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Off Shore Drilling - Don’t Buy the Lie
CAN WE DRILL OUR WAY TO LOWER FUEL PRICES?
Argument 1:
Drilling more oil and gas wells will reduce gasoline prices.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the total additional oil that could be
brought into production from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Outer
Continental Shelf, and the Rocky Mountain states is likely to be only about 1.2 million
barrels of oil a day at peak production. This only adds up to a $1.20 reduction in the price
of a barrel of oil, which is currently well over $140.(footnotes) i ii iii
If this drop were to reduce pump prices at all, the savings would be mere pennies (only about 3 cents a gallon according to Department of Energy figures) and would not be seen by Americans for at least another 10 years.
Even in the most optimistic case, drilling in those sensitive areas combined would
possibly garner a savings at the pump of only 4-5 cents a gallon in 2025. Even the
Department of Energy admits that: “Because oil prices are determined on the
international market, however, any impact on average… prices is expected to be
insignificant.” (footnote)iv Any oil pumped here would go right into that international market, where we’d have to bid for it right alongside India, China and other nations.
In fact, a record 1.6 billion barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were
exported from January-April of this year, up 33 percent over the same period in 2007.
This surge in exports seems to contradict arguments of supporters who want to increase
domestic drilling in order to help alleviate fuel shortages in the U.S. The bottom line is
profit –domestically drilled oil will not stay in the U.S. if another nation is willing to pay
more for it.
Despite the fact that drilling will not help consumers at the pump, the industry continues
to push for more drilling permits on public lands. This strategy is little more than an
attempt to control more land and reap bigger and bigger profits. Between 1999 and 2007,
the number of drilling permits issued for development of public lands increased by more
than 361%, yet gasoline prices have also risen dramatically. There is no correlation
between more drilling and lower gasoline prices.
Even if increased domestic drilling could affect the price of gasoline, there is yet no
justification to open additional federal lands because oil and gas companies have shown
that they cannot keep pace with the rate of drilling permits that the federal government is
handing out. In the last four years, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776
permits to drill on public lands; yet, in that same time, 18,954 wells were actually drilled.
That means that companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to drill that they
are not using to increase domestic production.
Argument 2:
Vast quantities of oil and gas beneath public lands are closed to energy
development.
According to the Department of the Interior, only 38% of the oil and 16% of the natural
gas are excluded from leasing – largely because those resources are underneath National
Parks and wilderness areas that have significant scenic, recreational and wildlife values.
Industry already has more lands than it can drill. Of the 44.5 million leased acres, most -more than 30 million acres -have not been used by the oil and gas industry.
Industry isn’t developing most of the public lands it already has under lease. Although we
object to some of the areas under lease, we believe that the oil and gas industry should
make better use of existing leases before it attempts to lock up more public lands in
environmentally fragile areas.
Argument 3:
Opening the 19.2 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to
drilling would reduce today’s gasoline prices.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that it will require 8 to 10 years
after opening ANWR before oil is produced. According to the EIA, opening ANWR
could reduce U.S. crude oil imports, but not until 2022-2026 and only by a few
percentage points.
Oil prices are set on a global market. Historically, increases in U.S. oil production have
had little impact on those prices. If commercial quantities of oil are discovered in
ANWR, the effect would be a reduction of just a few pennies per gallon during peak
production.
During the next two decades, US oil imports as a percentage of consumption will
decrease, a dramatic shift in US energy policy. The reasons for this decrease are
improvements in energy efficiency and conservation and the use of alternative energy and new technologies that will reduce our nation’s need for oil between now and 2050 by 100 million barrels – that’s 10 times the amount of oil that ANWR could provide.
Argument 4:
We need to increase domestic drilling in order to achieve energy independence and
increase homeland security.
More drilling will not achieve “energy independence.” At current consumption levels,
U.S. resources are inadequate to achieve energy independence. The United States
contains 2.5 % of the world’s oil resources and 3% of world natural gas resources.
But we account for 24% of total world consumption of oil and 22% of natural gas
consumption. The U.S. could drill every national park, wildlife refuge, and coastline and still be importing 60 percent of the oil we use. Opening more areas to drilling in the U.S. can never make us less dependent on foreign oil or natural gas.
Additionally, because oil and petroleum products are traded globally, there is no
guarantee that oil drilled in the U.S. will stay in the U.S. In fact, a record 1.6 billion
barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported from January-April of this
year, up 33 percent over the same period in 2007. The bottom line is profit -
domestically drilled oil will not stay in the U.S. if another nation is willing to pay more for it.
The only way we will ever reduce our dependency is to reduce our consumption. Federal
legislation that promotes clean, alternative energy and cuts global warming pollution will
reduce our oil imports four times more than drilling in the pristine wildlife habitat of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, off our beaches, and in the Rocky Mountains combined.
A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that under the Climate
Security Act, U.S. petroleum consumption would drop by nearly half by 2030—saving
far in excess of the amount of oil we could ever pull from Alaska or the coasts.
Argument 5:
There are too many environmental restrictions on drilling.
Many of these environmental restrictions are what help keep our drinking water and the
air we breathe clean. They also help conserve wildlife and lands for recreation.
Even with current environmental restrictions, wildlife and clean water and air are taking a
hit from drilling. During the first four years of development on the Pinedale Anticline
natural gas field in Wyoming the overall wintering mule deer population dropped by
46%. The Greater sage-grouse may require listing under the Endangered Species Act, in
part, as a result of damage to its habitat from oil and gas drilling. This past year in
Colorado, over 1 million gallons of polluted, industrial drilling mud was accidentally spilled into the West Parachute Creek on the Roan Plateau.
Drilling also pollutes the air. The oil industry on Alaska’s North Slope annually emits approximately 70,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, an important component of smog. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, this is more than twice the amount emitted by the city of Washington, D.C.
The small town of Pinedale, Wyoming (pop. 1412), which sits just 100 miles south of Grand Teton National Park, experienced its first hazardous ozone alerts this past winter as a result of emissions from nearby drilling operations.
These are just a few examples of the impacts to wildlife, water and air from drilling. We
would see many more if current environmental restrictions are loosened or relaxed.
Our facts are from credible sources –the U.S. Department of Energy and the Bureau of
Land Management (under the U.S. Department of Interior). A lot of other “information”
is out there (mostly based on opinion)
i
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency, “Analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” May 2008
iii
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency, “State Energy Profiles”
Out of Order - Movie Review
It’s gushing time - I loved this movie. Eric Stoltz plays the lead character so well and understated. Felicity Huffman digs down deep and delivers the goods on a very difficult part. Kim Dickens also does an excellent job and has a quiet dignity about her. Justine Bateman plays it to the hilt and we love her for it. All the acting is top notch, subtle, not over the top. This is an adult film about adult problems and adult situations directed by adults but not so maudlin it doesn’t have a sense of humor about itself and it’s protagonist and characters. The actual film shooting, camera work and the way the director moves you through time into the past and back again is artful and imaginative and a complete no-brainer. This is a great movie I loved each and every aspect of it. The ending is a knock out to the solar plexus. It brought about a sense of joy and longing and affirmation that is too often blunted. This is a movie about selfishness, anger, hurt, perseverance, hope, love, lust, ambition, opportunity and opportunity lost. It is all here and the amazing thing is that this was a Showtime mini series from 2003. What has been released is the pilot. I was amazed at the passion and backlash at only releasing the pilot by the fans. I guess the other four episodes were just as gut wrenching and fulfilling. Not knowing any of this I watched this as a stand alone movie - and it delivered the goods.
You won’t be disappointed - as far as people not getting this movie - have a heart - we should all be so lucky and count your blessings!
