The WMail Newsletter
Volume VII   [Year 2006]   Part 4

Issue #65: "Being Thankful"
[November 2006]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

N E W S    &    L I N K S    o f    I N T E R E S T

==>  The most recent post on my Dateline Chamesa blog is humor: “Xmas Gifts For Republicans”

==>  L.O.L. Dept.: As reported by Forbes Magazine, a research team at Ohio State University has found that
        derivatives of T.H.C – the active ingredient in mar*juana (cann*bis) – may slow or prevent Alzheimer's disease.
        And a research team at the University of Cincinnati has found that a component of the recreational drug Ecst*cy
        [M.D.M.A.] increases survival of dopamine-producing neurons, which may be developed into treatments for
        neurological disorders such as Parkinson's.

==>  37% of births in the U.S. are out of wedlock.

==>  In the New Mexico First District Congressional race, Republican Heather Wilson officially beat
        Democrat Patricia Madrid by 875 votes. Meanwhile 7,000 absentee ballots from Democrats are missing ...

==>  New & majorly-revised pages on the editor’s other primary website:
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/actors.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/foreign.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/industry.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/historyTV.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/FrankCapra.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/series.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/maison/polisci.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/spirit/PTFarnsworth.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/spirit/railroadFF.htm

==>  You can download the free “Working Minds Source Document” ebook –
        and then print copies to give to people for Christmas, Kwanzaa, etc.:
        http://www.working-minds.com/ebooks.htm

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B E I N G    T H A N K F U L
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        Every person on the planet should be thankful that the U.S. Constitution has survived the long onslaught by the neo-con fascists of P.N.A.C., but we cannot rest. The election results do not take effect until January, and Dubya and his gang are quite unhappy about their loss.
        This was not a VE-Day / VJ-Day type victory, where the foe has been vanquished and has surrendered unconditionally to the forces of Democracy and Freedom. We won this battle of November 2006, but the war for Freedom is on-going.
        Terrible things are being planned, vile moves are plotted in dark rooms, incompetence and ignorance still reign across the land, and vigilance is the always necessary price of Freedom. There is much to be done and plenty of us are not even paying attention.

* *          * *          * *          * *
        One marvelous summary of the situation is Beatnik author William S. Burroughs’s poem “Thanksgiving” {adult wording slightly bowdlerized}.

        There is indeed much today for which ‘thank you’ is not the appropriate response, for which Congressional investigation, criminal prosecution, and long and hard effort by government and the People will be required to address and correct.
        For example:

THE ECONOMY

••      The National Debt is approaching ten TRILLION dollars. The U.S.A. is effectively bankrupt.

        Your share as a taxpayer is today $120,000; the share for each man, woman and child living in America
        is roughly $35,000.

••      The economy is doing so well that Dubya is borrowing $32 billion from China next week.
        (per Rachel Maddow, Nov 2006)

        At this rate, the National Debt will grow by two trillion a year, which will set an interesting record: George W. Bush
        will probably leave office having racked up a debt of $14 TRILLION, a near-tripling of the National Debt.

        Your share as a taxpayer in 2009 will be around $170,000; the share of each and every man, woman and child
        living in America will be about $50,000. Yup, each child born here will have a debt of $50,000 from the day
        that they first take a breath.

••      "CEOs saw a pay increase of almost 300 percent between 1990 and 2005."
        "The top 5 percent of the wealthiest American families now receive 20 percent of total U.S. income, up from 15 percent
        in 1974. In 2001, 7 percent of national income went to corporate profits; in 2006, [it is] 13 percent. In the past five years,
        domestic corporate profits have soared by an extraordinary 72 percent."
        "At the current minimum wage, a wage earner with two children would have to work 150 hours a week
        to raise the household income above the poverty line.”
                — Perry L. Weed, in The American Spectator

••      The median price of a new home plunged in September [2006] by the largest amount in more than 35 years.

        Is your mortgage paid off? If the real estate bubble cools or bursts, what will you do?
        What if the economy tanks? – which you can indeed expect (since the U.S.A. is bankrupt).

        AP News story 26 October 2006: The Commerce Department reported that the median price for a new home sold
        in September was $217,100, a drop of 9.7 percent from September 2005. It was the lowest median price for a new
        home since September 2004 and the sharpest year-over-year decline since December 1970. The weakness in new
        home prices was even sharper than a 2.5 percent fall in the price of existing homes last month, which had been
        the biggest drop on record.

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

••      In October 2006, individuals paid $86 billion in taxes, versus $9 billion paid by corporations. (per radio host Thom Hartmann)

        "Since 1946, the effective federal tax paid by the richest Americans has fallen by 60 percent."
                — Perry L. Weed, in The American Spectator

        The Oligarchy has no intention of paying off any share/portion of the National Debt.

