Alon Shalev's Blog, page 13

Fracking Psycho Judy – Tom Rossi

The new movie, “Gasland part II” premiered last night on HBO and it repeats this afternoon, July 9, 2013 at different times, depending on time zone. Of course I didn’t see it last night because we don’t have HBO. But I’ll see Gasland 2 soon enough, even if I have to wait till it comes out on Netflix.

Video: Gasland Trailer

 I just recently (finally) saw the first Gasland movie. In case you’re wondering, it’s really good and mostly interview-based, with real people really affected by fracking. If you haven’t seen the movie, you may have seen some of the scenes where people take a lighter to their garden hose or their kitchen faucet and start a flame-thrower.

In addition to bringing home flame-throwers to America, the various implements of fracking (the proper name is “hydraulic fracturing“) – drilling rigs and wells, storage tanks, etc., leak a lot of gas and toxic chemicals into the air and into and onto the ground. When I saw this in the movie, I was instantly reminded of a very interesting landlady I once had, who shall forever be known as… Psycho Judy.

 I won’t give Psycho Judy’s last name because she would just love the chance to sue me – with or without merit. I would win the case, but it would still be a big pain. I also won’t go into all the reasons that I, my friends, and many people who have met her called her “psycho,” even before the incident I’m about to describe, because they are irrelevant to the comparison to fracking, which is the topic of the day.

 Psycho Judy, long after I had moved out of a room I had been renting in her house, started up a silicon wafer manufacturing operation. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but the operation was at her tract house, in the garage and the side yard, with neighboring houses only a few feet away.

 She got herself a hardware store gas-mask, some new big garbage bags, emptied out some of the trash cans (that she had stolen from neighbors), and apparently had other equipment in the garage. Then she set up a web page with some semi-impressive pictures that she had just dredged from the net, it looked like. The picture were mostly nondescript, but somehow implying high-tech.

 A friend of mine who lives within eye-shot of Psycho Judy’s house saw her wearing a gas mask and handling garbage cans full of chemicals out in her yard. My friend called the police and they brought the haz-mat (hazardous materials) team. Soon, Psycho Judy’s yard and house looked like a seen from the Sean Connery movie, “Outland.”

 

Psycho Judy was arrested, convicted, and went to jail.

 The question is… Why? Okay, the question’s not too hard to answer. She had endangered her neighbors by bringing in and handling hazardous chemicals in a residential neighborhood. These chemicals give off toxic fumes, some of which hug the ground and spread because they are heavier than “normal” air. The fumes that are not heavier than air simply take to the wind and, depending on weather conditions, might go visit near-neighbors or another neighborhood, blocks or even miles away.

 Psycho Judy had put the health of ordinary citizens in jeopardy, and for that, she went to jail. Frackers do the same thing. Fracking operations spread toxic clouds of chemicals, contaminate groundwater, use up and contaminate trucked-in water by the billions of gallons, and pollute an area and the general atmosphere in several other ways, all of which are shocking in their scale. But do frackers get arrested? Do they go to jail? Not a chance.

 The question is… Why not? Unfortunately, that question’s not hard to answer, either.

 Fracking has been “exempted”. Exempted from complying with the requirements of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. This happened because rich, powerful fracking companies have incredible influence over our government. These companies always have several of their former employees working at regulatory agencies. They also have several current employees who were once elected representatives or senators and, at the time of this exemption, an inside man at nearly the top – Dick Cheney, then Vice-President of the United States.

 Dick Cheney was the key facilitator in getting fracking companies exempted from environmental laws. Asking if Cheney is pro-energy industry is precisely akin to asking if the Pope is Catholic. Before he became Vice President, he had been CEO of Halliburton, which some would say is the ultimate energy and war profiteering corporation on Earth.

 What are environmental regulations for? What good are they if the worst polluters are simply exempted? It’s not that different from many situations we face here in America where issues of legality or justice are concerned – little crimes get punished, sometimes severely, while huge crimes are ignored.

 I’m glad Psycho Judy was punished. She was a menace to her neighbors in several ways, including some which were very serious. But frackers are endangering us all, and some people are suffering direct, immediate, and very harsh consequences from fracker’s actions. And like Wall Street criminals, they are not considered criminals at all by the U.S. Department of Justice. Frackers can’t even be found in violation of Environmental Protection Agency rules – they are above the law.

 But don’t let this make you think you can sneak into a ball game or smoke in a restaurant or something. You’ll probably go to jail for that. You’ll at least be fined.

