People will tell you you're naive for thinking one person can't make a
difference. Civil rights
activist Addie Wyatt once said, "Lord, I wish my eyes had never been
opened." Plenty of people open their eyes
and close them again, and tell themselves what they see is merely a
dream, and even if it is real, what can they do? Better to stay still,
and not get involved. Wouldn't make a difference anyway.
Never let anyone tell you one person can't make a difference. Never let
anyone tell you you shouldn't stand up. Always do whatever you can.
Give money if that's what you can do. Grab a sign and paint it and
stick it on the freeway if that's what you can do. Send a care package
to a soldier, an e-mail or a letter to a friend. Write. Call. Blog.
Talk. Use whatever voice you have.
DC actually has a buzz
today...and this city never has that feeling of energy. From what I
could see, it really is an eclectic crowd. Chimpy's out chasing
hurricanes, but the message is loud and clear from the anti-war protest:
Opponents
of the war in Iraq marched by the tens of thousands Saturday in a
clamorous day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead, some
showing surprisingly diverse political views even as they spoke with
one loud voice in wanting U.S. troops home.
The surging crowd,
shouting "Bush out now" and "Peace now," marched in front of the White
House and then toward the Washington Monument in an 11-hour marathon of
dissent.
Right at the beginning of the march was a table of right wingers with a
big "Trust Jesus" sign and bullhorn saying something like "Jesus would
bomb Iraqi children and so should we." It was glorious to have everyone
(thousands of people) surrounding them yell "GO ENLIST GO ENLIST GO
ENLIST GO ENLIST." Just absolutely drowning out their bullhorn. A true
"Operation Yellow Elephant" moment.
On
Washington's National Mall, they set up a faux military cemetery of
hundreds of small, white crosses in neat lines. In Los Angeles, 60 mock
coffins draped in American flags were laid out in rows on a downtown
street. "This is what we are losing every day," said Vickie
Castro, of Riverside, California, standing in front of the coffins with
a picture of her son, Cpl. Jonathan Castro, who was killed in action in
Mosul, Iraq, in 2004. Demonstrations in Washington and London took aim
at the Bush administration, calling its policies and actions
"criminal."
Some protesters carried signs calling Bush and Cheney "Liars." One sign
said, "Bush is a Cat 5 Disaster," in a reference to the recent
hurricanes that have hammered the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Some of my favorite posters/slogans:
"I can't believe we still have to protest this crap"
"If you don't support peace, I'll kill you"
A picture of bush looking like a chimp with the question Intellligent Design?
Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew thousands of
demonstrators to her 26-day vigil outside Bush's Texas ranch last
month, won a roar of approval when she took the stage before the march.
Her 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in Iraq last year.
"Shame on you," Sheehan admonished, directing that portion of her
remarks to members of Congress who backed Bush on the war. "How many
more of other people's children are you willing to sacrifice?
She led the crowd in chanting, "Not one more."
A
very cool group of people with what looked like mud people on pogo
sticks. I have no idea what it was supposed to be or represent, but the
mud people bopping up and down to the beat of drums it was very cool -
I am guessing it was Art Students for Peace or something.
They were young people with green hair, nuns whose
anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in
uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first
time to protest.
The protest in the capital showcased a series of demonstrations in
foreign and other U.S. cities. A crowd in London, estimated by police
at 10,000, marched in support of withdrawing British troops from Iraq.
Highlighting the need to get out, protesters said, were violent clashes
between insurgents and British troops in the southern Iraq city of
Basra.
There is a rather odd side to human nature. Take a problem, present
it to the audience in its maximum horror and suggest it is about to
happen, then ameliorate it a little, and tell everyone how the world is
not nearly as bad as it is painted. And everyone agrees that things
are looking up. But you are still facing a very bad situation - only
the way the news has been presented makes it seem that there is no
longer a problem.
Consider that, just yesterday, Texas was facing the third worst storm
in known history and things looked very dire. The storm has now got
just a bit less intense and folk are already talking about Houston
having "missed the bullet." All of a sudden a Category 4 hurricane
becomes news enough to ease oil prices.
We have seen this over the past year with oil prices themselves. Prices
rise from $30 to $40 to $50 and then they fall back $3 and we discuss
the "collapse of the price of oil." It rises to $60 and then $70 and
then slips $4 and suddenly "the crisis is over."
The worst case scenario for U.S. oil and gas infrastructure after
Hurricane Rita reaches land could have gasoline supplies strained
further than they already are and prices reaching record levels, some
analysts said on Thursday. Other analysts say prices have the
"Rita effect" built in and that once the storm clears land, refineries
will come back, imports will start to arrive and prices will decline.
