All of a sudden Texans have a powerful reason to worry about evolution (the mussels are evolving to live in warmer waters?), climate change, ecosystem destruction by exotic species, and water pollution.
Zebra mussels are a bigger problem than any other undocumented immigrant.
It was a reference to the “environmental movement” in government and politics — seniors take the class in Texas. “What does that mean?”
We have maybe ten minutes in the block to stray. No time for discovery learning to get this point across in government.
“The movement, the grass-roots political organizing to express concern for clean air, clean water, preservation of green space, preservation of endangered species, protection from toxic chemicals and poisons. Things really took off after Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring. ”
“That’s a funny title. What’s it about?” I pause. It’s dangerous territory to ask what high school kids don’t know these days.
“Is there anyone here who does not know about DDT and its role in threatening our national symbol, the bald eagle?”
Every hand went up.
How can children get to their senior year and not know about Rachel Carson, DDT, or “environmentalism?”
Comes Frontline on PBS this week. Government and politics teachers, your students should watch and report.
This Week: “Poisoned Waters” (120 minutes),
April 21st at 9pm on PBS (Check local listings)
———————-
For years, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith has reported from the corridors of power in Washington, on Wall Street, and overseas. But these days, he’s worried about something that he’s found much closer to home — something mysterious that’s appeared in waters that he knows well: frogs with six legs, male amphibians with ovaries, “dead zones” where nothing can live or grow.
What’s causing the trouble? Smith suspects the answers might lie close to home as well.
This Tuesday night, in a special two-hour FRONTLINE broadcast –“Poisoned Waters”– Smith takes a hard look at a new wave of pollution that’s imperiling the nation’s waterways, focusing on two of our most iconic: the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound. He also examines three decades of environmental regulation that are failing to meet this new threat, and have yet to clean up the ongoing mess of PCBs, the staggering waste from factory farms, and the fall-out from unchecked suburban sprawl.
“The environment has slipped off our radar screen because it’s not a hot crisis like the financial meltdown, war, or terrorism,” Smith says. “But pollution is a ticking time bomb. It’s a chronic cancer that is slowly eating away the natural resources that are vital to our very lives.”
Among the most worrisome of the new contaminants are “endocrine disruptors,” chemical compounds found in common household products that mimic hormones in the human body and cause freakish mutations in frogs and amphibians.
“There are five million people being exposed to endocrine disruptors just in the Mid-Atlantic region,” a doctor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health tells Smith. “And yet we don’t know precisely how many of them are going to develop premature breast cancer, going to have problems with reproduction, going to have all kinds of congenital anomalies of the male genitalia that are happening at a broad low level so that they don’t raise the alarm in the general public.”
Can new models of “smart growth” and regulation reverse decades of damage? Are the most real and lasting changes likely to come from the top down, given an already overstretched Obama administration? Or will the greatest reasons for hope come from the bottom up, through the action of a growing number of grassroots groups trying to effect environmental change?
Join us for the broadcast this Tuesday night. Online, you can watch “Poisoned Waters” again, find out how safe your drinking water is, and learn how you can get involved.
Ken Dornstein
Senior Editor
————————
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation. Major funding for Poisoned Waters is provided by The Seattle Foundation, The Russell Family Foundation, The Wallace Genetic Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, The Merrill Family Foundation, The Abell Foundation, The Bullitt Foundation, the Park Foundation, and The Rauch Foundation. Additional funding is provided by The Town Creek Foundation, The Clayton Baker Trust, The Lockhart Vaughan Foundation, The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, The Chesapeake Bay Trust, Louisa and Robert Duemling, Robert and Phyllis Hennigson, Robert Lundeen, The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, The Prince Charitable Trusts, Ron and Kathy McDowell, Valerie and Bill Anders, Bruce and Marty Coffey, The Foundation for Puget Sound, Janet Ketcham, Win Rhodes, The Robert C. and Nani S. Warren Foundation, Jim and Kathy Youngren, Vinton and Amelia Sommerville and Laura Lundgren.
————————
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of the WGBH Educational Foundation.
See a preview, and read more, here. Another preview below. You can watch the entire program online after April 21.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
So, Friday night in Seattle (April 22) the anti-science, anti-environmental wackos will premiere a film. Among other things, the film claims Rachel Carson was wrong about DDT, but her Svengali-fu was so great that she persuaded John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Idi Amin, the National Academy of Sciences and a host of others to ban DDT needlessly, and that millions of people died from diseases the DDT could prevent at low cost and no harm.