-Tom Rossi

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Tom Rossi is a commentator on politics and social issues. He is a Ph.D. student in International Sustainable Development, concentrating in natural resource and economic policy. Tom greatly enjoys a hearty debate, especially over a hearty pint of Guinness.

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America: July 4th For All

I realize that I, like many of my fellow social commentators, spend a lot of time highlighting what is wrong in this country. This is important and even patriotic because it feeds from a desire to create a better and more just society. Today, however, should not be such a day. Allow me to share a post I wrote for a previous July 4th and in the afterglow of the historic Supreme Court human rights decision just a week ago.

I am sitting in my local coffee shop and two men have just walked in together. They are deep in conversation and I see that one insists on paying for both coffees while the other protests and then gratefully accepts. I sense they exchange this ritual regularly.  One man is black and the other is white. This shouldn’t stand out to me living in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, but it does.

These two men, though they walk straight and fluidly, are both old. They must be in their late 70′s, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in their 80′s. They grew up in a different time, another age, when this scene would have drawn everyone’s attention in the coffee shop. Now, I suspect, it is just me.

These two men lived through segregation, the civil rights movement, and the general drive by mainstream American to create a non-racist, civil society. I know there are extremists out there, and I am aware that black people still face institutional racism, but when spotlighted, there is a strong consensus that such behavior is unacceptable.

I am writing this post a couple of days before the 4th of July. I am still not a citizen of the US, but I feel a part of this society because I believe in what it stands for: freedom and democracy for all. I know our country is not perfect, but we are moving forward. I know that not everyone is on board, or swimming in the same direction, but I believe there is a determined majority who embrace these principles. Jewish proverbs teach us that “It is not for us to finish the task, but neither are we free to desist from it.”

My blog often criticizes members of our society, organizations and politicians. But today, July 4th, while we fire up the barbecue and chill the bud (really, the only reason I haven’t applied for citizenship is I am expected to drink my beer cold!), lets focus on what we share in common.

I’ll leave you with Janis Ian who spells it out in black and white.  Happy 4th everyone.

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Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award for YA - At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter. For more about the author, check out his website.

Early July 4th Post - The Right To Fly The Flag

Reblogged from Left Coast Voices:

Larry Murphree is a US Army war veteran and taxpaying citizen. But his Homeowner's Association decided he had stepped out of line and fined him, with the fine growing every day. This problematic troublemaker had the audacity to fly the U.S. flag in a flowerpot outside his home - in full view of the children!!! Not only that, but he was banned from the neighborhood clubhouse.

Read more… 172 more words

Found this old post - really enjoyed it then. There is a HUGE flag flying opposite where I am right now in SoCal. Enjoy the post.

Have you Been to Church? – Tom Rossi

Have you been to church lately? Have you worshiped the almighty Jobs? Have you read The Book of Jobs? Have you attended services to celebrate the resurrection of Jobs?

 Steve Jobs was, as far as I know, the first CEO who was enough of an egomaniac to call big press conferences to announce a new device that his company had produced – even if that device was, many times, just the latest version.

 Now, press conferences to announce new toys or versions of electronic toys or versions of softwares are de rigueur, and reporters and “enthusiasts” (people whose lives revolve around having the latest iPhone or whatever) flock to them like kids to ice cream trucks on a hot day. We still have press conferences for Apple, but also Samsung, Facebook, and a host of other companies who have CEOs anxious to play the court jester. I think they all want to stick their success in the faces of the jocks who kicked their asses in high school and the girls who made barfing sounds when they asked them out.

 Yes, these press conferences are attended by throngs of reporters because the release of a new device version is what, today, passes for news. In between a few reports of shootings in east Oakland, this weeks big party parade across San Francisco, traffic reports, and horse-race political reporting, there is always “news” of some company releasing an iblender4.3, or something. “Apple announced, at its big event today, that iPhones will now be available in blue.” Very exciting news.

 What really gets me about these press conferences is that they are purely for the purposes of publicity, and the media are complicit in the scheme. Every tech-head nerd-geek knows better than to take what is said at these release orgies too seriously. Anyone with more sense than dollars waits to hear from the reviewers who take the thing back to the office and work it over like Muhammad Ali beating up on Cleveland Williams. That’s why we hear so quickly about defects with things like map apps.

 But this is our new church. We, or our representatives, sit in the pews, waiting and hoping for a glimpse of our savior – whoever is the latest to promise us safe passage into heaven… or to heavenly FaceSpaceTumbling and Twitstagramming, anyway.

