National Day of Action: Say no to Tar Sands, Please!

Arvada, Colorado, as well as many places today, congregated to say:

Please don't scrape away the Boreal forest of Canada. Don't support it with a pipeline. Not for any amount of energy would this be acceptable and we are doing it for pittance.


​
A 2.9:1 return on energy (EROI), spending natural gas to boil the tar from the sands, and huge amounts of gas to run the machines to kill all the trees and destroy the homes to millions of animals. To quash an abundant and ancient ecosystem more sane than any humans have created.

But there is a ray of hope in the insanity: Our group was small, but we encountered very little criticism. We had a lot of honks and hand waves and several loud "I'm with you!" "You guys are Awesome!" "Thanks!". There were a few people gesticulating madly and claiming that it didn't hurt the environment. But, for their credit, I don't think they know about tar sands. There are a surprising number of people who don't seem to know anything about tar sands. They were probably only talking about the pipeline itself, which is relatively benign, and under debate here in the states. The Keystone XL pipeline surely will hurt the environment, but not on a scale people are unused to seeing. Tar sands....


​
Tar Sands is another matter. And it makes me cry to see it every single time. There is no rational debate about tar sands. It is fanatically awful. It is not defendable, besides by lunacy. Just as Orange Ruffy was fished until it all but died out, destroying acres of irreparable seabed in the process, tar sands in unconscionable. It is destructive, eventually self-destructive. Short sighted, arrogant, and cruel.

What's the problem with the pipeline? It is directly supportive of tar sands. Which must stop. And every sane and educated person from Edmonton to Beijing to Alberta knows it. Tar sands must stop. It produces three times the carbon foot print of conventional oil - 116 kg per barrel. It's already carved a scar on the earth over 715 square kilometers (276 square miles) - as large as the city of Calgary. It would be best if the US, and everyone, refused to buy any of it on moral grounds. And on logical grounds. On the grounds that we are not demons and monsters. Canadian activists are working hard to end tar sands in their home country, I wish them all the luck in the world. There is even a chance, should we be dumb enough to build the pipeline, that the insanity will stop and there wont be any oil to transport anyway. I hope so.

There were more events in Denver, and other cities around the country. It was a National Day of Action, and I thank the Sierra Club for getting us motivated!

Finding a Job with a Job

Whom ever said 'it's easier to find a job with a job' either never tried it, or was trying it in very different predicament than I have.

If one has a job, it is harder to receive phone calls, emails, whathaveyou in a timely manner. Everyone calls at noon. When I am working. And cannot answer the phone.

They wish to schedule interviews in the middle of the day, when I have important prior engagements. I have a lot less time to fill out the same application form over and over and over again.

It is far less stressful - one has income, right? - but easier? Not by my observation.

Re: Can the Wealthy Be THAT Deserving?

Hollywood actors can bring home paychecks as astounding as $50 million dollars! We all know this. Pro-league sports stars can also bring in paychecks larger than you can accurately imagine, as Mr. Mankiw pointed out to the NY Times. Does this fact make you mad? Does it strike you as a great injustice? Does it make you want to take to the streets in protest?

Well... yeah. Sort of, yeah, Mr. Mankiw. Yes. It does make me mad. These celebrities have talent, this is true. And I am not against their being compensated for their skills. However, there comes a point when compensation become gluttony.

Robert Downy Jr. and LeBron James are not the only people in the world with talent. But the way our system is set up, they are the only ones who profit from their skills. Are they the best? In the case of James, maybe. But Robert Downy ain't the best actor. Acting is not so as objective as that. He's just the one who was chosen to be Iron Man. He's just the one who was born with his look, and his string of lucky coincidences which led to being Iron Man on the silver screen.

That's all it takes, sometimes. Luck. We live in a world where a shitty video game from the year 2000 (or earlier) can be repackaged with classically designed, Mario-esque graphics and characters, worse game-play, and make $50,000 a day on advertising. Not on actually doing anything valuable. On advertising. Which, in a modern context, is a lot more synonymous with brainwashing than with edification.

Now, Flappy Bird can go on to support the careers of a lot of writers, discussing what this means. (answer: nothing. People are kinda dumb (granted). Dumb games on phones can be wonderful ways to waste time (obvious). Advertisers spend way to much money on nothing (but no one believes it).)

And while Drew Brees (the Saints) makes $40 a year, Alfred Morris (running back, Washington Redskins) makes only $510,000. Which, while a lot, is at least an understandable amount of money (when I say 'understandable', I mean you can comprehend how much 500 thousand is. 40 million is conceptually beyond the human imagination.) Alfred Morris is still a phenomenal football player. He plays for the NFL. And he is still important to this lucrative entertainment. But he's one of those who might have trouble coping with his medical bills 20 years after he retires. Kobe Bryant can make $30 million a year, but Mario West only pulls in $20,103. The MLB has a minimum salary of $480,000 in 2012; and A-Rod (whom, I'm told, hasn't done shit for several seasons... I don't know. I don't care about sports) made $30 million.