The film premieres at an elementary school: Rachel Carson Elementary.
Get it? See the joke?
These wackos, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, have no shame about mocking the kids in second and third grade at that school who rightly look on Carson as a heroine and great human. Is it possible to be more cynical than that? Would it be possible for them to be bigger jerks about it?
The screening is sponsored by the right wing, and now clearly anti-science, Washington Policy Center.
McAleer and McElhinney are poster children for the decline of morality in America. They have no shame about bullying elementary school kids in their efforts to sully the good reputation of a great scientist and writer. Judging by their unfair and inaccurate screed against Carson and Al Gore, it appears they lack the moral sense to feel the shame. I can see their next film project now: They’ll do an exposé of how the brutal bank examiners forced bankers to live on only their salaries, foregoing the multi-million-dollar bonuses they deserved — and noting that malaria in Uganda now is worse because U.S. bankers are not compensated highly enough.
Irish documentary filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney have stirred up trouble before by debunking smug liberal hypocrisy. Their latest film, “Not Evil, Just Wrong” takes on the hysteria over global warming and warns that rushing to judgment in combating climate change would threaten the world’s poor.
The film reminds us that environmentalists have been wrong in the past, as when they convinced the world to ban the pesticide DDT, costing the lives of countless malaria victims. The ban was finally reversed by the World Health Organization only after decades of debate. The two Irish filmmakers argue that if Al Gore’s advice to radically reduce carbon emissions is followed, it would condemn to poverty two billion people in the world who have yet to turn on their first light switch.
* * * * * *
The two filmmakers are skilled at using provocative publicity tactics. On April 22, they will hold a public showing of their film at the Rachel Carson Elementary School in the suburbs of Seattle. “Since it was Rachel Carson who touched off the campaign to ban DDT, we thought showing ‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’ there would be appropriate,” says Mr. McAleer.
Local environmentalists will probably not appreciate the gesture and will be appalled that the school agreed to rent out its auditorium to the renegade skeptics. But somebody might point out that it’s not evil, just appropriate, to hold a debate about the real-world consequences of acting on global warming fears.
As you may already know, April 22 is Earth Day. At noon, inside City Hall, the Seattle City Council will be showing a movie about Rachel Carson, the biologist whose book, Silent Spring, is frequently credited with spurring the modern environmental movement.
Meanwhile that same evening, at Rachel Carson Elementary School in Sammamish, conservative think tank the Washington Policy Center will be showing Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria. (Tagline: “This is the film Al Gore and Hollywood don’t want you to see.”) It’s by the same folks who brought you that mining industry–funded classic, Mine Your Own Business. We know you’re in your grave. But you can roll over now, Ms. Carson.
That’s good news: The film showing at the Seattle City Council chamber is “A Sense of Wonder,” which will get more viewers in Seattle than the other film will get nationwide. (Presented by the Seattle City Council; 600 Fourth Street, Seattle; contact Phyllis Shulman, 206-684-8816; or see the council’s website; film shows at noon to 1:00 p.m., free admission.)
A total of 75 names were submitted by students. Nominees had to meet the district’s requirement of “deceased persons famous for their work in science, the humanities, letters, or education.” This list was narrowed to those that had more than one nomination, which left eight finalists. Those eight finalists were put on a ballot with a description of each nominee. Ballots were mailed to the families of children who will attend the new school next year.
A total of 320 students voted. The top three choices were Carson, Clara Barton and Amelia Earhart. The Lake Washington School District Board of Directors approved the use of any of those top three choices at its May 5 meeting. Shortly thereafter, Principal Mary Cronin received word that permission was granted to use the name of Rachel Carson. Frances Collin, literary agent for her estate, wrote that she believed Miss Carson would have been pleased.
In her writings, Carson encouraged people to discover and help children discover the wonder of the natural world. After earning a master’s degree in zoology, Carson spent 15 years working for the U.S. Government as a scientist and editor. She rose to Editor in Chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her writing in her free time included many essays on the ocean. These essays led to three books about the ocean and a career as a science writer who shared her knowledge as well as her love of nature. One of those books, The Sea Around Us, won the National Book Award.