••      "In 1962, the wealth among the richest 1% of the population was 125 times that of the median household.
        Today, that ratio has risen to 190." (Economic Policy Institute, 2006)

••      "The median wage of all [U.S.] men, discounted for inflation ... is lower today than it was in 1973. But the median
        male worker with only a high school diploma earns 14 percent less today ... than the median worker did in 1973."
                — Jeff Madrick, in The Nation

••      "The culprit for growth stagnation in the 1980s was the massive transfer of the tax burden from the rich to the poor."
                — Al Besler (Technology Digest, 1998)

GLOBAL WARMING

••      Scientists are reporting major die-offs of polar bears in the Arctic and penguins in the Antarctic. The basic problem
        is that as the ice shelves disappear, polar bears can no longer reach the seal-grounds (causing death by hypothermia
        and starvation), while the penguins cannot reach the krill.

••      Portugal is experiencing a huge die-off of cork trees. (news item of October 2006)

••      240 species of birds in the U.K. have moved 40 to 60 miles north of their previously recorded habitat.
        (news item of October 2006)

••      "About 90% of the ocean's big predators – like cod and tuna – have been fished out of existence."
        (Time Magazine, November 2006)

IMMIGRATION

••      The key word is ‘illegal’ immigrant.

••      The Bush Administration has refused to enforce the existing laws against illegal employment of undocumented workers.

        The solution, of course, is to enforce the laws, to give heavy fines to any employer who employs undocumented or
        falsely-documented workers. A program across the board will do it: Turn over drivers without insurance or licenses
        over to the I.N.S., and turn undocumented criminals/suspects over to the I.N.S – not now being done because the
        I.N.S. releases them, per Bush doctrine. The I.N.S. can then interrogate to gather leads to the employers, who can
        then be busted.

        If there are no jobs waiting, the illegals will stay home.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

••      The Bush Administration is shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency libraries, in order to prevent access
        to scientific studies & materials by the public and by other agencies. While the matter is described as 'cost cutting',
        the Chicago office, for example, sold off $40,000 of office furniture and equipment for $327! (per The Al Franken Show}

* *          * *          * *          * *
        While all of these horrors exist – with or without your knowledge – there are matters for which I am thankful.

        It snowed yesterday where I live, all day. The air is crisp as can be and the stars last night made the snow sparkle.
        Next year, there will be Congressional oversight for the first time in six years.
        Young people (18-25) showed up in record numbers to vote in November.
        The internet is still a free territory. So far.
        Sales are up at my five online bookstores.
        Excellent coaching at the gym has improved my posture a lot.
        I am thankful for the V.A. Health System, underfunded though it be.
        Next week is the Santa Fe Film Festival.
        The Third Annual Landmark Graduate Event was fabulous, and I look at my refrigerator magnet almost every day. (The delivered distinction was what I call ‘The Fourth Dimension of Integrity’.)

        So take a look. Step outside the ‘Mom and Apple Pie’ conventions of the recent holiday, and look to see what there is in your life that is To Be Thankful For, which genuine examination will also produce What Not To Be Thankful For.
        Rust never sleeps, nor does Evil. Applaud the good things in your life and then get to work correcting whatever is not. This is the only way that humans can make a difference, by replacing what does not work with what does work.
        The existential Universe has provided great games to play, scary windmills to tilt at, and endless hurdles to overcome.
        Be thankful that you are in The Game. And then go out and play to win.

[copyright 2006 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

Each issue of WMail is posted on the Working Minds website; quotations are posted alphabetically by author.

=============
Q U O T E S
=============

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell [1903-50]

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."
— Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious."
— Gen. Smedley Butler [1881-1940]

"Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition
to war as unpatriotic and cowardly."
— Sen. Robert M. La Follette [1855-1925]

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
— George Washington [1732-99]

"Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car."
— Garrison Keillor

"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world.
And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true."
— John Steinbeck [1902-68]

"I personally think [that] we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain."
— Jane Wagner

"Leave no question in anyone's mind as to where you stand."
— L. Aldin Porter

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
— Blaise Pascal [1623-62] (in "Pensees", 1669)

"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion."
— Sir Arthur C. Clarke [1917-2008], in Free Inquiry, Spring 1999

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
— Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]

"Cowboys are all right, but they need a good laundering, most of the time."
— Max Brand [1892-1944]

"The best part of anything is working to get it."
— Denne Bart Petitclerc [1929-2006]

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."
— George Santayana [1863-1952]

"We live together as rational human beings or die together as fools."
— Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty."
— Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
— H.L. Mencken. [1880-1956]

"If you think education is costly, try ignorance."
— Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University

N E X T   I S S U E: 'Cooling The Planet'

Issue #66: "Cooling The Planet"
[December 2006]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

N E W S    &    L I N K S    o f    I N T E R E S T

==>  The U.S. prison population is up 35% in ten years, now at 7 million.

