Us. We the People.

Josh Fox should not have even had to bother with getting "credentialed" beyond the obvious precaution of a weapons check. Any citizen who wants to film the proceedings of our governmental legislative deliberations should be permitted to do so.

Let's just take a look at the name of the institution from which Josh Fox was ejected -- in handcuffs, for heaven's sake. We are talking about the HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES.

The HOUSE is supposed to be the House of THE PEOPLE. The representatives are supposed to represent WE THE PEOPLE.

It is unacceptable to not allow journalists -- be they mainstream, independent, or citizen in this age of social media and instant transfer of information -- to videotape and otherwise record the proceedings in that House that is OURS.

If our "representatives" operate in secret, that is hardly democracy, or any other form of representative government.

Perhaps the ejection of Josh Fox from OUR house will help to wake up the remaining somnalent U.S. public to how much this nation has become entrenched in oligarchy, and spur people to start reading about ALEC and how corporations in bed with corrupt politicians are adversely affecting every aspect of our lives.

Fortunately, people in Occupy movements around the country have connected the dots and understand we must wrest back control of everything -- from the "rules" that deny us access to information critical to our well-being, to the municipal laws that permit poisoning of our homes and bodies, to our ability to get health care when that poison hits our cells and mutates into cancer.

The laws that have been crafted by ALEC and other corporate-state partnerships are not legitimate. We the People need to start writing laws and demanding those who ostensibly represent us vote to pass them. Or create a government that really is Of, By, and For the People.

Good for Josh Fox and others who risk arrest and worse to bring us the truth about those who run this country. We need more citizen journalists. And we need to demand access to all governmental proceedings. Or withhold taxes. Taxation without representation is unjust and unAmerican, I seem to recall having heard somewhere.

State of the Union: Terrifying. But at Least He's Honest Here

2012-01-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

From tonight's State of the Union address, with responses:

"We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, [There is nothing else to call this but what it is: a blatant lie. It might as well be a propaganda piece put out by Chesapeake Energy or some other fossil-fuel pushing, environmentally damaging megamillion-dollar corporation, but from the president of the United States in his 2012 State of the Union address, it is a mockery of environmental or democratic or even fiscal responsibility. There is no scientific consensus on this -- not even REMOTELY. This is completely irresponsible. Other scientists (not industry-supported] say only a few YEARS of 'natural' gas is available and extractiable in the 49 states, including Alaska but excluding Hawaii] and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.

[To anyone who is paying attention, it is crystal clear that this energy source can NOT BE DEVELOPED SAFELY. We will ALL PAY an impossibly HIGH PRICE FOR SUCH DEVELOPMENT]

Experts believe [ONLY PAID INDUSTRY EXPERTS "BELIEVE" THIS, Mr. President. How outrageously pro-fossil-fuel-corporate interests can you be? What kind of payoffs are your speechwriters getting from industry? This is a beyond outrageous claim!] this will support more than 600,000 jobs [that's patently absurd, completely unsupported] by the end of the decade [there is absolutely NO credible evidence of this;' the only three peer-reviewed economic studies that have been done on the subject -- Barth, Rogers, Christopherson -- find something completely different -- that jobs are few and very short-term and NOT going to locals in the regions to which these jobs are promised but instead to "roughnecks" and other outsiders, generally from the Canadian oilfields, Louisiana, Texas, or Oklahoma].

And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. [WOW, HOW BIG OF YOU, Mr. President! YOU'RE REQUIRING COMPANIES TO DISCLOSE THE POISONS WITH WHICH THEY ARE POISONING US! THANKS SO MUCH!] America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk. [HOW DARE YOU lie to us who are suffering the ills of this disgusting corporate-industrial abomination known as FRACKING? HOW DARE YOU be so cavalier when talking about our health, our homes, our children's lives, our very way of life, our FUTURE! This is outrageously irresponsible and shows you are embedded with fossil-fuel corporations. No matter WHAT good you might have done/want to do, your outrageously corporate-embedded behavior on FRACKING and complete disregard for CLIMATE CHANGE make any support I might have offered you AN IMPOSSIBILITY.]

"The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock -- reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground."

But, lest we despair, the president is firmly committed to a regulatory system that really works:

"We've all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn't afford them. That’s why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, don't destroy the free market. They make the free market work better.

"There is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense. We've already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. . . . I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men.

"And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. . . . "

Whew! What a relief, Mr. President! Thank you soooooooo much!

For those of you who still believed Barack Obama was a decent human being who would stand up for the rights, health, and well-being of regular people versus corporate interests, I offer you my sympathies. I urge you to get active now that you realize there's nobody but you and the grassroots looking out for your interests.

Tbose who hoped Obama would eventually see the light have got to rethink. And we cannot simply say that "He's the best we've got, so let's support him."

I am feeling that I will put my energies behind STOPPING a presidential candidate who aligns so blatantly with Big Oil Big Gas Big Corporate Interests to the detriment of We the People. The corrupted U.S. two-party political system is bankrupt and spent. Perhaps you'll want to put your efforts elsewhere, my friends.

Bill McKibben: Stop Playing Nice with Obama

2012-01-23T11:47:00.001-08:00
Why is environmental icon McKibben playing footsies with Barack Obama, a president clearly in deep with polluting corporations? Direct action by the people is the only potentially successful way forward. My piece in Counterpunch is at http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/23/mr-mckibben-take-heed/.

The American Lung Association in Bed with a Big Polluter

2012-01-13T16:19:00.000-08:00

I just sent this letter off to the following people after learning that the American Lung Association Denver chapter is hosting a big fundraising event, Fight for Air Climb, on February 26, that is sponsored by Encana Oil & Gas! I'm just disgusted.

Please use these e-addresses to send your own thought to the ALA. Feel free to crib from this and/or follow all links.
Maura
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To: Liz Toohey, American Lung Association Denver Director of Development, ltoohey@lungcolorado.org
cc: American Lung Association CEO Charles Dean Connor, esward@lungusa.org, charles.connor@lungusa.org; ALA Board President Albert A. Rizzo, MD (via fax to Pulmonary Associates, Newark, DE at 302-368-5515); ALA Board President Ross P. Lanzafame, Esq., rlanzafame@hselaw.com
Via fax to ALA headquarters at (212) 315-8870 for distribution to all board members

Bcc: Shaleshock, Coalition to Protect New York, Interstate Coalition, and other grassroots activist groups
Posted on Facebook/Twitter
------------

Dear Ms. Toohey, Mr. Connor, Dr. Rizzo, Mr. Lanzafame, and American Lung Association officers and directors,

I was approached for support by a friend who is participating in the Fight for Air Climb in Denver, which led me to learn more about it. I am beyond appalled to discover that this event, supposedly promoting clean air and healthy lungs, is being sponsored by Encana Oil and Gas, one of the worst corporate polluters of air, water, and communities in the country.

How greedy and stupid has the American Lung Association become? Would you also take money from RJ Reynolds? Have you grown so big and bureaucratic that you have lost all sight of your original vision and mission?

It seems more important to raise money from corporate sponsors who actually contribute to the ill health of so many lungs, hearts, minds, and souls in this country.

From your promotional materials, it is clear that the human participants who think they're doing something important and philanthropic are no more to you than "consumers," as witnessed in your slick pitch to potential corporate sponsors, who can "underscore [their] community commitment" by partnering with your organization at the same time they find new customers and attract new shareholders:

The Fight for Air Climb participant represents the following demographics: 62% are female, 59% are between the ages of 24-44, 55% are married, 70% have a 4 year college degree or greater, 75% report a household income of $60,000 or greater, and 50( own their home. Further 76% are employed of which many are participating in corporate teams representing Colorado's largest employers. Sponsorship packages include many tangible and actionable rights and benefits that will provide our sponsors with the opportunity to:
Connect with 3,000 climbers, family and friends plus an additional 300 volunteers
Achieve your marketing & communications objectives
Underscore your community commitment
Partner with the American Lung Association in Colorado, the nation's preeminent organization working to improve lung health. Attract customers & generate leads while engaging staff
Your president and CEO Dr. Charles Dean Connor's own December 21, 2011 Huffington Post column is laudatory toward the Obama administration and the EPA for introducing new federal standards on toxic pollutants and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. "Step forward and work to maximize the pollution reductions and do your fair share to help those that breathe the air downwind from your smokestacks," Connor urges power companies that have not yet complied. "No one wants to breathe your secondhand smog any more."

The same is true for oil and gas companies. Dr. Connor and the American Lung Association should certainly know this. The American Lung Association's own Public Policy Position Paper on Energy, approved June 11, 2011, avers the following (paragraph 1):

The American Lung Association believes that protection of lung health and a sound U.S. energy policy are compatible goals that require an emphasis on energy conservation, energy efficiency, and the use of cleaner energy resources, including a transition from coal and oil to cleaner alternatives. Our overarching principles call for the implementation of effective air quality programs and standards, transitioning to a clean energy future, with a commitment to promote environmental justice.

What kind of clean energy future can there be when one of the nation's most respected and recognized health associations is in bed with a dirty oil and gas company such as Encana? How can there be environmental justice when such corporations are pillaging lands and communities in nearly 30 states via fracking for methane gas and drilling for oil in sensitive environments, endangering the health of humans, domestic animals, wildlife, and ecosystems?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft analysis December 8, 2011 of the data from its investigation into the groundwater quality in the gas fields in and near Pavillion, Wyoming. Encana Oil and Gas conducted hydraulic fracturing there from 2004 to 2007 while developing new wells. “The draft report indicates that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing,” the EPA wrote in its press release. The report proves that gas industry assertions that "there has never been an incident of groundwater contamination by fracking" are, at best, obfuscating and misleading. At worst -- and to those of us who have studied the industry for some time, more likely -- outright lies.

In June 2008 the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance called EnCana the worst of the oil and gas companies operating in Wyoming:

The Worst of the Bad Actors

This list is ranked beginning with the worst. These are the companies that, due to their abysmal track record in Wyoming, have the greatest potential for improvement.

