Our man on the spot VII – by SPE

Posted by bob on June 5, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

From Spring Wills – of Mendocino, Calif.  

“OUR GAL ON THE ROAD”                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

HITCHHIKING ALL THE AMERICA, with little English and no Spanish.

Subject: Police station in Liberess, Argentina.
I slept on chair at night. They have several blankets in office, but they refuse to let me use. They don’t let me leave in morning. When I entered into Argentina, they throw my passport out of window, ask me for China passport. I say am U.S. kind of American. I have no China passport. They say I have no English. But they let me pay in U.S. dollars! Argentinean people are very good looking, but country poor. They have beautiful land but Chile’s people have beautiful mind.”

Photo credit: Ed Kashi VII, courtesy of the N.Y. Times

Assad and Syrian drought 

(May 18, N.Y. Times) – The recent major drought in Syria between 2006-2011, did not cause Syria’s civil war but after Assad took over in 2000 he opened up the regulated agricultural sector in Syria for big farmers, many of them government cronies to buy up land and drill as much water as they wanted, eventually severely diminishing the water table. This began driving small farmers off the land into towns, where they had to scrounge for work…800,000 farmers and herds lost their livelihoods…government was invented in this part of the world…precisely to manage irrigation and crop growing, and Assad failed in that bask task. “We could accept the drought because it was from Allah”, said As’ad Abukhalil [but not Assad doing nothing]. Couldn’t Obama just let the Mafia send anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons and they could finish Assad off? Don’t worry we won’t use them against Israel.”

Smith & Wesson executive testified

Robert Hass a former Smith & Wesson executive testified, “The nature of the product demands that its distribution be handled in such a way as to minimize illegal and unintended use…When Smith & Wesson voluntarily adopted a set of safeguards, including requirements that its dealers limit multiple sales of firearms, it was ostracized and boycotted, forcing it to abandon the changes.”

Photo credit: Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

Pakistan faces struggle to keep lights on

(N.Y. Times, International, May 28)
“In a bid to quell discontent, Pakistan’s in-term government…has ordered civil servants to switch off their air conditioners, [It has reached 118 degrees in Lahore] and stop wearing socks…”

Breakdown imperfect Kepler’s hunt for other “Earths”

(N.Y. Times, May 16, Dennis Overbye)
“NASA’s planet – hunting Kepler space craft has been shut down by the failure of one of the reaction wheels that keep it pointed… The spacecraft has identified 130 planets and 2,240 candidates [Earth-like planets]. About 230 are the size of Earth and 820 others are only twice as big as Earth and are probably rocky worlds similar to our own…”

“Hey Bobby and Nikki should move there!” SPE quip.

Truth about the Tea Party

Rolling Stone, Oct 14, 2010 – Matt Taibbi – at a Tea Party rally
“Scanning the thousands of hopped – up faces in the crowd, I am immediately was struck by two things. One there isn’t a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied gluts on motorized wheel-chair-scooters.”

Wells dry from farming, plains turn to dust

“Portions of the High Plains Aquifer are rapidly being depleted by farmers who are pumping too much water to irrigate their crops. Particularly in the southern half in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Levels have declined up to 242 feet in some areas…
“The villain, in this story is in fact the farmers’ (former) savior: the center – pivot irrigator, a quarter or half – mile of pipe that traces a watery circle around a point in the middle of a field…the pivot irrigators’ thirst for water – hundreds and sometimes thousands of gallons a minute – has sent much of the aquifer on a relentless decline… (there’s) a script to growing corn, a much thirstier crop than most…driven by demand, speculation and government mandate to produce bio fuels.”

The married team of Beth Gage and George Gage followed Mr. DeChristopher through a federal indictment, nine trial postponements and the maturation of his climate warrior identity.
(Photo): Tim DeChristopher at Mendocino Film Festival, 2013.

Tim DeChristopher

At the recent Mendocino Film Festival – Tim DeChristopher successfully bid on exquisite Utah canyon land to protect it. He, unfortunately, was without cash, and went to prison – unlike hedge fund manipulators and corrupt Wall Street executives, who only achieve ‘personhood’ by incorporating themselves and will probably never attend a trial where they might come to terms with the fact that in an equitable justice system if you do the crime you’ll do the time, so don’t whine at screening of Bidder 70 telling it like it is to those of us that don’t yet understand that these days its not just the Earth that is for sale, but even our spiritual integrity is proving to be a commodity worth bidding for.

View Bidder 70 trailer here:

http://vimeo.com/17927160