well it’s almost midnight and I’m half a bottle into the whiskey…so here it goes. My friend who moved to a town north of Wilmington called me to check the local newspaper of that town. Apparently the huge development they’re planning on putting in there which includes a 200 boat slip marina and two 15 story condo buildings is going to get a big fat no for the Florida located developer. Huge victory. Shiiiiitt….maybe the Bills will go on to make the playoffs and the movie I’m waiting on will be shot afterall. If nothing else, this is one for the good guys…Will Stout(the developer) can go somewhere else, because in the end he doesn’t care about the city, he cares about the profit.

another article from a UNCW professor about the environmental devastation all this “economic growth” is having on our local ecosystem…or lack there of. Here’s a reader’s response to that article, and I might add it’s the typical attitude down here. Notice when the writer says the trees are “unsuitable” and the formerly tree laden landscapes are transformed into something “attractive.” Attractive my ass. That attitude is what bothers me greatly about living in this area. It’s a lost cause. The mere thought of staying here and fighting for a few trees that are slated to be cleared for a new condo/apt building is a hopeless dream. The people here don’t care, and the bureaucrats certainly don’t. It’s all about profit. Using the land for the highest profit, not the highest good. For all the good people can do, it amazes me in this day and age we still have the potential to do so much harm without even wincing. It seems to me that a people that consider themselves so “advanced” socially and technologically would be able to live in harmony with fellow residents of the Earth and the Earth itself. Let’s see where this great idea of capitalism takes us in the next hundred years.

I know I’ve been an asshole for not posting something worthy myself lately. I’ve been shortcutting by linking articles I want you all to read. Oh well, it’s all the same I guess, as long as you are doing my reading assignments you will be somewhat prepared. Here’s another one.

Here’s a link to a presentation about the development that’s going in up in New Bern, NC. My buddy just moved there and got a job with the paper. It’s a great little town, a ton of history- the birthplace of Pepsi. I love it because it’s a small town with a friendly feel and holds true to the architecture of old instead of tearing everything down and putting up plastic cookie cutter developments…that is until this development….here’s the link the video….and here’s the link to the story. It’s obvious in a case like this that a small, historic town will be ruined by the blight of condo’s and yachts on the waterfront. Yes, the land it’s being built on is an old lumber yard…but considering the look and feel of the city it’s just a travesty. New Bern is one of the towns down here I actually like for it’s small town, friendly atmosphere. Just wait until they “increase their tax base” and bring a bunch of high rollers in who don’t give a damn about what the city was or is going to be…it’s all about profit…

One more great read from Orion Magazine, which seems to just churn out these though provoking and insightful essays and articles. This one is one condo building on the waterfront. I live in a condo, near the water…hmmmm…..

Today on the local talk radio show a man called in preaching about our need to be energy independent and the fact that we need to get off mid-east oil. That got me thinking all day about this. The caller made some points about how we could do this easily by just getting more oil from the oil shale in the Rockies, drilling in ANWR and off the coast on the seabed. I’ve been having an internal dialogue with myself all day about what it means to be energy independent and how to get there. First and foremost you have to start at the beginning. Oil - we get most of our imported oil from Canada and then Saudi Arabia. After that it goes Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela and sharply drops by half with Algeria, Iraq and so on. The “middle eastern oil” we talk about is Saudi oil. The supposedly fund terrorist organizations with the money they make from exports to our countries along with others. So, to the everyday American it would make perfect sense to not buy their oil. That obviously won’t happen, just look what happened in the 70’s with the oil embargo. I don’t think we have to worry about Canada anytime soon and Mexico isn’t exactly a threat nationally. So we’re left with importing oil to feed the insatiable and ridiculous need for growth to prop up our failing system. People like the caller feel that the government owes it to us to keep this oil coming(cheaply) so that we can continue our unintelligent and short-sided living styles. The answer is very simple to me. I know with peak oil and the consumption of resources going so fast we’ll run out in the next hundred or so years that we need to plan ahead. Not by some governmental program, but independently and locally. I have a friend who makes his own bio-diesel, I know others that ride their bike to work, or drive a smaller car. Nothing spectacular, just simple changes, which also happen to be healthy ones. It’s as easy as buying local organic food that didn’t have to travel as far. Start canning local vegetables for the coming winter months and eat seasonally with meat. Hell, even better, grow your own vegetables and animals for food. Most importantly and I stress this part…brew your own beer. I recently grabbed a book on brewing beer and plan to turn my bathroom into a makeshift brewery. These ever so simple changes make an impact when millions of people are doing them. You’ve got to live with the land and not off it. A perfect example is the Southeast where I live. We’re in a drought. Atlanta has 3 months of drinking water left and people don’t seem to be doing much about it. It makes sense that when you crowd and area with too many people, plant alien vegetation that requires more water than the ecosystem is used to, and consume water to keep your housing tract lawns so “evergreen” that you might start running into problems. Without rain 3 months from now the people there will have no recourse except the government to fly in water or have it directed from somewhere else. People don’t plan ahead; they keep living their lives as comfortable as possible with no thought to the consequences that might occur by consuming too much and not paying attention to the natural world around them.

