Updates and Sequels

Updates (in reverse chronological order of when I first wrote about the story):

My story: “Earthquakes in Ohio: Thank Your Friendly Neighborhood Fracker,” dated January 2, 2012.

Update: I wrote then about the area where my wife grew up. This week, there was a Mw4.8 earthquake here in East Texas. Oh, so coincidentally, there’s a fracking operation going not far away. OK, this could have been chance. There were minor tremors measured in the area before there was such a thing as fracking. But the report by the local television station does little to allay my suspicions: wow, there was a small quake as recently as 31 years ago (!), and the mouthpiece for the people responsible for fracking says it’s not a problem.

That would be one Ragan Dickens of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. Suffice it to say that Mr. Dickens is better at parroting Republican talking points than he is at geology, in which he has no apparent background. Here’s his smirking commentary, “If earthquakes are caused by fracking, then were those earthquakes in the 1800’s preemptive earthquakes because they knew fracking was coming? It's a silly comparison.” This argument, and I use the term loosely, is trotting out the old tobacco industry subterfuge. Today version: “Donna Summer just died of lung cancer, and she didn’t smoke. Therefore, cigarettes aren’t bad for you.” Only an idiot would buy such an argument. Only a sleazebag would make it.

Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes has slightly better credentials, and his argument at least makes sense: “there is no evidence to suggest that hydraulic fracturing itself is the cause of the increased rate of earthquakes.” Keyword: “itself.” No, it’s the injection of waste-water from fracking operations that causes the quakes. From the same DOI report as the single sentence that gets quoted by fracking proponents (and lazy reporters from local television stations): “USGS’s scientists have found, however, that at some locations the increase in seismicity coincides with the injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells.” See, not fracking. Dealing with the inevitable results of fracking. Am I crazy, or is this a distinction without a difference?

Hence, the commentary of Ben McGee of the U.S. Geological Survey (you know, an actual expert): “Of course you have to have a fault present to have movement along a fault, but water or fluid injected into the earth in the vicinity of faults of in faults increase the likelihood that those faults will move.” Makes sense to me. It also makes sense to me to take a time-out before we go too far down this fracking road.

My story: “Stupidest Legislative “Money-Saving” Plan of the Month: The First Three Nominees,” dated October 15, 2011.

Update: Camden County, Georgia, has apparently abandoned the profoundly silly idea of employing prisoners as firefighters in a money-saving stratagem. A couple other Georgia counties have also considered but scrapped the idea. As Carroll County Commissioner Kevin Jackson puts it, “It’s not a good idea at all. We don’t need prisoners inside the homes of our citizens.”

Of course, there’s a dissenting voice: Bill Twomey of Sumter County, who thinks his county’s plan, underway for a couple of years already, is “a model program” despite objections from, say, the Department of Corrections. Remind me not to move to Sumter County.

My story: “Celebrating the Continued Health of a Mass Murderer,” dated August 20, 2011.

Update: Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi died this week in Tripoli. As might be expected, there’s a fresh round of indignation from the politicians, the pundits, and the populace. Families of the victims were especially outpsoken. Eileen Walsh, for example, lost three family members in the bombing. Her reaction to al-Megrahi’s death?

Good riddance to him and I hope he rots in hell.

I have no feelings apart from anger and disgust for this man. The fact that he was allowed to be with his family while he took two-and-a-half years to die makes me ill.

Because of him my mother died of cancer without most of her family around to comfort her.

I feel so betrayed by the Scottish government for what they did, and the British government played its part too. He should have died in jail.

Still, one father of a victim expressed his belief that al-Megrahi’s protestations of innocence were genuine. Jim Swire said, “'I've been satisfied for some years that this man had nothing to do with the murder of my daughter and I grit my teeth every time I hear newscasters say 'Lockerbie bomber has died. This is a sad day.”