1. EnCana

–EnCana’s activities have become a poster-child for irresponsible development. In the Upper Green River Valley’s Jonah Field, EnCana initially drilled 16 wells per square mile, at the time the worst project of the last several decades. Then this Canadian gas giant sought – and got – permission to drill an additional 3,100 wells in the field at densities from 64 to 128 well sites per square mile. When completed, the well pads will extend almost unbroken by native vegetation across 33,000 acres of public land, and they’re now expanding from this initial area. EnCana officials dishonestly claimed that directional drilling wasn’t possible in the Jonah Field, even though more than 140 directional wells have been drilled in this field. EnCana also holds leases inside the Adobe Town proposed wilderness and is pursuing drilling there. To top it all off, EnCana’s oil and gas wells have caused groundwater contamination problems in the Pavillion area of the Wind River Basin.

You make a travesty of the good work done by many people in your organization when you choose to partner with a notorious member of the most polluting industry on earth -- an industry that through corruption of our legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government made itself exempt from such environmental and health regulations as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund laws.

The problem is bigger than just Encana, however.

The American Lung Association obviously took an early stance on the subject of "natural" gas extraction. I hope that this is so -- that the ALA had not
seen the documentary films Split Estate or Gasland or All Fracked Up, or
read any of Dr. Theo Colborn's shocking work on the horrific numbers of endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and neurotoxins used in hydrofracking, or
learned of the naturally occurring radioactive materials and heavy metals and VOCs that come up with the millions of gallons of permanently poisoned wastewater that are a byproduct of fracking, or
read any of the other volumes of information that have been coming to light over the past couple of years,
-- and thus had no idea of the dangers of hydrofracking when it declared in the same June 2011 energy policy paper:

The American Lung Association supports public policies to minimize the human health, particularly lung health, impacts associated with the production of heat for residential, commercial, and industrial use, including impacts from fuel extraction to the disposal of wastes. The American Lung Association supports regulation and enforcement to protect the air, water and other environmental resources during the exploration, extraction, production and transmission of natural gas, propane, and oil. The American Lung Association supports programs and policies to assist communities and individuals to reduce their exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollutants and to reduce their energy use.

This indicates to me that you do not understand that a filthy fossil fuel extraction and transportation industry cannot be regulated well. And even if it could, it has made itself exempt from regulation! Surely with the number of terminal-degreed people on your staff and board, you can see that quite clearly.

AND THEN, again in the same document, you write:
The American Lung Association supports the expanded use of natural gas, and propane where natural gas is not available, for heating residential and commercial buildings, as a less polluting alternative to oil and other fossil fuels.

Perhaps at the time you wrote that, you were unaware of the peer-reviewed Robert Howarth, Ph.D. study out of Cornell University in which the researchers determined that the entire cradle-to-grave process of fracking for "natural" gas is as bad or worse a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than even oil or coal extraction (findings that were corroborated by two subsequent peer-reviewed studies).

I certainly hope so. I certainly hope that an august body such as your board of directors will look again at this terrible energy policy and rethink your recommendations. You should be running like mad away from the destructive, criminal practice of fracking, not embracing it and those who foist it upon a nearly helpless public and the totally helpless natural world.

I plan to share this letter widely via my many list serves and via social media, including the Coalition to Protect New York and interstate groups working to outlaw fracking before it perpetrates further harm on nature, communities, water supplies, air quality, croplands and food supply, properties, and our own lungs and other necessary body parts.

I hope to hear that ALA Denver and other ALA chapters decide that it is not worth it to accept blood money from a polluting company or industry that works in direct opposition to the ALA's stated values and mission. Doing so mocks the trusting people who work hard on behalf of ALA and sullies your reputation.

I eagerly await your response.

Maura Stephens

PO Box 403
Spencer NY 14883
607-274-3829 office
607-351-3766 mobile
maura@coalitiontoprotectnewyork.org

Reference/a very short list of suggested further readings (happy to provide more if you request):
"Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing" (the "Duke study") by Osborn, SG, A Vengosh, NR Warner, RB Jackson. 2011, and related links therefrom (attached in PDF format)
"West Divide Gas Seep" (4/14/04). Extract: Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission fined Encana Oil and Gas $371,200 (a record) for contaminating water supplies in West Divide Creek, Colorado. COGCC found methane, benzene, toluene, and m,p xylenes in water wells, and said Encana "inadequately cemented the well."
"Encana fined over harms to protected birds" (Denver Post, 8/28/2010). Extract: Encana fined the maximum fine of $15,000 for each of two counts plus $170,000 in community service payments for violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Colorado and Wyoming, killing 55 protected birds including waterfowl and owls, at its uncovered "natural" gas well reserve pits and wastewater storage facilities in Colorado's Piceance Basin and in Sweetwater, Sublette and Lincoln counties in Wyoming.
"$13,692 gallons of 'produced water' spilled" in Mamm Creek. Extract: Encana said it was from a pipeline rupture. Teh water traveled about a half mile before entering the creek (Glenwood Springs Post Independent, October 9, 2008)
"Methane increasing in water wells near Silt, Rifle, consultant says." Extract: Analysis of 700 water samples from 100 water wells and other water sources shows increased methane, which seem to be related to the 1,000 gas wells in the area.

A Wakeup Call for PDP Burma

2011-12-02T10:55:00.001-08:00
I received a rather crazy missive from the Parliamentary Democracy Party this week. It claimed that on 11-11-11 the PDP received a visitor from three astrologers. These three "seers," said PDP, received a visit from the spirit of the slain Burmese democracy leader General Aung San, father of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. General Aung San's spirit ostensibly told them her daughter has "dishonour[ed] the revolution and my legacy, but my Higher Guardian Angles [sic] will not let her succeed."

If this is the kind of nonsense it is spreading, the PDP has become a sexist, racist sham of a political party. To my Burmese friends, I say: Let's tell them we no longer wish to receive warmongering missives like this. Tell them they cannot speak for the spirit of Aung San, and it is preposterous to claim that they do so.

I became involved in the struggle for Burmese freedom and democracy because I wanted to help a loving and inclusive people break the chains of tyranny, bigotry, hatred, and usurpation of their human rights. I do not wish to be subjected to vicious, divisive, non-constructive diatribes, from the military thugs or anyone who purports to want justice, equity, freedom, and inclusive democracy.

PDP: If you have something to say specifically, come out and say it. Don't blame Aung San Suu Kyi simply for existing, or for attempting to find some way forward to a sustainable future for Burma and its beleaguered people.

Anyone who tries to build bridges can and will surely be accused of selling out one side or the other. I know from much experience that it is vastly more difficult to work toward understanding and cooperation than it is to stand rigidly on one's own side, unbudging, unyielding, and doomed to perpetual misery, violence, or subjugation.

Things change. We must be flexible to change along with the tides, and not drown for stubbornness because we refuse to move as the tide laps at our nostrils. Change is difficult. Democracy is difficult and messy. Getting along with others is hard; ask any kid in a playground.

I spent many years fighting against hatred, bigotry, and desperate suppression in Northern Ireland. Much of the ongoing violence was fueled by generations of people who could not relinquish their bitterness against one another's forebears or put aside their thirst for vengeance. This carried on for several generations, and it still lingers. Many, many people suffered and died because the sides could not find common ground. And that was in a country of only two groups divided by religion and economic power -- not nearly as complex a population as that of Burma, with its more than 100 ethnicities!

It is easy to become choked by acrimony and animosity. If we cannot find it in our hearts to look forward with hope, remembering and learning from but not dwelling on others' sins of the past, we will never find the way to a free, fair, just, and democratic Burma.

I hope, PDP people, that you can find it in your hearts to begin planning for a positive and inclusive future for Burma and its people, both men and women, and all ethnicities. The people of Burma deserve nothing less than your generosity of spirit; a long-term, far-reaching vision for the sustainable yet prosperous country Burma could be someday; and your willingness to work hard to ensure that it so becomes. And please stop claiming you or your friends speak to the dead. That's just wrong.

Maura Stephens
friend of the Burmese people
formerly with
the International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma

DEC: Inergy LPG Storage in Salt Caverns Is Insane. Say No.

2011-11-14T18:49:00.001-08:00

Today was the deadline to comment to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation on the proposed Inergy, Corp. liquefied petroleum gas storage in salt caverns in Reading, New York, just north of Watkins Glen on beautiful, vineyard-encircled Seneca Lake. This is what I wrote to the DEC about its facility ID 8-4432-00085. I am not as polite as most of those who wrote. That's because I'm mad as hell. You should be, too.

