--Several items in the news over the last ten days--
I'm in a stew, fulminating, in a ferment, over:
(1) Sequestration: The "fail safe" plan which no one would
dare enact? But as it was an automatic, deadline-driven
legislation, only to be superseded by rational, consensus
acts of Congress, it went through....just as unemployment
is in noteworthy (numbers) improvement. Coincident timing
or creating a planned popular history "proving" that Mr.
Obama produced a dangerously failed presidency affecting
the entire country? Already airports are losing TSAs, many
other federally funded positions have furloughed workers, etc.
By the bye, sequestration, according to Oxford English
Dictionary, means to isolate, excommunicate, etc. It is a
Middle English legal term highly inapplicable in the U.S.
of 2013.
Is this really what the Tea Party wants? Y'all better own all
your own planes (mechanics too) or you'll be in the deep do
with the rest of us....
(2) The couples and families gracelessly unwilling to give up
power, like the Bushes, now angling for Prez III. Then there
are the USA's municipal mayors, resigning in favor of their
wives or other family members. Greed is SO unattractive, to
say nothing of ultimately unproductive, unseeing unseemliness.
(3) Fukushima in Japan: The nuclear utilities, U.S. homegrown
and Japanese, lied to themselves and the world about the safety
of this ~1970s U.S. defective design technology, most of which
are still in operation, with extensions beyond their 40 year design
life. Today (03/11/'13) is the second anniversary of the triple
tragedy, earthquake (9 on the Richter scale), tsunami, and
three core melts at the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Park in
Japan. Experts here and there estimate ~40 years to clean it
up, at least to a relatively safer level. That's the same four
decades a nuclear plant is expected to operate. Physicist
Alvin Weinberg was oh so right, a "Faustian bargain", indeed.
We humans are still the like deer in the forest, overpopulating,
overreaching, underestimating, understanding too little,
too late.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In regard to each of the three points, I share your sentiments.
ReplyDelete1) What I find really discomforting about the "sequestration" talks is the Obama administration's apparent willingness to place cuts to vital social programs on the table --- much to the chagrin of many fellow Democrats. Is this an attempt at "compromise"? If so, on what basis? Where was that spirit of compromise back in 2011? The Repubs and the Tea Party got everything they wanted back then. IMO, they blackmailed the Dems into cosigning the sequester using the debt ceiling as a cudgel.
2) Bush III! Just what we need! Even if Jeb gets the nod, I don't think he or any other Repub stands a chance in 2016 assuming Dem voters display the same degree of determination that they did in 2012. The question is, will they turn out for the 2014 midterms? Incidentally, Jeb's son, George P. Bush, is apparently dipping his toe into the scummy waters of Texas politics. His uncle, the former prez was nicknamed "Dubya". Shouldn't we be dubbing his nephew "Pee"? Just askin'!
3) Nuclear technology was a Faustian bargain, that's for sure. Earlier today, Radio Station WBEZ featured an interview (during the program, "Worldview") with an author who has done extensive research on the triple catastrophe to which you alluded. It's been archived and is probably worth a listen.
The aforementioned author is named Cecile Pineda (of Japanese ancestry despite her Latina-sounding name). Her book, "The Devil's Tango", was recently published.