It is unclear whether al-Megrahi’s death will help or hurt efforts to get to the truth. Some, like Eileen Monetti, who lost a son in the Lockerbie bombing, says that “Megrahi was a distraction that stopped us from finding out the truth. Now that Megrahi has died hopefully the Libyan government will give more information to the US and the UK about the bombing.” Of course, as Senator Charles Schumer points out, al-Megrahi’s death may have the opposite effect, allowing the American and British governments to continue to be, in Schumer’s words, “not forthcoming.” As far as I’m concerned , if there’s a little closure in this for the families, amen to that.

There is, by the way, an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal by Dr. Karol Sikora, in which he outlines his reasons for giving al-Megrahi only three months to live at the time of his compassionate release nearly three years ago. (It turns out by the way, that his report was not received by the authorities to factor into their decision; the doctor in charge, Andrew Fraser, clearly came to the same conclusions independently.) Dr. Sikora makes it clear that such predictions are guesswork—educated guesswork, perhaps, but guesswork nonetheless. He also makes the same point I made last August. In his words:

there have been significant advances since 2009 in the treatment of prostate cancer that has spread. These include drugs such as abiraterone, cabazitaxel, alpharadin and medivation, which Megrahi probably received and are still not widely available in the U.K. We judged his prognosis based on his treatment as an NHS patient in Glasgow at the time, when not even standard docetaxel chemotherapy was offered.

Whether one or more of these drugs extended al-Megrahi’s life, or whether it was simply luck, we’ll never know. But I’d like to think that this sorry piece of excrement contributed to prolonging the lives of, ultimately, as many people as he callously murdered. He didn’t do it on purpose, of course, but he was almost certainly a guinea pig for cancer treatments. All those chemicals will probably reduce his value as fertilizer, however. Pity, that.

My story: “A little respect, please, for our canine heroes,” dated May 26, 2011.

Update: Sadly, one of the few pieces of absolutely slam-dunk legislation, to list military working dogs as personnel rather than equipment, thereby facilitating their adoption subsequent to their service, continues to be tied up in committee. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was another television piece on the subject, this one on a local news show in Atlanta. The problem is that since these dogs are considered equipment, they’re routinely euthanized rather than even having the chance to be adopted. There are plenty of ex-servicemen and –women who’d gladly adopt their “best friend,” but not at the cost of thousands of dollars (the dogs are officially abandoned equipment, no longer the property of the government, so they can’t simply be loaded onto to plane that’s heading stateside, anyway) and mountains of red tape.

The article talks about dogs too aggressive or too sick to be adopted. Fine. That makes sense. But many dogs are perfectly adoptable but are put down, anyway, because Congress can’t get their collective heads out of their collective asses long enough to fix an obviously fixable situation. Have the military ship the dogs back to the States. Allow charitable organizations to help the dogs and prospective owners find each other. How hard is that?

Look, I get it that this isn’t the highest imaginable priority right now. But maybe, just maybe, it could be the kind of bill that would allow those on the left and on the right to see that the other guy isn’t really so bad; he just thinks we ought to have a different economic strategy than the one I like. And since this seems an intractable problem (this issue has been around since the ‘90s), maybe solving it would give us all a little confidence.

Senator Schumer took up the cause of one ex-marine and the dog she worked with in Iraq. That’s nice, but it isn’t enough. Fix the damned law, sir. (There is, by the way, a petition at change.org, but I can’t tell how old it is; there’s another at forcechange.com that looks recent.)

My story: “Antiphon Is Always Welcome at Our Tea Party,” dated October 28, 2010.

Update: Well, not an update on content, per se, but a note that I will in fact be presenting a paper at this summer’s Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference on using Antiphon’s Second Tetralogy as a teaching tool for discussions of Greek tragedy.

My story: “Two Cinco de Mayo stories (and a coda),” dated May 10, 2010.