I could give numerousscientific reasons that permitting the LPG storage facility in salt mines inReading (or anywhere else in the Finger Lakes) will cause environmental damage.Many others have submitted such comments as to why the DEC’s EIS for LPGstorage in salt mines in Reading is grossly inadequate, why we are aware anddisgusted that the only real benefits will go to Inergy, related industries,and to the government and regulatory officials in their pockets, and why we areaware and disgusted that We the People who live in the region will pay dearlywithout receiving any recompense for our immeasurable and irreconcilable losses.
Others have written about howour existing tourism, wine, outdoor recreation, and real estate businesseswould collapse with the permitting of poisoning by Inergy and relatedindustries.
You have had an earful abouthow the noise, traffic, and clogged air would affect our lives and health—andsurely your own, even very basic, research would have confirmed this.
You already know that LPGstorage facilities cause sicknesses and even death of plant and animal life—andprobably of people (as well as existing businesses).
You know, too, that there willbe few jobs gained, if any. It is in fact more likely that Inergy’s LPG storagefacility would lead to job loss,considering that existing businesses will be forced to downsize or close astourism and crop purity are destroyed.
You have heard firsthand from homeownerswho are selling their homes and escaping, or at the very least delaying plannedhome building or home-improvement projects. You have heard of how prospectivebuyers are looking elsewhere because nobody in her right mind wants to livenear or be forced to travel by a gas storage and transport facility.
Surely it is clear to you thatlower property values will have an overall terrible effect on Schuyler County’sproperty tax base, which in turn will cause neighboring counties’ propertiesand tax bases to weaken
You must admit, sir, that theDEC is hamstrung and grossly understaffed. It does not have the power toenforce regulations, even if regulations had any meaning. But they don’t, andthat is the primary purpose of this letter.
This Company Is . . . Let’s Just Say,Not One to Write Home About
Surely it is clear to anyonewith half a a brain that once Inergy gets this facility in place, it willquickly expand to the other salt caverns around Seneca Lake, and thence to themany caverns around Cayuga and the other Finger Lakes. That will destroyeverything valuable about this region as a place to live and raise a family, avacation destination, a business community, and the precious ecosystems andwaterways on which life depends.
I’m not sure that anyone has yetbrought up the fact that Inergy, like all fossil-fuel corporations (indeed,like all corporations), has one mission and one mission only: to make money.
That money is often made at theexpense of people’s livelihoods, property, health, and lives. And thecorporation often lies to get its way. Which is exactly what is happening here,with Inergy.
Inergy has, preposterously,claimed that its executives and staff are “locals” who “care about” SenecaLake. That is an outright lie. Almost all, and certainly the highest-paid ones,are from out of state, as several of us have learned from these individualsthemselves. So that argument must be publicly refuted and called out for thelie it is. DEC and the media “reporting” on this issue should already be doingthat consistently.
You and the media should also be seriouslyquestioning why (a) Inergy relies on the 1992 GEIS, which does not even dealwith LPG storage in salt mines, for information in its proposal; (b) thecompany was suedby Michigan Attorney General in 2008 for price gouging (and settled byrefunding the overcharges to customers); (c) the company has no ties to thisregion; (d) the company has been caught in numerous lies andmisrepresentations, yet Reading and Schuyler County officials seem to findthese all just fine.
We’re Not Fooled: This Gas Is Not forDomestic Use
Inergy is attempting to pull abait-and-switch by telling people in this region that its desire is to “storeheating fuel here so that we can provide local residents with cheaper fuelduring winter months, when prices are higher.”
That, too, is an outright lie.Inergy will sell to the highest bidder because that is its mission: to makemoney. It would be following in the footsteps of countless fossil fuelcorporations that have lied to convince the public, regulators, and legislatorsthat they intend to keep their domestically extracted product in the USA (it’sso “patriotic” and will make us “energy independent” and get us off “foreignfuels”). They are granted permits to poison here, and then turn around to selltheir products abroad, where the best prices can be met.
Waterborne Energy, Inc., in its LPG Report dated 3June 2010, says, “On an annualized basis, there were 30.208mmbbls exportedduring calendar year 2009. Through June 2010 there have been 17.145mmbblsexported – or 56% of the overall total achieved last year. If the year-to-dateJuly figures are included the percentage rises to 61%. The vast majority of theexports is clearly propane, of which there have been 16.6mmbbls removed fromdomestic inventories. This compares to the total propane volume exported lastyear, which was 25.4mmbbls.”
Pervin & Gertz, Inc., “international energyconsultants,” reported in its 2010 Latin American LPG Seminar, held in ChileNovember 15-18, 2010, that “In fact, LPG exports from Houston to Latin Americahave grown each of the past 3 years and volumes appear to be on track to reacha modern day record in 2010. This situation has had repercussions in the U.S.propane market, with pre-winter inventory levels running far belowaverage. Ultimately, we expect these conditions to strengthen propaneprices in the U.S. This scenario would trigger higher prices throughoutmost of Latin America, particularly in un-subsidized markets reliant on propaneimports.”
Coastal Caverns, Inc. (CCI), a wholly-ownedsubsidiary of the Vitol Group, announced on July 5, 2011, its plans to developa new propane export facility in conjunction with its in-development LPGstorage operation in Beaumont, Texas. It willinclude storage capacity for up to six million barrels of domestic and internationalgrade propane as well as a processing facility capable of handling as much as100,000 bbls per day. The project will be designed to ultimately treat andexport up to 3 million tons of propane per year.
Most recently, three weeks ago,BG Group signed a 20-year, $8 billion agreement with Houston-based CheniereEnergy to export LNG.
So much for “clean, patriotic,domestic energy” serving the U.S. market. We know that’s hogwash, as are theclaims of Inergy and others that LPG storage is completely unrelated tofracking for “natural” gas in our region.
Part of a Much Bigger Industry ThatWill Destroy New York State Permanently
We know that propane is foundin Marcellus shale gas south and west of us, and we know that the gas needs tobe refined to separate the propane from the methane and butane. That requiresrefineries—more industrialization.
Once the door is open to thisdestructive industry, there will be no shutting it.
That is not acceptable. We arenot willing to be collateral damage to serve the interests of a few corporatefat cats and the politicians with whom they are colluding.
The people who work for theDEC, like those who work for regulatory agencies of every description in theUnited States, no doubt mean well and have good intentions. But you have beenrendered powerless by a political system that does not see value in regulatingindustry to protect people and nature.
Impotent Regulatory System
DEC is virtually powerless. Whywould any sane people trust that a powerless agency can protect us fromcorporate harm, that you even could protect our environment and nature fromcorporate damage, or that you could possibly “mitigate” the harm once we havebeen contaminated—which we surely would be if this LPG storage facility and thesubsequent industrial expansion come to New York State?
You are not God; you cannotmake pure something that has been permanently poisoned. You cannot restore abucolic, beautiful, peaceful way of life once it has been destroyed by aheartless, soulless industry. You cannot make dead fish and aquatic creaturescome back to life. You cannot remove benzene, or methane, or toluene or xyleneor hydrochloric acid—or radium, or a mixture of the above—from our drinkingwater and croplands.
Lest you accuse me of hysteria,I will point out that I am a journalist with 33 years of experienceinvestigating, among other things, environmental and business issues. I didgraduate work in botany and horticulture, and I am a long-time organic farmer.I am not given to hyperbole. Every thing I have predicted in this frackingfight so far has come true. I smelled this Inergy rat the minute it announceditself in Reading.
The Role of the DEC
I love the Finger Lakes and NewYork State, and I will not stand by and see it destroyed by wanton corporationsgiven free rein to rape and pillage at will. Nor will the tens of thousands ofpeople who have joined actively in antifracking movement across the state, fromShelter Island to Niagara Falls.
I do not agree with someleaders in the fight against this destructive industry that an independent Qualitativeand Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) is in order. The only thing in order, inmy mind, is a total ban on use of the Finger Lakes or any critical watershed asstorage of highly toxic materials. A potent and on-task environmental regulatoryagency would be fighting for this right up front, no matter the odds.Unfortunately, the DEC charge of fostering “natural resources” development isdirectly at odds with its charge of protecting the environment, and yourconflicted mission inevitably causes harm to the latter.
Yet your goals statement doessay the DEC pursues “environmental quality, public health, economic prosperityand social well-being, including environmental justice and the empowerment ofindividuals to participate in environmental decisions that affect their lives.”
Now, that’s more like it. Ifyou start toward this goal, you will inevitably listen to us and say aresounding No to the Inergy proposal.
If you do not, the people cannotstand for the degradation of our home, and there is no time like the present tomake some serious changes in the way business is conducted in New York State.We are fighting for our way of life here. We are fighting for ourfuture. There is tremendous power in people when so much is at stake. Isincerely hope the DEC will be on the side of the environment andenvironmental justice, as your website proclaims you are. If not, well, I guess it's up to us, then.

Great Investigative Journalism Work You MUST View

2011-11-10T12:10:00.000-08:00
Our neighbors in Tonawanda, on the Niagara River in western New York State just south of Buffalo, were being poisoned for decades by a company that, unlike the gas/oil industry, does not enjoy exemptions from clean water, clean air, and toxic waste laws and other regulations set in place to protect our environment and health.

For many years regulatory agencies DEC (NYS) and EPA (federal) ignored residents' complaints of foul air and physical ailments, outrageously high rates of cancer and other diseases, and benzene levels 500 times higher than what is considered the highest acceptable level in state guidelines. Not only benzene, but other highly toxic chemicals were being released over decades into the air and water by a company called Tonawanda Coke Corporation. (No doubt others of the 50 or so industrial polluters that have PERMITS in Tonawanda contributed even more.)

From the piece:
Joe Martens, commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, defended the record of his agency, which eventually set up high-tech air quality monitors that documented extremely elevated benzene levels, leading to the enforcement actions. But he said such sophisticated equipment had not been available previously. So state officials had no way of knowing about the benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic emissions seeping from leaks in equipment and piping at the plant, Martens said. “Hazardous air pollutants are difficult to detect. We didn’t have the equipment to do the type of detection — you know, police work — that EPA was able to do” later.

After reading this, what kind of idiot would say, "Hey, sure the DEC and DEP and EPA will protect us from being poisoned by industry"? Ask the people of Tonawanda, many of whom have become very sick and some of whom have died because of the toxins dumped on them by this single iron-smelting factory.

Yet we are to trust that the DEC and other flaccid regulatory agencies will protect us from Big Gas and related industries and their fracking and related machines and poisons? No way, Jose!

We must tell the DEC and the governor that no amount of regulation is acceptable. DEC (and DEP and other states' agencies) regulations are not acceptable. Only a full and total ban on industrial poisoning from fracking and other industries is acceptable.

Read the great investigative piece on Tonawanda citizens who fought back against the polluting company, which was finally charged in criminal court -- because poisoning us and our communities IS A CRIME and thus should be in the criminal code. Every one of the corporate officers and senior staff should serve serious jail time and pay heavy financial damages to those they poisoned. Not that any amount of money could restore the poisoned people's lives or adequately compensate for their losses.

This piece is part of a fine, scary, and eye-opening new series by the Center for Public Integrity in concert with Slate and NPR, called "Poisoned Places."
From "About the series":
As often happens during in-depth investigations — an unexpected discovery. Reporters learned that the EPA maintains a “watch list” that includes serious or chronic Clean Air Act violators that have not been subject to timely enforcement. Two versions of the internal list, never previously made public, were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. (More about the watch list here.)

Congratulations to the investigators, researchers, writers, editors, publishers, and funder of these important pieces. May they awaken people to the dangers we face and help them force change to protect and sustain the places we live, the air we breathe, and the lives we hope to continue leading.

For a Favorite Fool

2011-10-20T12:33:00.000-07:00
A friend was laid to rest today.

He was a dancer
and fellow thespian
a dear, kind man.