Then we have this whole oil shale debacle. Oil Shale is essential sedimentary rock that contains stuff called kerogen that when heated is released as an oil like substance that can be used similarly. Now what is the problem with this you ask? Essentially, the same as coal mining. Open pit mines and damaging the aquifers are a huge risk. The companies are trying to heat the rock in the ground and basically suck off the good stuff. The only problem with this is keeping it from seeping into other parts of the ground. Solution: ice walls. Yah, baby put an ice wall around a hot area, great idea. All joking aside, they might be able to get somewhere with it if they can every figure out how to do it in a manner that’s economical for the companies. But for ice, you need water, and last I heard the west wasn’t so big on that resource. However, with a good chunk of it on public land in Colorado(Green river formation) I doubt the companies would have to worry about environmental issues. Especially, if oil prices keep going up. People want their “shiny things” and the Earth be damned if it gets in the way. Then you have tar sands, which is similar in the fact that you get oily stuff from the ground mixed in with a bunch of rock and dirt. Canada is really the one with the large-scale production of this stuff and it faces similar environmental hazards, along with the obvious problems of open pit mining.

My favorite coal. Being from the Allegheny Mountains I feel a closer connection with this issues. Although in Northern, PA/Southern NY where I live(It’s right on the border), I don’t have to worry about this. My friends south of me do however. Coal is one of those industries that seem to be synonymous with Americana. I group it right in there with the steel industry and logging…those old time industries that really built America up to what it has become. Now we’ve outgrown the need for that kind of industry because there’s too much demand and we can get it cheaper by importing. Let alone if we were to completely isolate ourselves at the current rate of consumption we’d have nothing left within a couple years. It’d be economic and environmental disaster - the end of America. Coal is going to make a comeback. With peak oil and prices rising, coal will be coming back with a vengeance. And isn’t it good to know that there’s plenty of it out west which just so happens to be where a lot of the production will come from. Isn’t it also nice to know that not only will western states get to deal with oil shale, but also coal mining…what a paradise. Of course back east I’m sure we’ll still rape and pillage the land. Strip mine, and then when we’re done seal in the poison waters into a couple retention ponds and put a public golf course on top of the old mine(you know set it back to the original condition that it was in before mining). It’s going to be a clusterfuck ladies and gentlemen, I swear on my mother’s grave(oops she isn’t dead yet).

Ok I lied, coal isn’t my favorite, ANWR is. Maybe because I’ve visited Alaska and heard both sides, read a few books on it and had a nice conversation with people that study the caribou herds. The simple man’s argument would be something like this, “Man, who cares about middle eastern oil, we got loads up it up in dat der ANWR but the liberals don’t want us to drill there because they’re concerned about some dumb Alaskan deer.” I shit you not that’s what I hear 90% of the time. The smart mans argument would go something like this, “I know there are environmental hazards by drilling for oil in ANWR, but with the current state of world affairs I think it would be the best option as long as environmental hazards are taken into account and prevented.” Now here’s what I think…ANWR. The controversy comes from drilling in the 1002 area, which is the coastal plain of ANWR. This also just so happens to be the calving ground for the 120,000 strong porcupine caribou herd, along with nesting grounds for many birds. This is in fact an environmentally sensitive area because for thousands of years the caribou have been coming here every year to give birth. The biologist we spoke to said that he believed it would have a negative impact on the caribou because they are so wary of loud noises or things they might have reason to be skittish with. This is the main reason that ramps were put in on the pipeline and that it was elevated so that the caribous could cross. However, according to the biologist, many times they don’t. On the flip side he said they’ve been known to use roads to cover greater distances, so it’s a two-sided coin. According to him any good scientist will say they don’t know the long-term effects of drilling on the coastal plain, however that is only because they need verifiable evidence and data to support a claim that it would be harmful. But it seems rather commonsense that it would be. The other issue with drilling is that its pollution rate is really bad. There are spills, leaks and fumes spewed into the ground and air all the time. Just west, ok really far west(It’s Alaska, huge state) you have the National Petroleum Reserve. Up until 1999 it was pretty much off limits until our good friend under Babbit the Secretary of The Interior under Clinton leased a good portion of the northeastern section. The rest was left as environmentally sensitive areas until the Bush years, which all together eliminated that. So the question we have to ask ourselves in the end isn’t whether we want to save caribou, but rather if we’re will to sacrifice everything to gain a little something. If you are at all interested in learning more about ANWR I encourage you to read Jonathan Waterman’s book, “Where The Mountains Are Nameless.” I’ll leave you with a quote from the book which has a tour bus drive talking about Deadhorse, AK near the oil fields…”Twenty-five years ago this was all a wasteland…now look at it. It’s a modern industrial complex.” So it goes…

I got this from the paper down here. And to answer the mans question about whether development is good or bad, it’s bad. It’s horrible, in fact I don’t think there’s much I hate more. What do I know though? A booming housing market and population growth is great for an economy that can only survive off unbridled growth. What’s that Ed Abbey? Cancer, you say?

Wilmington native has seen change . . . good and bad

By Amy Hotz
Staff Writer
amy.hotz@starnewsonline.com

I’m 28 years old. Barely a speck on the radar of the human life span. But I’m also a born and bred Wilmingtonian, which means I’ve probably seen a lot more than most people my age in other cities our size.

