Well, maybe it's just that no one uses them anymore. This one certainly hasn't been used in a while. Found it in NE near an abandoned warehouse.
In another note: the Arcade Fire concert was one of the best concerts I've been to. And I've been to like 5 or 6, so yeah. So much energy. Great Crowd. The songs and performance didn't hurt either!
23 September 2010
21 September 2010
B+W+Valencia
I set off just as the sun set this evening to Target Field, to try to catch some cool shots of people streaming in for the Indians-Twins game (top of the 8th as I type. Prediction: Valencia 3 run hr to win the game. Sox lose, Twins clinch the division.). Anyway, none of the shots of the field really turned out nicely, but I did get a few keepers as I meandered through downtown at dusk. Enjoy and go to my photostream to view more...
20 September 2010
Holga Out & About
Late last week, a tiny package arrived in the mail. It was my beautiful little Holga 135BC! I knew that my productivity school- and work-wise would get as close to zero as is currently scientifically possible. (Science!)
The first two rolls were a disaster. One, a B+W roll, was completely underexposed. My dumbass believed that 400 ISO film would properly expose using only the normal shutter speed (and, coincidentally, the only shutter speed) on my toy camera. The second roll went a little better, it was a color 400, but I took my pictures furtively on an overcast day, so many were very dark. One trip to National Camera Exchange later, I had a goofy little tripod (with bendable legs that grip onto lampposts, etc.) and a shutter cable which allows me to open the shutter for as long as I want. Finally, the pictures started to get better. Below is a slideshow from my Flickr account, at www.flickr.com/photos/jadammel, of some pictures I took at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the Basilica of St. Mary, and nearby downtown last night. Enjoy! There will be more to come...
The first two rolls were a disaster. One, a B+W roll, was completely underexposed. My dumbass believed that 400 ISO film would properly expose using only the normal shutter speed (and, coincidentally, the only shutter speed) on my toy camera. The second roll went a little better, it was a color 400, but I took my pictures furtively on an overcast day, so many were very dark. One trip to National Camera Exchange later, I had a goofy little tripod (with bendable legs that grip onto lampposts, etc.) and a shutter cable which allows me to open the shutter for as long as I want. Finally, the pictures started to get better. Below is a slideshow from my Flickr account, at www.flickr.com/photos/jadammel, of some pictures I took at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the Basilica of St. Mary, and nearby downtown last night. Enjoy! There will be more to come...
10 September 2010
The Lo-Fi Itch
It's funny how sometimes the latest/greatest technology elicits almost a Newtonian tug in the opposite direction in me. I get a new Macbook but lust over a 1960's Italian typewriter. Or, I get a fancy road bike only to find myself favoring a mutant 80's singlespeed.
This time, it's my new (completely amazing) iPhone 4. And no, I didn't go out and buy a rotary (although the thought has crossed my mind) -- I bought a cheap, Chinese toy camera. Huh? Let me explain. As I began the fun yet often unsatisfying slog through the App store, the photo apps caught my eye. The basic iPhone camera, though high quality for a phone, is also pretty bare bones in terms of its features. You point and and you shoot. Some of these apps (like the one I got) put a cool effect onto the pics in your phone's camera roll. It's an effect similar to those ambiguous photos that indie bands put on the insert of their albums. Super saturated colors, blurry, almost haphazard photos that look like they were either taken by toddlers without sufficiently good motor skills or by some coked-out hippie in the 70's. Like this one (a quickie I took on my iPhone of my shelf of vinyl):
Cool, right? I guess, but it felt a little empty. It felt like I was cheapening the effect and artistry of these photographs, like tacking a chintzy aftermarket exhaust onto an utterly vanilla sedan. A few hours of internet sleuthing later, I was becoming immersed in the culture of lo-fi photography. Sometimes called lomography after the famous Russian LOMO camera, this genre elicits the cries of adoration of many as well as the collective groans of perhaps many more. The same criticisms of bands like Best Coast or Wavves, that the fuzziness of the work is only a cover for a lack of talent (so not true wrt Best Coast!), befalls many artists partaking in lomography.
And so, in spite of the flack I'll catch for already being an insufferable "hipster", I decided to take the plunge and try lo-fi photography the way it's meant to be.(1) My new Holga 135BC will be shipping out this weekend and a whole new obsession will begin. But that doesn't mean my other obsession (records!!) will end. No, no, no -- I plan to take my new toy to visit my other toys at the record store very, very soon.(2)
Anyone want to go on a photo adventure with me??