He’d been the Scottish king
thrice (once versus
my half Lady
— that’s a long tale).

He’d played many a part
Mostly Shakespearean
and mostly the fool —
his favorite!

His even better role
was as
husband and father
to his lovely girls

Gorgeous loving brave wife
Two fine daughters
Each of them to die for
and he would have.

His passing
was not sudden
for our friends
who had stayed close.

For me
It was lightning
We hadn’t been
in touch of late.

Bob’s funeral
today
was mobbed
with friends
and colleagues
from all walks
of his many-pathed life
— human services
theater
dance
music
comedy . . .

Clowning Bob,
Funny fool,
Laughing lad!
So beloved
by so many.

Can you really,
truly be gone?

No, of course not.
You are here
Large as life.
In our hearts
if not still
in your kitchen
at our tables
on our stages.

We know your tricks.
You can’t fool us!
But it was
a nice try. :^)

Ciao
for now,
Bob DeLuca.

--October 20, 2011, Ithaca, New York USA

An URGENT Open Letter to NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo

2011-06-30T14:49:00.000-07:00
Actual posting time is 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 30, 2011. Something is wrong with the blogger clock/calendar.

This posting is appearing in Alternet and other publications. Urgency dicatated that I post it online immediately so people can bombard Cuomo with calls and e-mails expressing their [fill in your own word: fury, disappointment, anguish, disgust, heartbreak, terror, determination to fight harder and elect people who will protect our rights to clean air, clean water, safe food supplies, decent communities, and our rights to NOT BE POISONED . . .]

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We just got word that you're lifting the fracking moratorium in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. I'm almost apoplectic from shock, anger, grief, and terror.

A former farmer and trained environmentalist, researcher, and independent journalist, I have spent much of the last three years learning and writing about fracking. I am a cofounder of the Coalition to Protect New York, among other actively engaged organizations working to ban fracking in our state and elsewhere.

We do not trust the Department of Environmental Conservation to get things right on fracking. Even if it were a reliable and trustworthy agency, the DEC’s budget has been cut so drastically and its workforce decimated to the point that it’s virtually hamstrung.

We do not trust — nor should any sensible, informed citizen or legislator trust — corporate-bought politicians and corporate "scientists."

For the moment we must trust that you are not among that group and that you truly want to do what is right for New York State.

In these tough economic, energy, and environmental times it will take a visionary, forward-thinking leader to bring the state into the future with an innovative energy/jobs/climate-change-effects-lessening plan.

You could be that leader if you have the desire and political will to do so.

It appears you have decided to lift the moratorium for the state outside the New York City watershed (because Wall Street traders, corporate tycoons and big bankers live downstate) and Syracuse watershed (tossing a bone to the rest of the state, according to cynics), while throwing the rest of us to the wolves.

This means you think of the rest of the state’s residents and environment as expendable.

You may be committing political suicide.

Many millions of New Yorkers now know what is at stake with fracking, and more are coming to that understanding daily as they learn of its ills in other places.

That speaks to the dedication of my fellow antifracking activists, who are fighting an industry that can without blinking an eye drop $150 million or more yearly to hoodwink the public and lobby legislators with false propaganda. Their ads claim that “natural” gas is “clean, safe, domestic, and patriotic.” And that it’s an economic panacea for struggling workers whose jobs have been eliminated or sent abroad.

Which, as you surely know, are all false claims.

Governor, you should quickly reconsider lifting the moratorium. The only sensible, responsible, long-term response to the devastating practice of fracking (a response that would also greatly offset our economic woes) is to
1) immediately institute a statewide fracking ban (New Jersey’s legislature just passed one; it’s waiting for Governor Christie’s signature, which is probably not forthcoming; but you could be the first);
2) invest in wide-scale updating and reinforcing of infrastructures and in conservation/energy-efficiency rehabilitating existing public and private buildings and homes;
3) commit to the building and maintenance of long-term energy-efficient public transportation and codify mandatory greater fuel efficiency in all private and public large, small, agricultural, and industrial vehicles;
4) invest in research, development and implementation of renewable, sustainable neighborhood- and local-based energy systems, and write and enforce laws mandating the phase-out of all fossil-fuel based systems;
5) protect and keep public all drinking water supplies;
6) promote and foster healthful, organic agriculture and food distribution models; and
7) invest in public education programs about conservation, the reduction of energy consumption, and about renewable energy strategies.

Following such a plan would save money through conservation. It would reduce our need for and dependence on fossil fuels (which dependence, as you know, is unsustainable, even in the short term). It would also create plenty of safer, stabler, longer-term jobs, as the “green” sector expands with innovative new projects.

Perhaps most important, it would help stave off further hastening of catastrophic climate change and leave a legacy of forward-thinking and sustainability — rather than one of industrialization and ruination of lives, communities, and food and water supplies.

Fracking is the single most important issue facing New Yorkers. It will add water-pollution, air-pollution, and food toxicity illnesses, generate injuries to workers and others, and thereby increase our health care costs.

It will cause property damage and drain our communities of tax revenues that will need to be used to repair roads and bridges damaged by the thousand of trucks it takes to provision a frack well and remove the millions of gallons of contaminated waste generated by each well.

It contributes to greenhouse gases and global climate change and the increasingly commonplace whacky weather patterns we are seeing in New York and elsewhere. It will kill our tourism, outdoor adventuring, and agriculture and vineyards enterprises around the state—which would constitute economic suicide. Those industries combined bring in about $2.2 billion annually and provide 515,000 jobs (and will likely grow as neighboring Pennsylvania’s hunting, fishing, agriculture, and tourism sicken and die of fracking-related causes).

We must not allow the progress we have made these last few decades on the clean air/clean water/safe food to be wiped out via one destructive industry, nor allow our bucolic state to be turned into an industrial wasteland.

Because, mark my words, that is what fracking will do to New York should your permits go through.

New York is “Fracking Ground Zero.” People in fracked states are looking to us for leadership, begging New Yorkers to stop the madness before it takes hold here. They do not want us to be poisoned, and they also want us to then help them stop the industrialization and maybe help reverse some of the damages (although, alas, it is too late for many of these states, and huge swaths of land as well as people’s health and properties are beyond reclamation) of their communities.

Governor Cuomo, I urge you to be the leader New Yorkers need — and in whom they put their faith in when casting their votes.

Do not succumb to industry/Wall Street pressure. Do not put profits before our health. Do not gamble with our lives.

This is a make-or-break issue for me, my family, and the many organizations to which I belong and which I have founded or cofounded. We are making this the top priority in our lives and in our daily and many political actions. We feel we are fighting for our way of life — indeed, for our very lives. We want you to be equally committed to saving what is precious and irreplaceable.

Please invite us to consult with you if your information is leading you to lift the moratorium. We are informed. We are knowledgeable. We are farsighted.

We are taxpaying scientists, medical doctors and practitioners from many fields (oncology, pulmonology, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, physiatry, endocrinology, and psychiatry), farmers, water quality specialists, hazardous materials experts, teachers, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, writers, artists, homeowners, renters, teens, college students, parents, grandparents, voters.

We will help you understand that fracking risks are far too great, too widespread, too permanent, too irremediable, too suicidal on so many fronts.

We are also motivated. There’s nothing that pulls people off their couches like a threat to their kids' health and their property values. We will not allow ourselves to be used as lab rats, cannon fodder, or "collateral damage."

So you can be sure that we will not stop fighting for a ban. We hope you will do the right thing and push for a total ban on fracking in New York State.

And Governor, please make the decision quickly. We have all lost countless hours to this fight — and countless hours of sleep to our deep and very real fears of what fracking will do to our future, and our children’s — and we would like to go back to being productive rather than reactive. Our reinvigoration and productivity will also help the troubled economy, about which you might be losing a lot of sleep as well.

We are also willing to sit on an advisory board to help you put the positive sustainability/conservation work mentioned above in place. Just ask us.

My family, friends, colleagues, fellow activists and I look forward to your response.

Signed,

Maura Stephens
Tioga County, NY

Maura Stephens is an independent journalist and cofounding member of the Coalition to Protect New York and other groups. She writes frequently about fracking and other environmental and energy issues. To contact New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php; (518) 474-8390. Let him know you're outraged and you think fracking is the most important issue facing us -- and what his actions will mean for your future votes and support. And then really get involved. Join an antifracking group and become an activist. Growing our numbers and our outrage will help fuel a mass movement -- the only force that is going to save everything we care about from greedy corporate destruction.

"People are awesome," yes, and . . .

2011-02-02T13:34:00.000-08:00
Someone sent me a link to this amazing video of people doing all sorts of crazy athletic (or just plain crazy) stunts. Check it out; it's a few minutes long but very compelling.

http://www.videobash.com/video_show/people-are-awesome-5962

This filled me with admiration in some ways. For example, can you imagine what kinds of fears people overcame to do some of these stunts? How many bruises, sprains, gashes, breaks, cuts, fractures, and PAIN some of them suffered in pursuit of their goal,? Yet still they kept at it until they succeeded. Such determination, patience, dedication, resolve, endurance.

Power to them.

Yet I couldn't help thinking about how many people worldwide are living on too-few calories a day or don't have access to potable water. Without nutrition and hydration, even many young people who should be in the prime of life are unable even to crawl a few hundred feet -- that would be their death-defying stunt.

It must be nice to be both free and well-nurtured enough (and in many cases, rich enough) to engage in pursuits such as those demonstrated in the video.

If these people were a tenth as dedicated to making the world a better place as they are to pushing themselves to the height of physical prowess (and self-glorification), we'd have a much more egalitarian society. There'd be less governmental and corporate abuse of power, more jobs, stronger communities, less environmental degradation, less stress, more economic opportunity, and more concern for one another's well being.

Watching this video reminds me, too, of the clever hackers who are so good at messing up people's personal computers (which can in turn mess up people's personal lives pretty badly).

If only these smart s^*#heads would put their brains and talents into doing something for the common good. Some of them are smart enough, I've no doubt (especially if they put their heads together with others of similar bent), to figure out a way, say . . .
for ivory poachers to make a living doing something less murderous but equally lucrative, or
to create a community wind farm in a town that's getting overrun by gas drilling or coal mining operations -- thereby negating the community's ostensible need for fossil fuels, or
to build a village water well for a place that has none, or
to fund a children's vaccination program, or
. . . who knows, to find a cure for diabetes, or bronchitis, or asthma, or cancer.