Out of Order Reviews at Amazon
Arturo O’Farrill
I have been meaning to write about Arturo for a while but every time I do I put on one of his CD’s and start listening. Well I can’t help it his playing just rifles along in bouncy rhythms that disguise the effort. The man can play and well writing about playing is very difficult especially when listening. Afro-Cuban Jazz I guess if you are going to label something that’s as good a name as any. I would throw out the phrase World Jazz, or describe it as jazz with an island sensibility. Calypso meets Swing meets Coltrane. It doesn’t matter the music has heart and a real sense of joy. His father (also Arturo) was an innovator but over looked by the establishment. Well the establishment is a bunch of small minded idiots protecting their own turf. So they suck and who cares what they think. Now a days more enlightened individuals (thank you Wynton Marsalis) have opened doors for Arturo. His Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra performs at the Lincoln Center in NY as a regular gig, and all over the world.
I’m not really sure how I stumbled into his work. Pulling on the Buena Vista Social Club string I probably came across his recording Night in Tunisia and well I’m hooked. This is not unaccessible music and the Brazilian and Santa Domingo influences from Latin America are here as well as the mellow classic jazz lines of Monk and Mcoy Tyner, and even shades of Vince Guaraldi very, very nice. It is a wide musical landscape played very tastefully.
Music is gumbo and Arturo is a world renowned chef - and so now you know - dig in and enjoy - hot and spicy, cool and mellow and it swings - it’s all here.
Happy Birthday Angus!!!! AC/DC is ROCK!
I love Angus and Malcolm and the band more than life itself. I kid you not. AC/DC is just sheer joy, a thing of beauty, a band that is what it is and it is ROCK! It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock n’ roll and thank god Angus and Malcolm took that Journey together. I love that band in all it’s forms in all it’s sounds in everything they do. I can not wait to see you guys back in the States. Come when you are ready. I’ll be there and along with everyone else we will bring the rock n’ roll of the gods down upon our collective heads, and have it resonate through every fiber of our beings. Happy Birthday Angus! You my friend ROCK! You are the very definition of ROCK. You are the embodiment of ROCK. No one else comes even close. If you want ROCK pure and direct from the gods themselves go see Angus and Malcolm. Thank you, thank you, thank you and Happy ROCKIN’ Birthday!
Paul
Author-Journey Home
Boycott of the American Cancer Society
This is a repost from the Action Pa web site:
Cancer Prevention Coalition Calls for An Economic Boycott of the American Cancer Society.*
*This article is based on Chapter 16 and 18 of THE POLITICS OF CANCER REVISITED, 1998, East Ridge press, Fremont Center, New York 12736 (1-800-269-2921). For a more detailed text and citations, see “American Cancer Society: The World’s Wealthiest ‘Non-profit’ Institution,” International Journal of Health Services 29(3): 565-578, 1999.
The American Cancer Society (ACS), the world’s wealthiest “non-profit institution”, is fixated on damage control - screening, diagnosis and treatment, - and genetic research, with indifference or even hostility to cancer prevention. Together with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the ACS has failed to provide Congress, regulatory agencies and the public with the strong body of scientific evidence clearly relating the escalating incidence of non-smoking related cancers to involuntary and avoidable exposures to industrial carcinogens in air, water, the workplace, and consumer products - - food, cosmetics and toiletries - - so that appropriate corrective and legislative regulatory and action has not been taken. Nor have citizens been provided with available information to protect themselves against avoidable cancer risks. As such, the ACS bears a heavy responsibility for the current cancer epidemic, with lifetime risks now approaching one in two for men and one in three for women. These concerns are further compounded by incestuous conflicts of interest, apart from serious financial irregularities.
Track Record on Prevention
Marching in lockstep with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in its “war” on cancer is its “ministry of information,” the ACS. With powerful media control and public relations resources, the ACS is the tail that wags the dog of the policies and priorities of the NCI. In addition, the approach of the ACS to cancer prevention reflects a virtually exclusionary “blame-the-victim” philosophy. It emphasizes faulty lifestyle rather than unknowing and avoidable exposures to workplace or environmental carcinogens. Giant corporations, which profit handsomely while they pollute the air, water, and food with a wide range of carcinogens, are greatly comforted by the silence of the ACS.Indeed, despite promises to the public to do everything to “wipe out cancer in your lifetime,” the ACS fails to make its voice heard in Congress and the regulatory arena. Instead, the ACS has repeatedly rejected or ignored opportunities and requests from Congressional committees, regulatory agencies, unions, and environmental organizations to provide scientific testimony critical to legislate and regulate a wide range of occupational and environmental carcinogens. This history of ACS unresponsiveness is a long and damning one:
- In 1971, when studies unequivocally proved that diethylstilbestrol (DES) caused vaginal cancers in teenaged daughters of women administered the drug during pregnancy, the ACS refused an invitation to testify at Congressional hearings to require the FDA to ban its use as an animal feed additive.
- In 1977 and 1978, the ACS opposed proposed regulations for hair coloring products that contained dyes known to cause breast and liver cancer in rodents in spite of the clear evidence of human risk.
- In 1977, the ACS called for a Congressional moratorium on the FDA’s proposed ban on saccharin and even advocated its use by nursing mothers and babies in “moderation” despite clear-cut evidence of its carcinogenicity in rodents. This reflects the consistent rejection by the ACS of the importance of animal evidence as predictive of human cancer risk.
- In 1977 and 1978, the ACS opposed proposed regulations for hair coloring products that contained dyes suspected of causing breast cancer. In so doing, the ACS ignored virtually every tenet of responsible public health as these chemicals were clear-cut liver and breast carcinogens.
- In 1978, Tony Mazzocchi, then senior representative of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union, stated at a Washington, D.C. roundtable between public interest groups and high-ranking ACS officials: “Occupational safety standards have received no support from the ACS.”
- In 1978, Congressman Paul Rogers censured the ACS for doing “too little, too late” in failing to support the Clean Air Act.
- In 1982, the ACS adopted a highly restrictive cancer policy that insisted on unequivocal human evidence of carcinogenicity before taking any position on public health hazards. Accordingly, the ACS still trivializes or rejects evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals, and has actively campaigned against laws (the 1958 Delaney Law, for instance) that ban deliberate addition to food of any amount of any additive shown to cause cancer in either animals or humans. The ACS still persists in an anti-Delaney policy, in spite of the overwhelming support for the Delaney Law by the independent scientific community.
- In 1983, the ACS refused to join a coalition of the March of Dimes, American Heart Association, and the American Lung Association to support the Clean Air Act.
- In 1992, the ACS issued a joint statement with the Chlorine Institute in support of the continued global use of organochlorine pesticides despite clear evidence that some were known to cause breast cancer. In this statement, Society Vice President Clark Heath, M.D., dismissed evidence of this risk as “preliminary and mostly based on weak and indirect association.” Heath then went on to explain away the blame for increasing breast cancer rates as due to better detection: “Speculation that such exposures account for observed geographic differences in breast cancer incidence or for recent rises in breast cancer occurrence should be received with caution; more likely, much of the recent rise in incidence in the United States . . . reflects increased utilization of mammography over the past decade.”
- In 1992, in conjunction with the NCI, the ACS aggressively launched a “chemoprevention” program aimed at recruiting 16,000 healthy women at supposedly “high risk” of breast cancer into a 5-year clinical trial with a highly profitable drug called tamoxifen. This drug is manufactured by one of the world’s most powerful cancer drug industries, Zeneca, an offshoot of the Imperial Chemical Industries. The women were told that the drug was essentially harmless, and that it could reduce their risk of breast cancer. What the women were not told was that tamoxifen had already been shown to be a highly potent liver carcinogen in rodent tests, and also that it was well-known to induce aggressive human uterine cancer.
- In 1993, just before PBS Frontline aired the special entitled, “In Our Children’s Food,” the ACS came out in support of the pesticide industry. In a damage-control memorandum sent to some forty-eight regional divisions, the ACS trivialized pesticides as a cause of childhood cancer, and reassured the public that carcinogenic pesticide residues in food are safe, even for babies. When the media and concerned citizens called local ACS chapters, they received reassurances from an ACS memorandum by its Vice President for Public Relations: “The primary health hazards of pesticides are from direct contact with the chemicals at potentially high doses, for example, farm workers who apply the chemicals and work in the fields after the pesticides have been applied, and people living near aerially sprayed fields. . . . The ACS believes that the benefits of a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables far outweigh the largely theoretical risks posed by occasional, very low pesticide residue levels in foods.”