But
until Hurricane Rita reaches land, the impact it has on U.S. Gulf Coast
energy infrastructure and on the price of gasoline and heating oil
remains a wildcard. Hurricane Rita, now downgraded to a Category
4 storm, has veered toward the east and now is expected to make
landfall early Saturday just north of Houston, Texas, shifting the
focus away from refineries in Corpus Christi and toward the Louisiana
border.
[.....]
Katrina
blew a big hole in the product market. If Rita doubles that, we are in
for some serious problems," said Jamal Qureshi, an oil analyst at
Washington-based PFC Energy. Already tight U.S. refining capacity
was strained further after four refineries in Louisiana and Mississippi
closed after flood damage from Katrina, sending the average price of a
gallon to a record $3.06 a gallon.
"This could be almost worse
than Katrina because there are 4 million barrels of refining in Texas
areas, much more than there was in New Orleans," said Tim Evans,
analyst at IFR Energy Services in New York. "(Texas) is the other major
refining heart," he said, adding that Rita will be a stress test for
Gulf Coast refineries.
Lack of power has kept the Louisiana
refineries closed for more than three weeks, so any sustained closure
of Texas area refineries will hit supplies of gasoline and heating oil
needed for winter fuel. But some analysts think that Rita won't have that much of a sustained effect. "The
market has already bid up the price of gasoline. It's been buy the
rumor and sell the fact," said Sarah Emerson, director of petroleum at
Boston-based ESAI Inc.
[...]
As
the storm neared, Texas refiners intensified efforts to prepare for the
hurricane by shutting down operations, taking down about 29 percent of
U.S. total refining capacity. According to Qureshi, the best case
scenario would be 2 million bpd of refining capacity out for four or
five days. The worst case, he said, is if a big chunk of refining
capacity is out for weeks or months, much like Katrina knocked out four
refineries in Louisiana, which are still not back in operation after
more than three weeks.
"The market is certainly tightened by this
event," said IFR's Evans, who said he wouldn't be surprised to see
gasoline stocks fall substantially but with demand limited by a
slowdown of gasoline demand which has fallen to 6.5 pct below August
levels over the past two weeks.
But some industry observers think
that there will be a big difference between Rita and Katrina, which
wreaked havoc on Louisiana and Mississippi. "After Katrina, there
were a bunch of refineries which didn't sustain structural damage but
couldn't turn the power back on," ESAI's Emerson said. While Houston
isn't below sea level like New Orleans, it still can see some damage
from flooding. "Houston
isn't as vulnerable, but there could still be dangerous storm surges,"
said Aaron Brady, analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
It has been fairly easy for FEMA to meet the needs they have to hand
out water, and to hire (purportedly at $24/hr with 16 hours days
allowed and a credit card for all expenses) a sufficient work force for
that purpose. Unfortunately for the real work in getting the oil and
natural gas supplies on hand for the winter they will likely be less
lucky. Unfortunately for the real work in getting the oil and natural gas
supplies on hand for the winter they will likely be less lucky. The
nation and the universities which carry the responsibility to train the
technical support that must underpin our economy, has fallen into the
management trap of purely meeting the immediate need. Petroleum
Engineering Departments are high cost, and have not been strongly
supported by an industry that has been more remiss than many in funding
the research and development that it now has need of. Thus Departments
have closed, and support infrastructure has declined.
And no one expects folks in Boston to go without heat this winter.
However, we might expect fewer to heat their offices or homes to the
borderline-sweltering temperatures that are not uncommon. And maybe the
the usually-sweltering winter temperatures on busses and trains could
be cranked down to something reflecting the way people actually dress
in wintertime. And maybe a few people might close off some rooms in
their palatial houses (compared to any other part of the world). And no one needs to travel a
hundred miles to a fifth-grade hockey game, maybe others would
make many
other adjustments. None of this would all be bad, though, of course,
many
adjustments are not indefinitely scalable. Still we have the
impacts of global warming and country debt load to
add to the mix of energy shortages. Both will probably make the
rebuilding of the coast
and energy infrastructure problematic.
On
Washington's National Mall, they set up a faux military cemetery of
hundreds of small, white crosses in neat lines. In Los Angeles, 60 mock
coffins draped in American flags were laid out in rows on a downtown
street. "This is what we are losing every day," said Vickie
Castro, of Riverside, California, standing in front of the coffins with
a picture of her son, Cpl. Jonathan Castro, who was killed in action in
Mosul, Iraq, in 2004. Demonstrations in Washington and London took aim
at the Bush administration, calling its policies and actions
"criminal."
Some protesters carried signs calling Bush and Cheney "Liars." One sign
said, "Bush is a Cat 5 Disaster," in a reference to the recent
hurricanes that have hammered the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who drew thousands of
demonstrators to her 26-day vigil outside Bush's Texas ranch last
month, won a roar of approval when she took the stage before the march.
Her 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in Iraq last year.