Carson’s concerns about the misuse of synthetic pesticides led to her book, Silent Spring, which sounded the alarm about the environmental impact of indiscriminate use of such powerful chemicals on nature. First serialized in the New Yorker magazine, it became a runaway best seller. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson asked for policies that that would protect against irreversible damage to humans and nature alike, urging study and consideration of safer alternatives.
Carson’s work led to the ban on most uses of DDT in the U.S. and a subsequent worldwide ban on DDT for agricultural use. The DDT ban has been cited as a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle in the U.S. In 1980, Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The new Rachel Carson Elementary will feature such environmentally friendly features as a green roof, extensive use of daylight and a geothermal heat pump. It is located at 1035 244th Ave. NE in Sammamish.
The school’s good practices contradict the preachings of the film makers. The elementary school kids have more sense than the climate change deniers and DDT-poisoned anti-environmentalists.
Oh. The anti-environmental film is named “Not Evil, Just Wrong.” When the film is done on its producers, it will carry an even shorter title: “Evil and Wrong.”
What would the film makers do if a bunch of 3rd graders from the school showed up at the screening, and in the Q&A after, asked, “Why are you telling such lies about Rachel Carson and Vice President Gore?”
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
“A Sense of Wonder” won praise at film festivals over the past few months, and now has premiered in a 100-city tour designed to get some attention for a near-documentary film, during National Women’s History Month.
Actress Kaiulani Lee painted her one-woman show on Rachel Carson on the big screen. The movie tells the story of Rachel Carson and the tremendous growth of environmental consciousness and activism following her 1962 book Silent Spring. Karen Montgomery produced, Christopher Monger directed, cinematography was done by Haskell Wexler (two-time Oscar winner, for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Bound for Glory).
(A screening is planned in Dallas on March 31 for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — but it’s a private screening. Only four other screenings in Texas have been scheduled.)
To find a screening near you, go to the “Sense of Wonder” interactive website, and click on “Screenings.” From there, either click on the list of sites, listed by date, at “100-city tour,” or click on the interactive map to find a site near you. You may also sign up to sponsor a screening.
If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonderso indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
Cargo cult science has deep roots among those who deny global warming or who allow that warming is occurring, but claim we can do nothing about it. So, it’s no surprise that, at the voodoo science 2nd International Conference on Climate Change, somebody would trot out the old falsehoods about DDT.
Speaking at the conference hosted by the Heartland Institute in New York City,[Dr. Arthur Robinson, Director of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine] said, “There is a current example of genocide by the removal of technology, and that is the ban on DDT, and that has resulted in the deaths of 30 to 40 million people and has left half a billion infected with malaria.”
It’s malaria that kills people, not a lack of DDT. The removal of DDT from spraying cotton crops in Texas and California did absolutely nothing to promote malaria in Africa. Dr. Robinson needs a basic geography course. Mosquitoes do not migrate from the U.S. to Africa or Asia.
Stopping the spraying of DDT in the U.S. in 1972 wasn’t a factor in the cessation of usage of DDT in Africa seven years earlier, either. Dr. Robinson could use some basic math sequencing and calendar reading remediation, too.
Dr. Robinson could use some history and public policy instruction, too. DDT was never banned in Africa, nor was it banned in India or China which together now produce almost all the DDT used in the world, which is a lot. There’s no ban on DDT in Uganda, where Dr. Robinson’s friends in the business world are suing to stop the spraying of DDT in huts in affected regions — because they are afraid it will harm their tobacco business.
It’s a heckuva lot easier to throw darts at health care workers and disease fighters than it is to talk about real solutions with these guys.
If Robinson is dead wrong on a one-liner about DDT, how wrong do you think he is in the rest of his presentation on climate change?
Is there any crackpot “scientist” who was not at the Heartland Institute’s wing-ding?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Officials are shooting for an April 20 starting date for the long-awaited cleanup of the Moab, Utah, mill-tailings pile.
U.S. Energy Department officials last week opened a 3,800-foot section of rail track they will use as a staging area for shipments of mill tailings from the pile to a disposal site to the north, near Crescent Junction.
A gantry crane capable of lifting 50 tons will pluck tailings-laden containers from trucks and place them on railroad cars on a ledge above the pile, which sits near the entrance to Arches National Park.
Why is this relevant to anything?
This tailings pile has been targeted for cleanup for at least 30 years. The story doesn’t say precisely, calling it “cold war” — it is partly a remnant of the uranium boom of the 1950s. It may date back to the 1940s.