- In September 1996, the ACS together with a diverse group of patient and physician organizations, filed a “citizen’s petition” to pressure FDA to ease restrictions on access to silicone gel breast implants. What the ACS did not disclose was that the gel in these implants had clearly been shown to induce cancer in several industry rodent studies, and that these implants were also contaminated with other potent carcinogens such as ethylene oxide and crystalline silica.
- In “Cancer Facts & Figures, 1998,” the latest annual ACS publication designed to provide the public and medical profession with “Basic Facts” on cancer — other than information on incidence, mortality, signs and symptoms, and treatment — there is little or no mention of prevention. Examples include: no mention of dusting the genital area with talc as a known cause of ovarian cancer; no mention of parental exposure to occupational carcinogens as a major cause of childhood cancer; and no mention of prolonged use of oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy as major causes of breast cancer. For breast cancer, ACS states: “Since women may not be able to alter their personal risk factors, the best opportunity for reducing mortality is through early detection.” In other words, breast cancer is not preventable in spite of clear evidence that its incidence has escalated over recent decades, and in spite of an overwhelming literature on avoidable causes of this cancer. In the section on “Nutrition and Diet,” no mention at all is made of the heavy contamination of animals and dairy fats and produce with a range of carcinogenic pesticide residues, and on the need to switch to safer organic foods.
This abysmal track record on prevention has been the subject of periodic protests by both independent scientists and public interest groups. A well publicized example was a New York City January 23, 1984 press conference, sponsored by Dr. Samuel S. Epstein and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The press release stated:
A group of 24 scientists charged that the ACS was doing little to protect the public from cancer-causing chemicals in the environment and workplace. The scientists urged ACS to revamp its policies and to emphasize prevention in its lobbying and educational campaigns.
The scientists, who included Matthew Meselson and Nobel laureate George Wald, both of Harvard University; former OSHA director Eula Bingham; Samuel Epstein; and Anthony Robbins, past president of the American Public Health Association, strongly criticized the ACS for insisting on unequivocal human proof that a substance is carcinogenic before it will recommend its regulation.
Bloated Operating Budgets and Misallocations:
The ACS is accumulating great wealth in its role as a “charity.” According to James Bennett, professor of economics at George Mason University and recognized authority on charitable organizations, the ACS held a fund balance of over $400 million with about $69 million of holdings in land, buildings, and equipment in 1988. Of that money, the ACS spent only $90 million –26 percent of its budget– on medical research and programs. The rest covered “operating expenses,” including about 60 percent for generous salaries, pensions, executive benefits, and overhead. By 1989, the cash reserves of the ACS were worth more than $700 million. In 1991, Americans, believing they were contributing to fighting cancer, gave nearly $350 million to the ACS, 6 percent more than the previous year. By 1992, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that the ACS was “more interested in accumulating wealth than in saving lives.” Fundraising appeals routinely stated that the ACS needed more funds to support their cancer programs, all the while holding more than $750 million in cash and real estate assets.
A 1992 article in the Wall Street Journal by Thomas DiLorenzo, professor of economics at Loyola College and veteran investigator of nonprofit organizations, revealed that the Texas affiliate of the ACS owned more than $11 million worth of assets in land and real estate, as well as more than fifty-six vehicles, including eleven Ford Crown Victorias for senior executives and forty-five other cars assigned to staff members. Arizona’s ACS chapter spent less than 10 percent of its funds on direct community cancer services. In California, the figure was 11 percent, and under 9 percent in Missouri.
Thus for every $1 spent on direct service, approximately $6.40 is spent on compensation and overhead. In all ten states, salaries and fringe benefits are by far the largest single budget items, a surprising fact in light of the characterization of the appeals, which stress an urgent and critical need for donations to provide cancer services. Nationally, only 16 percent or less of all money raised is spent on direct services to cancer victims, like driving cancer patients from the hospital after chemotherapy, and providing pain medication.
Most of the funds raised by ACS go to pay overhead, salaries, fringe benefits, and travel expenses of its national executives in Atlanta. They also go to pay Chief Executive Officers, who earn six-figure salaries in several states, and the hundreds of other employees who work out of some 3,000 regional offices nationwide. The typical ACS affiliate, which helps raise the money for the national office, spends more than 52 percent of its budget on salaries, pensions, fringe benefits, and overhead for its own employees.
Salaries and overhead for most ACS affiliates also exceeded 50 percent, although most direct community services are handled by unpaid volunteers. DiLorenzo summed up his findings by emphasizing the hoarding of funds by the ACS.
If current needs are not being met because of insufficient funds, as fund-raising appeals suggest, why is so much cash being hoarded? Most contributors believe their donations are being used to fight cancer, not to accumulate financial reserves. More progress in the war against cancer would be made if they would divest some of their real estate holdings and use the proceeds — as well as a portion of their cash reserves — to provide more cancer services.
Aside from high salaries and overhead, most of what is left of the ACS budget goes to basic research and research into profitable patented cancer drugs.
The current budget of the ACS is $380 million and its cash reserves approach one billion dollars. Yet its aggressive fund-raising campaign continues to plead poverty and lament the lack of available money for cancer research, while ignoring efforts to prevent cancer by phasing out avoidable exposures to environmental and occupational carcinogens. Meanwhile, the ACS is silent about its intricate relationships with the wealthy cancer drug, chemical, and other industries.
A March 30, 1998 Associated Press Release has shed unexpected light on questionable ACS expenditures on lobbying. National Vice President for federal and state governmental relations Linda Hay Crawford admitted that the ACS was spending “less than $1 million a year on direct lobbying.” She also admitted that over the last year, the society used 10 of its own employees to lobby. “For legal and other help, it hired the lobbying firm of Hogan & Hartson, whose roster includes former House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-IL).” The ACS lobbying also included $30,000 donations to Democratic and Republican governor’s associations. “We wanted to look like players and be players,” explained Crawford. This practice, however, has been sharply challenged. The AP release quotes the national Charities Information Bureau as stating that it “does not know of any other charity that makes contributions to political parties.”
Tax experts have warned that these contributions may be illegal, as charities are not allowed to make political donations. Marcus Owens, director of the IRS Exempt Organization Division also warned that: “The bottom line is campaign contributions will jeopardize a charity’s exempt status.”
Conflicts of Interest
In the past most ACS funds have come from public donations, and high-profile fund raising campaigns such as the springtime daffodil sale and the May relay races. However, over the last two decades, an increasing proportion of the ACS budget comes from large corporations, including the pharmaceutical, cancer drug, telecommunications, and entertainment industries. In 1992, the American Cancer Society Foundation was created to allow the ACS to actively solicit contributions of more than $100,000. However, a close look at the heavy-hitters on the Foundation’s board will give an idea of which interests are at play and where the Foundation expects its big contributions to come from.The Foundation’s board of trustees included corporate executives from the pharmaceutical, investment, banking, and media industries. Among them:
- David R. Bethune, president of Lederle Laboratories, a multinational pharmaceutical company and a division of American Cyanamid Company. Bethune is also vice president of American Cyanamid, which makes chemical fertilizers and herbicides while transforming itself into a full-fledged pharmaceutical company. In 1988, American Cyanamid introduced Novatrone, an anti-cancer drug. And in 1992, it announced that it would buy a majority of shares of Immunex, a cancer drug maker.
- Multimillionaire Irwin Beck, whose father, William Henry Beck, founded the nation’s largest family-owned retail chain, Beck Stores, which analysts estimate brought in revenues of $1.7 billion in 1993.
- Gordon Binder, CEO of Amgen, the world’s foremost biotechnology company, with over $1 billion in product sales in 1992. Amgen’s success rests almost exclusively on one product, Neupogen, which is administered to chemotherapy patients to stimulate their production of white blood cells. As the cancer epidemic grows, sales for Neupogen continue to skyrocket.
- George Dessert, famous in media circles for his former role as censor on the subject of “family values” during the 70s and 80s as CEO of CBS, and now Chairman of the ACS board.