FN1. Well, "almost mean to be" because the true lo-fi photographer would purchase the Holga 120, which uses an odd-sized film (120) that I'm pretty sure no lab in the Twin Cities processes. And, since I AM on a students' budget, a 35mm camera makes a whole lot of sense. Especially since I'm probably not going to be very good at this.
FN2. Oh, and if I ever become that sad-eyed hipster, slinking around the shadows of a party with a smug look on my face and with a whisper of a mustache tickling my upper lip, nursing a PBR, please kick me hard in the face. Thanks!
This time, it's my new (completely amazing) iPhone 4. And no, I didn't go out and buy a rotary (although the thought has crossed my mind) -- I bought a cheap, Chinese toy camera. Huh? Let me explain. As I began the fun yet often unsatisfying slog through the App store, the photo apps caught my eye. The basic iPhone camera, though high quality for a phone, is also pretty bare bones in terms of its features. You point and and you shoot. Some of these apps (like the one I got) put a cool effect onto the pics in your phone's camera roll. It's an effect similar to those ambiguous photos that indie bands put on the insert of their albums. Super saturated colors, blurry, almost haphazard photos that look like they were either taken by toddlers without sufficiently good motor skills or by some coked-out hippie in the 70's. Like this one (a quickie I took on my iPhone of my shelf of vinyl):
Cool, right? I guess, but it felt a little empty. It felt like I was cheapening the effect and artistry of these photographs, like tacking a chintzy aftermarket exhaust onto an utterly vanilla sedan. A few hours of internet sleuthing later, I was becoming immersed in the culture of lo-fi photography. Sometimes called lomography after the famous Russian LOMO camera, this genre elicits the cries of adoration of many as well as the collective groans of perhaps many more. The same criticisms of bands like Best Coast or Wavves, that the fuzziness of the work is only a cover for a lack of talent (so not true wrt Best Coast!), befalls many artists partaking in lomography.
And so, in spite of the flack I'll catch for already being an insufferable "hipster", I decided to take the plunge and try lo-fi photography the way it's meant to be.(1) My new Holga 135BC will be shipping out this weekend and a whole new obsession will begin. But that doesn't mean my other obsession (records!!) will end. No, no, no -- I plan to take my new toy to visit my other toys at the record store very, very soon.(2)
Anyone want to go on a photo adventure with me??
FN1. Well, "almost mean to be" because the true lo-fi photographer would purchase the Holga 120, which uses an odd-sized film (120) that I'm pretty sure no lab in the Twin Cities processes. And, since I AM on a students' budget, a 35mm camera makes a whole lot of sense. Especially since I'm probably not going to be very good at this.
FN2. Oh, and if I ever become that sad-eyed hipster, slinking around the shadows of a party with a smug look on my face and with a whisper of a mustache tickling my upper lip, nursing a PBR, please kick me hard in the face. Thanks!
15 August 2010
Vinyl Blotter, Vol. 4: Crate Digger Milestones
Preface: Apologies for the long absence from this blog. Hopefully my absenteeism here contributed to my presence at places featuring real, live people. Yeah, unlikely. I've mentioned this before, but it's like I only post when I'm actually busy (i.e. during finals) -- when I'm not busy, the urge to write long screeds on vinyl, politics, and science mysteriously vanishes. Strange, isn't it? Well, to the one, possibly two, but not more than five people who have stuck with me on this blog, thanks, and here's a new post. I've been trying to write it for a long time. Call it my Chinese Democracy.
One thing that hasn't changed this summer (well, actually, nothing has changed) is my adoration for all things vinyl, of the record variety. Sure, my friends are getting married, buying houses, and getting promotions, but I bet none of them found a Japanese bootleg of a Bob Dylan w/. The Band concert from 1974. Here's a list of some notable crate digger milestones from this summer.
With the decision to move my turntable and big floor speakers to my room based in part on the availability of shelf space I thought would last for at least another year, this summer saw that rationale tidily ticked off of the list, "Reasons for Moving All This Shit Into My Bedroom." I probably have 350-400 records now and I've definitely surpassed that ever-important milestone in any crate digger's life: my records weigh more than I do. The only side effect of this accomplishment is the growing dread I feel when thinking about the prospect of ever moving out of this place.