Perhaps in a society which understood the need for a little wealth re-distribution (a necessary for the historical-social science of anthropology), it would be more acceptable for someone to bring home a few million dollars a year. But in our world, where wealth is kept, forever, and it becomes part of a persons intrinsic value: yes, it makes me mad. I don't know who Mankiw talks to, who is unperturbed by the loot an actor, musician, or athlete can haul in so quickly, but they are not in my circle. If economics were truly a science, then we would all know that correlation is not causation (lesson one) and just because you observe something in your world does not make it a common experience (lesson two). That is what studies and data are for. There are 7 billion people on this ball of rock. More than anyone can comprehend. And sometimes they travel in like-minded groups. So we don't always get good communication with people who are different from us. It seems quite probable that the Internet is making this worse because you can peruse only the news that you want to hear.

Mankiw goes on to explain all this flooy about massive corporations and companies overseeing billions of dollars and the risks inherent in the financial market. I will preempt that discussion with my assumption that monopolies and big, giant groups are worse for us all, over all, than having a diverse ecosystem of smaller and local companies. Communities. Steve Jobs has helped Apple make billions and billions of dollars as a tech company. But Apple is a childish company who doesn't like to share. Apple wants everyone to be Apple, which might be ok if everyone wanted to be Apple. But there are huge numbers of people who really, really don't want to be Apple and I can't blame them. The rise of the iPhone is kind of a let down to anyone who doesn't want an iPhone. It makes everyone else's life (and yours...) kinda a little bit more difficult. Is it valuable to our society? Well, those who live on their iToy's will emphatically argue yes. But I wonder. With every creation, there is also destruction. What have we lost? Sometimes there is immense, and calculated, value in the commons. Which is slowly being eroded away by a focus on profit margins and stocks. Really just financial bullshit that keeps our lopsided and blindfolded economy hurtling along like an asteroid. Or inflating like a thin water balloon...

I can't say that Gregory Mankiw is not paying attention. But I must wonder what his motives are. Betting on the rich is a lot like betting on government. Socialism tends to fail because it concentrates power into the hands of a few, which is what our monopoly market system is doing over here. It's not at all different.

Edward R. Morrison

scholar and activist

primary email: Edward.Morrison@WesternAlum.Org

phone: 720-480-6197

facebook: Scaea E. Coarnia (scaeascaea@yahoo.com)

twitter: @scaeascaea

google+: Edward R (ScaeaScaea@gmail.com)

Effect: Change

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Edward R Morrison <edward.morrison@westernalum.org> wrote:

Can the Wealthy be THAT Deserving?

Hollywood actors can bring home paychecks as astounding as $50 million dollars! We all know this. Pro-league sports stars can also bring in paychecks larger than you can accurately imagine, as Mr. Mankiw pointed out to the NY Times. Does this fact make you mad? Does it strike you as a great injustice? Does it make you want to take to the streets in protest?

Well... yeah. Sort of, yeah, Mr. Mankiw. Yes. It does make me mad. These celebrities have talent, this is true. And I am not against their being compensated for their skills. However, there comes a point when compensation become gluttony.

Robert Downy Jr. and LeBron James are not the only people in the world with talent. But the way our system is set up, they are the only ones who profit from their skills. Are they the best? In the case of James, maybe. But Robert Downy ain't the best actor. Acting is not so as objective as that. He's just the one who was chosen to be Iron Man. He's just the one who was born with his look, and his string of lucky coincidences which led to being Iron Man on the silver screen.

That's all it takes, sometimes. Luck. We live in a world where a shitty video game from the year 2000 (or earlier) can be repackaged with classically designed, Mario-esque graphics and characters, worse game-play, and make $50,000 a day on advertising. Not on actually doing anything valuable. On advertising. Which, in a modern context, is a lot more synonymous with brainwashing than with edification.

Now, Flappy Bird can go on to support the careers of a lot of writers, discussing what this means. (answer: nothing. People are kinda dumb (granted). Dumb games on phones can be wonderful ways to waste time (obvious). Advertisers spend way to much money on nothing (but no one believes it).)