==>  New & majorly-revised pages on the editor’s other primary website:
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/Chaplin.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/cinephoto.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/writings/litlinks.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/travelNMc.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/LECpage.htm
        http://www.genordell.com/stores/western/authors.htm

        New & majorly-revised pages on the WM website:
        http://www.working-minds.com/EAquotes.htm
        http://www.working-minds.com/GENquotes.htm
        http://www.working-minds.com/MTquotes.htm

==>  WARNING: The tiger does not change his stripes, nor is George W. Bush suddenly a pussycat. Dubya is a traitor
        (to the U.S. Constitution and to humanity), a torturer, a liar and a thief – no matter the results of the November elections.
        He and his gang of cutthroats are planning some terrible action, with the result being even more death & destruction
        than they have already caused. Do NOT be complacent, do not believe a word that P.N.A.C. and their puppet-President
        spew, and prepare to march in the streets en-masse against any tyrannical edict such as martial law or a draft-conscription
        program.

==>  The folks at Wikia/Wikipedia are building a new search engine paradigm, to compete with Google & Yahoo,
        with possible launch in early 2007. Details & links at http://www.genordell.com/addURL/index.htm

==>  “We are going to have a recession in 2007.”
        ~~ Prof. Nouriel Roubini, N.Y.U. Stern School of Business

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C O O L I N G    T H E    P L A N E T
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        A hundred years ago, problems were local. You worked a seven day week, in the city or on the farm, tried not to get trampled by a horse or die of typhus, to not get wiped out by blizzard or drought or locust plague. But everybody was in the same boat, the same struggle to make a go of Life, to survive and have the next generation carry the torch.
        Now, in the XXIst Century, we are losing the Class War (the American Middle Class is near extinction), the United States is bankrupt, life is made frantic by the false urgencies of the electronic media, and the planet's ecosystems are changing radically – or dying before our eyes.
        What we are handing off to the next generation is a dire, civilization-threatening mess that they do not deserve.

* *          * *          * *          * *
PHYSICS OF HEAT
        The last time I visited the family cabin at Mammoth, I learned by observation to think of heat as a liquid. I added wood to the fireplace in the evening, went to bed in the room in back of the fireplace, and would then wake up at 2 a.m. or so and throw off the covers: the heat from the stone fireplace would 'flow' thru the walls and ceiling, so that even though the fire itself was now out, or at least mere glowing coals, the heat had physically moved clear across the bedroom and warmed me to toasting.

        I can't remember exactly where I saw this second phenomenon, perhaps in the garage at my parents' house (among other possibilities). The visual is of a wall sconce type of lamp, with an ancient and dried out lampshade. Over the years, the heat of the 60-watt bulb had scorched the shade, so that there was a brown spot on one side of the shade, with a very dark center. Not a rapid heating or burning, but a long-term buildup of the effect of heat, such that scorching occurred over time.

        If you put a bucket of water above a typical skinny birthday candle, you will not suppose that the water in the bucket will be made to boil. But keep the candle replaced, and over time the bucket will heat and the water will heat and eventually the water will absorb enough heat to begin to boil.
        Place a tight cover on the bucket, and the water will boil sooner.

        This is the truth of Global Warming: Planet Earth is absorbing the heat of the sun, and over time the B.T.U.s are accumulating, and the temperature of this planet is rapidly rising. The problem with carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) and ozone (O₃), the primary 'greenhouse gases', is that they act as a cover and increase the rate at which the heat builds up within the atmosphere as well as in the oceans and on the land.
        The mass of Planet Earth is given on Wikipedia as 5.9742×10²⁴ kilograms, or roughly the numeral 6 followed by 24 zeros (6 septillion kilograms); counting on my fingers, that is 7,000,000 trillion megatons.

        The twits who pooh-pooh Global Warming say that there is no significance in the Earth's ambient temperature rising a mere one degree (whether Fahrenheit or Centigrade). But here is the thing to get here: the mass of the Earth has absorbed an incredible amount of heat for the mean temperature of ocean and air and rock – with a mass of 6 septillion kilograms – to raise that single degree in a mere 50- or 100-year span.