We need to tell young people there is glory in that kind of work, not just in ten minutes of fame on YouTube (even if it gets a million hits). Glory doesn't come only from appearing on American Idol or being the next big mini-star on Facebook.

In short, it can't be all about ME. It's got to be about US. Or we really won't make it at all.

Not to be a bummer. The video is still fun to watch.

George Sapioisms 1

2011-02-02T09:17:00.000-08:00
Living with the creative, brilliant, often hysterically funny George Sapio is never dull. Believe me!

I've just started doing something I should have begun years ago, which is recording some of his verbal gems.
Here's the first installment:

The milk of human kindness either has gone sour or is chock full of hormones.
— George Sapio, 1 February 2011, Ithaca New York USA

Press Release re CPNY: Coalition forms on Marcellus shale gas drilling in NYS

2010-06-23T12:27:00.000-07:00
Joint Press Release Sent by EarthWorksAction and the Coalition to Protect New York:

On June 19, 2010, nearly 140 individuals and representatives from 60 grassroots, regional, and national organizations in four states gathered in Binghamton to share information on legal, scientific, economic, policy, health, and family issues related to hydraulic fracturing for methane gas, or "fracking."

Participants in the Coalition to Protect New York are unified by knowledge of the extensive evidence that gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with toxic chemicals harm water supplies, property values, community infrastructure, the environment, and human health.

At the gathering, people from neighboring states who are living with dire consequences of this process gave testimony, urging New Yorkers to halt fracking and avoid problems that have arisen nationwide. The practice hasn't yet been permitted in New York, and two different bills are currently before the state legislature that would impose a moratorium while certain stipulations are met.

"Many organizations statewide have developed expertise and made great strides; by working together, we can achieve even more in educating the public, assisting landowners, and fostering sound public policies," said Jack Ossont of Yates County, an event organizer. "We need to stop the rush to drill, which would endanger communities across New York." He lauded the many volunteers who labored to convene the statewide summit.

Workshops were led by experts from around New York and as far as West Virginia. Keynote speakers were Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering at Cornell University; Wes Gillingham, Program Director at Catskill Mountainkeeper; and Julia Walsh, founder of FrackAction.org.

Weston Wilson, a retired whistleblowing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineer, paid a surprise visit. In 2004, an EPA study declared that hydraulic fracturing poses no threat to drinking water a conclusion Mr. Weston and others contend is scientifically unsound and resulted from Bush administration pressure to omit critical data. The study greatly contributed to exemption of the gas industry from Safe Drinking Water Act requirements to disclose the toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-22nd District) was another surprise visitor; he encouraged strong oversight of the gas industry and protections for communities, including through passage of the FRAC Act. The bill, which Mr. Hinchey introduced, would require disclosure of the many toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and give the EPA authority to regulate the process.

"We all came to Binghamton with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in mind, and the commitment to preventing such tragic events from ever happening in New York," said Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper. "Today's gathering signifies a new phase of collaboration and effectiveness in ensuring that the gas industry doesn't continue to degrade quality of life across the Marcellus Shale region."

Maura Stephens of Tioga County, another event organizer, said, "We don't blame people who have signed leases. Gas companies don't reveal the potential frightening consequences. But now we know, and we owe it to everyone to share this information. We want to keep our state beautiful, safe, toxin-free, and livable. Many of us feel we are fighting for our very lives."

A New Gulf War: Lessons from Mesopotamia

2010-06-03T07:23:00.000-07:00
Could we be witnessing the U.S. version of the destruction of the Marsh Arabs’ habitat?

Remember how outraged we were in August 1990 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded his much smaller neighbor, Kuwait?

In response, the United States and about 33 nominal UN allies waged what the George H.W. Bush administration and US media dubbed the Gulf War (or Gulf War I or Persian Gulf War). It lasted less than six months.

We resoundingly defeated our former friend, teaching him a stern lesson -- and then leaving him to his own devices.

Environmental Gulf War I
Saddam Hussein drained the marshes down south in Iraq, near the Gulf, to drive out rebellious Marsh Arabs and starve them to death or kill them outright.

A half million people lived there, fishing and either farming or raising water buffalo. In just a short time, when Saddam’s armies were done, only a few thousand remained. The birds and fish disappeared, too, their habitat destroyed.

Those marshes were already drying up before Hussein’s army invaded; some 30 years of drainage of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (which originate in Turkey) by Turkey and Iran as well as Iraq was helping desertify the marshlands, as were other Iraqi government policies.

Hussein just hastened the region’s demise, the assassination of its wildlife and ecology, and the murder, incarceration, or displacement and dispossession of its people.

I’d say this qualifies as genocide.

The United States and the rest of the world vaguely expressed outrage, but there was little coverage in the media and nobody did anything to help the Marsh Arabs or reverse the environmental and economic damage to the wetlands.

It wasn’t until 2004 that a huge international project, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, was begun to remove dams. By 2006 about half the Marsh Arabs’ homeland was successfully re-flooded, and a few species seemed to be recovering slightly; some people returned to the area to try to reclaim their way of life.
But a drought over the last three years, in which the region received only 30 to 40 percent of previous rain levels, has turned those wetlands back into deserts and made them too hostile an environment for people and wildlife.

Again man stepped in to make matters worse. Drainage of both the Tigris and Euphates upriver in Turkey and northern Iraq has caused a 40 to 60 percent drop in water flow into Iraq and Syria in the last few years.

Turkey claims the water belongs to Turkey. But Turkey, Syria, and Iraq (and Iran to a much lesser extent) share these fragile and diminishing water supplies and are suffering severe water shortages.

The region is warming, like most of the planet. The ongoing drought is probably its new “normal” rather than an aberration.

Iraq remains occupied and, like Syria, has an unstable government. Iraq’s human-built infrastructure is still shattered. Oil exploitation, by BP and others, continues unabated.

And preposterously, the entire area’s population is growing, despite the loss of probably a million Iraqis to war and violence.

Water wars look increasingly possible.

Back in the USA
Now to the United States, where Gulf of Mexico marshlands are being assaulted by BP oil and further poisoned by toxic dispersants. We’re already seeing massive ecosystem destruction, wildlife kills, and livelihood losses, and inevitably we’ll soon see widespread mental health problems and the breakup of families and communities.

A kind of genocide, too, one might argue.

Just like Saddam Hussein and his minions did, BP CEO Tony Hayward and his executive staff are getting away with murder.

BP is still running the “cleanup operation,” which everyone knows is a sham, just as Saddam Hussein was left to “clean up” after the Gulf War.

BP has insisted, even against EPA orders, on using a highly toxic dispersant (in a procedure that has never been tried before) that is less effective than others. (There’s a good reason for this: BP owns the company that makes Corexit, and Corexit breaks the oil particles into smaller particles that make it harder to see how much oil BP has unleashed.) The United States and the world community looked away when Saddam Hussein used nerve gas and other toxins to combat the rebels in 1991.

BP has not allowed the low-paid cleanup workers who are standing in broiling sun while raking oil-soaked sand 12 hours a day to wear face masks, let alone the full haz-mat protection suits they should be provided. Bush I ordered U.S. soldiers to stand by as Saddam Hussein’s army helicopters strafed Shiite communities with sarin and other chemical weapons.

Today, fishers, boaters, and residents of Gulf of Mexico shore communities are being forced to construct homemade barriers to try to save their beautiful beaches and coastal marshes. Many of them, no doubt, will flee the region, just as hundreds of thousands of the Marsh Arabs and 1991 rebels who survived Saddam’s slaughter became permanent refugees.

BP has banned journalists, camera wielders, and the public from vast areas where they could be documenting the crude spill. In 1991, Saddam kept journalists out of the rebel areas, and Bush I was eager to keep them out as well. Bush didn’t want the U.S. public to know about the brutal repression of the rebels, who were rebelling because he had urged them to. It was easier to let Saddam crush them; their religion made the U.S. uncomfortable, and they might have formed an alliance with Iran that was unfavorable to U.S. interests. As Barry Lando wrote in Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush (Other Press), "Anonymous government figures, wise in the ways of Realpolitik, were making statements such as, 'It is far easier to deal with a tame Saddam Hussein than with an unknown quantity. ' "

If the journalists at Grist, Mother Jones, and other good news organizations keep on this story, and the rest of us step up the pressure to make oil and gas companies accountable and transparent in all their actions, and if enough people continue working on the cleanup in a sensible way, perhaps the marshlands of southern USA will survive.

It will take all these actions together. The alternative is unthinkable but not impossible. They could end up like the marshlands of southern Iraq: permanently uninhabitable.

Marcellus Shale: Are the Risks Worth the Rewards?

2010-03-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

"Update: PEMA urges residents to prepare now for possible flooding.”

“DEP directs gas drillers to replace water.”

“Man killed by fall off Towanda drilling rig.”

I read these three stories in that order. The first two were in the Pike County [Pennsylvania] Courier, the third in the Binghamton [New York] Press & Sun Bulletin. The headlines of the first (get ready for a flood) and third (a man died in a gas-drilling accident) are self-explanatory. The second, about “replacing” water, went like this:

“The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) . . . ordered Schreiner Oil and Gas Co. to provide a permanent solution to water supply issues at two homes the company’s drilling activity impacted near Hedgehog Lane, McKean County.

“DEP previously determined that the company, based in Massillon, Ohio, was liable for affecting the water supplies of homes. . . . mong the contaminants identified were total dissolved solids, chlorides, manganese, iron, dissolved methane and ethane gas.”

Does this not terrify everyone who lives in the huge gas-drilling and potential gas-drilling region? (The Marcellus Shale encompasses large swaths of New York State, almost all of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and parts of Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. A total of 31 or 32 states have deposits of so-called “natural” gas, more properly termed “fossil-fuel gas.”)

Here are some facts:

1) The horizontal, slick-water hydraulic fracturing process of gas drilling (“chemo-fracking”) uses and releases numerous toxic chemicals — carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, naturally occurring radioactive materials.