Most people, upon hearing of my vinyl addiction, react with a sort of bemused look on their face that absolutely says, "Oh, umm, that's weird, isn't it? I mean, they have this thing called mp3 players...they play music without the grooved plastic...like, on a computer...it's not like you have a typewriter, do you?" I do. But some people get it. I like those people. You can almost see the wheels churning when they mention the record player lying fallow at their parents' house, the boxes of black gems awaiting discovery by these intrepid explorers. I shared in a few friends' vinyl awakening this summer and it felt good. I'll trade crate digging competition for more people to enjoy it with any day.
I've never gone on a Civil War road trip as my name is not Sarah Vowell. Nor have I seen a baseball game played at every Major League ballpark across the country. And I'm still reluctant to get on the Bieber Express (Bieber or Die!!) and follow that cute little lesbian as she flits from town to town, impressing the tweens. But put a big felt tipped line through the bucket list entry, "Record Road Trip". After driving 10 hours for the perfect wedding, I wasn't too keen on driving all the way back to Minneapolis without more entertainment than the Ira's Flatow and Glass could give me, try though they might (and did). So I googled "Best record stores, Chicago[/Madison]" and programmed my GPS to land at Reckless Records (Chicago), Dusty Groove (Chicago), and Strictly Discs (Madison). And although it contributed to a dangerously low balance in my checking account, it was well worth it. Don't get me wrong -- I love the record stores in Minneapolis. I talk and think about them often. But it's also a little like driving a perfectly fine sedan only to drive a friend's luxury sports car; you don't know what you're missing until you know. A lot of this might be the exotic excitement of things new, but the organization and care that went into the stores I visited hints that it was also something more.
I'm already planning my next vinyl road trip!! Ok, that's not true, but I wanted to convey just how revelatory of an experience it was. So fire up the Bieber Express if you must -- anything for another vinyl road trip.
School (and volunteering and working and being on a journal and still working on interacting with human beings) is set to begin in a few weeks, so expect an curious uptick in posts...
One thing that hasn't changed this summer (well, actually, nothing has changed) is my adoration for all things vinyl, of the record variety. Sure, my friends are getting married, buying houses, and getting promotions, but I bet none of them found a Japanese bootleg of a Bob Dylan w/. The Band concert from 1974. Here's a list of some notable crate digger milestones from this summer.
With the decision to move my turntable and big floor speakers to my room based in part on the availability of shelf space I thought would last for at least another year, this summer saw that rationale tidily ticked off of the list, "Reasons for Moving All This Shit Into My Bedroom." I probably have 350-400 records now and I've definitely surpassed that ever-important milestone in any crate digger's life: my records weigh more than I do. The only side effect of this accomplishment is the growing dread I feel when thinking about the prospect of ever moving out of this place.
Most people, upon hearing of my vinyl addiction, react with a sort of bemused look on their face that absolutely says, "Oh, umm, that's weird, isn't it? I mean, they have this thing called mp3 players...they play music without the grooved plastic...like, on a computer...it's not like you have a typewriter, do you?" I do. But some people get it. I like those people. You can almost see the wheels churning when they mention the record player lying fallow at their parents' house, the boxes of black gems awaiting discovery by these intrepid explorers. I shared in a few friends' vinyl awakening this summer and it felt good. I'll trade crate digging competition for more people to enjoy it with any day.
I've never gone on a Civil War road trip as my name is not Sarah Vowell. Nor have I seen a baseball game played at every Major League ballpark across the country. And I'm still reluctant to get on the Bieber Express (Bieber or Die!!) and follow that cute little lesbian as she flits from town to town, impressing the tweens. But put a big felt tipped line through the bucket list entry, "Record Road Trip". After driving 10 hours for the perfect wedding, I wasn't too keen on driving all the way back to Minneapolis without more entertainment than the Ira's Flatow and Glass could give me, try though they might (and did). So I googled "Best record stores, Chicago[/Madison]" and programmed my GPS to land at Reckless Records (Chicago), Dusty Groove (Chicago), and Strictly Discs (Madison). And although it contributed to a dangerously low balance in my checking account, it was well worth it. Don't get me wrong -- I love the record stores in Minneapolis. I talk and think about them often. But it's also a little like driving a perfectly fine sedan only to drive a friend's luxury sports car; you don't know what you're missing until you know. A lot of this might be the exotic excitement of things new, but the organization and care that went into the stores I visited hints that it was also something more.