And, according to the story:
The Energy Department has a 2028 target date for completion of work moving the pile. The cost is estimated to run as high as $698 million.
2028? Ten years of usefulness for the mine, another 60 years to clean it up. Some boom. Some bust.
You load 16 million tons [of radioactive and poisonous tailings], and what do you get? A site cleaner in Moab from uranium milled a half-century ago, and a warning to those who push nuclear power for the future damn-the-cost. There are costs.
The film’s credits say it was done by Michael Seltzer — it’s rather obviously a student production, but there is also a Dr. Michael Seltzer active in environmental protection. Are they related?
Wild Sumatran tiger - "Face on with wild tiger in Sumatra. This animal didn't like camera traps and destroyed three over a weekend." Photo by Michael Lowe, 2006, Wikimedia Commons. See William Blake's poem, below.
On Sunday, a tiger attacked and killed a man carrying logs near an illegal logging camp, Wurjanto said. Two other loggers in the same area were mauled and killed on Saturday.
Preliminary findings suggested the attacks were taking place because people were disturbing the habitat of the tigers, Wurjanto said.
* * * * *
The Sumatran tiger is the most critically endangered of the world’s tiger subspecies.
Forest clearances, killings due to human-tiger conflict, and illegal hunting for the trade in their parts, have led to tiger numbers halving to an estimated 400-500 on the Indonesian island from an estimated 1,000 in the 1970s, conservationists said.
Under Texas law, a homeowner may use deadly force to stop trespassers, especially someone who poses a threat to the homeowner and the property. I wonder whether the tigers will even get a trial.
A tree poacher mauled to death by the endangered tigers whose habitat he destroys: Perfect example of poetic justice.
Generally it would be an insult to call someone a bird brain. We may need to revise that thinking. In contrast to climate change denialists, 177 species of migratory birds in North America have adjusted their migrations because of a warming climate. The birds know something the denialists don’t.
How will denialists spin this? It’s difficult for them to claim that the birds have been hornswoggled by inaccurate newspaper accounts, since these are not the birds whose cages are lined with newspapers.
Eastern Meadowlark, photo by FWS/John and Karen Hollingsworth
Eastern and Western Meadowlark: These popular robin-sized grassland birds form winter flocks and always feed on the ground. Neither species has been wintering farther north over the past 40 years, probably because the quality of northern grasslands is not sufficient to support these birds through the winter. The Eastern Meadowlark is one of Audubon’s Common Birds in Decline; its population has plummeted 72% in population over the last 40 years.
DDT advocates argue that DDT is harmless to humans. Generally they base the claim on DDT’s low carcinogenicity in humans — it’s suspected of being a weak human carcinogen.
Frequently DDT advocates will point to the late Dr. Gordon Edwards’ grandstand sipping of a teaspoon of prepared DDT before lectures on the stuff.
AMRELI: The spate of suicides in the diamond industry continued as the wife of a diamond worker attempted suicide on Wednesday in Mini Kasbavad area of the city. Ruksana Pathan, 33, is battling for life at the government hospital here.
According to officials of Amreli police, Ruksana tried to end her life by consuming DDT powder when her husband and four children were away. She was rushed to the hospital here, where her condition is slated to be serious.
“Ruksana was depressed ever since her husband Taufiq Pathan, a diamond worker, was rendered unemployed after closure of diamond units,” said a police official. “As the family’s financial situation worsened, Ruksana attempted to kill herself,” the official said.
Kids, don’t try the Gordon Edwards stunt. DDT is poisonous, as the skull and crossbones on the old label would indicate.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Ada County, Idaho, is home to the state capital, Boise.
As with most county governments in the U.S., a lot of work is delegated to groups that are governed or advised by citizen boards. Volunteers make up these boards. In many municipalities, it’s difficult to recruit good citizens to do the work.
The Ada County Courthouse, in Boise Idaho. HPB photo by LCA Architects
Feeling disenfranchised? Not happy with how the elections turned out? Well, there is still a way for you to impact the body politic in Ada County—the County Board of Commissioners is calling for volunteers to serve as advisors on a number of boards.
The County Commissioners, Paul Woods, Rick Yzaguirre, and Fred Tilman, made the appeal for volunteer advisors in the most recent edition of Ada County’s monthly newsletter.
