Saturation Point

THE DAY

I think I’ve hit a saturation point with reference to the election right now.  I can’t be any more indignant about Trump or appalled by Cruz.  As much as the news people can’t seem to get enough of these maniacs (or Clinton and Sanders, of whom I am also weary)–and I’m not clueless; I understand that all this nonsense is high drama to a news anchor–I have had enough.  There are lots of really important things going on in the world that aren’t getting the attention they deserve.  What’s more, I already know whom I’m not voting for.  If the election were held tomorrow, it couldn’t come soon enough for me.

Here’s something important going on right now: contamination of ground water by frakking.  Yeah, bet you haven’t heard boo about a multi-year study EPA’s doing on the issue (they’ve already concluded that frakking increases risks of earthquakes in parts of OK and KS to the levels of CA).  Bet you don’t even know that they’ve figured out that frakking poisoned the groundwater in a small town in Wyoming and that a large portion of Wyoming’s towns are at risk.  The wells were poorly managed, without adequate protection to shallow sources of drinking water, and furthermore, no one made the companies at fault go back and fix anything.

And do you know the most likely reasons why?

The article, which also ran as a segment on Marketplace, says it best:

Privately, scientists inside and outside the agency attribute two reasons for the retreat: data collection issues, and political pressure from the White House. The Pavillion withdrawal decision came during the 2012 election campaign, during which President Obama promoted oil and natural production as part of a proposed all-of-the-above energy policy.

Around the same time, the EPA abandoned investigations of alleged fracking contamination in two other cases — in Parker County, Texas, and Dimock, Pennsylvania.

In other words: politics.  This administration wants frakking.  I understand the reasons why; I do.  But at what cost?  When the water supply is contaminated, it’s contaminated forever.

In 2004, Pavillion resident Louis Meeks said the company Encana drilled for natural gas by his house. And his water changed.

“In our toilets and stuff, we get a yellowish brown stain in there, which never happened til they drilled this well up here,” Meeks said. “A lot of times you get in and take a shower and that fine mist will just clear your sinuses.”

Meeks and his wife decided to sell their sheep. “We were losing lambs because of this water,” he said. “Cows, too. And then our chickens. We have to give them bottled water, or they die.”

This is Flint on a decades’-long scale, maybe centuries–and no one is talking about it.  They’re focusing on the size of Trump’s hands or Ted Cruz’s mistresses.  I’m as guilty as anyone else.

But this is far more important, and it’s getting no play at all.  A federal agency is essentially killing a long-term study and data already collected and, instead, coming out with a clearly fraudulent claim that frakking poses no long-term risk.

They are playing with politics with your water.  The downside: they’ll leave office and go on with their lives and leave the rest of us their mess.  But that is the way of all politicians, isn’t it?

On another note, the 2016 YA Scavenger Hunt kicked off this afternoon.  I have to tell you that the name is most unfortunate.  It makes the thing sound like a variation of the Hunger Games: go out and hunt down some young adults.

WRITING OUT LOUD

UNTITLED SF BOOK

(Previously had 1500 in outline)
Day 1: 2400 (outline)         Day 11: 500
Day 2: 2400 (outline)        Day 12: 1600
Day 3: 2000 (outline)        Day 13: 1860
Day 4: 2000 (outline)        Day 14: 1800
Day 5: 0 (Nu, I was busy)
Day 6: 2400
Day 7: 1500
Day 8: 0 (but a lot of good
plotting and reading done)
Day 9: 1500
Day 10: 1600

Blog Post: 1080

***
What I’m Watching:
House of Cards. <sigh>  Damn journalists.
***
What I’m Reading:
I tried to read some fiction but got antsy.  (My personal trainer says I need to learn to relax and not stress so much, and I’m, like, well, I’ve had so many years of being this way that I don’t know any other way.)  So started The Nazis Next Door by Eric Lichtblau.  In some ways, it’s nothing I don’t know, and yet, in others, a really shocking reminder of just how entrenched antisemitism was and is.  The US government was busily resettling Nazi scientists and German soldiers and letting thousands upon thousands of displaced Jews languish in the same concentration camps where the Nazis had imprisoned them, and with only a little better food.  Patton hated the Jews and other DPs’ guts; thought of them as subhuman and animals.  Truman was no better.

But, you know . . . no one cared.  While it’s also true that not a lot of people knew what was going on, some did.  Certainly government officials did.  But they didn’t care and nothing happened and meanwhile, lots of ex-Nazis slipped into the States and only some of them could be said to have had skills the US government found useful.  They got to lead pretty nice lives, too, until some–and only some–got caught.

What I also find particularly irritating: when some people try to tell me that, oh, this book isn’t quite correct; or that story isn’t quite true; or, oh, there are omissions.  (What I found particularly amusing was one person who read a book that was largely based on interviews with people who’d been around at the time–and mind you, this person wasn’t even around until a decade after the rocket team made it here–and then tried to tell me that the information was inaccurate.  I’m sorry; help me out here.  What makes your point of view more accurate than the people who were, you know, actually living here?  Why should I believe you and not them?)  All that people like that are doing is trying to justify and/or massage what happened–and you know what?

I don’t care.  You guys didn’t care about learning the real story behind these people?  Fine.  Once you knew, it didn’t really faze you, doesn’t faze you now?  Okay.  You’re entitled to your opinion.  You can take comfort in your version of history.  But two can play at that game.

There’s only side of this story for me: the one where virtually all my relatives were murdered.

Don’t try to justify that to me.
***
What I’m Listening to:
The birds, today.