 I have an iPhone. It’s kind of a nice thing to have. I use the map a lot – that’s really what I bought it for. My iPhone is something like two years old. It still works well enough. I also have a hammer and a pair of vice-grips that I like. They’re all pretty useful tools.

 -Tom Rossi

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Tom Rossi is a commentator on politics and social issues. He is a Ph.D. student in International Sustainable Development, concentrating in natural resource and economic policy. Tom greatly enjoys a hearty debate, especially over a hearty pint of Guinness.

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Love Your Mum, Love Your Editor

I’ve become one of those people and I’m feeling ashamed of it. You know the type I’m talking about – the people who read your book and proactively looking for errors – grammatical, spelling, and especially plot. They get more excited discovering a mistake than at a plot twist. Okay, I have not fallen that far, but I am noticing mistakes and if there are too many, it becomes very off-putting.

Now let me make it perfectly clear: I have made all these mistakes…frequently. Thankfully my writer’s group or my awesome editor usually catches them. Here are a couple of examples:

In At The Walls Of Galbrieth - Seanchai and Ilana rode their horses into a closed desert enclave, met and fought some bad guys and walked out. Luckily, one of my writer’s group suggested they take their horses with them because they are in the wilderness!

I have had characters walk into a one-story building and climb stairs, and in Unwanted Heroes spent over a page talking about the pastry crumbs in Salvador’s beard – it was later cut to one line.

I have written and self-edited nine manuscripts, with six eventually published. It would not occur to me to publish a book without a professional eye scrutinizing every line. I am grateful for the people who email me when they find a mistake in one of my novels and I diligently write it down for a future revision. But I confess, it hurts when they find it. We want our novels to be perfect – if we didn’t, it would be a serious flaw in our motivation for publishing. 

I am close to finishing reviewing my editor’s work on Ashbar. As with the previous two epic fantasy novels, she has cut over 10% of the manuscript. Given that my own rounds of revisions did something similar, I am still always surprised. But the manuscript reads, without a doubt, tighter and more fluent for her work.

I came across an article by Dick Margulis entitled The Editor–Author Relationship: Five Reasons Why Self-Publishing Authors Need An Editor. I was more interested in the relationship side, but Margulis focused on the latter part – fair game considering he is an editor.

You can check out his article for yourself if you need convincing your work needs an editor. I am always surprised when people present at our writer’s group and preempt by telling us that their work is finished and sent to their publisher. I just know the group are going to find a dozen errors and will show no mercy pointing it out.

I think the relationship between author and editor is fascinating. I have never met Monica Buntin, my editor for the Wycaan Master series. But I feel we have a close, sensitive, professional relationship, and yet we could be sitting at adjacent tables in a coffee shop and never know (oh no, the woman next to me has caught me staring – she will never believe my reason!).

But we have created an understanding whereby she feels comfortable to be critical and I am willing to hear what she says (it helps that she is 95% right). I can email short questions and she send back a succinct answer while inviting me to ask if what she wrote is not clear. 

I have no idea if she enjoys my novels, but I have no doubt she is totally invested in my novels being as perfect as possible. I hear from so many friends, writers and editors, how this relationship is riddled with tension, how the writer feels the editor is rushing through, how the editor is too burned out to mention a flaw knowing the writer will just become defensive. 

I believe I have the perfect relationship with my editor and that can only mean a better, more fluid final manuscript. Perhaps it is better that we never meet and never invest anything personal in the relationship. It might be better if the woman at the next table was not my editor. Still…she has a dictionary on the table next to her latte.

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Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award for YA - At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.   For more about the author, check out his website.

Rights Violation Hits Home – Roger Ingalls

For the first time in my life I felt the anger of having my rights violated. I was denied the right to plead not guilty to a traffic violation.

I come home from work on June 25th and look through the mail that was delivered three days earlier. I notice a letter from the county superior court so I opened it and read that I must pay $456 or appear in court by June 27th. Of course, my response was WTF!

According to this paper, I received a citation three and half years ago at the location of Clayton Road and Galindo in Concord, CA. My name and car license plate number are shown in the letter but the spaces for my driver’s license number and date of birth are suspiciously blank.

Being more than somewhat agitated, I decide to show up at the court house the next day. My first encounter was with the clerk and she looks at the paper and said, “wow, this is strange and goes back several years…I’ll let you go in front of the Judge”. About a half hour later I’m sent into the court room with about fifteen other people who are there for various traffic issues. Before the Judge comes in we are shown a video explaining that we have rights in traffic court just like any other court and we will be given the opportunity to plead guilty, no contest or not guilty. After the video, the judge shows up and explains our three plea options again but goes on to say that there is no discussion, you must say guilty, no contest or not guilty.