2) Accidents happen.

3) People make mistakes.

4) Floods occur.

Anyone who has ever experienced a flash flood knows that you’re going to run for your life and your loved ones' lives first, and for your most expensive and/or most precious possessions next.

Even if gas companies had our best interests at heart — and you’d have to be a total naïf to think they do — there is simply no way to protect us from all these toxins that would go streaming into our water systems in the event of a flood, let alone the inevitable accidents and mistakes that will occur.

Because they will.

In the cases where the gas companies have to “replace” water, what are we talking about?

You can’t “replace” water that has been contaminated with poisons. You can bring in huge “water buffaloes” with 300 or 500 gallons of “fresh” water from elsewhere (and who is monitoring that water? Where does it come from?) to resupply a family with drinking, cooking, and bathing water, but the ground is still contaminated.

The vegetables and flowers and shrubs in the family’s garden are still reliant on that water for survival. The squirrels, bunnies, and raccoons . . . the chickadees, warblers, and woodpeckers . . . the frogs, fish, and turtles . . . the crickets, bees, and peepers . . . the family cat and dog . . . all drink the water from that contaminated ground. Toddlers in sandboxes eat the dirt. Kiddie pools and grown-ups’ pools, bird baths, ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes . . . all can be contaminated from just one spill.

You can’t “replace” bad water with good. Period.

There is not enough recompense in the world to mitigate this kind of permanent damage to a person’s home and property or to our surrounds, or to our own health and our children’s health.

It is up to communities to decide if the risks are worth the riches that will go to the gas companies and to a few members of the communities.

Let’s think about these risks for a moment: Someone in my community will die because of fracking. It’s inevitable. The man who was killed on a gas rig in Towanda, Pennsylvania, has a name: Greg Allen Henry. He was from Athens, Tennessee. He was 31 years old and was killed when he fell from a rig and suffered massive head trauma.

Are the risks worth the rewards? How many lives are worth how many dollars? The job (remember the many promised to Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers) came, no doubt, with pretty good pay to bring a Tennesseean so far from home. But was it enough for Greg Henry's family? Will it help ease their grief?

Will you be getting free energy for life, if you lease your land and it’s fracked? Will you ever feel safe drinking the water? Will the royalty fees cover the loss of your home’s value? Where will you go if you are forced to leave your valueless home? What will happen to the investments of time, equity, sweat, and tears—let alone cash—you’ve poured into it? How much money is enough? Are the risks worth the rewards?

Is a Tennessee man’s life worth as much as a Towanda child’s life? If your child drinks contaminated water today and develops cancer in five years, will a gas company come forward to help you pay for your child’s chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and hold your hand while you wait for the latest medical test results that will tell you if she will live or die?

Whose risks? Whose rewards?

Are the risks worth the rewards?

Every community must come up with its answer.

Nuclear Power Lobbyists, Marcellus Shale Gas Lobbyists

2010-02-22T12:59:00.000-08:00
My response to a story in Mother Earth: “Nuclear Power and the Lobbyists Behind It”

Find it at http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/Nuclear-Power-Lobbyist-Influence.aspx#comments

The gas industry is equally aggressive in its marketing to Congress members and the public. That's why you may think natural gas is a safe, clean fuel that will save us from reliance on dirty fuels such as coal and oil (that nasty "foreign" oil) and make the USA "energy independent." When an industry is spending upwards of $120 million to convince us, it's likely to get the message across to many who don't know better.

Natural gas is being extracted in 31 states. In the Marcellus Shale, stretching through 7 states from New York to Tennessee, and elsewhere, it's being extracted via slick-water horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "chemo-fracking," a messy, destructive process that involves mixing many highly toxic chemicals (neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens) and millions of gallons of water to blast through rock to get the gas. Nothing clean about the process or the waste it leaves (and no safe way to dispose of it), which poisons watersheds.

Ya can't drink gas.

Let's demand an end to such highly dangerous energy sources. We need to get on solar, wind, and geothermal now, as we simultaneously transform our transportation system from the individual motor vehicle to a national high-speed public transportation network.

In doing so, our national health costs will go down, green jobs will be created, we'll have fewer car-related headaches (and accidents). We'll all benefit!

Nuclear & fossil fuels: No
Renewable & sustainable energy: Yes

It's that simple.

Update on Iraqi family and a little about Burma work

2006-12-17T12:33:00.001-08:00
I have been so busy that I have not posted in months. Wonder why I keep this blog. For the moment it suffices as my place to post items of interest, until I find a new publisher.

In any case, the situation with Andy and Alice and their children is an exercise in frustration. I have been stymied by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who now insist that we provide letters from generals from the army units with which Andy served. But of course there are no generals in most of Iraq. The highest ranking officers in the units Andy served with were l. Despite the fact that many highest ranking officers from the units he was with have written to the USCIS to vouch that there were no higher ranking officers in their units, the USCIS insists still that we provide letters from generals.

The whole situation is Kafkaesque to the extreme. Meantime, I am about to send out an appeal for money in the hope that we will get them out soon; I'll have to find them housing, a car, food, clothing, etc., as well as a job for Andy. I look forward to that challenge and hope to heaven they make it through while the bureacrats do all they can to ensure the worst. The prevalence of stupidity, heartlessness, arrogance, callousness, and cluelessness -- sometimes all bundled into one -- in our fellow human beings, despite my growing exposure to government on the local, national, and international levels, still astonishes me, as does the willful ignorance of so many U.S. Americans.

Last weekend we were in NYC on Sunday, December 10, for International Human Rights Day. A small group of Burmese and I did a demonstration in front of the UN headquarters (Ralph Bunche Park) demanding UN action on Burma. The biggest purpose of our demonstration was to get media from other countries (esp. Norway, Denmark, Thailand, and the BBC that covers Burma) to air the footage, which will then make its way, we hope, via independent/pirate media to Aung San Suu Kyi in her house prison and to the Burmese people, who are living in terror under the country's brutal regime. We hope our actions will hearten and inspire them to continue resisting.

I'll try to be better about updating news in future. I'll try.

Burmese hunger strike in full swing: Please take easy action!!!

2006-09-14T21:43:00.000-07:00
Sorry it's been so long. I'm frantically (still) trying to get Andy and Alice and their children out of Iraq, along with several other families. Nothing happy to report yet, but I am hopeful something will happen soon.

Meantime I've been distracted with Burmese news and other pressures. Today I sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as the 11th day of the Burmese hunger strike begins in Washington, DC. The group moves tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 16, to UN Headquarters in NYC and hopes to get an interview with Mr. Annan or his representative.

We'd really love your help in our efforts to get the UN Security Council to act on Burma! Please customize the letter below and send it to Mr. Annan at the fax number listed--and let me know if you have done so. Please also feel free to publicize our efforts or send donations; we're running on a shoestring and all funds are coming out of the pockets of the (mostly underemployed, certainly underpaid) Burmese hunger strikers.

Thank you! Write me for more info: mstephens [at] ithaca.edu

Name

Address

Country

E-mail address

15 September 2006

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
Via fax to 1-212-963-4879 and 1-212-963-7055

Honorable Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

I have learned of the current hunger strike by Burmese freedom activists in front of the UN this week.

I urge you to meet with these brave people, who are so valiantly trying to get your attention and to raise the concerns of people worldwide to the plight of their countrypeople still in Burma, who live under a brutal military regime that appears to be totally disinterested in their basic human rights. Indeed, the Burmese people suffer imprisonment, forced labor (slavery), forced conscription, rape, torture, and displacement on a regular basis.

Yet the United Nations Security Council has not found a way to address this issue, instead issuing numerous useless resolutions to urge the regime to change. The regime will not change until serious economic actions are taken by your august body. Please meet with the hunger strikers to discuss their concerns, and make a real effort, while you are still Secretary-General, to effect meaningful change in Burma toward freedom, democracy, and national reconciliation.

Sincerely,

[Signed]
cc: Maura Stephens, US representative for the U.S. Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma, mstephens [at] ithaca.edu

the column on Iraq that got me fired

2006-07-29T07:36:00.000-07:00
This was my submission in April 2006 for my regular column at openDemocracy.net; a month later the column still had not been posted. Finally the editors there told me they no longer wanted to run my column. See if you can figure out why.

Note: it was written for a UK-based publisher, hence the English spellings and usage. Also remember that it was written in March; there have been developments since. I will soon post an update about Andy and Alice.

Where Can They Turn?

Iraqis are targets in their own homes. But no countries—including those that brought this upon them—seem willing to offer them asylum.

“The debate over civil war has shifted from when and if to how bad and how long,” wrote a friend working in Jordan [I’ll call her Marie], recently. “I think it is safe to say we are pissed off. Those who were in Iraq in 2003 can attest to the fact that the sectarianism simply was not at the level it is in 2006. Something went wrong. And what went wrong was mainly from the international community. But unfortunately, it is the Iraqis who will have to lie in it. As Iraq spiraled into chaos, the divisions and schisms among the communities that were created were predictable. But, as one of my colleagues pointed out, perhaps the most painful fact is that at one point they were preventable. And therefore are criminal.”

When I received Marie’s e-mail I was visiting Nashville, Tennessee, USA, where a young mother of three told me, in all earnestness, “Iraqis don’t want democracy and freedom. All they want to do is kill one another. We need to get out of there and let them have at it.”

I have heard similar remarks from numerous US Americans of different means, ages, political leanings, and geographical locations, as well as from people from England, Australia, Colombia, and Italy, which are all coalition countries, and even Ireland, which is not. Shockingly, even so-called progressives who have been against the invasion from the start can be heard saying such things these days.

People in the United States seem to be sick of the occupation, or as they are more likely to hear it called, the “war” in Iraq. Yet many US people do not seem to see Iraqis as people who are like them, just caught in an excruciatingly bad situation. They apparently can’t see beyond their government’s and their corporate media’s lies and omissions. It is painful to note how even people who responded rather generously to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina and other recent disasters cannot open their hearts to the people of Iraq, whose suffering has been going on for so many years—through two wars, UN sanctions, and now the sectarian strife and civil war—and has been largely brought about by the failed policies of US administrations and their “coalition partners”.