“The county has numerous volunteer boards and advisory committees that help the Ada County Board of Commissioners in policy development and general operations in areas ranging from housing, planning and zoning, social work and recreation. The unpaid volunteer positions give citizens a unique, insider look at county government while they roll up their sleeves to help their local community. While each board has its own bylaws and varying terms of service, interested parties are always encouraged to apply for a position on any volunteer board,” the county said.
The county went on to describe eight examples of boards that rely on volunteer participation, I’ve profiles the three coolest boards here.
Historic Preservation Council—Are you one of those folks that loves to see historical photos from Ada County’s storied past? Would you love to help identify sites of historical significance or help with education efforts? When then consider helping out with the Ada County Historic Preservation Council where, according to the county, “members must demonstrate an interest, competence, or knowledge in history or historic preservation” and can have a positive effect on how the county coordinates its preservation activities.
Mosquito Abatement Advisory Board—I’m a huge advocate for bringing back DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) that insecticide extraordinaire which got a bad rap in the 1960’s when it was panned in Rachel Carson’s inaccurate book, Silent Spring. Turns out that DDT is safe for humans and Silent Spring, “contains certain statements at variance with the facts as we now understand them”, as Cecil Adams so eloquently put it in his The Straight Dope column from December 13, 2002. If you feel like I do about slaughtering mosquitoes and ending West Nile Virus in Idaho, then consider volunteering for the Ada County Mosquito Abatement Advisory Board wherein you can meet to discuss our collective war on these blood-sucking bugs. If you are a mosquito-lover who thinks bugs are people too, I would not recommend this board for you. [emphasis added]
Board of Community Guardians—Finally, if you have a heart for the disabled or the mentally ill, you might be the right sort of volunteer for this important board. According to the county, “The Board of Community Guardians manages the Community Guardian Program, which assists individuals who cannot make decisions for themselves because of mental and/or physical impairments or disabilities. These individuals, who are either legally incapacitated or destitute with no financial security or family support., can be determined a ward of the county, and court-appointed volunteers oversee those wards.
If you are interested in volunteering for any of these advisory boards contact:
Board of Ada County Commission office
200 W. Front St., Third Floor, Boise.
Even the vaunted Cecil Adams writes a clunker from time to time, and his agreement with the wholly unsupportable claim that Rachel Carson was wrong is one of those clunkers (but his description of Lyndon Larouche will make you smile). The facts differ from the claim in this ad:
DDT’s “bad rap” was well deserved. In the past three years dozens of news articles matched the science journals commemorating the recovery of bald eagles, brown pelicans, osprey and pergrine falcons — recoveries made possible by ending the use of DDT in the wild. DDT kills entire ecosystems, starting with the predators at the top. It’s dangerous stuff.
Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, pioneered the use of good, hard scientific data in popular writing. In its 53 pages of footnotes to scientific studies, science journals and correspondence, critics have been unable to find inaccuracies. Especially on the issue of DDT’s effects on wildlife, more than a thousand follow-up studies vindicated Carson. I have not found a contrary study, not one.
DDT is NOT the pesticide of choice for West Nile, in any case. It’s almost like arguing that DDT is the pharmaceutical of choice to use against malaria — confusing the pesticides used to kill insects with the pharmaceuticals used to treat disease in humans. DDT is unsuitable for outdoor use, illegal for outdoor use under the 1958 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and its subsequent amendments because it is “uncontrollable.” DDT kills non-target species, often better than it kills target species. For mosquito abatement, DDT kills mosquito predators much more effectively than it kills mosquitoes. Plus, it sticks around for years, and it bioaccumulates up food chains, multiplying poison doses to predators, sometimes millions of times.
West Nile mosquitoes can be effectively treated as larva, if their water homes are known; but DDT is particularly ill-suited for use in water. DDT works best when its spread can be confined indoors, which is where malaria-carrying mosquitoes usually bite. West Nile carriers live and bite outdoors.
I hope Ada County gets volunteers for the mosquito abatement board who know a little bit more about DDT, or who are open to listening to the mosquito abatement experts.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Your students probably don’t know about it, and the textbooks will do the story no justice, if they mention it at all. While this article is written from a biased perspective, it’s a solid recounting of the history — and your AP kids need to read stuff with viewpoints, anyway.