When my turn comes I say not guilty. The judge looks at me and asks, “what are we going to trail for?” So I explain that I’m being told to pay $456 and I don’t really know why and I’m not just going to pay without some type of reasoning and my only recourse is a not guilty plea. We have some additional verbal exchanges and then he says “I’m not sending this to trial; I’ll give you a no contest plea and a fine of $150.” Essentially telling I’m not being allowed a not guilty plea, I must assume implicit guilt even if the facts behind the fine were false.

I was in shock and I still am.

If you ever find yourself in front of Judge Ronald Creighton in Walnut Creek, you may be denied your right to a not guilty plea and subsequent trail to defend yourself against your accusers.

I suspect the whole thing revolves around generating revenue for the local cities and county. Public safety and justice is a false veil.

So Happy – Historical Decision

I took down the Whistleblower post and it will appear in a week or so. I want to give space and recognition to the historical decision just handed down by the Supreme Court. 

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/politics/2013/06/26/sot-nr-scotus-doma-unconstitutional.cnn.html

Not sure what else to say. A great and long-overdue moment for all our LGBTQ community.

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Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award for YA - At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.   For more about the author, check out his website.

 

Balls – Tom Rossi

I’ve been watching the Confederations Cup, an international soccer tournament, on tv for the past few days, and I see that a problem has not really been fixed.

For the 2010 World Cup of Soccer (Futbol), Adidas introduced a new ball unlike any that had been seen before. Adidas holds the contract with FIFA to provide the soccer balls that are be used in the games. This contract provides plenty of opportunities for Adidas to make some serious money.

Adidas wondered how it could really cash in, and they came up with a way to make everybody say the name “Adidas,” over and over again: they came out with a new, really crappy ball. And that ball, or its very similar offspring, is still in use.

Video: The Jabulani in action…

The Adidas “Jabulani” ball has no stitches. It’s panels are bonded together in a kind of heat/glue process that makes the outer surface completely smooth. This makes for what aerodynamicists call “laminar” airflow around the ball, at least until the air gets to the back of the ball, where it makes a slight vacuum, due to turbulence.

Huh? Don’t worry about the technical stuff. What matters is that the Jabulani acts like a beach-ball. When a player kicks it up into the air, it slows down drastically, almost floats in suspension, and then falls back to the ground, significantly short of where you might expect from its original trajectory.

This causes passes through the air to travel so slowly that the defenders can get to the landing spot before the ball reaches the intended receiver. As a result, it essentially takes away the long pass as a strategy in many situations and thereby significantly alters the game of soccer.

Several good teams could not adapt, in the 2010 World Cup, to these changes. These teams had long used the long pass as an integral part of their strategy. Adidas essentially changed the outcome of many matches with their new beach-ball (although Spain might have won the whole thing, anyway – they had a great team).

I’m frustrated by the slowdown in the game when I watch, anymore. Scoring hasn’t suffered, due to the fact that the new ball curves like crazy on shots, but midfield play certainly has. The lack of the threat of a long pass has allowed defenses to swarm around the ball more, almost like in an AYSO game for eight-year-olds.

Video: Cute, but this isn’t what World Cup play should look like.

Is this another of my occasional digressions from politics into sports? Not really. This is a clear example of a giant corporation making a mess of something, strictly for the purpose of increasing their already massive profits.

The World Cup is a fantastic event that brings the countries of the world together, in peace, in civilized competition. Aside from a few incidences of hooliganism, it’s a chance for teams and fans from around the world to rub shoulders, have a beer together, and talk about their different lives and loves. It’s an incredible opportunity for fun, interaction, and sewing the seeds of peace.

Adidas hasn’t really changed all that, but the World Cup has been tainted by their greed. Now, there are rumors that, despite record profits in recent years. Adidas in testing a new ball that more closely resembles the balls of the past. Let’s see if they can fix it in time for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

-Tom Rossi

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Tom Rossi is a commentator on politics and social issues. He is a Ph.D. student in International Sustainable Development, concentrating in natural resource and economic policy. Tom greatly enjoys a hearty debate, especially over a hearty pint of Guinness.

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Beautiful Bay Area Voice

There are many good reasons to live in the San Francisco Bay Area: the public schools, the politics, unpredictable but ultimately great weather, and the amazing people, many of them artists, who gravitate here.  Two weeks ago, I attended debut author, Corina Vacco, a member of our writer’s circle, at her book launch for My Chemical Mountain (I am wearing the T-shirt, as I write this!).  The place was full of our writer friends, who have all toiled over each others work, offered encouragement, critique and shared successes and less successful times.