- Alan Gevertzen, chairman of the board of Boeing, the world’s number one commercial aircraft maker with net sales of $30 billion in 1992.
- Sumner M. Redstone, chairman of the board, Viacom Inc. and Viacom International Inc., a broadcasting, telecommunications, entertainment, and cable television corporation.
The results of this board’s efforts have been very successful. A million here, a million there –much of it coming from the very industries instrumental in shaping ACS policy, or profiting from it.
The Cancer Drug Industry
The intimate association between the ACS and cancer drug industry, with current annual sales of about $12 billion, is further illustrated by the unbridled aggression which the Society has directed at potential competitors of the industry.Just as Senator Joseph McCarthy had his “black list” of suspected communists and Richard Nixon his environmental activist “enemies list,” so too, the ACS has maintained a “Committee on Unproven Methods of Cancer Management” which periodically “reviews” unorthodox or alternative therapies. This Committee is comprised of “volunteer health care professionals,” carefully selected proponents of orthodox, expensive, and usually toxic drugs patented by major pharmaceutical companies, and opponents of alternative or “unproven” therapies which are generally cheap, non-patentable, and minimally toxic.
Periodically, the Committee updates its statements on “unproven methods,” which are then widely disseminated to clinicians, cheerleader science writers (such as Jane Brody, Gina Kolata, and Natalie Angier of the New York Times), and the public. Once a clinician or oncologist becomes associated with “unproven methods,” he or she is blackballed by the cancer establishment. Funding for the accused “quack” becomes inaccessible, followed by systematic harassment.
The highly biased ACS witch-hunts against alternative practitioners is in striking contrast to its extravagant and uncritical endorsement of conventional toxic chemotherapy. This in spite of the absence of any objective evidence of improved survival rates or reduced mortality following chemotherapy for all but some relatively rare cancers.
In response to pressure from People Against Cancer, a grassroots group of cancer patients disillusioned with conventional cancer therapy, in 1986 some 40 members of Congress requested the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), a Congressional think tank, to evaluate available information on alternative innovative therapies. While initially resistant, OTA eventually published a September 1990 report (available online at: http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1990/9044_n.html ) that identified some 200 promising studies on alternative therapies. OTA concluded that NCI had “a mandated responsibility to pursue this information and facilitate examination of widely used ‘unconventional cancer treatments’ for therapeutic potential.”
Yet, until very recently, the ACS and NCI remained resistant, if not frankly hostile, to OTA’s recommendations. In the January 1991 issue of its Cancer Journal for Clinicians ACS referred to the Hoxsey therapy, a nontoxic combination of herb extracts developed in the 1940s by populist Harry Hoxsey, as a “worthless tonic for cancer.” However, a detailed critique of Hoxsey’s treatment by Dr. Patricia Spain Ward, a leading contributor to the OTA report, concluded just the opposite: “More recent literature leaves no doubt that Hoxsey’s formula does indeed contain many plant substances of marked therapeutic activity.”
Nor is this the first time that the Society’s claims of quackery have been called into question or discredited. A growing number of other innovative therapies originally attacked by the ACS have recently found less disfavor and even acceptance. These include hyperthemia, Tumor Necrosis Factor, (originally called Coleys’ Toxin), hydrazine sulfate, and Burzynski’s antineoplastons. Well over 100 promising alternative non-patented and nontoxic therapies have already been identified. Clearly, such treatments merit clinical testing and evaluation by the NCI using similar statistical techniques and criteria as established for conventional chemotherapy. However, while FDA has approved approximately 40 patented drugs for cancer treatment, it has still not approved a single non-patented alternative drug.
Subsequent events further isolated the ACS in its fixation on orthodox as opposed to complementary alternative treatments. Bypassing the ACS and NCI, the National Institutes of Health in June 1992 opened a new Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) for the investigation of unconventional treatment of cancer and other diseases. Leading proponents of conventional therapy were invited to participate. ACS refused. NCI grudgingly and nominally participated while actively attacking alternative therapy with its widely circulated Cancer Information Services. Meanwhile, NCI’s police partner, the FDA has used its enforcement authority against distributors and practitioners of innovative and nontoxic therapies.
In an interesting recent development, the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. held a two day conference on “Comprehensive Cancer Care: Integrating Complementary and Alternative Medicine.” According to Dr. James Gordon, President of the Center and Chair of the Program Advisory Council of the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine, the object of the conference was to bring together practitioners of mainstream and alternative medicine, together with cancer patients and high ranking officials of the ACS and NCI. Dr. Gordon warned alternative practitioners that “they’re going to need to get more rigorous with their work — to be accepted by the mainstream community.” However, no such warning was directed at the highly questionable claims by NCI and ACS for the efficacy of conventional cancer chemotherapy. As significantly, criticism of the establishment’s minimalistic priority for cancer prevention was effectively discouraged by Dr. Gordon. In the fall of 1998 OAM was upgraded by congress to an autonomous institute, “The National Center for Complimentary Alternative Medicine,” forcing the ACS to cease attacks on cancer “quackery.”
The Mammography Industry
The ACS has close connections to the mammography industry. Five radiologists have served as ACS presidents, and in its every move, the ACS reflects the interests of the major manufacturers of mammogram machines and film, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak, and Piker. In fact, if every woman were to follow ACS and NCI mammography guidelines, the annual revenue to health care facilities would be a staggering $5 billion, including at least $2.5 billion for premenopausal women.Promotions of the ACS continue to lure women of all ages into mammography centers, leading them to believe that mammography is their best hope against breast cancer. A leading Massachusetts newspaper featured a photograph of two women in their twenties in an ACS advertisement that promised early detection results in a cure “nearly 100 percent of the time.” An ACS communications director, questioned by journalist Kate Dempsey, responded in an article published by the Massachusetts Women’s Community Cancer Project:
The ad isn’t based on a study. When you make an advertisement, you just say what you can to get women in the door. You exaggerate a point. . . . Mammography today is a lucrative (and) highly competitive business.
In addition, the mammography industry conducts research for the ACS and its grantees, serves on advisory boards, and donates considerable funds. DuPont also is a substantial backer of the ACS Breast Health Awareness Program; sponsors television shows and other media productions touting mammography; produces advertising, promotional, and information literature for hospitals, clinics, medical organizations, and doctors; produces educational films; and, of course, lobbies Congress for legislation promoting availability of mammography services. In virtually all of its important actions, the ACS has been strongly linked with the mammography industry, ignoring the development of viable alternatives to mammography.
The ACS exposes premenopausal women to radiation hazards from mammography with little or no evidence of benefits. The ACS also fails to tell them that their breasts will change so much over time that the “baseline” images have little or no future relevance. This is truly an American Cancer Society crusade. But against whom, or rather for whom?
The highly publicized “National Breast Cancer Awareness Month” campaign further illustrates these institutionalized conflicts of interest with the mammography and cancer drug industries. ACS and NCI representatives help sponsor promotional events, hold interviews, and stress the need for mammography every October. The flagship of this month-long series of events is National Mammography Day on October 17 in 1997. Conspicuously absent from the public relations campaign of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is any information on environmental and other avoidable causes of breast cancer. This is no accident. Zeneca Pharmaceuticals — a spin-off of Imperial Chemical Industries, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of chlorinated and other industrial chemicals, including those incriminated as causes of breast cancer — has been the sole multimillion-dollar funder of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month since its inception in 1984. Zeneca is also the sole manufacturer of tamoxifen, the world’s top-selling anticancer and breast cancer “prevention” drug, with $400 million in annual sales. Furthermore, Zeneca recently assumed direct management of eleven cancer centers in United States hospitals. Zeneca owns a 50 percent stake in these centers known collectively as Salick Health Care, posing serious conflict’s of interest.