Adeline Levine, a sociologist who wrote a book about Love Canal, described to me the scene she had witnessed exactly 30 years earlier, on Aug. 11, 1978. “It was like a Hitchcock movie,” she said, “where everything looks peaceful and pleasant, but something is slumbering under the ground.”
That “something” was more than 21,000 tons of chemical waste. The mixed brew contained more than 200 different chemicals, many of them toxic. They were dumped into the canal — which was really more of a half-mile-long pond — in the 1940s and 1950s by the Hooker Electrochemical Co. In 1953, the canal was covered with soil and sold to the local school board, and an elementary school and playground were built on the site. A working-class neighborhood sprang up around them.
“The neighborhood looked very pleasant,” says Levine, who was a sociology professor at the State University of New York, Buffalo, in 1978. “There were very nice little homes, nicely kept, with gardens and flowers and fences and kids’ toys, and then there were young people who were rushing out of their homes with bundles and packing up their cars and moving vans.”
Love Canal was in the midst of an all-out panic when Levine arrived; just nine days earlier, the state health commissioner had declared an emergency and recommended that pregnant women and children under the age of two evacuate the neighborhood. A week after that, the state and federal governments agreed to buy out homes next to the canal.
In October, a Portland real estate blogger picked up on the post at Strange Maps. His post related information — but in the comments, one fellow urged we sell off the lands. Oregon has a good amount of land held in trust by federal agencies, but it’s far from the the highest percentage. Oregon has benefited from public lands more than many other states. Who would suggest selling off assets?
The Capitalist Digest — which misappropriates Jefferson’s warning to the clergy (famously engraved around the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial, but I digress) — displayed a remarkable lack of historic perspective and a unfamiliarity with capitalist property law, declaring that the federal government’s holding lands in trust was one of the things Marx and Engels wished to see (November 10, not a week after the election). Had Marx and Engels actually meant that wise land stewardship was something to be striven for, that public lands should be used to the public good, they would have been in the bosom of capitalism when they did so (I suspect they were not in favor of poor stewardship.) The Capitalist Digest would urge burning Milton Friedman and Jesus Christ if their names had appeared in the Communist Manifesto. This is not a bunch that works on principles and reason. Under U.S. law, federal land management is not communist at all with small exceptions made to support American cattlemen, sheep ranchers and mineral and oil extractors, and I doubt that the Capitalist Digest really intended to indict American oil producers, miners and livestock operations. The Capitalist Digest blames their insanity on Robert Higgs at the Independent Institute, as if The Capitalist Digest can’t make up their own minds.
None of these sites gives any serious thought to the idea. None provides a scintilla of an iota of analysis to indicate it would be a good idea.
As one of the the principal spokesmen for the Sagebrush Rebellion in the early days, I want it known that I’ve thought these issues through, and argued them through, and followed the documentation for 30 years (Holy frijole! I’m old!). Issues with public lands revolve around stewardship. Bad stewardship is not improved by a change in ownership. Ownership change has all too often only led to worse stewardship. Selling off the public lands is a generally stupid idea.
Certain local circumstances change the nature of a tiny handful of such deals — but not often, not in many places, and not enough to make a significant contribution to retiring any debt the federal government owns.
It’s troubling that such a flurry of stupidity strikes now, during a transition of presidents. This is how stupid ideas get traction, like kudzu on a cotton farm, while no one is paying deep attention. Let’s put this idea back into its coffin with a sagebrush stake in its heart.
Update 2014: The original GSA map showing percentages of federal holdings in each state (including Indian Reservations as federal holdings), as published in Strange Maps when it was still active.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Looking for other things, I stumbled into two research journal articles on the fight against malaria. Neither calls for a return to broadcast spraying of DDT; neither claims the ban on agricultural use of DDT had any significant effect on the rise of malaria.
Both are loaded with serious research that exposes DDT advocates as charlatans.
SUMMARY: Malaria is among the oldest of diseases. In one form or another,it has infected and affected our ancestors since long beforethe origin of the human line. During our recent evolution, itsinfluence has probably been greater than that of any other infectiousagent. Here we attempt to trace the forms and impacts of malariafrom a distant past through historical times to the present.In the last sections, we review the current burdens of malariaacross the world and discuss present-day approaches to its management.Only by following, or attempting to follow, malaria throughoutits evolution and history can we understand its character andso be better prepared for our future management of this ancientill.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell ![[Al Gore]](https://i0.wp.com/s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-FE048_Gore_20051014132846.gif)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 