I'm already planning my next vinyl road trip!! Ok, that's not true, but I wanted to convey just how revelatory of an experience it was. So fire up the Bieber Express if you must -- anything for another vinyl road trip.
School (and volunteering and working and being on a journal and still working on interacting with human beings) is set to begin in a few weeks, so expect an curious uptick in posts...
29 June 2010
Heeere's Niiiiicky!!!
Gardy always asks me, "Nicky ['cause it's my nickname! My other one is The Human Highlight Reel -- ask your wife how I got that one], how did you get so good at fielding ground balls?" And I say to that redneck, "HOW DARE YOU TALK TO NICK PUNTO!!!" Gardy just doesn't learn, you don't talk to The Punto and the Punto doesn't have to knock you out cold with his patented (pending) headfirst slide into your face.
Back to your grandma for a sec, last time I checked, she doesn't make $4+ million a year, does she? Didn't think so. Oh wait, but she does have 13 career homeruns, doesn't she? No? Really? I thought that was her. Oh wait, it's not her, it's The Human Highlight Reel. Forgive me.
Like any proper mega-star, I do have my detractors. But I actually feed off of negativity, it's like spinach to my Popeye, socialism to my Obama [sorry, had to, Glenn Beck is a fan], incompetence to my BP, teenage hormones to my Justin Bieber. I was actually physically feeding off of Brendan Harris's .154 batting average until he got sent down to AAA. SUFFICE IT TO SAY, I LIKE ME THE NEGATIVITY. So you hater tots out there, keep sending me your steaming piles of hate, because for each negative thing you say, out pops another weak flyball from the timber I felled and honed into the finest bat in the majors. Out pops another "hustle" play in which I needlessly get my uniform dirty [Mom used to say a dirty uniform was her worst nightmare when it came time to clean. What I didn't tell her was that dirt hides tears real well. The tears opponents cry when they see me "hustle" onto the basepaths as a clutch pinch runner.]. Out pops another WEB GEM from The Human Highlight Reel.
Punto, out.
30 May 2010
BREAKING NEWS: GUSHER IN THE GULF
30 May 2021, PALINATION: Lawmakers, in concert with the Palin-Bachmann Administration (1), continue to respond to the latest environmental disaster to befall this young administration: the uncontrolled gushing of renewable energy. With a video montage of the nation's only remaining National Park, The Deepwater Horizon "Freedom Fountain," playing in the background, President Palin delivered a forceful message, "The time for action's come, folks. God gave us energy in the form of oh-so-plentiful oil and coal and here we are, spittin' in the face of the Almighty and the dinos and lil' sea creatures who gave up their lives those thousands of years ago to give us an unlimited supply of fossil fuel by our continued investment in renewable energy. It ain't right. Just like He gave us cute little animals to shoot from helicopters, He also gave us a vast deposit of dino bones all crushed up, liquified, and ripe for the drillin'. We can't let the [air quotes] mainstream [un-airquotes] media and the remaining band of those Commies keep fillin' up the underground airwaves with that nonsenese about [more air quotes] renewable energy being better for the environment -- newsflash East Coast Liberals: it ain't."
The comments, the strongest to date, came after another coal-fired power plant was forced to close after it was rendered obsolete due to the continued, staggering performance of renewable energy, a lasting legacy of He Who Shall Not Be Named's Administration (2). Vice President Michelle Bachmann also released a statement, "We are faced today with a choice: tyranny or liberty. If we choose liberty, then we shall be free to take what we want from our scorched earth -- all the clean coal from our mountains, all the methane from our arctic permafrost (thanks global warming!), and all the oil from the Black Coast [formerly named the Gulf Coast]. If we choose tyranny (3), then we let the sun and wind tell us when it's time to get some energy. And that doesn't sound like the kind of country I want to live in. No, it sounds like Russia. Which was a communist country. Or, wait, a fascist country. No, wait, a republic. Shoot, I can't remember. But it was something bad, something unnamed yet unmistakable -- it was different. And therefore we shall fear it (4)."
Statements like these are only possible in this new America. After the 2020 election, walls were constructed around the Blue States and Tea Party guards were stationed at every mile, armed only with fervor, disillusionment, and a shit-ton of guns and ammo. Said one Tea Party soldier while choking back "freedom tears", "I ain't never been this proud to be a Palimerican living in PaliNation(5). I got into this whole "destroy the government to take back government only to destroy it from the inside, like a festering infection" thing a decade ago as a volunteer for Senator (now Viceroy) of Middle America, Rand Paul. He gave me the confidence to speak without thinking. He told me that my misinformed ideals and politically un-workable positions were really the best solution for this new country. I owe my life to Rand Paul and the Tea Party."