Until getting married four years ago, I lived my entire life in a cinderblock house my father and his father built in 1954 on a dirt road. That road is now paved with a traffic light at one end. I had a relative who fought at Moore’s Creek during the Revolutionary War and a couple other relatives who were stationed at Fort Fisher during the Civil War.

My family house is less than a mile from Landfall, which I can remember as being nothing but woods and swamp. My dad used to hunt on the same spot lawyers now dig their golf shoes into.

Part of the Mayfaire property was a cow pasture. That changed not long ago. But it changed fast. At 28 I can remember when Wilmington had no Wal-Mart, when there wasn’t an Interstate 40, when half the buildings on the campus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington were not there.

Downtown was still a little seedy and actually had some industry. I don’t recall any artsy-fartsy high-dollar clothing stores there. Rare Cargo was at the Galleria shopping center. And there certainly weren’t any doggy treat bakeries – downtown or anywhere else.

Wrightsville Beach had places you could park for free. And the south end actually had big chunks of what looked like brick chimneys scattered around on the sand. I guess those are all covered up now.

I get out and about. I socialize. But now when someone tells me where they live, I rarely recognize the street names.

When I was younger, if you went to Carolina Beach, you drove quite a ways with nothing but trees to look at. The most interesting things along the route were Tote-Em-In Zoo and some place that had a wooden fence around it cut out like teepees. They had animals like raccoons and possums in cages and a small gift shop that sold leather moccasins and cheap Indian headdresses.

We’d take trips to Fort Fisher nearly every weekend, and it didn’t look anything like it does now. The part that hurts the worst now is driving down River Road or past those pastel-colored houses on stilts. I vividly remember the dense maritime scrub oaks that used to coat those areas. Deer were always roaming there. And, to a child, imagining what was hidden in a place that surely no one had walked in for decades gave the place a magical feel.

I don’t know if I-40 did it or if moving to the beach is just a fad that’s gotten out of hand, but the old timers who used to give my family pecans from their trees each fall and bring over two-liter plastic Pepsi bottles of homemade wine have found that the land they’ve worked and lived on most of their lives is now too expensive to own. Taxes and the cost of living have run them out.

Macy Rollins, an old family friend in her 80s, found her home annexed by the city after her husband died four or five years ago.

Dad always said you couldn’t give him the property because it was adjacent to a mosquito-infested marsh. Someone decided it was worth more than Mrs. Rollins has probably ever seen in her entire life. The taxes were too much for her Social Security checks to bear, so she called the city to find out what she could do.

She said the lady she spoke with told her if she deeded the property to the city, she could live there tax-free until she died. Mrs. Rollins wanted to leave the house to her family, though, and asked if there was anything else she could do. The lady said no.

Ten or so townhouses are now squeezed onto that little pecan tree field.

Where in the heck are these people who are building and buying all these high-dollar homes getting their money? Where do they work? Do they, in the truest sense, contribute to this city?

I know I’m pretty lucky I found a decent paying job in my hometown. Most of my high school classmates have moved away. People often tell me how amazed they are to have found a real, live Wilmingtonian. Then they step back and look at me closer, pensively.

But I try not to complain much about all the changes. Some things are actually for the better. The Riverwalk is nice. And it’s good to have so many choices in ice cream shops.

But once in a while I drive through the old neighborhood or get stuck in traffic at the New Centre Drive-Market Street intersection and I wonder if all this growth is mostly good or mostly bad.

I still haven’t answered myself on that one.

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if I knew the people making all the big decisions and changes, whether they just flew in from Kalamazoo or have lived here all their lives, truly respect what’s already here – the very things that make Wilmington special.

I feel mighty old for 28.

My buddy is moving to a town just about an hour north of Wilmington. It’s old, classy, and pretty goddamn nice. However some asshole developers want to change all that by “revitalizing” the city. Here’s a link to my friend’s blog post about it. Let’s get this out of the way too. Everyone says “Sean your blogs are so negative.” No shit, if you lived down here and had half a fucking heart yours would be too. They’re destroying this place city by city, parcel by parcel. So go back to your small towns and cities and wonder why its so “negative.” Oh, and remember the American motto, “Build build build, buy buy buy.” Amen, peace the fuck out.

On Sunday the New York Times reported on the recrudescence of “faith-based” teaching in Russian public schools:

A teacher named Irina Donshina set aside her textbooks, strode before her second-graders and, as if speaking from a pulpit, posed a simple question:

“Whom should we learn to do good from?”

“From God!” the children said.

“Right!” Ms. Donshina said. “Because people he created crucified him. But did he accuse them or curse them or hate them? Of course not? He continued loving and feeling pity for them, though he could have eliminated all of us and the whole world in a fraction of a second.”

This grisly vignette, which almost perfectly summarizes the relationship between sadism and masochism in Christian teaching, probably wouldn’t delight all those who think that morality derives from supernatural authority. After all, the Russian Orthodox Church was the patron of Czarist autocracy, helped spread The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the West, and compromised with the Stalin regime just as it had been allied with earlier serfdom and chauvinism. It is now part of Vladimir Putin’s sinister exercise in the restoration of Russian supremacism and dictatorship: an enterprise that got off to a good start when our President admired Mr. Putin’s crucifix and “looked into his soul”. (Question: has Putin ever been seen wearing that crucifix again, or did his cynical advisers tell him that the Leader of the Free World was such a pushover for the “faith-based” that he would never check?)