Update: Three of the students sent home for wearing American flags on their clothing on the Mexican-American pseudo-holiday two years ago filed suit against the school. They lost last November, but announced in February that they intended to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. As might be expected, the case has attracted the attention of the First Amendment Center and of the American Freedom Law Center; the latter has in fact filed briefs (an opening brief and a reply brief) on the boys’ behalf. It should be noted that the FAC is primarily interested in education; they do not participate directly in litigation. The AFLC, on the other hand, is an advocacy group which purports to be about Constitutional rights and is in fact about advancing a right-wing and indeed anti-Constitutional agenda, as indicated by their support (for example) for the heinous “Islamic Law in America” conference, organized by batshit crazy Pamela Geller and dedicated to anti-Islamic propaganda under the guise of a fight against a completely non-existent attempt to impose Sharia law.

That doesn’t mean they’re always wrong, though, and I confess their argument in the case makes a lot more sense than the lower court ruling does. The plaintiffs in this case are increasingly acting like the “little jerk-offs” I described them as being two years ago (not least by suing over something so minor), but it strikes me that any reasonable reading of the Constitution supports them in this instance. This case will be interesting to follow as the 9th circuit weighs in. I wouldn't be surprised to see this end up at the SCOTUS, either way.

Stupidest Legislative “Money-Saving” Plan of the Month: The First Three Nominees

It’s true: I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks. Still, it surprises me that I apparently missed the memo announcing the contest for Stupidest Legislative “Money-Saving” Plan of the Month. Apparently there are some really cool prizes involved, as the contestants are lining up, each with a scheme a little more insane than the one before. Here are three contenders I found out about within about roughly a six-hour stretch a few days ago. (I really have been busy; that’s why I’m only now writing about it.) For the purposes of this contest, the Alabama town that demanded proof of American citizenship—indeed of Alabama citizenship—to get (and pay for) clean water, and the Let Women Die law that sailed through the US House are not eligible, as they are merely mean-spirited and depraved, and don’t even pretend to save money.

We still have some really good entrants, however:

Representing the great state of Kansas, we have the Topeka City Council’s decision to repeal the city ordinance banning domestic violence. Really. OK, so this isn’t quite as colossally cretinous as it might initially appear: this is really a petty and petulant jurisdictional dispute between the city and the county, neither of whom want to accept responsibility for misdemeanor cases (half of which involve domestic violence) because their respective budgets have been cut. So now the Shawnee County DA has in fact capitulated and agreed to do his freaking job prosecute such cases, clearly as a direct response to public outcry. This apparently includes re-visiting the cases of between 18 and 30 (sources differ) alleged criminals released because no one would take the case. Who’s right in the turf squabble? I. Don’t. Care. The council vote would be unconscionable and unsupportable under any circumstances.

Is it a coincidence that the 7-3 vote to de-criminalize such cases corresponds exactly to the ratio of men to women on the city council? I don’t know; I can’t find a record of who voted which way. But I’ll say this: I’m betting they weren’t going to de-criminalize the completely understandable crime of kicking idiot city councilmen squarely in the balls.

Next up: Camden County (Georgia) is contemplating a measure that would put two inmates—convicted of things like drug offences and theft—in each of three existing fire stations as a money-saving measure. What could go wrong, after all? Let’s see, we’re not only expecting professional firefighters to do their own highly risky jobs, but to “monitor” the inmates: a term I take to imply both supervision of their work and serving as guards. Put simply, the real firefighters would be under-trained to watch the inmates, who would not only be under-trained as firefighters, they’d also require constant scrutiny because, well, they’re inmates. The people of the area, no doubt, would be ever-so-happy to be suffering from the anxiety accompanying a fire, only to have a convicted thief wandering through their homes.

Stuart Sullivan, a firefighter, spoke to the Board of County Commissioners, urging them to drop the plan: “If you vote to bring these inmates into our working environment, you jeopardize not only the employees' well-being, but the safety of our citizens.” Well, duh. Seriously, Mr. Sullivan, when did coherent argument start becoming a legitimate way to influence government policy? True, the proposal is insulting to professional firefighters by suggesting they can be readily replaced both those Jack Marshall describes as “not just … barely-trained amateurs, but barely-trained amateurs who can’t be trusted to walk free in the community.” True, it unnecessarily endangers good citizens whose focus in a literally life-and-death situation is inherently distracted by supervisory responsibilities they shouldn’t have to perform. True, it serves to undermine the trust and camaraderie necessary for any such venture, and not for some legitimate ancillary benefit like civil rights: this isn’t eliminating DADT we’re talking about. But, Mr. Sullivan, these are county commissioners we’re talking about: you’d have a better chance of making your case to a collection of corn cobs.