The link between the ACS and NCI and Zeneca is especially strong when it comes to tamoxifen. The ACS and NCI continue aggressively to promote the tamoxifen trial, which is the cornerstone of its minimal prevention program. On March 7, 1997, the NCI Press Office released a four-page “For Response to Inquiries on Breast Cancer.” The brief section on prevention reads:
Researchers are looking for a way to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk. . . . A large study (is underway) to see if the drug tamoxifen will reduce cancer risk in women age 60 or older and in women 35 to 59 who have a pattern of risk factors for breast cancer. This study is also a model for future studies of cancer prevention. Studies of diet and nutrition could also lead to preventive strategies.
Since Zeneca influences every leaflet, poster, publication, and commercial produced by National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it is no wonder these publications make no mention of carcinogenic industrial chemicals and their relation to breast cancer. Imperial Chemical Industries, Zeneca’s parent company, profits by manufacturing breast-cancer-causing chemicals. Zeneca profits from treatment of breast cancer, and hopes to profit still more from the prospects of large-scale national use of tamoxifen for breast cancer prevention. National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a masterful public relations coup for Zeneca, providing the company with valuable, if ill-placed, good will from millions of American women.
The Pesticide Industry
Just how inbred the relations between the ACS and the chemical industry are became clear in the spring of 1993 to Marty Koughan, a public television producer. Koughan was about to broadcast a documentary on the dangers of pesticides to children for the Public Broadcasting Service’s hour-long show, “Frontline.” Koughan’s investigation relied heavily on an embargoed, ground-breaking report issued by the National Academy of Sciences in June of 1993 entitled “Pesticides in the Diet of Children.” This report declared the nation’s food supply “inadequately protected” from cancer-causing pesticides and a significant threat to the health of children.An earlier report, issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1989, “Intolerable Risk: Pesticides in our Children’s Food,” had also given pesticide manufacturers failing marks. The report was released in high profile testimony to Congress by movie actress Meryl Streep. A mother of young children, Streep explained to a packed House chamber the report’s findings, namely, that children were most at risk from cancer-causing pesticides on our food because they consume a disproportionate amount of fruits, fruit juices, and vegetables relative to their size, and because their bodies are still forming.
Shortly before Koughan’s program was due to air, a draft of the script was mysteriously leaked to Porter-Novelli, a powerful public relations firm for produce growers and the agrichemical industry. In true Washington fashion, Porter-Novelli plays both sides of the fence, representing both government agencies and the industries they regulate. Its client list in 1993 included Ciba-Geigy, DuPont, Monsanto, Burroughs Wellcome, American Petroleum Institute, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Hoffman-LaRoche, Hoechst Celanese, Hoechst Roussel Pharmaceutical, Janssen Pharmaceutical, Johnson & Johnson, the Center for Produce Quality, as well as the USDA, the NCI, plus other National Institutes of Health.
Porter-Novelli first crafted a rebuttal to help the manufacturers quell public fears about pesticide-contaminated food. Next, Porter-Novelli called up another client, the ACS, for whom Porter-Novelli had done pro bono work for years. The rebuttal that Porter-Novelli had just sent off to its industry clients was faxed to ACS Atlanta headquarters. It was then circulated internationally by e-mail on March 22, 1993, virtually verbatim from the memo Porter-Novelli had crafted for a backgrounder for 3,000 regional ACS offices to have in hand to help field calls from the public after the show aired.
The program makes unfounded suggestions . . . that pesticide residue in food may be at hazardous levels,” the ACS memo read. “Its use of a ‘cancer cluster’ leukemia case reports and non-specific community illnesses as alleged evidence of pesticide effects in people is unfortunate. We know of no community cancer clusters which have been shown to be anything other than chance grouping of cases and none in which pesticide use was confirmed as the cause.
This bold, unabashed defense of the pesticide industry, crafted by Porter-Novelli, was then rehashed a third time, this time by the right-wing group, Accuracy in Media. AIM’s newsletter gleefully published quotes from the ACS memo in an article with the banner headline: “Junk Science on PBS.” The article opened with “Can we afford the Public Broadcasting Service?” and went on to disparage Koughan’s documentary on pesticides and children. “In Our Children’s Food . . . exemplified what the media have done to produce these ‘popular panics’ and the enormously costly waste (at PBS) cited by the New York Times.”
When Koughan saw the AIM article he was initially outraged that the ACS was being used to defend the pesticide industry. “At first, I assumed complete ignorance on the part of the ACS,” said Koughan. But after repeatedly trying, without success, to get the national office to rebut the AIM article, Koughan began to see what was really going on. “When I realized Porter-Novelli represented five agrichemical companies, and that the ACS had been a client for years, it became obvious that the ACS had not been fooled at all,” said Koughan. “They were willing partners in the deception, and were in fact doing a favor for a friend _ by flakking for the agrichemical industry.”
Charles Benbrook, former director of the National Academy of Sciences Board of Agriculture, worked on the pesticide report by the Academy of Sciences that the PBS special would preview. He charged that the role of the ACS as a source of information for the media representing the pesticide and product industry was “unconscionable.” Investigative reporter Sheila Kaplan, in a 1993 Legal Times article, went still further: “What they did was clearly and unequivocally over the line, and constitutes a major conflict of interest.”
The Role of the ACS in the War Against Cancer
The verdict is unassailable. The ACS bears a major responsibility for losing the winnable war against cancer. The launching of the 1971 War Against Cancer provided the ACS with a well-exploited opportunity to pursue it own myopic and self-interested agenda. Its strategies remain based on two myths — that there has been dramatic progress in the treatment and cure of cancer, and that any increase in the incidence and mortality of cancer is due to aging of the population and smoking while denying any significant role for involuntary exposures to industrial carcinogens in air, water, consumer products and the workplace.
As the world’s largest non-religious “charity,” with powerful allies in the private and public sectors, ACS policies and priorities remain unchanged. In spite of periodic protests, threats of boycotts, and questions on its finances, the Society leadership responds with powerful PR campaigns reflecting denial and manipulated information, and pillorying its opponents with scientific McCarthyism.
The verdict is unassailable. The ACS bears a major responsibility for losing the winnable war against cancer.
Reforming the American Cancer Society: What to do about it
Reforming the ACS is, in principle, relatively easy and directly achievable. Boycott the ACS. Instead give your charitable contributions to public interest and environmental groups involved in cancer prevention. Such a boycott is well overdue and will send the only message this “charity” can no longer ignore. The Cancer Prevention Coalition and some breast cancer groups have already taken steps in this direction. For Individuals:
- Boycott all ACS events. Better yet, organize counter-protests at events sponsored by ACS.
- Refuse to donate to the ACS and let them know in writing as to why you are doing so.
- Donate to organizations that are concerned with cancer prevention, better yet join these organizations.
For Organizations:
- Please link this document to your websites.
- Organize protests outside ACS offices.
- Circulate petitions to be signed by your members and send to your local ACS office.
Show your support for the boycott Send an e-mail to the CPC (Cancer Prevention Coalition) with your name and organizational information to: epstein@uic.edu.
Visit the CPC site at www.preventcancer.com.
U.S. Forest Service
The proponents of mining, logging, oil and gas drilling and their rather calloused representatives in Washington don’t not care about anything other than their own pocket books. Our public lands belong to the citizens of the United States. We need them to buffer and keep in tact our fragile environment. As our Captains of Industry tear down and drill everything they can get their hands on it is up to us to make sure there is enough of an environment left to counter balance their reckless pollution and disregard for life on Earth and all of creation. This planet was not put here to just be mined it has an eco-system. It is a vast array of interdependent parts including animals and environments of all shapes and sizes. It’s important to our watershed and the health of our children to preserve as much of the planet as we can in the pristine condition in which it was created by God. To do otherwise is arrogant, selfish, ignorant, and completely foolish.
Participate in democracy, stand up for your rights and take action here.
Land of Plenty is another movie I’m glad I gave a chance. First off Michelle Williams acting job is very nuanced. She has to dig down deep to come up with her conviction and not look like a fraud. Michelle’s character is a child of missionary workers, and she wears a cross around her neck. It never once looked out of place because of her countenance and vibe she brought to the character. There is a scene at night when she is in bed alone that just blew me away. In the hands of a lesser actor it would have been hackneyed, overblown and far less convincing. I was thrilled and stunned and almost had a knee jerk incredulous reaction but she pulled it off. It was and is very inspiring and still with me today. It felt like real conviction to me and has informed my sensibilities and enhanced my outlook. It’s hard to fake that kind of conviction and certain type of enlightenment. That a movie and actor can do that is why we watch. We have a very fine actress here and kudos for a magnificent job to Michelle.
