Mark Howell's - "Soundings"
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Soundings

While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency announced this month that the planet has just come through its warmest decade, warmest year and warmest April, May and June on record, the U. S. Senate has failed to pass any energy, climate change or oil-spill response legislation.

CleanUptheSenate.com profiles a total of 46 Senators, both Democrat and Republican, who are aligned with the oil industry.

DirtyEnergyMoney.com, which launched last week, includes details about energy contributions made to Senators.

"We hope Americans are motivated to clean up the gusher of oil money that is currently covering these Senators," said Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change. "It's time for a separation of oil and state."

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Thomas B. Evans, Jr., is the former Republican Representative from Delaware and a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee. In 2008 he shared his views on oil in the Tampa Tribune:

"As a leader in Congress, I have carefully studied matters related to offshore drilling. In my view, it is the worst option available in our quest to develop energy independence.

"The costs from a potential spill as a result of a severe storm or just plain negligence would be incalculable for our coastal communities. Drilling for more oil means burning more fossil fuels that add to the warming of our planet. We are betraying the trust of future generations with our constant emphasis on drilling for more oil.

"We must do better. If you believe that drilling off our coast is the answer, I'll sell you one of those bridges from nowhere to nowhere in Alaska.

"Developing energy independence is not a partisan issue. Speaking as a Republican, I fervently hope we will not be led down a path that may benefit oil companies but is so clearly wrong for America."

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The Unitarian Univers-alist Fellowship offers the following rumination to preface its 11 a.m. service today, Aug. 22, at 801 Georgia St., calling for a church of sunshine and not of shadows:

"If I am going to invest my time and energy in the institutionalized spirituality of religion, I want to know that my investment will yield a flowering of the human spirit, not a damning of it ... I want to know that the light it shines will reveal possibilities for the least among us and not intensify the limelight of the few and powerful ... I want to be assured that its messages will send children to bed with visionary dreams and not personal nightmares."

The congregation and members of the community will gather at the conclusion of the service to remember Howard Crane, founder, former president and long-time member of the fellowship.

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From "Women's Equality and Climate Change," a statement issued last week by Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network:

"On Aug. 26, we commemorate Women's Equality Day and reflect on the true meaning of equality. It is important to consider the ramifications of what would happen if half of the world's population were left out of decision-making -- particularly in the dialogue on climate change, the green economy and sustainability.

"It's no coincidence that female participation is dis- mal in climate negotia-tions, in the halls of our government and in corporate board meetings. Meanwhile, climate change is disproportionately affecting women with heat and extreme weather already impeding the work that falls on them worldwide, which is collecting water and growing crops.

"But a new generation of women has demonstrated the potential for being the solution to the climate crisis. Imagine that -- an influx of female leadership might solve the climate crisis.

"Women in the U.S. and abroad want to find solutions to the climate-change dilemma, for example Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, who has created a new office for women at the State Department. Also making their voices heard are Amina Benkhadra, Morocco's Minister of Energy, Mines, Water and Environment, and Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N.

"Male risk-taking arises from within testosterone- fueled highrises and involves the wealth of others. When it comes to the world's future, we cannot afford to take risks with the wealth of others nor the wealth and wellbeing of future generations."

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The number of military veterans in Congress has been dwindling since the end of the Cold War. In 1980 more than 60 percent of Congress had served; now barely 20 percent of elected leaders in Washington have spent time in uniform.

The number of combat veterans is smaller still. According to the House Armed Services Committee, just five in 100 House members ever served in a combat zone. Fewer still saw combat.

Although 80 percent of the nation's military are enlisted men and women rather than commissioned officers, only about 40 percent of the veterans in Congress were enlisted.

Rarest of all members of Congress is the combat enlisted man. That would be six percent of the veterans in the House and just 1.3 percent of the entire House.

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Commenting on a proposal to turn Glynn Archer Elementary into the new Key West City Hall at last Tuesday's city commission meeting, former assistant city manager John Jones invoked a renovation he knew of in Memphis.