One thing is for sure, the year 2010 will echo throughout history. It was the year Americans finally realized the consequences of the energy choices they made. It was the year they realized that more drilling for a finite resource located in environmentally sensitive regions was a recipe for abuse and disaster. It was the year they realized that large corporations (banks, financial services, automobile manufacturers, oil companies, coal mining companies) must be regulated by a forceful governmental presence to prevent disaster. Because when that disaster came, we saw that it did not affect the companies. It affected ordinary Americans. And they reacted. They reacted with anger and distrust of the government, not unjustified. But instead of advocating for the stronger presence of government oversight, they argued instead for no government (6).
****
(1) "Administration" is a term with only mere symbolic meaning now, as we all know, since President Palin disbanded much of the federal government after her election win last November. She defeated Democratic nominee Rahm Emanuel and Republican John McCain, who ran on a campaign of lies and air quotes. After taking a modified oath of office (leaving only "So help me God," which was never actually in the Constitution or a law but a vestige of a tradition recited by all presidents since FDR (including He Who Shall Not Be Named [Pres. Obama] who, despite the Official Recorded History of the United States of (Palin) America which says he did not, did in fact say this line when he was sworn into office both times, in 2008 and 2012.)), the Palin-Bachmann Administration "cleaned house" by getting rid of all executive agency personnel in the largest mass firing in history. Leaving an inexperienced skeleton crew to run the now empty agencies (Rand "Accidents Happen" Paul at EPA, Rush Limbaugh as Sec'y of Health (who by virtue of his prescriptions alone accounts for 45% of the "so-called" socialized medicine intake in the country), and as an olive branch from Palin's Tea Party to McCain and his Republican(?) party, a spot as the top (well, only) civilian border security officer).
(2) After public outcry reached critical mass in the summer of 2010, President Obama and other Democratic lawmakers ushered through comprehensive energy and climate legislation. Despite harsh criticism from the traditional energy industry and conservative lawmakers, the bill ushered in a new age of energy, once again propelling the United States to an unquestioned world leadership position. Although Obama expended most political capital getting the legislation through Congress in that summer of 2010, he did go on to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bring peace to Darfur, Palestine, and the former Soviet Bloc. This was progress was lost, as we all remember, in the first few months of the Palin-Bachmann Administration when the Iranian War began and the United States severed all ties with the "Pinkie" world community. And yet, because of the strong foundation laid out in the 2010 climate legislation, renewable energy continued to thrive, buoyed by private investment and commercial success, most notably by Al Gore, who now owns much of the world's energy companies, much to the chagrin of the Administration.
(3) A less-successful initiative of the Palin Administration has been the attempt to mandate a nation-wide "Find and Replace" of "tyranny" with "Obama-y"; the initiative sputtered when First Dude Todd Palin was caught replacing "tyranny" with "boobies" on the nation's only remaining computer [yeah, we only have 1 "official" computer now in the U.S., since the internet was deemed to be the work of the devil and getting information through words has been censored and remains now only on Fox News tickers and underground blogs like this one].
(4) "And Therefore We Shall Fear It" became the Palin campaign's best-known slogan. Remember 2008 and "Yes We Can!" and "Change We Can Believe In"? Well this was like that, only 20 times bigger. Literally. Our national car, the Hummer's H2, was outfitted with bold 10 ft banners adorned with the phrase that waved from wind blocks installed on the roof to make them even less efficient. Because, in the words of another popular Palin slogan, "Hey, it's only energy!" mileage requirements became blase in the minds of many during the 2020 campaign.
(5) With apparent obliviousness as to the actual pronunciation of "Palimerican" and the predominance of white citizens of the newly created PaliNation, this unfortunate combination of words gained traction in the Irony-Free zone of the new United States.