After all, it might save a fair amount of money, although I’d be willing to bet that even the short-term savings are unlikely to approach, let alone equal, the $500K estimate that’s being tossed around: 20% of that would be a more plausible figure. But you can’t expect a county commissioner to have the mental capacity of a bottle of olive oil. Think I’m being too harsh? Here’s Commissioner Jimmy Starline (apparently his real name): “I've been told these inmates are very enthusiastic about being a firefighter. It's an opportunity to break that cycle. This is not like a chain gang. Life at a fire station could be a whole lot more pleasant than life in jail.” Oh, well, then. As long as the freaking prisoners like the idea, then it’s OK, right?

Finally, there’s Pinellas County, Florida, whose County Commissioners voted to stop fluoridating the water supply. You, Gentle Reader, might have been under the impression that this battle had been fought and won by the forces of science two generations ago. Ah, but the Tea Party crowd and their enablers (I’m looking at you, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, et al.) have successfully brought us to the point at which that which has long been accepted as scientifically proven is now up for grabs, not on the basis of new evidence, but based simply, in Isaac Asimov’s words, on “the false notion that democracy means ‘my ignorance is as good as your knowledge.’” I’m pretty sure gravity is next on the hit list for the tin-foil hat crowd.

Honestly, here’s some of the reporting of David DeCamp of the St. Petersburg Times:

Some speakers Tuesday compared it to Soviet and Nazi practices and warned of cancer, reduced IQ and deteriorating bones.

“Fluoride is a toxic substance,” said tea party activist Tony Caso of Palm Harbor. “This is all part of an agenda that's being pushed forth by the so-called globalists in our government and the world government to keep the people stupid so they don't realize what's going on.” [Note: it seems to be working.]

He added: “This is the U.S. of A, not the Soviet Socialist Republic.”

The fact that the medical and dental communities are unanimous in support of such programs means nothing to the self-appointed authorities, the Tea Partiers. Lunatics on the left and the right have been part of the American political system for as long as I can remember, and I suspect for a good while before that. Up until recently, however, the mainstream politicians and commentators kept the crazies in check. True, the anti-war crowd made life a little difficult for mainstream Democrats during the Vietnam War, but that was primarily because there was little difference in either the rhetoric or the policies of the two major parties at the time. Generally, the fringe elements of both parties have been recognized as precisely that: the fringe. That changed recently, though. The mainstream GOP loathed Obama with such a passion that they sold their soul to the Tea Party to gain a majority in the House of Representatives. The result is a pandering to the rampant anti-intellectualism of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and similar shills.

The Democrats have their own populist movement, the #Occupy crowd, to deal with. But whereas there may be more of them than there are Tea Partiers, and those folks have far higher approval ratings than the Tea Party ever did—a 54-23% positive rating according to a poll just published in Time magazine—they will have far less impact on actual policy because they aren’t just a front for some left-wing equivalent of the Koch brothers or Dick Armey, and are therefore uninteresting to the pols who care far more about donors than about constituents.

Ultimately, what these stories show is an affirmation of legitimate uses of government. Punishing those who beat up women, preventing or extinguishing fires in the most efficient manner possible, providing at least base-line dental care that benefits all citizens: these are, it seems to me, undeniably good things, and appropriate uses of government resources. I bet it wouldn’t be difficult to find other available cuts, things far less self-evidently essential at the very least, in any of those jurisdictions. Or—God forbid!—there might even be additional revenue enhancements. But the country is long on stupid right now. There will be more idiotic ideas… and I’ll do what I can to give you the opportunity to laugh at them.

The really bad news: the month is still young.