The State of Tennessee, which funds the University of Memphis, has just spent $42 million -- that's about $248 per square foot -- turning a 169,000-square -foot customs house, court house and post office (built in the 1880s and expanded in 1929) into a new Law School.

The renovation includes restoration of historic features and brings the building up to current standards for earthquake resistance. The building in Memphis is within the New Madrid seismic zone. The new Madrid fault was responsible for the earthquakes of 1699, 1811 and 1812.

(Shock waves in 1811 reportedly destroyed the hamlet of Little Prairie "by liquefaction" and made the Mississippi appear to flow backwards; in 1812 the ground shook as far away as New York and Boston, where church bells were heard to ring.)

• • • • •

The price tags on garments sold at Green World Gallery are impregnated with wildflower seeds. Tear the tag into little pieces and simply plant them in a sunlit area, then water thoroughly ... wildflowers are wonderful.

Green World Gallery produces what it labels "wearable art" from "the most environmentally sustainable products available." It's at 712-B Duval St.

• • • • •

The 12 Russian scientists who chose to starve to death rather than eat the seeds in the Pavlovsk collection during the 900-day siege of Leningrad may have died in vain.

Pavlovsk agricultural station, one of the world's largest collections of strawberry, blackcurrant, apple and cherry seeds, including more than 5,000 varieties of seeds and berries from dozens of countries and found in no other research collection or seed bank, is about to be destroyed to make way for a housing development.

Pavlovsk is a field collection, so it cannot be moved. The developers claim that because the area contains a "priceless collection," no monetary value can be assigned to it and it is therefore worthless. The government, meanwhile, admits it was never registered as a repository of plant diversity so it does not officially exist.

The scientists who died were protecting a seed collection begun in 1926 by geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, including all kinds of rice, peas, corn and wheat seeds that could have sustained them. Vavilov himself died of malnutrition in prison in 1943. Russia has since recognized him as a hero.

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This may sound funny but it's actually not. Rentapriest.com has been founded by Father John Shuster for communities to "find your local married priest."

Says Shuster, a follower of Paolo Camellini, founder of an international movement of married priests: "Over the past 30 years, thousands of good Roman Catholic priests around the world have left the clerical culture of secrecy and abuse. They found jobs and married loving women. These holy priests did not abandon their calling, they chose the wholesomeness of family life over power."

The early church was served by married priests and bishops, explains the priest, but a pope suppressed the married priesthood in 1139. Over the past three decades, however, "many concerned Catholics have found the married priests and organized them so that you can meet them and they can become part of your lives."

That's www.rentapriest.com.

• • • • •

"Trying to arouse Parliament from its apathy," declared British orator John Bright in 1867, "would be like trying to flog a dead horse to make it pull a load."

The phrase "flogging a dead horse" means to pursue the futile. Some say the phrase originated two centuries earlier than Bright, when "dead horse" was slang for a payment given before work was done -- cash often thrown away on drink or to pay off outstanding debts.

A ship's crewman who was paid in advance for a month's worth of work aboard ship would tend not to be fully motivated until the ship reached what were called the Horse Latitudes, prior to which he'd be flogging a dead horse.

• • • • •

In our column of Aug. 8, we incorrectly attributed an account on bird rescue in Louisiana to Maya Totman of Florida Wildlife Rescue. The report was in fact submitted by Lynda Schuh, a correspondent formerly of Sugarloaf Key who now lives in New Orleans. We regret the error.

• • • • •

On the plus side, data on the oil spill from the two front-page articles by Dr. Mark Whiteside first published in Solares Hill in July and August were ultimately picked up by the Huffington Post and reached a number of blogs in the oil industry -- that's far and wide for local, informed opinion.

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In our haste to meet deadline last week, two errors crept into Solares Hill's front-cover story on Mario Di Gennaro. His diving accident occurred in the mid-1980s, not the mid-1970s; and it took place at a depth of 240 feet, not 270 feet. Again, our regrets.

• • • • •

Quotes for the Week:

"I like men to behave like men -- strong and childish."

-- FranÃßoise Sagan

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"A woman drove me to drink and I never even had the courtesy to thank her."

-- W. C. Fields