(6) To be honest, I couldn't figure out where to take this post. On the one hand, it's a reaction to the useless, self-serving political chatter out there (ahem, Rand "Accidents Happen" Paul). On the other, it's a sense of exasperation that we're missing our chance. Our Cuyahoga River fire. Our Montgomery bus boycott. That galvanizing moment in every movement that begets change. Because this is certainly that moment. Exxon-Valdez is considered to be a significant oil spill and it was, no doubt. But there was an idea of the extent of the oil that needed to be cleaned up. It was a finite amount from one ship. The litigation is still ongoing and the Alaskan coastline is still feeling the effects, but it was somehow manageable. The Gulf spill is different. This is like an Exxon Valdez that doesn't stop. If life were a movie, Bruce Willis would be making an appearance right about now, with some insane plan to save the known world that ends up working in the end. Not top kill or top hat but Die Hard. The pictures of oil gushing out of the riser and then circulating suspended in the upper water column are like the sea birds covered in oil 20 years ago. Or the Cuyahoga River on fire (below). But I'm not seeing how the political landscape has shifted. Conventional wisdom might lead to the conclusion that a moment like this would lead for a push for renewable energy, where an energy "leak" would only mean it's a windy day. But instead, the conservatives who demanded that offshore drilling be included in energy/climate legislation will almost surely drop off as public and political sentiment shifts away from that mentality but their funding continues from the big energy lobby and Tea Partiers opposed to any increase in government. And that's the real tragedy of this oil spill. A thing that should be apparent -- that our current energy use is unsustainable and necessarily dangerous to both humans and wildlife -- is lost in translation from our television or computer screens to our brain. I can only hope that the simmering anger over this disaster is directed at useful goals, namely the tightening of government oversight in the fossil fuel industry, comprehensive climate/energy legislation to invest in new forms of energy, and a rediscovering of how precious our country's natural resources are to our livelihood and psyche. If not, we might as well live in Palimerica.
The comments, the strongest to date, came after another coal-fired power plant was forced to close after it was rendered obsolete due to the continued, staggering performance of renewable energy, a lasting legacy of He Who Shall Not Be Named's Administration (2). Vice President Michelle Bachmann also released a statement, "We are faced today with a choice: tyranny or liberty. If we choose liberty, then we shall be free to take what we want from our scorched earth -- all the clean coal from our mountains, all the methane from our arctic permafrost (thanks global warming!), and all the oil from the Black Coast [formerly named the Gulf Coast]. If we choose tyranny (3), then we let the sun and wind tell us when it's time to get some energy. And that doesn't sound like the kind of country I want to live in. No, it sounds like Russia. Which was a communist country. Or, wait, a fascist country. No, wait, a republic. Shoot, I can't remember. But it was something bad, something unnamed yet unmistakable -- it was different. And therefore we shall fear it (4)."
Statements like these are only possible in this new America. After the 2020 election, walls were constructed around the Blue States and Tea Party guards were stationed at every mile, armed only with fervor, disillusionment, and a shit-ton of guns and ammo. Said one Tea Party soldier while choking back "freedom tears", "I ain't never been this proud to be a Palimerican living in PaliNation(5). I got into this whole "destroy the government to take back government only to destroy it from the inside, like a festering infection" thing a decade ago as a volunteer for Senator (now Viceroy) of Middle America, Rand Paul. He gave me the confidence to speak without thinking. He told me that my misinformed ideals and politically un-workable positions were really the best solution for this new country. I owe my life to Rand Paul and the Tea Party."
One thing is for sure, the year 2010 will echo throughout history. It was the year Americans finally realized the consequences of the energy choices they made. It was the year they realized that more drilling for a finite resource located in environmentally sensitive regions was a recipe for abuse and disaster. It was the year they realized that large corporations (banks, financial services, automobile manufacturers, oil companies, coal mining companies) must be regulated by a forceful governmental presence to prevent disaster. Because when that disaster came, we saw that it did not affect the companies. It affected ordinary Americans. And they reacted. They reacted with anger and distrust of the government, not unjustified. But instead of advocating for the stronger presence of government oversight, they argued instead for no government (6).
****
(1) "Administration" is a term with only mere symbolic meaning now, as we all know, since President Palin disbanded much of the federal government after her election win last November. She defeated Democratic nominee Rahm Emanuel and Republican John McCain, who ran on a campaign of lies and air quotes. After taking a modified oath of office (leaving only "So help me God," which was never actually in the Constitution or a law but a vestige of a tradition recited by all presidents since FDR (including He Who Shall Not Be Named [Pres. Obama] who, despite the Official Recorded History of the United States of (Palin) America which says he did not, did in fact say this line when he was sworn into office both times, in 2008 and 2012.)), the Palin-Bachmann Administration "cleaned house" by getting rid of all executive agency personnel in the largest mass firing in history. Leaving an inexperienced skeleton crew to run the now empty agencies (Rand "Accidents Happen" Paul at EPA, Rush Limbaugh as Sec'y of Health (who by virtue of his prescriptions alone accounts for 45% of the "so-called" socialized medicine intake in the country), and as an olive branch from Palin's Tea Party to McCain and his Republican(?) party, a spot as the top (well, only) civilian border security officer).