At the beginning of the month, I attended a first live performance of Ahri Golden, a friend and member of our  very special Jewish community, Chochmat HaLev, She played at The Red Devil Lounge on Polk Street and I have to admit, my better half dragged me along – midweek social events after a long day at work is never greeted with enthusiasm – but she just blew me away with her amazing voice and meaningful lyrics.

Ahri is financing her album through Kickstarter, a crowd-sourcing way to raise money for projects. Ahri must raise $15,000 (breakout of costs on the webpage) by the end of this month. For a $25 investment, you will receive a CD of the album and a copy of the cover art (for as little as $1 you will receive good karma points).

Please listen to her music and consider investing in an exciting new Bay Area voice. If I haven’t convinced you, check out what Ahri has to say below. 

 

I am an award-winning public radio producer turned singer/songwriter. The journey to my singing and songwriting life has been a transformative odyssey, which began at my grandmother’s funeral in 2003. Bernice Friedman was a pillar of grace and wisdom in my life. She died suddenly in a tragic car accident only 9 days after my wedding. When she passed on, my mother, who always wrote and delivered the most brilliantly eloquent of speeches, was devastated, inconsolable, and speechless. I wrote the eulogy, enacted the story of my relationship with my grandmother, and sang. It was the first time I ever sang to a large group of people. It was cathartic and had planted a seed toward finding my voice.

Fast forward to 2009, when my son was 4 years old, and a new big brother, I became oddly adamant that he take music lessons.

I hired Dave Rosenfeld, who was a musician, music producer, private teacher, and creativity coach. Conveniently, he lived just a few blocks away. After a handful of lessons it became hard to get my son motivated to go. One day, I was struggling for us to make the lesson on time and he said to me with great frustration and breathtaking wisdom, “Mom, I don’t want music, YOU want music!”

I stood there, dumbfounded. We stared at each other. I remembered the visceral experience of singing at my grandmother’s funeral in a flash.

Then I took a deep breath and said, “Wow. You’re right. I do.” He was right. I wanted music. My son called a spade and spade. I listened.

The next week, I took his place in the music lessons with Dave and we’ve collaborated every week for 4 years to improvise, open and hone my voice.

Ahri has only 10 days left to raise the $15,000 – if she doesn’t, Kickstarter will not take your money. If you are as impressed as I am with Ahri’s voice and potential, please don’t delay and invest in another beautiful Bay Area voice.

Have a great weekend.

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Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and the 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Award for YA - At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.   For more about the author, check out his website.

The Big E: It’s Back – Roger Ingalls

Just like clockwork, E coli in beef rears its ugly head every year or so. This time it’s 23,000 pounds of tainted ground beef coming out of Kansas.

E coli is found in the intestinal tract of warm blooded animals and is spread to the outside environment through manure. Today’s cramped feedlots (aka: cattle or beef factories) create a perfect home for infectious diseases such as E coli. To lower cost, the cattle are fed grains instead of their natural diet of grass that, in turn, increases acidity in their gut—E coli thrive in an acidic environment so the problem is compounded. In the past, “mom and pop” farms raised their cattle on grass and E coli was a rarity.

Why has this foodborne disease become so prevalent over the past 30 years? Grass-fed cattle ranches have been replaced by massive high-density feedlots where livestock are crammed together in manure saturated pens until they mature to slaughter age. Essentially, small private farms and ranches have been gobbled up by Wall Street backed farming conglomerates that put priority on profit over a healthy food system.

from Food Inc. (movie)

The entire beef food chain is unnatural. Cattle now eat an unnatural diet of corn, this creates an unnatural elevated acidic environment is their gut, E coli bacteria multiple at an unnaturally high rate and then people get poisoned. Corn is subsidized by the government creating an unnatural “free market” economy; grain products have unnaturally low prices, Wall Street demands high profits so farm conglomerates feed cattle an unnatural diet of corn which lowers the manufacturing cost of beef. People eat more beef because, normalized to inflation, it is unnaturally cheap.  An unnatural amount of beef is consumed causing heart disease, animal fat related diabetes and other health problems.

No worries, it’s all self-correcting. Global warming and peak oil will increase grain costs and beef prices will eventually follow. Steaks and burgers will no longer be the food of the masses and the health of people and cattle will return…provided extinction doesn’t intervene first.