AN ILL WIND – The Secret Threat of Coal Ash

First, I would like to thank those who got our grid power back on here in Virginia after Hurricane Irene knocked it out about 24 hrs before Irene made landfall in the Outerbanks of NC.

One thing that being out of power for more than a couple days does do is make you realize how dependent we all have become on ‘the grid’ and how we really need to change that at some point, don’t you think? Between dangers of outages like this, and potential threats from terrorists on our infrastructure, it just seems to make sense that we figure out a way to get the power we need but by decentralizing from The Grid.

Over the last month, since August 4th, we have intermittently had to deal with the smoke and ill air quality of the wildfire in the dismal swamp. There were times when here in our little town there was smoke hanging in the air, and in our very homes when we woke up in the morning and were having trouble breathing. It was particularly bad for my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene, actually did one thing that was good, it almost (but not quite) put out that wildfire. I hope they can get the 30 or so hot spots put out before it dries out again.

Because I have a problem with the whole issue of dangerous coal ash, and huge coal plants close to people’s homes and spewing dangerous arsenic, and so much more into our air, does not mean I don’t appreciate The Grid or those who work to provide and maintain, and restore that power after natural disasters like this. My only complaint is the dangerous ways in which they often do that; meaning coal – from the cradle to the grave and the health and environmental dangers it poses.

Coal from Mountain Top Removal to this ILL WIND of coal ash that sends ‘sandstorms’ of coal ash directly over the reservation when the winds blow wrong, and other coal plant travesties around the country and around the world, to ODEC trying to get a 1500 MW coal fired power plant in Dendron, VA and Surry County rolling over to get the money they are promised and the empty purse of promised jobs (yeah, how many and for how long, and what of those who live here?) To the whole of a region like Hampton Roads that will be adversely affected by a 1500 MW coal plant with a prevailing wind that will draw that smoke/vapor over other areas in Hampton Roads.

From the text at Youtube:

See the whole project at http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind

The Moapa River Indian Reservation, tribal home of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, sits about 30 miles north of Las Vegas and about 300 yards from the coal ash ponds and landfills of the Reid Gardner Power Station. Coal ash is the toxic ash and sludge left at the end of the coal burning process. It’s laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. It’s the second largest waste stream in America and it’s currently unregulated.

If the conditions are just wrong, coal ash picks up from Reid Gardner and moves across the desert like a toxic sandstorm sending the local residents running for their homes. The reservation has lung, heart and thyroid disease rates that are abnormally high and the power plant is currently seeking to expand its coal ash storage capability.

The film An Ill Wind tells the Paiute Indians’ story.

View and interactive presentation of the story at:

http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind

Watch the complete film at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL49Ibc0L88

And learn more about coal ash at:

http://www.earthjustice.org/coalash

Many thanks to the Moapa Band of Paiutes for allowing us to tell this story and to Vinny Spotleson of the Sierra Club and Dan Galpern of the Western Environmental Law Center for helping with the project.

I guess we as individuals and families really do need to start thinking about how we can get ourselves off the grid … if more homes are off the grid, these big coal plants wouldn’t even be considered necessary…

Firemen let house burn – shades of Fahrenheit 451?

Yeah, maybe it wasn’t for having books in the house, but it was for lack of another type of paper (money – a measly $75 fee?!) that the Firemen in the rural area of Obion County, Tennessee just let someone’s house burn down.

No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn (MSNBC)
Tennessee house in ashes after homeowner ‘forgot’ to pay $75 fee

If I hadn’t read it on a national news service (MSNBC), I wouldn’t believe it.

This family lost all their possessions as well as their house on September 29, 2010, because Firefighters, aka Firemen, (people who put out fires, except in the book Fahrenheit 451 where they actually set fire to houses that contained books). But they did go right next door to protect the paying neighbor’s property from the fire they wouldn’t put out. So they actually were there and just watched it burn.

The South Fulton Fire Dept could have done the right thing, but no. They wouldn’t even respond because he wasn’t on their list of ‘people who paid their $75 annual fee.

“Anybody that’s not inside the city limits of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer. Either they accept it or they don’t,” said South Fulton Mayor David Crocker.

The fire department’s decision to let the home burn was “incredibly irresponsible,” said the president of an association representing firefighters.

Right on, that was ‘incredibly irresponsible! And gives the PAID (and other Fee-based volunteer) Firefighter services a bad name.

I never thought I would see the day when an emergency service that was intended to help people in emergency situations would turn their backs on the very people that need them.

Can you imagine going to a hospital emergency room and being turned away because you didn’t pay some bogus annual paper money fee?!

“Professional, career firefighters shouldn’t be forced to check a list before running out the door to see which homeowners have paid up,” Harold Schaitberger, International Association of Fire Fighters president, said in a statement. “They get in their trucks and go.”

Amen!

This is definitely shades of Fahrenheit 451.

Maybe it’s time to go back to TRUE Volunteer Fire Depts where they don’t pick and choose whom they serve?

Sometimes, it really seems that just like it politics, paying forced fees and taxes to pay ‘public servants’ bites you in the end.

It somehow takes the humanity out of the ‘service’ and in time, they no longer serve the very people their offices/depts they were created to serve.

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out.

His offer wasn’t accepted, he said.

What a disgrace.

South Fulton, and the entire County of Obion, Tennessee should take up a collection (set up a fund or whatever one does to help people that are victimized) to help this family who lost everything because of their greed and lack of humanity.