John Diehl is a face you will immediately recognize. The man has worked character studies for decades and his turn in this lead role is equal to Michelle’s. This is a story of subtle reactions competing with overt actions as revelation tries to creep into well established modes of behavior. John Diehl is very convincing and so much so the viewer is left with some doubt as to just exactly what may happen. The film is done in such a way that it is entirely possible that the naive are not so naive and the delusional might be absolutely right. I contribute that to acting as well as script and the themes, lighting, pacing, and art direction.
I really, really liked this movie it’s messages, it’s despair, it’s hope and it’s glory. The fact that the actors characters are not one dimensional is never done in a ham fisted way but unveiled in nuanced responses, facial expression, a well placed curse word and well I’m just happy I stumbled into this movie.
I am seriously going to dig further into Michelle and John’s work and can highly recommend this movie. The passion that Michelle brings to her role reminded me of all the unknown souls trying to do good things in this world of tabloid headlines and sensationalism. She really got to me and with that in mind let me link the following sites:
Doctors Without Borders
Amnesty International
The Peace Corp
I actually think Nader getting into the campaign is great - will they let him debate????
Here’s an eye opening issue link
I’m not so sure that middle class tax payers are duly represented in our process, and could make a case to boycott paying our taxes based on the old refrain - “no taxation without representation” - this isn’t a joke. However, as I have maintained all along the power is in the legislature to make laws, and we as citizens, must and I mean must be active in the advocacy of the issues we find important.
Advocacy links
Advocacy links
Advocacy links
That’s where the rubber hits the road in our form of government. The republicans shut down everything I stand for including a balanced budget, smaller government, reduced funding of the military, and the redistribution of that money (up to a third) into education and research and development. The elimination of the payroll tax, the separation of church and state, getting government out of our bedrooms, lobby reform, the protection of the environment and the species that god (not you and I) put here, being better stewards of the planet (that we did not create) increased fuel mileage to 50 mpg (not the paltry 35mpg by 2012)and transparency in government, the elimination of lobbyist writing the rules, regulations and laws, and the public financing of campaigns, paper back up to voting machines, the return of the debates to the League of Women Voters (impartial, neutral, and unfunded by Corporate America), universal health care, sensible gun laws and on and on the Republicans have turned a deaf ear to everyone and everything except big money and the status quo.
We should all stop paying taxes until we get what we want. We should at least be able to target our tax dollars when we send them in and that one simple change in legislation could make a world of difference. Tax reform is not even being discussed. Or another idea the elimination of the payroll tax would jump start this economy like a defibrillator. Where is the creativity and “outside the box” thinking. It’s certainly not being promoted by the three front runners.
Our representatives are blind to their own ambition, devoid of any new ideas, unable to stand up to the status quo because their egos are tied to their jobs and perks and do not consider the big picture of sustainability.
What runs our government is the election cycle itself, getting elected and being reelected and padding their incomes, and connections by any means necessary. The actual stewardship of the Republic and the good of mankind is a distant second. It’s pathetic that not even the Constitution is put first above the self interest of our dubiously elected (mass media marketed) politicians.
It would do us no harm to have Ralph banging away at these issue for the next 9 months.
He has my vote!
Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
Not that long ago Move On members voted 70% to 30% to support Obama. Since then all the information I have received from the MoveOn Organization has been cheer leading. Here is a letter I sent to them.
Dear Move On,
I want to know why you are supporting Obama it should be listed by bullet points on your homepage. Never mind the vote count of those swept away by the fashion of Obama I want to know what are the specific policies he states that have lead you and your members to this decision, and not campaign rhetoric. What has he done in the past ? What legislation has he supported on any level, local, state and federal that leads you and your members to believe he is the right choice for the job?
That’s the kind of information I need to make a decision. Testimonials about how wonderful he is because he is handsome, well spoken, and delivers pulpit like Sunday morning speeches are empty. The rubber hits the road on his legislative agenda, the planks in the party, his supporters who have financed him with the BIG dollars, and his track record.
Please for the good of the country stop cheer leading and get the facts out.
Then we can all make an “educated decision” other than being swept along by a fad or because Oprah says so. Come on Move On is supposed to excel in this area. I am hearing about big coal and nuclear power funding him early on in his career. Nuclear waste in toxic drums leaching into the water system is another example of dirty energy solutions gone bad. King Coal is the thief who has designed mountain top removal and blasts the debris into the valleys and waterways destroying everything in it’s path. If these two big, corrupt, well heeled corporate monsters are in bed with Obama you are all being duped and guilty of group think. If these are rumors you owe it to your members who you actively solicit for money to ferret the rumors out and dispel them.
Don’t fall for the song from the pulpit and his glowing persona and charisma, but who are his big money backers? Let’s do some real homework here.
I’m repulsed and dismayed at the quotes from the Obama supporters who just gush at his “leadership” style. I want to hear more than the word “change” ! You have a duty to inform the MOVE ON members just what change he has supported and what Senate votes has he ducked. Your daily emails and homepage have been extremely lacking in that regard.
I thought we were all a little more sophisticated than all that, and who’s this radical preacher in his background - his mentor? Come on guys lets do our homework and help educate the Move On members to this unknown, fashion of the moment, almost cult like figure named Obama. Maybe he is the real deal, maybe he’s just good at public speaking either way I assure you the Swift Boaters are laying in wait to dismantle him spreading rumors about dirty money already. They are doing their homework or making it up either way are the Obama supporters in for a big surprise along the way? The lockstep frenzy surrounding Obama has me worried. So let’s talk policy, actual votes and legislative action and money, and actual background and education the serious questions instead of promoting hero worship and adulation?
This is not a popularity contest. We need to make an educated decision about real documented substance and rely on the candidates track record and ignore the rhetoric. This election of personality is bogus and does our country a great deal of harm. After all everyone thought George W. Bush was a “good guy”. Well look what that “good guy” left us after eight years.
Without a doubt that is no way to choose a president!
Paul
Author- Journey Home
Related link - Nuclear Waste
Related Link - Congresspedia
Related Link - Voting Record
The Wolf Slaughter - a message to hunters
It’s too easy to sit in a helicopter and chase down a wolf and blast it with your rifle from the air. I’ve got news for the hunters who pay to do this: You are not men. Zero challenge, zero degree of difficulty and zero sportsmanship. You’ve got nothing. Blasting a wolf from a helicopter is a joke. People actually pay for this service to prove what - they didn’t fall out of the helicopter? If you want to feel like a man ACT like a man. Shooting bears and wolves from helicopters is lazy and virtually child’s play. Do you actually think anyone respects you or admires your dead wolf? Sorry boys it’s too easy, no challenge and only a fraud would fool themselves into thinking it was righteous.
To the helicopter pilots who have sold out - there is nothing rugged about you either. All you are doing is wasting fossil fuel and stealing from a bunch of retards. You want to hunt and shoot living things for sport get your ass out of bed early and hike into the wilderness and meet your prey head on in their house. Maybe then you aren’t a fat ugly American looser who thinks shooting things makes him a man. Mounting a dead animal on the wall proves nothing except that you need some sort of misdirected praise for “your accomplishment” try curing cancer. Anybody who thinks what you do is anything other than wrong is just blowing smoke your way because you have a few dollars.
You and your pilots are arm chair outdoors men with no real stones and an overblown sense of ego. Your closest friends and family are either frauds or laughing at you. Yeah nice kill dad. Nobody in their right mind respects you. Do you respect suicide bombers blowing to bits open air markets and citizens minding their own business? Well….do you - hey genius news flash you are no different.
Yeah real tough guy afraid to get his feet wet. If you knew what being a man was I wouldn’t have to tell you.