So, and as with Salafist madrassas, it’s easy to see how wicked it is to lie to children when it’s done in the name of the “wrong” faith. But Ms Donshina’s nonsensical propaganda is actually a mainstream statement of what the truly religious are bound to believe. Without god, how could we tell right from wrong, or learn how to do the right thing? I have never had a debate with a religious figure of any denomination, however “moderate, where this insulting question has not come up.

Yet is it not positively immoral to argue that our elementary morality and human solidarity derive from an authority that we must simultaneously (and compulsorily) love, and also fear? Does it not degrade us in our deepest integrity to be told that we would not do a right action, or utter a principled truth, were it not for fear of punishment or hope of reward? Moreover, we are told that we begin sinful and must earn our redemption from an authority whose actions and caprices (arranging a human sacrifice in Palestine in which we had no say, for example, and informing us that we are all guilty of it) were best summarized by Fulke Greville when he remarked ruefully that we are “created sick; commanded to be sound”. This abject attitude, of sickly love for the Dear Leader combined with dreadful terror of him, is in fact the origin of totalitarianism. And there is nothing ethical about that.

I should like, for the continued vigor of this discussion, to repeat the challenge that I have several times offered the faithful in print and on the air. Can they name a moral statement or action, uttered or performed by a religious person, that could not have been uttered or performed by an unbeliever? I am still waiting, after several months, for a response to this. It carries an incidental corollary: I have also asked large and divergent audiences if they can think of a wicked action or statement that derived directly from religious faith, and you know what? There is no tongue-tied silence at THAT point. Everybody can instantly think of an example.

I don’t rest my case but I have stated it as concisely as I can and I look forward to reviewing, and replying to, anyone who might be good enough to respond.

I just saw a commercial on tv by Bill Saffo the current mayor of Wilmington. The election is Oct. 9th, and I won’t be voting for him. Not only is he a real estate guy, here’s a link to his company, all his buddies and donors are real estate guys and developers. Bill wants to make Wilmington great he says, after all, according to him it is the best place to live. We’ve got to fix our ailing sewers system, acquire more empty space and have some jobs for people in town rather than just having Wilmington be a large retirement home. Oh, he wants to improve our quality of living too. Are you kidding me? I assume by what I’ve seen of your work so far Bill, that “quality of life” means having a 500K home in a development and driving a Chevy Suburban. No sir, that is not the quality of life we need. We do need more open spaces and less development. We need bike lanes and good developmental planning so you can access stores and restaurants by bike or on foot. Instead you’ve created a clusterfuck where you’re likely to get hit on your bike or on foot. Nothing is easily accessible with your, build now, plan later scheme. You’ve done an awful job for this city and I haven’t even mentioned the sewers spills which were and are absolutely ridiculous. When a pipe can only hold the volume of 30K people, you should try putting 50K people’s turds floating down it. It’s basic math and science. So why don’t you take all that donor money you’ve received and go buy a house somewhere far far away, because if you really cared for the city you wouldn’t run for re-election.

I’m going to rant for a moment, so if you don’t want to read it you can leave now. What in the hell is wrong with the news? I get home last night and all I can find out about what’s going on in the world is that O.J. Simpson got out on bail. They must have forgotten that we are at war, I repeat WE ARE AT WAR, or that the ice caps are melting. Instead we’re covering things like sub-prime loans where dumb ass people took dumb ass loans because of dumb ass people on Wallstreet. No one is talking about people having to leave their homes, instead it’s about the effect it will have on the “economy.” If you can’t afford a home, get an apartment. And now Dubai wants to buy a 20% stake in Nasdaq, because after all this is good for the “global economy,” and I’m sure oil has nothing at all to do with it. Ahh Dubai, where the rich are insanely rich, and the poor people that build their homes and buildings are insanely poor, beyond poverty. Now I haven’t seen the BCC news on television before, but I read it as my main source of internet news because you can get global news rather than some O.J. Simpson/Britney Spears crap. Why can’t we just replace our news with that, you know “like important stuff, dude.” I suppose if you don’t read or watch the news, and are only focused on a local level you probably don’t think there’s a thing wrong in the world. However, if you take in the larger picture, you quickly realized how fucked we are. I mean that with the best of intentions. We are driving ourselves off the planet. It’s not just that, look at how we treat other people. I don’t mean this in a way that we hurt people’s feelings. I mean we use other people to our benefit with no thought of what harm it has caused them. Genocide, war, stealing of land and destruction of native traditions. I’m not a big believer in the bible, because I’m an educated man, but I’d say we’re ready for the return of Jesus, because the end is coming, and that Jewish Zombie should be arriving any day. Ok, that’s it, I’ve ranted and we can all go back to being happy, ignorant people. [God Bless America](not any of those other heathen countries)