Sigh…

More ludicrous statements by fire dept staff in the follow-up article at MSNBC. Unbelievable! (Thanks Mr. Anderson for the link)

Whatever happened to “Do unto others as they have done to you.” You know, the Golden Rule…Or just being a Good Samaritan for Pete’s sake (thanks Dr.Headphones for the kind words in email about this blogpost).

And what about the firefighters that just watched it burn? Just following orders? Fearing for their job? What political buffoons decided to take fire fighting out of the hands of firefighters and put it in the hands of bean counters and politicians anyway? What about doing the right thing? The Firefighters had to know this was wrong.

And what about the animals that died in that fire? Where’s PETA when you need them?

There have been waivers for others in the rural area — why no waiver for this family? Why did their home, possessions, pets, memories need to be ignored? Where is the moral outrage of Obion County over this?!

Prayer for the Dead

Prayer for the Dead …

I remember when I first saw the Gregory Peck and Danny Devito movie Other People’s Money (OPM). It was an amazing thing.

I was of course rooting for Andrew Jorgenson (Gregory Peck) and his lawyer/step daughter Kate Sullivan (Penelope Ann Miller) who did an absolutely wonderful job in this movie.

Throughout the movie, I couldn’t help hoping that Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield (Danny Devito) would do the right thing and turn out to be the good person you could see he actually could be — because Danny Devito did such a fantastic job as Lawrence Garfield — you couldn’t help but love him and hate him at the same time. I so wanted him to wake up and be the good person inside. I wanted him to miraculously change overnight and let the REAL golden rule (Do unto others as you would have them do to you) run his life instead of the NEW golden rules (Do unto others before they can do unto you and those with the gold make the rules). But maybe it’s just not in him I began to think. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there really are evil people with charismatic personalities.

If you haven’t seen this movie from 1991, please do yourself a favor and take a peak at it. You just have to see how Gregory Peck’s daughter helped with that (but only because Lawrence fell in love with Kate) … Too late to save New England Wire & Cables corporate takeover … But maybe not too late to help the community’s need for the jobs provided by New England Wire & Cable’s…

In the movie, New England Wire & Cable had provided much needed jobs for a community that desperately needed them to continue to do so. But they had a problem. They were a company doing well, positive equity and no loans…in this day and age, they were a company that was in the black!

Larry the Liquidator was right about one thing, fiber optics would eventually do them in…but not now. Even so, he took matters into his own hands, and forced the stockholders to look at the “last buggy whip” theory before the need was even there so he could have what he wanted.

And of course New England Wire & Cable was perfectly ripe — for a corporate takeover.

Enter, ‘stockholder’ Lawrence Garfield (Danny Devito). He was terrific in this movie! And he gave a very compelling and very profitable (to him and the stockholders) speech that cost the patriarchal founder of that company all he had worked for for many years (there was a little more to it than that, but that’s the nuts and bolts) and would have cost the community as well if “Larry the Liquidator” had his way. Enter Kate.

The Founder of New England Wire and Cable had underestimated the power of money in the hands of those who do not know the true meaning of the word loyalty or the REAL golden rule. He still believed in the “American Dream.”

But there are those who only know the meaning of the words profit or loss…theirs, and theirs of the stockholders that they have to sway in order to get what they want). That was the reason for investing in the first place wasn’t it?

Dividends: an increasing share of the revenue of the corporation(s) you buy stock in. The corporation gets to play with your money (from buying stock) to benefit you as stockholder through the dividends and the value of the stock in your portfolio.

I know this is a touchy subject since many who worked hard their whole life and have limited pensions made use of the stock market for their retirement fund. But please look beyond your own situation and look at the bigger picture … just for a few minutes.

Enter the other side of Other People’s Money: Alternet‘s Meet a Billionaire with a Lower Tax Rate Than You [VIDEO]. Dialup users don’t feel left out, the meat of the video in there in blog form as well.

The video is presented by WarOnGreed.org

From the beginning of Alternet’s blog entry:

Henry Kravis is a billionaire, the 57th richest person in America. He acquired this wealth by purchasing public companies with borrowed money. To pay off the debt, he cuts benefits at the company, sells its assets, and lays off employees.

Henry Kravis makes — get this — $51,369 PER DAY according to the video.

KKR, Henry Kravis’ cartel, has revenue that exceeds Coca Cola, Microsoft and Disney combined — again from the video.

How much did you make last year?

The Alternet blog entry states that the original post, written by Robert Greenwald, appeared on Brave New Films

Going back to Other People’s Money (OPM) the movie … Does Kravis’ story sound a little bit familiar now? He and others like him at the top of the food chain, are spitting images of Larry the Liquidator. Saying Amen. Amen. And Amen. … to the Prayer for the Dead. The rest of us.

How true do you think this conversation is between Kate and Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator:”

Kate Sullivan: Someday, we’ll smarten up, change some laws, and put you OUT OF BUSINESS.
Lawrence Garfield: You can change all the laws you want. You can’t stop the game. I’ll still be here. I adapt.

Or an even scarier one by “Larry the Liquidator:”

Lawrence Garfield: I love money. I love money more than the things it can buy. There’s only one thing I love more than money. You know what that is? OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.

And he has Carmen (his computer and the Internet) helping him keep tabs on his and Other People’s Money. That movie was done in 1991. How much more accurately do you think this can this be done today?