For the rest of us with a true sense of honor and integrity click here
Alaska is the last place in the U.S. where a few hunters still use aircraft to chase and kill wolves. They shoot these animals from the air or chase them to exhaustion before landing and shooting them point blank.
Thirty five years ago, Congress passed a law to put an end to aerial hunting. But Alaska is exploiting a loophole in federal law to resume the practice, not only for wolves, but bears as well. Hundreds of scientists and the Alaskan citizens have twice voted and condemned what a few Alaskan’s making money off of this practice are doing. Some of the lower 48 States threaten to follow Alaska’s lead. It’s time to stop aerial hunting once and for all.
Rep. George Miller (CA) has introduced the Protect America’s Wildlife (PAW) Act, legislation to close a federal loophole and curb Alaska’s brutal aerial hunting program — and prevent programs like it from spreading to places like the Greater Yellowstone region.
Please urge your Representative to sign on as a cosponsor to Rep. George Miller’s PAW Act.
Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
Maybe this movie appealed to me because I’m a writer, maybe this movie appealed to me because I love Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, and Will Ferrell in a toned down role, but most of all this movie appealed to me because of Zooey Deschannel. There is just something lurking beneath the surface with her. You just know she’s a major goof ball but she is currently playing all these deeper, conflicted roles, and the depth she brings to her characters isn’t faked. As you can tell I really like Zooey and look forward to her career expanding. Hopefully one day she’ll record an album of standards. Her turn on “Baby it’s Cold Outside” (Elf) had everyone including James Taylor recording and rediscovering that chestnut from yesteryear. Hat’s off to Zooey. So how about the movie?
It’s an angsty film with bizarre characters. But as in any good story as with real life the more layers you peel back the more you see, and then all of a sudden it’s not so unusual after all. So without giving any of the plot away the characters are not one dimensional and the light they are seen in is varied. Kudos to the director and writer for serving up three dimensional characters. If you are looking for fast paced, action shoot em ups this is not your movie. No guns - I love movies without guns! If you are looking for brilliant, subtle acting with some over the top hi jinx for periodic comic relief - this is a great choice. One of Zooey’s love interest although fleetingly in the movie exposes the audience or rather gives the audience a chance to ask why is he a hero.
It’s a question worth asking and answering and the directors and writer do not spoon feed you all the answers - good stuff, good for them. It’s a thinker and respectfully pulls the audience in and allows them some creativity and the opportunity to put something of themselves into the movie. There’s nothing wrong with a little pondering and after all are the loose ends really that important. Well that’s for each one of us to decide. It makes for a good movie.
A quick word on Amelia Warner Zooey’s foil in part of the movie - she brings an understated role to life and plays it subtly. I’ve seen the word eccentric used to describe this movie but that’s just the outer layer of the character development. It’s a device to put inner pain out there and before the audience. Do not be put off by that description or the weird promotional photo. It’s not so weird after you have seen the movie - you’ll have an oh yeah moment. It’s good to use the brain.
Winter Passing is another movie I can highly recommend.
Paul
Author - Journey Home
The Station Agent - Movie Review
If you were on the bubble about renting this movie go ahead and take the chance. I can highly recommend it, and it comes with some mighty high praise. But ignore the reviews nothing short of the Beatles reuniting with John and George could live up to the overblown hyperbole. It’s not the movies fault. That being said lower your expectations a bit, relax and get ready for a terrific film.
This is an understated movie that has a calm running through it that Peter Dinklage easily conveys and brings to the screen. Patricia Clarkson another gifted actor who you might remember from the Untouchables (Kevin Costner) brings another dignified role to life. She has to balance two calamities and still come off charming and beguiling. Bobby Cannavale is great as the gregarious soul who won’t let these two tragic figures forget about the upside the day brings.
Peter Dinklage is the star here and doesn’t tip toe around the prejudice or rather ignorance the world greats him with every morning. He not only has a lot to teach but a fair share to learn. So thankfully the writers and director do not paint him as perfect. Through it all this is a quiet, sometimes loud, sweet, sometimes angry poignant movie. The other supporting actors including the child Peter interacts with and Michelle Williams are cast beautifully. The themes and tone of this movie weave out from deservedly dark places but life rolls on and everybody loves trains!
Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
As I sit here and contemplate the “New Year” and just exactly how deceitful the world is and can be I’m still hopeful. As Dick Cheney’s files burn in the Eisenhower building where his records are stored and his secret meetings with the Energy Cartel were held (on his first day in office) I’m still hopeful. Where the music industry has devolved and just markets the most awful instrument free and hideous noise appealing to our lowest common denominator I am still hopeful. Where the Environmental Protection Agency is actively preventing, thwarting, and stopping the curbing of pollution and State’s Rights I am still hopeful. There are a lot of things wrong in this world from waging wars for resources (see Cheney’s first day in office) and the pillaging of God’s wondrous planet for profits, poppies, and oil, but somehow I am still stubbornly, persistently hopeful.
Why? Because I choose to be and will not let their sacrilege and their petulant behavior do anything but make me stronger. Too often we are obscured by the anguish and confusion in trying to understand why the toxic people among us are the way they are, elected and armed, greedy and heartless, lazy and stupid, cunning and wanting. But because of these men who kill, lie and spend their lives on destruction and hate there are forever more opportunities crying out in our lives to make this a better world. The need is great, it is beyond huge, and the whistle is screaming, the time is now. The time has always been now. So what can we do so fragmented and divided? We are not powerless and so simply in your corner of the world the time too is now, and the opportunity is present to find something you love to do and share it with others. Do something, anything but do not buy into the story that one person can not make a difference. Every moment, every second with every action the choice is there to either create or destroy in all of our lives constantly, persistently and decisively we make either one way or another headway.
In this moment of reflection as the New Year approaches and the calendar starts a new, as we reach out to old friends and remember those who have gone before us, as the Winter Solstice has passed and the days are getting longer so to must we inevitably, persistently, lovingly change. Change is the only constant I can see and so too must change come to those who spend a lifetime destroying our lands, our rights, our health, our economy, our education, our liberties, our loves by their stealing, lying and killing for themselves and their selves only and alone.
In 1963 they blew John Kennedy’s head to bits and claimed it was one deranged man who traveled the world freely, got the secret service to stand down, lived in the USA, and the Soviet Union, and all this with only one bullet, so are we surprised that the stupidity, and ignorance of arrogance continues today. Has it gotten better? Always there will be the unenlightened to operate on a level below comprehension to all but the selfish. Somehow we must take the sword of ignorance and destruction from their hands and raise our voices, our vibration brighter, stronger, louder and higher than theirs.
In this day and age it is long past due where apathy and a shrug of the shoulders can be our passive answer. I know beyond certainty that if each and everyone of us took up the vote, took up the cause, took up the pen, took up the protest, took up the song, and took up the action that we would prevail simply and easily.
So as it drizzles rain (much needed rain) on this gloomy morning I can still see the bright, beautiful, future as it has weaved it’s way through time filled with infinite possibilities. I can hear on the wind the hopeful song of life everywhere and the efforts (far greater than mine) of people all over this beautiful, sacred planet, and their persistent vision as they tend their gardens and loosen the shackles of the Status Quo. It is a beautiful world, magnificent in it’s intricacies fragile in its relationships and holy in it’s being. We can build and live and create better societies more worthy of existence and live in harmony with creation.
And so change ever present reveals the deceivers and their small-minded tricks their propaganda and their contempt of the righteous. We clearly see the deceit and how beholden they are to it to achieve self worth. We see the smug sneer of those who think they are fooling us, but merely themselves and we know the bile that fills their bellies because they know they are wrong as they age horribly before our very eyes.
It is with change that I am hopeful guaranteed of it’s coming and the natural beauty that unfolds every morning. Be at peace with yourself and so it shall be for the rest of all that is, Happy New Year indeed.
Paul
Freedom of Choice = The Right to Choose
Why is there a war on freedom of choice? This country was founded on religious freedom and an “individual liberty concept” that should be guaranteed, and taken into consideration with every act this government takes. The right to manage one’s own life within the tenants and arc of one’s own experience should never be impinged. It is not a one size fits all world but a tapestry of experiences and awareness that runs from the enlightened to the obsessive and power hungry. Sacrificing the bedrock foundations of this Country to the whims of fanaticism in order to gain power jeopardizes the very freedoms and virtues that make this country the land of freedom, opportunity, and great in every sense of the word.