And while Drew Brees (the Saints) makes $40 a year, Alfred Morris (running back, Washington Redskins) makes only $510,000. Which, while a lot, is at least an understandable amount of money (when I say 'understandable', I mean you can comprehend how much 500 thousand is. 40 million is conceptually beyond the human imagination.) Alfred Morris is still a phenomenal football player. He plays for the NFL. And he is still important to this lucrative entertainment. But he's one of those who might have trouble coping with his medical bills 20 years after he retires. Kobe Bryant can make $30 million a year, but Mario West only pulls in $20,103. The MLB has a minimum salary of $480,000 in 2012; and A-Rod (whom, I'm told, hasn't done shit for several seasons... I don't know. I don't care about sports) made $30 million.

Perhaps in a society which understood the need for a little wealth re-distribution (a necessary for the historical-social science of anthropology), it would be more acceptable for someone to bring home a few million dollars a year. But in our world, where wealth is kept, forever, and it becomes part of a persons intrinsic value: yes, it makes me mad. I don't know who Mankiw talks to, who is unperturbed by the loot an actor, musician, or athlete can haul in so quickly, but they are not in my circle. If economics were truly a science, then we would all know that correlation is not causation (lesson one) and just because you observe something in your world does not make it a common experience (lesson two). That is what studies and data are for. There are 7 billion people on this ball of rock. More than anyone can comprehend. And sometimes they travel in like-minded groups. So we don't always get good communication with people who are different from us. It seems quite probable that the Internet is making this worse because you can peruse only the news that you want to hear.

Mankiw goes on to explain all this flooy about massive corporations and companies overseeing billions of dollars and the risks inherent in the financial market. I will preempt that discussion with my assumption that monopolies and big, giant groups are worse for us all, over all, than having a diverse ecosystem of smaller and local companies. Communities. Steve Jobs has helped Apple make billions and billions of dollars as a tech company. But Apple is a childish company who doesn't like to share. Apple wants everyone to be Apple, which might be ok if everyone wanted to be Apple. But there are huge numbers of people who really, really don't want to be Apple and I can't blame them. The rise of the iPhone is kind of a let down to anyone who doesn't want an iPhone. It makes everyone else's life (and yours...) kinda a little bit more difficult. Is it valuable to our society? Well, those who live on their iToy's will emphatically argue yes. But I wonder. With every creation, there is also destruction. What have we lost? Sometimes there is immense, and calculated, value in the commons. Which is slowly being eroded away by a focus on profit margins and stocks. Really just financial bullshit that keeps our lopsided and blindfolded economy hurtling along like an asteroid. Or inflating like a thin water balloon...

I can't say that Gregory Mankiw is not paying attention. But I must wonder what his motives are. Betting on the rich is a lot like betting on government. Socialism tends to fail because it concentrates power into the hands of a few, which is what our monopoly market system is doing over here. It's not at all different.

Limboland Comics by Ellie Fortune

Limboland is a fun new comic up at doodlepadart.com. Somewhere between a comic book and a comic strip, it is a lively and fun set of stories.

Limboland is published in short-story installments, not page-by-page as most ecomics I've read before. It is a departure from the traditional method, but for the nature of this 'story' (stories, really), it works very well. It is worth checking out for anyone into sequential art.

Thus far, Limboland is mostly about characters Styxx and Frazzles, and their adventures in their world, Limboland. It is drawn lovingly, and fluidly. The lettering is expressive, as it is done by hand. The panels are friendly. And there's usually a cute joke on the last, single panel page.

It is fun, and currently not an insurmountable investment to get caught up, unlike mainstream superheros who's stories have no ending.

A Need for Listening

Brian McDonald believes in clarity. In an interview for Paper Wings, he wondered that those who choose to be obscure make this choice because they can't be clear. Where is the skill in being random? Where is the skill in being strange? This might be difficult for the sane, but it's more than a little pointless; it is far more impressive to be clear.

But in our national dialogue, clarity can be hard to find. People throw around charged terms with little care to what they might mean on the receiving end of the dialogue. I have no idea what someone might mean by "communism", "free market", "republican", or "socialism". And we could throw the definitions as defined by Webster and Merriam into this, but it wouldn't truly help. Those definitions are not always what a person means when they throw those words around.

Sometimes, a person might mean nothing. They don't know what they are talking about, it only becomes a beacon of anger. They are frustrated; they want someone to blame. They are arrogant; they want someone to look down on. They wish they were someone important; they rattle out their wisdom, for what it is worth.

A grand number of problems might evaporate if we could just achieve this clarity, but it is a hard task. For, along with clarity, one has to be enormously entertaining. Short-winded. Preferably yelling. How else can one hold attention? If I prattle on, as I am wont to do, I will lose my audience. If I start with my assumption, I can easily elicit that anger and cause people to adopt a stance of self-defence. I will anger my enemies, I will be blithe repetition to my allies. When the channel can be changed without even a first thought, nothing ever gets said. No one is listening.