Day: July 9, 2002

How can we not be angry?

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 9, 2002

Today was not supposed to be an ‘angry’ day. I thought we’d covered the subject and were ready to move on. But then I checked the news. I read that the “earth is dying” (mentioned in previous weblog posting).

And then I read:

Bush rejected comparisons between the transactions that masked losses at Harken Energy Corp. and those of executives and accountants at such companies as Enron and WorldCom that have resulted in billions of dollars in red ink.

His own case, Bush said, “was an honest disagreement about accounting procedures.”

And then I read:

“I actually didn’t read the whole story,” he said. “But people shouldn’t speculate about the desire of the government to have a regime change. And there’s different ways to do it.”

And I’m angry all over again. Tell me: how does one respond to reports such as these with love or compassion?

I am angry, and through this anger, I am determined to ensure by any legal means necessary that Bush is not re-elected and that he and his cohorts are kicked out of the White House. And through this anger, I plan on doing everything I can until that time to ensure that Bush’s hypocritical and idiotic acts are exposed for what they are.

I am mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. And if my honest emotion is a reason for shaking your head in pity of my lack of control and inability to redirect said emotion into a more positive center, well then, you can just kiss my grits.

Environment

Will the last person leaving the Earth, please turn off the Sun

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 9, 2002

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

It’s difficult to shrug off stories that have the eye-catching title of Earth ‘will expire by 2050’. It’s also difficult to ignore statements such as the following:

The report, based on scientific data from across the world, reveals that more than a third of the natural world has been destroyed by humans over the past three decades.

We’ve known this was coming. We’ve known that we’re literally destroying the world. We see the evidence of global warming in drought and flood. We see the evidence of toxic pollution every time a city has to issue an air alert (something that happens with distressing regularity in St. Louis). We pile the garbage high, we sprawl into the forests, we overdevelop the land, cut down the trees, and overfish the seas.

And every day entire species die. Every day.

If you are planning for a family, currently expecting a baby, or have very small children, the earth they will be inheriting is one that’s dying. And for the most part, we in the US are killing it.

I have a hard time showing pride in being an US citizen when I read:

America, which sent 300 delegates to the conference, is accused of blocking many of the key initiatives on energy use, biodiversity and corporate responsibility.

Really, folks, where’s your priorities? What’s a little dead world when one is waging a War against Terror?

Burningbird

Tech hassles III

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 9, 2002

I was able to get a decent, but not a terrific, deal from Interland, on an upgrade to my FreeBSD server. Moving on with development of ThreadNeedle.

Work is still proceeding on trying to re-incorporate categories back into this weblog through Movable Type. Mena’s being kind enough to take a look at configuration to see if she can spot what the problem is, but I’m beginning to think it might be permanent, unless I want to hack further into the code. And I just don’t have time to hack into the code right now.

Weblogging

We have categories!

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 9, 2002

Thanks to the personal time and efforts of Ben Trott, I now have categories again!

As far as I’m concerned, Ben is a steely eyed missle man!

Now, all of you – got out and buy Movable Type.

Weblogging

Let’s throw in a little…humor!

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 9, 2002

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Mike Sanders has joined the conversation about anger. In particular, I found the following comment to be quite fascinating:

Much of my blogging about terrorism has been negatively affected by anger. The feelings were “How dare that blogging friend not care about innocent Americans and Israelis getting slaughtered?”. Of course their views are not aimed directly at me and most of the time are the result of believing false information or not thinking things through.

Mike – what an interesting way you have about you. I’ve never been beaten by the carrot that was held out to entice me before.

So much anger – perhaps a little humor, too? I have a really bad joke for you all (and my sincere apologies in advance):

As the woman crawls out of her wrecked car, the local sheriff asks her what happened.

The woman began, “It was the strangest thing! I looked up and saw a tree, so I swerved to the right. Then I saw another tree, so I swerved to left. Then there was another tree, and another and another …”

The sheriff thought for a minute and then said, “Ma’am… I don’t know how to tell you this, but the only thing even resembling a tree on this road for thirty miles is your air freshener.”

BTW Mike – congrats on being the number one Mike in Google. After reading this, I did a Google on myself and found I’m now the number two Shelley in Google.

Guess weblogging is more interesting than Frankenstein.