* *          * *          * *          * *
RECENT EVENTS
•       The Amazon rainforest is drying up.
•       An ancient ice shelf in the Arctic Ocean, 40 miles long, broke away in late December.
•       The North Atlantic Ocean rose 1.7 degrees above the 1901-1970 average in 2005 (per Mother Jones Magazine)
•       The location of melting glaciers in Greenland has moved 300 miles northward (per Mother Jones Magazine)
•       The independent Global Carbon Project has found that the rise in carbon dioxide was a steady 1% per year until 2000,
        but that increase has suddenly risen to 2.5% per year (B.B.C. report November 2006)
•       Last year was Britain's warmest since 1659 {Fahrenheit invented the mercury-in-glass thermometer in 1714};
        last winter was the warmest in Moscow in 150 years; last year was the warmest period in the Alps in 1300 years
•       Scientists are reporting major die-offs of polar bears in the Arctic and penguins in the Antarctic; Portugal is experiencing
        a huge die-off of cork trees; the Chinese river dolphin is the first mammal to go extinct in recent history; and
        "About 90% of the ocean's big predators – like cod and tuna – have been fished out of existence." (per Time Magazine)
•       240 species of birds in the U.K. have moved 40 to 60 miles north of their previously recorded habitat.

* *          * *          * *          * *
LET'S BE COOL
        So that brings us to the titular topic of 'Cooling The Planet'. With all this heating up going on, how do we 'throw off the covers' and cool the planet down?
        The bad news is: There is no way to cool the planet. The good news? You tell me; I'll be glad if anyone can find 'good news' here.

        Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" woke a few people up, but the folks most in need of rational input refused to see the film. A closed mind is a terrible thing, and Bush's appointees to bureaucratic positions at the E.P.A. and at the Energy Department, and committee chair-people in the just-ended Do-Nothing 109th Congress are all nay-sayers about global warming. When the Bush administration doesn't like the facts, they have ordered the government scientists to alter the conclusions of their reports, under threat of job/career/pension loss.

        There is no way to cool down Planet Earth. All that we can do is cut back on the 'fuel' of Global Warming, i.e. the human practices that make the heating of the planet escalate beyond Nature's ability to correct and beyond the will or ability of the brain-dead political management of every jurisdiction to take corrective action.

        Get ready for a bumpy ride, folks.

[copyright 2006 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

Each issue of WMail is posted on the Working Minds website; quotations are posted alphabetically by author.

=============
Q U O T E S
=============

"Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass...
It has to do with society not addressing the essential needs of overlooked people."
— Michael Connelly (in "Angels Flight", 1999)

"The impulse to write fiction is a function of living your life as though it is important."
— Jervey Tervalon

"What is required is a passion for the truth."
— Agatha Christie [1890-1976]

"Great writers by definition are outriders, raiders of a sort, sweeping down from wilderness territories
to disturb the peace, overrun the status quo, and throw into question everything [that] we know to be true."
— James Sallis

"Cultural change doesn't require a majority, only an invigorated critical mass."
— Stuart Klawans

"All I want for Christmas is the truth."
— April Fitzsimmons

"Advertising is the only art form [that] America invented and developed."
— Gore Vidal [1925-2012]

"[The World Trade Organization's] constitution of the world economy protects just one class
of global citizen – the corporate investor."
— Jeff Faux [co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute]

"It is not the questing after wealth and prosperity that made [America] great but the belief in the rights of all human beings."
— author-activist Walter Mosley

"If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made of meat?"
— slogan at Rudy's Country Store & Bar-B-Q in Albuquerque, NM

"Demand ethical governance."
— G.E. Nordell

"Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will."
— Baudelaire [1821-67]

"The only thing more astounding than the [Bush] administration's staggering hubris is the smugness of its ignorance."
— Max Holland (in The Washington Spectator)

"At bottom, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are profoundly irrational and unscientific."
— Matthew Rothschild (in The Progressive, October 2006)

"War has become a spectator sport."
— Gene LaRoque, Admiral U.S. Navy [ret]

"That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings."
— John Ruskin [1819-1900]

"Sometimes it's not enough to do your very best. Sometimes you have to get the job done."
— Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

"The Universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for your wits to grow sharper."
— Eden Philpotts (1862-1960)

"How different war would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician."
— Henry Miller [1891-1980]

"In any moment of decision, the best thing [that] you can do is the right thing, the next best thing
[that] you can do is the wrong thing, and the worst thing [that] you can do is nothing."
— Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks."
— gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries,
is not 'Eureka!' (I found it) - but 'That's funny...'."
— Isaac Asimov [1920-92]

N E X T   I S S U E: "The Distinction Power"

---

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