In their defence, most US Americans don’t ever hear the real stories of Iraqi people. Instead they are spoon-fed via the corporate-controlled media just what the Bush administration wants them to hear, and that certainly doesn’t include acknowledgment that millions of ordinary Iraqis have had their lives turned into nightmares because of the ineptitude, ignorance, and arrogance of the Bush administration, which, phenomenally, become more pronounced daily.

Glimpses into their lives are all we can share these days, as it is too dangerous for most US journalists to go into the country to dig further.

I have a friend I’ll call Andy, who lives in a city some distance from Baghdad. In the early days of the occupation he fell in love, and soon after married. His wife is very young. They had a baby boy in October 2004, and Andy was absolutely thrilled to be a father, talking about his son every time we spoke. Before the invasion Andy worked in a hotel and, with a degree in English literature, as a translator for humanitarians and journalists. In April 2003 he began working as a translator for the U.S. Army, with whom he continued to work until very recently.

In a conversation last July he reported, as all my friends had been reporting without fail for more than two years, that there was still hardly any electricity, and the water was still polluted. “And now,” Andy said, “we have to worry about the militias. There is one which belongs to the Shi’a leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakeem [head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), whose military arm is known as the Badr Brigade]. I am a Sunni, and for sure they hate us. But you know, my Mom is a Shi’a, and I don’t think there is a difference because all of us are Muslim people. But there are crazy people from both sides. They just want to kill each other. I am afraid. I mean, I am a Sunni guy, and if they knew I worked with the U.S. Army maybe one of those crazy people will shoot me. That is what I am scared of.”

Andy begged me to help him and his family get out of the country. “There must be ways to help people get rid of this bad life,” he said. “Surely you Americans can help.”

My heart sank, as it had so many times over the past few years, listening to Iraqi friends’ terrible fears, yet knowing how nearly impossible it is to help them. “So many people are in dangerous situations like you,” I told him. “There are so many it is impossible to find places for all of them.”

“I know,” he replied. “But I am ready to work as a teacher or a cleaner or whatever. Just please, I want to go outside of Iraq. There is nothing for us here. I will do anything. I am sorry to disturb you.”

That was ten months ago. In the interim, I have had no luck finding them a way out, despite numerous attempts with different countries’ immigration offices and consulates. I even learned from the European Council on Exiles and Refugees’ Guidelines on the Treatment of Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Europe that last year Poland and the UK both returned Iraqi asylum seekers to Iraq.

So Andy is still stuck in Iraq, and things have gotten much more ominous.

Six weeks ago he got in touch after nearly three months of silence, during which I had been quite worried. First he told me the good news: He and his wife are expecting a new baby, due in May. But then he confirmed some of my worst fears: “Our house was bombed,” he said, “and my father and brother were killed. My wife and I were not at home. Now we are chased by the militia, those terrorists. I am planning to flee the country to Syria, to contact the UNHCR [UN High Commission for Refugees] office to register as refugees there, hoping to find any country that will provide us with resettlement. Our life has become impossible in Iraq. The extremists are targeting anyone who works with the coalition forces. . . . You cannot imagine how our situation is, terrible. . . . We live in fear and panic because of these extremists.”

Again, despite the urgency of Andy’s family’s situation, I was stymied in my attempts to help them find a way out. Neighbouring Jordan and Syria, already inundated with refugees, have recently been turning back thousands of Iraqis trying to escape over their borders. Many of these beleaguered people had packed up their families and fled in the middle of the night in panic after witnessing a neighbour or loved one killed before their eyes. No other country—England, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France, Italy, other neighbouring countries—seems willing to help these terrorized Iraqis, even those like Andy who are being targeted solely because of their employment with coalition forces.

My initial inquiries at the U.S. State Department, even going through my Congressional representatives’ offices, were met by the same cold response: “Contacting UNHCR is the first step to obtaining refugee status. Many Iraqis have traveled to Jordan to seek safe haven. At this time there are no special provisions for resettlement in the USA of Iraqi nationals who have volunteered to work with coalition forces [my italics]. UNHCR will be able to provide the most information about what assistance they can provide.”

A couple of weeks later, on April 5, I received word that the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1815, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, and it was signed by George W. Bush. It contained a provision, in Section 1059, authorizing special immigrant status for a maximum of 50 Iraqi translators per year. These translators must have “worked directly with United States Armed Forces as a translator for a period of at least 12 months”; and “obtained a favorable written recommendation from a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien”; and “before filing the petition . . . cleared a background check and screening, as determined by a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien.”

There are thousand of Iraqis who worked as translators for the U.S. armed forces since the March 2003 invasion and occupation began, not to mention all the other Iraqis who worked in other capacities with the coalition. Now, in its generosity, the U.S. government has decided to grant 50 of them asylum.

I shared this good news with Andy, and explained that he would need to provide a considerable amount of paperwork. He was frightened that he would have to return to his bombed-out home secretly to sift through the rubble for some of the important papers he needed to file the petition, and warned me that it might take up to a month.

Two weeks later he surprised me by sending all the necessary papers electronically. He had risked his life several times, but he had managed to retrieve his and his wife’s and son’s birth certificates; his marriage certificate; his university degree; several letters of commendation and appreciation from U.S. Army officers; his official coalition translator ID cards; several photographs of Andy with his U.S. soldier friends; photos of his family, and of their bombed-out house and car; and, horrifyingly, a short video clip of a fellow translator’s assassination.

Now the challenge is, how does one submit a petition for asylum for an Iraqi translator with all the correct paperwork to be admitted to the United States? There is nobody to answer this question. I’ve been shunted around from place to place, and the best anyone seems to be able to tell me is that Andy will have to take his wife and baby all the way to Baghdad, to the US Embassy there (in the “Green Zone”), where they will have to submit the petition. Then they will all have to return a second time for an interview.

This is essentially a death sentence for this family. Just traveling to Baghdad, and then openly traveling not once but twice to the US Embassy, is like issuing an invitation to those who would murder them.

As I scramble to find anyone who can help me find an alternative way for them to get asylum in the US or elsewhere, Andy’s time is running out. His baby is due in just a few weeks, and his wife, he tells me, has “collapsed” in terror. He has had to tend to her, as well as his sick and terrified mother and his 15-month-old son. It will be a wonder if he does not collapse himself.

Andy is just one of many kind, decent, good, hardworking, loving, generous Iraqi people who are stuck in a never-ending nightmare in their country, which has descended into chaos thanks to the blundering of not only the US administration but the international community at large. There are tens of thousands in similar straits, and yet we hear next to nothing about them. When I am unable even to find stories in the international press about efforts to help them, it is hard even to offer them a ray of hope.

“Sometimes when I look back at the hope and optimism that I once had,” my friend Marie says, “I feel betrayed for daring to believe. A part of me feels angry — like I was tricked into buying into a plan others knew was doomed for failure. . . . If [it had been] left to the Iraqis, they would have indeed risen above it. The countless international interventions — from neighbouring countries to the coalition forces — destabilized Iraq at a time when they needed support from the world, or at the very least to be left alone. These interventions led to the many signs that Iraq was growing further and further apart. Most Iraqis feel their country is unrecognizable. None of us can speak about going back to Iraq now. The sad reality is that most of us still don’t believe we have seen the worse yet.”

I know she is right, although it is unimaginable that things can get even worse. We — that is, not only the United States but all the coalition countries and the entire international community — have failed miserably in bringing peace or stability to Iraq; to the contrary, we have inarguably fomented civil war, terror, and devastation.

I say that if we cannot help the Iraqi people find peace and security within their devastated country, we absolutely owe them a way out.

Text of Ithaca's Burmese Democracy Day Resolution

2006-07-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

Below is the text of the city of Ithaca, New York, resolution. We hope it will inspire other municipalities, even states, even countries, to make a similar statement against the Burmese junta and for the Burmese people.

Resolution was introduced by Common Council member Robin Holtham Korherr and seconded by Michelle Berry; it was voted upon at the city of Ithaca Common Council Meeting on July 5, 2006

Resolution Declaring August 8 Each Year as Burmese Democracy Day in Ithaca

WHEREAS, for more than four decades Burma’s military junta has ruled without constitutional provisions providing any fundamental rights; and

WHEREAS, abuses by Burmese government security forces are well documented and include rape, torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, infringements on citizens’ privacy, forced relocations, and conscriptions of child soldiers; and

WHEREAS, the ruling junta continues to detain hundreds of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace prize laureate of 1991, who has continued to champion the causes of democracy and justice for the people of Burma, despite having been in and out of arrest and detention ever since she became the people’s leader in the 1988 democracy uprisings; and

WHEREAS, on August 8, 1988, the people of Burma rose up in peaceful protest against political and economic oppression; and

WHERAS, they were violently oppressed when the military opened fire on the peaceful demonstrators, killing hundreds and forcing many more into exile (including many of our Ithaca Burmese community members); and

WHEREAS, the 1988 protests paved the way for the 1990 elections in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party won a landslide parliamentary victory; and

WHEREAS, the current junta in Burma has been condemned for ignoring the results of the 1990 elections that resulted in a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party; for severely restricting fundamental human rights as put forth in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights; for ethnic violence against its people, including torture, displacement, and murder; for further abuse of its people including failure to put an end to the trafficking of women and children; and

WHEREAS, the people of Ithaca and its region have a history of concern, compassion, and involvement with human rights struggles around the world; and

WHEREAS, we note with admiration that several members of our Ithaca community were forced to flee Burma because of their unrelenting defense of democracy; now therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the City of Ithaca’s Mayor and Common Council declare August 8 annually BURMESE DEMOCRACY DAY in the City of Ithaca, and be it further

RESOLVED, That copies of this Resolution be sent to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, and the U.S. President’s office at the White House.

Carried Unanimously

8888 New Blood Comrades and Subsequent News

2006-07-19T14:58:00.000-07:00
Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to this topic. I've been pretty insane, trying to help Iraqis escape the country. So far, very little luck. Things there are, unimaginably, getting even worse. More on the situation there soon.

