Great God Pan

In a country happily wrapped up like a Quizno's sammy in the sacred dyad of current events— American Idol and the upcoming. . . "election"—we know how hard it can be to know how we're supposed to feel about all this important stuff. While Hillary and Obama brashly plow through campaign budgets that would feed the third world for a decade, millions of Americans actually plan their post-week-behind/in front of a cash register-schedules around a manufactured reality show—a show so distressful that an otherwise tragic event like McCain winning and bringing back the draft might actually "save" the youth of America from a slow death from dopey purposelessness. Anyhow, we thought we'd pass on this observance from Prof. Peter Phillips of Sonoma State.

"Will November 2008 bring a meaningful change to America? Will getting rid of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney without impeachment or indictment really make a difference? Will a 600 billion dollar war/defense budget be cut in half and used for desperately needed domestic spending? Will the ninety-three billion dollars profits in the private health insurance companies —those parasitic intermediates between you and your doctor—be used instead for full health care coverage for all? Will Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus be restored to the people? Will torture stop and the US withdraw from Iraq immediately? Will all students in public universities be able to enroll for free? Will the US national security agencies stop mass spying on our personal communications? Will the neo-conservative agenda of total military domination of the world be reversed?

The answer to these questions in the context of the current billion dollar presidential campaign is an absolute no. Instead we have a campaign of personalities and platitudes. There is a race candidate, a gender candidate and a tortured veteran candidate, each talking about change in America, national security, freedom, and the American way. The candidates are running with support of political parties so deeply embedded with the military industrial complex, the health insurance companies, Wall Street, and corporate media that it is undeterminable where the board rooms separate from the state rooms.

The 2008 presidential race is a media entertainment spectacle with props, gossip, accusations, and public relations. It is impression management from a candidates’ perspective. How can we fool the most people into believing that we stand for something? It is billions of dollars of gravy for the media folks and continued profit maximunization for the war machine, Wall Street, and insurance companies no matter who is determined the winner in November."

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored.

Posted by Erik at 07:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last year Mammoth Lakes police officer Sergeant Paul Dostie took his human remains detection dog Buster up to the Barker Ranch above the Panamint Valley where Charles Manson and his cohorts were captured in 1969. The dog honed in on two sites where Dostie claims there's a possibility of human remains being buried. Whose remains? According to forty-year-old hearsay and other dubious sources, there were at least two individuals who visited Barker Ranch and disappeared. "One was a girl who wasn’t really fitting in at the Ranch, and was taken for a walk by Manson and Tex [Watson]. According to the stories, she allegedly never came back. The second story is of a boy who was backpacking the length of Death Valley and stopped at the Barker Ranch for a few nights. The boy disappeared, but left all his gear behind. When one family member asked Clem Grogan, another family member, where the boy was, Clem is reported to have said, 'He got homesick.'" Other than stank, so far no remains have turned up.

The current interest in uncovering a secret high desert sepulcher actually started in 1998 when self-proclaimed Family hanger-on Larry "White Rabbit" Melton led Inyo County Sherriffs on a treasure hunt for a victim he saw murdered and buried just outside the kitchen window of the dilapidated ranch house back in the Family's glory days. No body was ever found and Melton later claimed he "purposefully misled" the searchers.

Last year however, the fuzz was better prepared. Aiding Buster in his search were four other Historic Grave Detection dogs. Even the media got involved. TV crews from the Discovery Channel with nothing better to discover, drove up from Hollywood to film the hunt. They plan to air it as an episode of their "Most Evil" series. Presumably the other episodes will deal with such other notorious bad guys as the Hillside Strangler, Donald Trump, and Dick Cheney.

Dostie's pretty sure there’s something down there. Buster’s a pro. He’s been cramming for years on the specifics of human remains detection, using human placentas as well as human bones as learning aids. "The surgeons at Mammoth Hospital have been very helpful, and patients sign release forms so that he can receive the femur heads from total hip replacements to train Buster," explained Dostie to the Mammoth Times. Buster's sense of smell is so refined that he can pick up on the remains of a carcass several hundred years old, which unfortunately for this investigation means that what Buster's so fired up about could just as likely be a dead Indian as a dead hippy.

Posted by Erik at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sorry to do this here, but this whole business sucks. My brother and I spent a lot of years exploring in this area of the country and trust me, it's too good to let a bunch of corporations get rich on digging it up.