Today at work I tried telling my boss about peak oil. I was confronted with an arrogant amount of ignorance and stubbornness. I told her about peak oil and that down the road it’s going to be major trouble. To that she replied that these so called “experts” can’t be trusted. Look at Greenland, it’s called “green”land because it used to be a very fertile and livable place. So obviously these global warming “experts” must not have a clue. She also said it was “arrogant” to think that we as people can have that much effect on the world. Excuse me? It’s arrogant to believe we can change the environment? She then told me that we’ll just drill somewhere else. It was very obvious at this point that I was not getting my point through. The conversation progressed from the science to the economic difficulties we’ll encounter. To that she replied that we need to worry about China. Ok, fine, China is becoming a powerhouse, but who is helping them? I told her that if she didn’t like the idea of China becoming powerful, then we only have ourselves to blame. She of course disagreed that we had that much of an effect on their economy. All you need to do is go to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website on foreign trade statistics and you can see that trade with China has gone up every year for the last 7 years. But after all it you can’t rely on these experts. I mean why trust someone who has devoted their entire life to the study of a particular field, obviously a lady who drives an Lincoln Navigator and runs a restaurant must know more. On the pollution front she said that we don’t have do try and curb out pollution because compared to China we can’t do anything. That is one of the most arrogant and retarded arguments I’ve heard in a long time. If someone else is stealing, it doesn’t make it right to keep doing it because they are. So, I tried explaining it to her in terms of population growth. It’s simple if you have a shrinking supply of resources and a growing demand there will be tension and the resource will become more valuable, thus causing it to be more expensive. I said we need to conserve and think ahead. All I got out of her was that “The U.S. will only keep getting bigger and better.” I was dumbfounded, mad, frustrated and disappointed all at the same time. How can we as a people go on with such ignorance. Oh, and I think she threw in a comment about the Democrats too somewhere in there. I can understand if you look at the information objectively and come up with your own ideas and opinions, but to discount something as significant as this because you can’t trust “experts” is just asinine and dangerous. Sirbikes might be right, we’re heading over the cliff and no one’s willing to check and see if the brakes work.

I just got out of a film put on by the school as part of their “sustainability” series. it was called The End of Suburbia. I gotta say this was a really cool film. It brought up many good points which include, peak oil, unsustainable housing, over consumption and the downfall of the American dream. Essentially the jist was this. Peak oil is the idea that oil production will peak somewhere around NOW or the near future. With production from then on decreasing and the demand only increasing we will be in serious trouble. Natural gas has the same problem. The Northeast almost ran out of it last winter. Some would say “why don’t we just convert everything over to electric so we won’t have to rely on oil.” Well, how do you get electric? Coal and Natural gas along with some other ways such as Hydro.

The film covered the history of the suburbs from when it was for the affluent who wanted to get out of the city, to when it because a way for more middle class to live away from their jobs and the grime of the city. Back then they had rail cars much like buses that would stop and pick the workers up. Company’s like Standard Oil and GM bought those railways and tore them up to pave roads for their automobiles. Thus started the American dream. Living far from your job and taking a highway to get their in your new car which you were encouraged to by along with other cheap shiny stuff for your new house which eventually have become the McMansions. There was a wide array of speakers in the movie, one even included a former Cheney energy adviser, Matthew Simmons and he adamantly said that peak oil is real and we aren’t doing anything about it except running full speed ahead off the cliff. However, 20-50 years from now oil will become so expensive it won’t be economical to buy it. What do you do when you can’t afford to buy gas to drive your car to work? Or how about heating your home, or even transporting food from southern California to New York so you can have your salads in December. It will all go out the window. Such little things that we all take for granted because of cheap oil. Suburbs will become the new slums because there won’t be a way to support that type of living. Instead multiple use housing will have to start. However, if we don’t start that now it might be too late to begin it when everyone wakes up and realizes this is a problem. What energy will we use to build these homes so it’s affordable. It just won’t be possible to go on living like we live now. Everything as we know it from air condition to driving over to grandma’s house will either have to change or become non-existent. Yet we insist on oil as a cure all. Dare I say we might even be trying to secure all of the untapped oil in Iraq? There are a lot more oil wells in Texas than there are in Iraq…strange. Of course all this doom and gloom doesn’t have to happen. We can start conserving. The UNCW teacher panel tonight insisted that even by little things like turning off lights or turning the ac down or washing with colder water, all are small steps. If we all did that we could make a sizeable impact. They did quite a good job at not only educating but entertaining. We will need to start making an impact or this doom and gloom will come true. We can’t just wait around for some technology to be handed down by Jesus to free us of oil. It’s going to be a hard road full of sacrifices made by everyone. In the end it’s everyone who will suffer so we have a responsibility to start living smarter. Here’s a link to the film’s website. I encourage people to check it out if at all possible. It really gets you thinking.

The earth has roughly 140 million species. Nearly 380 of them disappear each day. And of 140 million, nearly half live in tropical rainforests, the same one’s that are being destroyed day after day, hour after hour. The Amazon rain forest contributes nearly 20% of all our oxygen. Commonly referred to as the “lungs of the planet,” the Amazon rainforest along with its brethren are disappearing at nearly 2 acres a second. Clear cutting for agricultural use is often illegal but goes unchecked. This same clearing for agricultural use is only expedited by logging and mining roads. Much of this logging goes to feed American consumption for wood. We need it for building houses, repair of wooden structures and things like pencils, chopstix and baseball bats. We are the number one importer of tropical woods like mahogany. Brazil alone has 1/3 of the world’s remaining rain forests. It’s also one of the most prevalent destroyers. Much of the forest has been razed for farming, road building, hydroelectric projects and large scale cattle farms. In the past 40 years alone we have destroyed 20% of the worlds rain forests.