A womans right to choose and to govern her very existence should not be dictated by anyone save her own mind, heart and soul. If we do a good job with education, including sex ed, and have easy access to birth control then we are fulfilling the “planned parenthood” mission. If we impart the wisdom that there is a difference between having a child and raising a child, and the life long commitment that entails then we will achieve responsible parenting.
If you believe every sperm is sacred and your 14 year old daughter gets pregnant what does she do? Is it up to the 14 year old? Should the parent give guidance? It could be argued that your 14 year old didn’t receive good guidance in the first place, or she wouldn’t have become pregnant. So you can see this is a very tricky issue based on the specifics of the situation and blanket rules, assumptions and attitudes do not apply.
That the government provides for safe medical procedures is its duty not only for staph infections in hospitals but abortions as well. That the government tell each and everyone of us what to believe or not believe is most definitely the largest affront on individual liberty that man can come up with short of the holocaust.
Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
W. sucks too - he said he “couldn’t” sign the energy bill - why not is his hand broken? What he is really saying is he “wouldn’t” sign the energy bill because Big Oil owns him - owns his soul, his every thought, his career his house, his kids education - owns him - his daddy, his mommy and all his friends.
What right does the Senate have caving into special interest when it’s OUR TAX PAYER MONEY! We gave them the right by OUR vote to act in OUR interest. Big money comes in and says we aren’t going to fund your campaigns anymore, and they fold like a house of cards. Where are the real men and women the leaders who have a vision for the future? Read this NY Times article below and in the Mercury News link in the title above and weep people. In an era that cries out for bold action we limp along and now we are going to be subsidizing the unprofitable nuclear industry. I am so disgusted with the Status Quo. What a bunch of vision less wimps. We are on a tiny rock with a wisp of air and a spit of water and we continue to champion dirty energy solutions. I wanna puke all over the keyboard. My resolve is more hardened we need to toss the Senate out on it’s ear and get a REAL representative government of independents and realists.
Industry Flexes Muscle, Weaker
Energy Bill Passes
WASHINGTON — Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide margin after the oil industry and utilities succeeded in stripping out provisions that would have cost them billions of dollars.
The legislation still contains a landmark increase in fuel-economy standards for vehicles and a huge boost for alternative fuels. But a $13 billion tax increase on oil companies and a requirement that utilities nationwide produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources were left on the floor to secure Republican votes for the package.
The tax measure and the renewable electricity mandate were included in an energy bill that easily passed the House last week. But industry lobbyists focused their attention on Republican members of the Senate and on the White House, which repeatedly threatened to veto the bill if the offending sections were not removed.
Earlier in the week, Senate leaders agreed to drop the renewable electricity section. And on Thursday, after a failed effort to cut off debate on the bill, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said he would reluctantly remove the tax provisions as well, clearing the way for passage in the early evening.
The slimmed-down bill passed 86-8.
The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, led the opposition to the renewable electricity mandate. Along with its member companies in the Midwest and Southeast, the group carried out an extensive lobbying campaign warning that the bill would cause sharp increases in electric rates.
The institute was joined by the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce and groups representing the paper, mining, petrochemical and refining industries.
Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the institute, said that a federal mandate would conflict with mandates for renewable power in place in more than half the states and that this could possibly complicate efforts to pass a nationwide program to combat climate change.
“The federal government jumping in now and second-guessing the states and enacting a fuel mandate in advance of economy-wide greenhouse gas regulation just wasn’t going to make it out of Congress,” Mr. Riedinger said.
The bill now returns to the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted that it would pass overwhelmingly early next week. A White House spokesman said President Bush was pleased that the bill was “moving in the right direction” and that he would sign it when it reached his desk.
The oil industry conducted its own campaign of opposition to the tax provisions, arguing that it would impose burdens on the industry when it needed all the resources it had to find and develop new sources of energy.
“We made sure that everybody knew our point of view — the White House, the House, the Senate,” said James Ford, director of government affairs at the American Petroleum Institute. “We told our story and told it thoroughly.” (READ that as the THREAT it was intended to be people)
Mr. Ford said that even with the tax provisions removed, the oil industry had concerns about meeting the bill’s requirement that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels be blended into gasoline by 2022. He said the bill was far too specific about how much of certain kinds of fuels must be produced, whether from corn, various other plant fibers or animal fats.
“With all these boutique biofuels, we need an ability to adjust the mandate if technological advances aren’t made,” Mr. Ford said.
Environmental advocates were generally pleased with passage of the new vehicle fuel-economy standards and the biofuel provision. Dan Becker, an environmental consultant who has been working on auto efficiency issues for nearly 20 years, called passage of the bill the biggest environmental victory since enactment of the Clean Air Act of 1990.
But some environmentalists said they were unhappy that the bill would not provide large incentives for expansion of renewable energy sources like wind, solar and biothermal.
Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth Action, accused Senate Democrats of “capitulating” to Senate Republicans and the White House.
“When the Republican leadership and the polluter lobby have blocked important legislation, Senate Democrats have been all too willing to move in their direction,” Mr. Blackwelder said in a statement. “The result is that the two most positive provisions of the energy bill — a clean energy mandate and a tax package reining in handouts for fossil fuels and promoting clean energy — are being removed, while detrimental provisions, such as a radical five-fold increase in unsustainable biofuel use, remain.”
Separately, Congress reached a tentative agreement on a major energy package that it plans to enact outside the energy bill, according to a Senate Democratic staff member. The agreement, to be included in a broad government spending bill, would authorize the Energy Department to guarantee loans for various energy projects, making financing far easier.
The agreement would guarantee loans of up to $25 billion for new nuclear plants and $2 billion for a uranium enrichment plant, something those industries had been avidly seeking. It would also provide guarantees of up to $10 billion for renewable energy projects, $10 billion for plants to turn coal into liquid vehicle fuel and $2 billion to turn coal into natural gas.
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Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
PROTECT ALL ENDANGERED RED LIST SPECIES
We did not make this world or even ourselves, we did not make the universe or the stars in the sky, we did not make the plains or the mountains, or animals that dwell in them. We did not make the oceans or the sky. We did not make the weather, the rain or the apples that grow from the trees. We did not make anything accept destruction and war, and consumption. How arrogant are we to hold this magnificent creation in disdain as we slash and pollute, burn and kill, destroy and extinguish all that has been given to us. It should be revered, used sparingly and manged with care. We have been given the free will and intelligence to accomplish great things. We have been given the consciousness to know the difference between right and wrong. Mankind needs to evolve and quickly to a forward thinking less self absorbed being and realize his/her true place in the universe on a tiny rock in a distant solar system with a wisp of air and sea to sustain us.
Paul Burke
Author Journey Home
Internal Combustion Engine Obsolete!
I am reprinting this article from a major publisher. The internal combustion engine is obsolete. You wouldn’t use a computer that was five years old why are you driving a car based on a technology developed 100 years ago? The only reason there haven’t been any advances in car and oil technology is because the status quo has gotten insanely rich on this outdated mode of transportation and the fuel that drives it. Why plow the money back into innovation when your current business is making money hand over fist? Because the country deserves better from the status quo who rely on our troops, banking system, form of government and labor to keep them swimming in cash.
America take back your country from the dinosaurs of the antiquated industrial revolution from over 100 years ago, and take back your health, environment and independence while you are at it. We don’t need Bush’s Oil War - we don’t need all that oil. The status quo does and will fight until the bitter end to keep selling us cars and trucks that get 20 miles to the gallon while moving oil prices up so high that they cripple the overall economy. Take it back America all of it - and the free market economy too!
Paul
Author - Journey Home
Putting the zoom into electric cars
Watch out, Detroit. A new crop of electric-vehicle startups aims to put a dent in the Big Three by applying the latest in high-technology engineering and design.
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