(2) After public outcry reached critical mass in the summer of 2010, President Obama and other Democratic lawmakers ushered through comprehensive energy and climate legislation. Despite harsh criticism from the traditional energy industry and conservative lawmakers, the bill ushered in a new age of energy, once again propelling the United States to an unquestioned world leadership position. Although Obama expended most political capital getting the legislation through Congress in that summer of 2010, he did go on to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bring peace to Darfur, Palestine, and the former Soviet Bloc. This was progress was lost, as we all remember, in the first few months of the Palin-Bachmann Administration when the Iranian War began and the United States severed all ties with the "Pinkie" world community. And yet, because of the strong foundation laid out in the 2010 climate legislation, renewable energy continued to thrive, buoyed by private investment and commercial success, most notably by Al Gore, who now owns much of the world's energy companies, much to the chagrin of the Administration.
(3) A less-successful initiative of the Palin Administration has been the attempt to mandate a nation-wide "Find and Replace" of "tyranny" with "Obama-y"; the initiative sputtered when First Dude Todd Palin was caught replacing "tyranny" with "boobies" on the nation's only remaining computer [yeah, we only have 1 "official" computer now in the U.S., since the internet was deemed to be the work of the devil and getting information through words has been censored and remains now only on Fox News tickers and underground blogs like this one].
(4) "And Therefore We Shall Fear It" became the Palin campaign's best-known slogan. Remember 2008 and "Yes We Can!" and "Change We Can Believe In"? Well this was like that, only 20 times bigger. Literally. Our national car, the Hummer's H2, was outfitted with bold 10 ft banners adorned with the phrase that waved from wind blocks installed on the roof to make them even less efficient. Because, in the words of another popular Palin slogan, "Hey, it's only energy!" mileage requirements became blase in the minds of many during the 2020 campaign.
(5) With apparent obliviousness as to the actual pronunciation of "Palimerican" and the predominance of white citizens of the newly created PaliNation, this unfortunate combination of words gained traction in the Irony-Free zone of the new United States.
(6) To be honest, I couldn't figure out where to take this post. On the one hand, it's a reaction to the useless, self-serving political chatter out there (ahem, Rand "Accidents Happen" Paul). On the other, it's a sense of exasperation that we're missing our chance. Our Cuyahoga River fire. Our Montgomery bus boycott. That galvanizing moment in every movement that begets change. Because this is certainly that moment. Exxon-Valdez is considered to be a significant oil spill and it was, no doubt. But there was an idea of the extent of the oil that needed to be cleaned up. It was a finite amount from one ship. The litigation is still ongoing and the Alaskan coastline is still feeling the effects, but it was somehow manageable. The Gulf spill is different. This is like an Exxon Valdez that doesn't stop. If life were a movie, Bruce Willis would be making an appearance right about now, with some insane plan to save the known world that ends up working in the end. Not top kill or top hat but Die Hard. The pictures of oil gushing out of the riser and then circulating suspended in the upper water column are like the sea birds covered in oil 20 years ago. Or the Cuyahoga River on fire (below). But I'm not seeing how the political landscape has shifted. Conventional wisdom might lead to the conclusion that a moment like this would lead for a push for renewable energy, where an energy "leak" would only mean it's a windy day. But instead, the conservatives who demanded that offshore drilling be included in energy/climate legislation will almost surely drop off as public and political sentiment shifts away from that mentality but their funding continues from the big energy lobby and Tea Partiers opposed to any increase in government. And that's the real tragedy of this oil spill. A thing that should be apparent -- that our current energy use is unsustainable and necessarily dangerous to both humans and wildlife -- is lost in translation from our television or computer screens to our brain. I can only hope that the simmering anger over this disaster is directed at useful goals, namely the tightening of government oversight in the fossil fuel industry, comprehensive climate/energy legislation to invest in new forms of energy, and a rediscovering of how precious our country's natural resources are to our livelihood and psyche. If not, we might as well live in Palimerica.
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