Where do we lay blame? Could it be the population and need for more natural resources? In 1950 the world’s population was 2.5 billion. Today it’s 6 billion and by 2010 it will be almost 7 billion with it peaking at 9 billion around 2040. This trend continues until we as a species face a decline in population due to lack of food, much like in the wild. If you look at the world’s consumption needs like water, food, housing. You can infer by the present state of things that we will not be able to keep up with the demand for natural resources. Things like the demand for oil increases while production doesn’t or even declines, to things as basic as water.

Water alone may be one of the biggest problems in 20 years. With much of the worlds freshwater supply melting due to global warming, we might have one of the greatest crisis man has ever faced. Today if you live in a city like Las Vegas they just dam the Colorado River and divert it. But if you live in a poor nation like Bolivia where you get most of your fresh water from glacial melt, you are in serious trouble. Poorer countries like Bolivia who depend on that seasonal meltoff from fresh water won’t have any once the glacier stops it’s ebb and flow cycle and completely melts. Then Bolivia must either buy water, or fight for it. China for example will have the same problem. Just to the north of their border lies some of the largest depositories of fresh water in the world, like Lake Baikal in Russia. Will they just succumb to the fact that they can’t grow? Or will their militaristic instinct take over and attack Russia for their precious water. These are serious issues that everyday folk need to start thinking about. It will be us that impacts this future, not your children or their children. It’s do or die because the world will be a vastly different place in 50 years. Edward Abbey said, “growth for the sake of growth, is the ideology of a cancer cell,” and he was right. I know this all seems a bit far fetched right now, but in 20 years I promise you it won’t. We already have mass extinction on our planet. If we don’t curb either population or the need for resources we will be a part of it.

Stories like this made me wish I didn’t read the news.

…Well it’s September 11th, 2007. Six years ago I was in high school and remember the day well. I don’t want to dwell on what happened though. It was horrible and one hopes nothing like that ever happens, especially in their own country. After 9/11 I remember this huge outpouring of national pride and the attitude that we would overcome and move on. Move on we have. From 9/11 came the Iraq war and from the Iraq war came the divisive nature of the present politics. We are no more unified today than we were before or immediately after 9/11. Instead I drive around and see little magnetic stickers on cars that say “support our troops” or “God Bless America.” Why not God Bless the world? Take some of your Jesus loving crap and love thy enemy. Or at least try to understand where they come from. It isn’t until we understand the root of radical Islam that we can come to understand how to defeat it. When it only takes one man to blow up fifty, you know you’re in trouble. No army can stop a movement. We could put a million troops in Iraq, and yes we would control it for awhile. But we’re not fighting a country, we’re fighting a movement, and that is something completely different. Even if we defeat it militarily in Iraq, it will pop up somewhere else. This isn’t going to be a military fight in the end, it’s going to be a cultural movement. The only way to defeat it is to change the hearts of the people. To make them love America and the freedom that one can have if they let go of superstitious bullcrap from a thousand years ago. I don’t want to get onto the religion tangent but I’ll let it be known that I think it causes a lot of harm and ignorance. I live in the bible belt so I feel I am at liberty to make that judgment, and I’m sure my minor in religion doesn’t hurt either. The only educated belief is to be agnostic. Anyway, like I was saying I still see these huge SUV’s flying around on the roads and the ignorance that seems to come standard with most southern kids people I’ve met around here. That in no way is a blanket statement, because I’ve met a lot of good people here, but the bad seem to outweigh the good in my book. Even today I wonder how many people took a moment of silence or just thought about what happened in the few minutes of downtime they’ve had. Does America not care anymore? It seems to me that the only reason people care is if someone takes their house away or their cheap, shiny stuff. But, liberty, freedom, the American way? It’s no more. We’ve outsourced it so we can buy our stuff cheap at the cost of future generations. A 90 year old man called into the local radio show this morning. He talked about the racism he used to encounter when he was a young man growing up in Wilmington. However, through all the adversity he persevered and got a job at the port alongside his father. He grew up and all of his 7 kids went to college. All of this background was in relation to the fact that the NAACP is coming here because of a race riot we had over a hundred years ago. This old man rememberd hearing about it from his parents and grandparents. His point was one I thoroughly respected though. Instead of jumping on the NAACP bandwagon he said in effect that people need to stop causing trouble over what happened a long time ago and put that energy into improving the current state of things. The example he gave was that one of his grandchildren said he admired a man in prison because “he was hard.” The older man said he was a hooligan and there was nothing hard about that. Hard was growing up in the south when it was much more racist that today. That was hard. He noted that today’s youth doesn’t need any more opportunity either, there’s plenty of it. They just don’t take the initiative to go out and get it. Today’s generation knows nothing about overcoming adversity like that. I may not know if it first hand but at least I’m aware. The whole tangent about this old man is to prove that long ago people pushed on and made the best out of a bad situation. They didn’t sit around and complain and feel bad for themselves. They made the best out of a bad situation. Instead today, I think most Americans are too complacent, and I honestly believe most won’t do anything to help their fellow countrymen or the world unless it affects them personally. It’s sad, just like today. 9/11 isn’t about Iraq, it’s about America forgetting what makes this country great. I look around campus and see kids in BMW’s and Mercedes, I can only shake my head. It seems anymore we judge a person by their material possessions rather than what they’ve accomplished or learned. It’s a plastic society we’re slowly converting over to. I wish a thought like that was far back in my head on a day like today but I can’t help but think they are somehow interconnected. God(whichever one you think is real) Bless…America…and everyone else. I guess it would be kind of hard to fit that all onto a sticker.