Meantime, back to Burma and the earlier notes. I guess I didn't make it clear in my last posting that I had no personal lament. The very small group (only a few people altogether) of Burmese who complained about the Ithaca city resolution apparently simply misunderstood the Common Council's intention -- an easy thing to misunderstand, given the vast differences between the English and Burmese languages and the vast cultural differences -- and thought the city leaders were proclaiming that Burma was already democratic. In hindsight, maybe choosing the name "Burmese Democracy Day" wasn't such a great idea; but that is what the Burmese community chose, and so it stands.

What was misunderstood by our 8888 friends was that we were proclaiming solidarity with the Burmese people in their continuing struggle for Democracy that will surely be theirs SOMEday; we all hope it is sooner than later.

It is time for the United States and the United Nations to demand action on Burma. Stop paying lip service!!! Stop trying to pacify us!!! ASEAN, the EU, and the UN must all join with the USA to demand regime change in Burma. Not via machine guns and tanks and bombs, but by political and economic pressure. The military regime must step down and hand over the reins of the government to the democratically elected majority party, the National League for Democracy, and its leader, the rightful president, Aung San Suu Kyi. And it must happen now.

They must start by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and allowing the rightful parliament to convene. Then the hardest work begins: forging a democracy from the disparate groups -- the many tribes and political parties -- that make up Burma, and building a lasting peace, with forgiveness and reconciliation and forward planning.

I remind my Burmese friends that democracy is messy, very messy. It means compromise, and occasionally conceding a point that means a lot to you. It means listening to opposing points of view, respecting them, and trying to negotiate something that both sides can live with. It means acceding to what may be an antithetical majority view. It means swallowing pride and anger, and working with those you might disagree with. It is, as I say, very messy, and painful, and sometimes even tedious.

Reconciliation and peace-building are equally difficult and require prodigious amounts of patience, forgiveness, and optimism.

There is a lot of work ahead, even once Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are freed. Are the Burmese ready for the tasks?

I sincerely hope so. The world could use some happy news. And the Burmese need to try democracy on for size. They are very ready.

follow-up to Burmese Democracy Day posting

2006-07-11T11:55:00.000-07:00
After I sent around that press release (see previous post, below) I received some negative feedback from a group of Burmese activists who seemed to be upset about Ithaca taking the historic step of declaring August 8 "Burmese Democracy Day."

That date was chosen in honor of the fallen from 8-8-88, when the people of Burma rose up in a nationwide call for democracy and freedom from tyranny, but were brutally put down. Many were killed, and many others forced into hiding and eventual exile.

About 50 Burmese refugees resettled in Ithaca. Our city's resolution is intended to bring attention to the struggles still underway in Burma, where the military regime still practices widespread human rights abuses, and to show the people within Burma and Burmese exiles around the world that we support their efforts. We wanted to show solidarity with them and with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, their illegally incarcerated democracy leader.

Excerpts from the letter from the group, which calls itself 8888 New Blood Comrades:
. . . We take this opportunity to oppose the Ithaca Community Council
resolution to acknowledge August 8, 1988, nationwide uprising as Burma's democracy day. . . .
. . . As long as the present ruling military dictatorship is still in place in Burma, no individual or organization in Burma or overseas has the reason or right to claim or name that auspicious day (8-8-88) as anything, much less 'democracy day' as the struggle is stil[l] ongoing and we have not yet achieved our primary objective - freedom and our right to exercise our inalienable rights.
My response:

Dear friends,

I feel compelled to reply to this memo, simply as myself and not as a representative of any group. I am an American who is deeply concerned with the terrible human rights situation in Burma, and I have worked closely with the Burmese community of my city, Ithaca, New York, in getting this resolution passed (which I do not think you have read). . . .

The intention of our city's legislators in passing this resolution is to honor the freedom and democracy struggles of the Burmese people both inside Burma and now in exile around the world, including in our own community, where at least 50 Burmese exiles now reside. Contrary to what your memo says, we deeply honor the courage and sacrifice of those who rose up on 8-8-88 and those who carry on the struggle 18 years later. Making a 'Burmese Democracy Day' in Ithaca means simply that we will stand in solidarity until the dreams of 8-8-88 are realized and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners are freed; Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD party take their rightful positions in political leadership of the country; and a peace and reconciliation process, and transition to democracy, are well underway.

My heart broke to read your memo, because it suggests to me that you do not understand that others may be part of the same struggle for human rights and justice. Just because we are halfway around the world does not mean that we do not care about the people of Burma and their terrible hardships. We are all human beings, all the same family, and unless we all realize that there can never be peace, freedom, justice, or equity.

Please take a moment to reflect on what it is you really want: Is it freedom and peace and equality for all, or only those who belong to your particular organization? Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, when she is freed and back in her rightful place as the leader of Burma, would be deeply saddened to know that the factional elements of her supporters cannot work together for the same end.

It is a basic characteristic of human nature that everybody wants his or her own agenda to be at the forefront. And that points to the truth that real democracy is messy. It requires careful negotiation, and equally important it requires respect of others' opinions and desires, even if they are different from our own.

Please do not fall into the trap of division and rancor; that will only hurt your cause. And please accept gracefully the honest desire of a small city in New York State to stand by the cause of democracy and freedom for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma. We made this resolution out of love and respect.

Respectfully, and in solidarity,

Maura Stephens
Ithaca NY USA

Ithaca Makes Burmese Democracy Day permanent, Hours Before a Death Threat

2006-07-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

This is the press release sent around after last week's historic vote by the Ithaca Common Council.
---------

Ithaca is the world’s first city to declare annual Burmese Democracy Day, less than a day before the life of
Burma's incarcerated democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is been threatened by the country's brutal regime.

At its meeting on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 the city of Ithaca's Common Council
made Ithaca the first city in the world to name an annual day in honor of the
Burmese people and their struggle for freedom and democracy against a tyrannical
military regime.

Just a day later word reached Ithaca's celebrating Burmese community that
the brutal military regime in power has threatened the life of Aung San Suu Kyi,
the democratically elected leader who has been held under house arrest for most of the
last 16 years.

The Common Council voted unanimously to make August 8 — the anniversary
of the peaceful 1988 demonstrations for democracy by millions of Burmese
people in which thousands were killed and many more forced into exile
(8-8-88) — Burmese Democracy Day in Ithaca, permanently.

“To all our knowledge, this makes Ithaca the first city on the planet to
give such strong and unwavering support to the oppressed people of
Burma,” said Maura Stephens, a Tioga County resident who has been
working with the Burmese community.

The Burmese of Ithaca hope that their city’s resolution will encourage
other municipalities, states, and national governments to take similar
actions to bring attention to the desperate plight of the Burmese.
Aung San Suu Kyi has never allowed to take her rightful place as president
since her National League for Democracy Party won a popular election by a landslide —
winning 83 percent of the vote — in 1990. The military regime, which lost that
election, simply refused to hand over power.

“It often feels to us that the world has essentially abandoned Burma to
the brutal regime in control,” Stephens said. “Although the United
Nations, the Association of South East Asian Nations, the European
Union, world leaders such as Vaclav Havel and Desmond Tutu — even the
current U.S. administration — have called for the release of Aung San
Suu Kyi and transition to democracy and reconciliation, the military
junta simply does what it wants, with impunity. There have never been
consequences.”

Ithaca, with about 30,000 full-time residents and another 30,000
students at Cornell University and Ithaca College, last year became the
second U.S. city (after San Francisco) to name a special day in honor of
the 60th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi on June 19.

About a third of the 50 Ithaca-area Burmese exiles attended the Common
Council meeting to witness the historic vote, along with visitors from
as far as Texas. Council member Robin Holtham Korherr introduced the
resolution, which was approved unanimously after favorable commentary
from members Maria Coles, Michelle Courtney Berry, and Daniel Cogan and
from Mayor Carolyn K. Peterson.

Earlier, Stephens pointed out, “Although it may seem like a ‘no-brainer’
to pass a resolution for things as elemental as freedom, justice,
decency, and human rights, this vote has deeper meaning for the Burmese
still in Burma. News will reach them via independent, grass-roots,
unofficial, banned media that people from as far away as Ithaca, New
York, are working on their behalf; that they are not alone.”

That pledge took on all the more urgency when news reached Ithaca via the
news agency BosNewsLife, which on Thursday afternoon that Burma's regime made
an apparent death threat against Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday, warning that
her days "are numbered," and she is "heading for a tragic end" for being guilty
of "betraying the national cause while relying on aliens," including the United States
and the European Union.

"Attempts to translate into reality the 1990 election results are in vain," the military junta
was quoted in its official English-language newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar,
monitored by BosNewsLife from Thailand.

The Burmese community of Ithaca was planning a special day of commemoration,
education, food, and cultural entertainment to be held on Saturday, August 5.
Now they will be even more vigilant in their concern for their beloved leader, the
world's most famous political prisoner.

Welcome

2006-07-09T09:11:00.000-07:00
Friends,

Thank you for asking about my situation as a columnist at openDemocracy. It has been gratifying to hear from so many readers, from places such as Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Northern Ireland, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and more.

I am sad to report that the people at openDemocracy, for inexplicable reasons, have terminated our relationship and hence my column. It was a rather precipitate decision, following closely on the heels of the columns on Ireland in which I had a little public disagreement with an economist from the Economist.

I was particularly saddened because I thought I had a good relationship with openDemocracy and believed in its stated mission, which supposedly is all about "open and fair dialogue." I may post the correspondence I had with one of the editors there; I have not received the courtesy of a reply to my last letter to the top editor (which was sent in late May).

I decided to start this blog at the behest of several of you; I will populate it primarily with postings on issues I'm most actively involved with:
my Iraqi friends and their increasingly horrific lives (I thought a year ago it couldn't get much worse, but alas, it has, and they are barely keeping alive at this point);
the Burmese freedom activists who are trying to get the world community to act against the tyrannical military regime, which is now apparently threatening the life of Aung San Suu Kyi;
sustainability efforts;
water privatization, locally and globally;
TheocracyWatch issues -- fighting dominionism in US government;
keeping corporations in check by reclaiming sovereignty of, by, and for the people, in the DemocracySchool model;
theatrical productions;
and who knows . . .
Thanks for visiting. I hope to hear from you. Please post comments!
Peace,

Maura