The BLM's Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft PEIS is a plan for environmental devastation on a huge scale. Alternative B, the BLM's "Preferred Alternative" in the PEIS, would amend 12 existing BLM land use plans to open almost 2 million acres of public lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming for commercial leasing, exploration, and development of fossil fuels. This includes pristine wildlands and watersheds adjacent to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, other national parks, and wilderness areas, and vast, unspoiled expanses of the Colorado River watershed.

Oil shale and tar sands development is being marketed by the Bush administration as a way to help provide energy security for the U.S. In reality, there has not been adequate research to show the full environmental, economic, and social impacts of this technology. There is no doubt that the proposed development would cause massive, irreversible environmental damage - scarring the landscape with mines, roads, pipelines, and power lines; releasing toxic pollution; consuming enormous amounts of scarce water; requiring ten new coal-fired power plants to provide needed power; endangering the health of local communities; and spewing out greenhouse gases that add to climate change impacts.

This BLM plan will set the baseline against which all future oil shale and tar sands development will be assessed. Unfortunately, the plan completely fails to provide a thorough and scientifically credible basis for action. As a result, the BLM's "Preferred Alternative" B is fatally flawed and must be rejected.

"NO ACTION": THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE

Glen Canyon Institute believes that our government should be promoting energy conservation and sustainable energy production - such as solar and wind - to increase energy independence and fight global climate change. We believe that before any development can be approved, all impacts to watersheds that flow into the Colorado River system must be thoroughly analyzed and mitigated. The BLM's plan falls far short of meeting the minimum level of assessment required for adequate decision-making. Alternative B, the BLM's "Preferred" Alternative," would sacrifice our public lands to develop dirty fossil fuel that will worsen climate change. This is totally unacceptable. The only responsible choice is Alternative A, the "No Action" alternative.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Glen Canyon Institute urges you to send your comments on the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft PEIS. They do not need to be detailed. The most important thing is to tell the BLM that you oppose the "Preferred Alternative" B and support the "No Action" alternative A. You can use the sample letter below or write your own letter. If possible, use personal examples from your experiences visiting the areas proposed for development in eastern Utah, western Colorado, and southwestern Wyoming.

Act now - all comments must be received by March 20, 2008!

To submit comments, you can:

· Use the BL M Oil Shale and Tar Sands PEIS public comment form or

· Mail your comments to:

Sherry Thompson, Project Manager
BLM Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic EIS
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne IL 60439

SAMPLE COMMENT LETTER

Sherry Thompson, Project Manager
BLM Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic EIS
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne IL 60439

Dear Ms. Thompson,

I am writing to comment on the Bureau of Land Management's Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic EIS. I strongly oppose Alternative B, the "Preferred Alternative" and support Alternative A, the "No Action" alternative in the PEIS.

It is clear that the "Preferred Alternative" B is almost certain to cause massive, irreversible damage to large areas of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. This includes devastating the land and water, endangering wildlife and their habitats, harming the people in local communities, and generating massive greenhouse gas pollution that would add to global climate change. Moreover, the BLM admits that more research is needed before we know the true impacts of the technology or if it is even commercially feasible.

At a time when we need to be moving away from fossil fuels and the damage they cause, this proposal would continue our dependence on them. The PEIS fails to adequately address any of these issues, or to consider a reasonable range of alternatives, including the potential for increased energy conservation and efficiency. This is contrary to agency regulations and the law.

[OPTIONAL: IF YOU HAVE PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE AFFECTED REGION, YOU CAN STRENGTHEN YOUR LETTER BY TALKING ABOUT PLACES YOU HAVE VISITED, HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE TO YOU, AND HOW THIS DEVELOPMENT WOULD HARM THEM.]

I urge the BLM to choose the "No Action" alternative A, and to halt efforts to develop oil shale and tar sands on public lands. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic EIS.

Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]

***************************

Thank you for taking action to protect Glen Canyon, the Colorado River, and southern Utah wildlands!

Best regards,
Amy Collins
Glen Canyon Institute
1520 Sunnydale Lane
Salt Lake City, UT 84108
Phone: 801 363-4450
Fax: 801 363-4451

email: info@glencanyon.org
phone: 801.363.4450
web: http://www.glencanyon.org

Posted by Erik at 04:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)