…and another link.

Quick post - Yesterday I rode my first century with my buddy Justin for an MS fundraiser. I’m not burnt to a full crisp anywhere outside of where my bike shorts or shirt was covering. Somehow I managed not to be sore, probably used up all the lactic acid in my legs just riding. I’m glad I did it, at least I feel some sort of sense of accomplishment. It wasn’t that it was ever really hard at one point, it’s that you sit on the bike all day and after awhile boredom and just plain being uncomfortable sets in, as you realize that you have 40 more miles to go. Anyway it’s done, over - good. I’d like to link a post by sirbikesalot here because I’m too tired/lazy to post. He makes a lot of good points, about the waning oil supply, alternative transportation, and the attitude it’s going to take if people want to change anything so here it is, give it a read and see how you can apply it to your own life. CLICK FOR LINK

Lately I’ve been more consumed by politics more than ever. I just can’t seem to figure out where I fit in. The more I think about it, I don’t want to fit in. I want to decide on each issue as it comes, rather than have to be in one party which has an umbrella over certain ideals. I don’t like the democrats and I don’t like the republicans, but agree with some of their points. It’s hard being independent in this day and age. Especially when most people my age don’t give a second though to politics. I find this so sad. We are privileged enough to be born in America, which I truly believe to be the greatest country on earth. However, I don’t see any appreciation for that privilege. Just to be clear it isn’t a right, it is a privilege. The right to free speech? No, it’s a privilege. If it wasn’t for our soldiers fighting for our freedom we’d have none of it, hell maybe even speak German. I don’t agree with this war completely, but think radical Islam along with the environment are the most important issues on the world stage this day. I hope both of those concerns go away, but it won’t happen unless people start paying attention to whats going on. We all have the ability to change the world for the positive, but many choose to sit back and do nothing. I figure I’ve got 60 years left if I’m lucky, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste them sitting around watching a bunch of politicians fill their pockets and do nothing to improve the state of things. As Americans not only do we have the ability to change our country for the better, but also the world. That doesn’t mean we should be starting pre-emptive wars to bring “democracy” to countries. However, we do need to be the change we wish to see. You can’t preach something to someone if you don’t live it yourself. Case and point, Al Gore. As much as I think the guy has brought global warming to the forefront of the environmental movement for everyday people, he does live a life which isn’t in accordance with what he preaches. Sure he buys carbon offsets, but really come on, if you want people to follow you, set an example where you show sacrifice, the same sacrifice you ask other Americans to make. Not all of us are made of money, and being environmentally friendly might only be feasible in the form of using paper instead of plastic bags at the grocery store or riding your bike more. But you know, that’ll make a difference, however small. If everyone made a small change we could collectively do something great. The sad thing about politics and the do nothing generation I’m a part of is that I don’t see that change coming. People my age want to party and hang out. I don’t have any problem with that, I love a good night of drinking and getting rowdy too, but at the same time that should be balanced with the responsibility that comes with being an American. You have a responsibility to make sure your government is doing the right thing. I write this blog more out of frustration than anything. You can rant all you want but who knows what good it will do. Hopefully someday the message will be spread and all we can do is keep spreading it until something happens and people wake up. Until then then, this buds for you.

The “Economic Growth Index” study gave an ‘F’ to Erie, Niagara, Orleans, Genesee, Allegany and Chautauqua counties, while Cattaraugus and Wyoming counties received a grade of ‘D.’

I completely feel for the folks back home who feel like they can’t get a break. However, when I look at the alternative, a economically thriving area such as Wilmington, North Carolina, I can only shudder at the consequences of a “thriving” economy. The problem seems to be that our economy works on growth. Stagnation is a cancer of the economy. The world we live in is not unlimited. We only have a limited amount of land, water, air and animal/plant life. If our economy aims to keep growing forever and ever there will come a point where there is nothing left to sell but the ruins of old condos and bottled air, presumably owned by Pepsi or Coke. You can preach about it all you want, but to some people it just won’t sink in until it’s too late. They won’t wake up until the last tree has been cut down for a gated development called something like “Long Gone Forest.” I still have a bit of hope people will stop being blind to it, and with the hope feel the responsibility to bring it to people’s attention. It’s the ones that are most blind and careless when it comes to protecting our world that we must give the most attention too. I’ve found more often than not it’s not that people don’t care, but rather they just don’t understand. It’s like when you tell someone of the genocide in Sudan, they might say, “oh that’s horrible” and then go back to watching Jeff Foxworthy’s new game show. But, if you could show them first hand the devastation, I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t try to contribute in some way to stopping it. People do care, they just have to much other junk in the way. Like my buddy over at Jackburnslives.com says, “it’s not the earth that’s in trouble, it’s us.” We’re only a blip on the timeline of earth. We may off it just as soon unless we wake up and start being proactive about protecting the earth and our resources. So today as I went around snapping photos that thought ran through my head and so did and old poem I had to write for class.

A lot can change in twenty years
even a simple cable repair man can see that much.
My view from the top of the telephone pole used
to be refreshing. A flat sand worn landscape
brimming with sea birds and evergreens.
Now plastic condos litter my view
from my crows nest of telephone wire.
They stand in the footprints
of stamped out copper roofed homes.
The four lane road down below hides
the old two lane “county 21.”
The same road that used to carry beat up chevy’s
now fills up with Mercedes and BMW’s.
Hell, you can’t even see the ocean
unless you’re standing on the shore!

They call it “progress”, I think not.
Long ago a man wrote, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
So, with no longer to go before I sleep
I hope to dream of creeper vines reaching over concrete
of trees to shadow the shore
and gulls to roost in the apexes
of mansions long abandoned beside the sea.

I work in the kitchen of a restaurant. Subsequently I work with all Mexicans. Thus, I am forced to listen to their cha cha cha, three amigo’s crap they call music. Lately to solve that problem I’ve been bring in in my mp3 player that has an FM receiver. I listen to a lot of conservative talk radio because quite frankly the music they play on the radio today is just awful. So everyday I hear stories with a “conservative” slant. The more I listen to it, the more I’m drawn away from my tradition thinking that I’m a democrat. I fall somewhere between a democrat and a republican, but don’t really have a set place. I think small government is good, but once you turn the government over to people there’s room for plenty of abuse and environmental destruction which is where I think having the federal government step in is crucial. On the other hand big government lends itself to the same abuses and corruption. It’s really a hard choice because I believe 90% of the people that want to get into politics are looking to benefit from or gain some kind of power. So where do I stand politically? I’d have to say different on every issue. i don’t think there is one blanket philosophy, or party I can agree with. The republicans parade around claiming they’re right and the democrats are wrong. The democrats parade around about the evils of the republicans. They’re both right on some issues. No party has a monopoly on good choice and intentions. Personally, I’d like to see an end to the strongholds of the two party system. Yes we have others like the green party and libertarian, but lets be honest when they say something it’s like a fart in the wind, except if their last name is Nader. In the end, I think everyone should have equal opportunity to health care, but if you can afford it you should have to pay for it. I do believe in taxes, but think they’re often wasted on silly programs and earmarks are often a waste of that money. We shouldn’t be having preemptive wars. If we’re going to liberate one country because of a bad leader, then there’s a lot more work to be done. It’s the unfortunate reality that there are many bad governments out there like Sudan and North Korea and Communist China. I’ll say it, I hate communism because it doesn’t let the people have a voice, instead their voice is given to them by the propaganda department. I believe the environment is something we should all care about even if it does mean acknowledging global warming is enhanced by man’s impact on the world. People do have the right to carry guns, but they also have a right not to be uneducated idiots who go about shooting other people. Abortion is an ugly thing, but it’s still the woman’s choice…as of now. Illegal immigrants fill the cheap labor that drives this economy. If you want your stuff cheap, then suck it up and pay the hard working little bastards, but enforce the laws in place and stop wasting time talking about a huge border fence, because those illegals will be the ones building it. I don’t think you should need millions of dollars to run for president. If you have the experience and the right ideas, any citizen who can’t suck down the lobbyists money should be able to run. Radical Islam sucks my dick and I don’t care if that offends you or your religion, because this is America, and that’s just how we roll. On a philosophical ground the death penalty just doesn’t make sense, although sometime people just need killin’. Americans should learn to curb their appetite for all things cheap and shiny. This doesn’t mean the government should force us to reduce, instead we should realized that we make a huge impact on the world and environment and can better it by reducing our consumption. Sometimes a just action is an illegal action and finally, no one, especially not some Home Owners Association will tell me how my yard should look. Peace I’m out!

As some of you know I’m spearheading the first annual “Cape Fear International Environmental Film Festival.” It’s a long name I know. The point of the film festival is to bring awareness to global and local environmental issues through different media outlets such as photography, poetry, and mainly film. This will be happening next spring through UNCW’s facilities, if all goes as planned. Well, today I met with UNCW’s film dept. chair, Dr. Buttino. He finally gave me the go ahead even though nothing is final until it gets approved through the school. Now I’ve got to meet with a group of academic advisers to lay out the blue print for the festival. This way, Dr. Buttino can take the semi-concrete plan over to his friends in the Environmental Science departments and see if they want to get on board. In the end I’m hoping the school will sponsor it, and with help from the students and faculty it could become something really big for the area. More importantly I hope it just gets the message out there. Anyway I’m open to taking suggestions or ideas for the festival. So if you live in the area or just have an idea, feel free to leave a comment of email me at seancarr54@yahoo.com. Thanks.

My grandpa once asked me why I don’t like southern girls. Well, gramps, here’s your answer. I hope this explains it all. How long can America go on producing shit for brains like her? I’d say she’s hot, but the mere fact that shes that dumb takes all hotness away.