Fly and bottom — toxic coal

For decades, manufacturing companies like Alcoa told us that their process was safe, that workers weren't at risk when they toiled on the potline or that the clothes they wore home -- laden with asbestos dust -- would not harm their families.

And, we trusted them. Right? Of course we did! This was the 1960s and we were urged to pursue plastics and better living through chemistry. Besides, companies like Alcoa virtually kept towns like Rockdale alive.

Later, we found out that, much like many other chemicals and compounds, asbestos was deadly, that the airborne fibers would work their way into our lungs where they would never go away and, in fact, would cause some of us to die particularly gruesome deaths.

Worse, the managers at these companies knew this. They were quite aware that exposure to asbestos (or other carcinogens) had the potential for nasty side effects but, instead of warning their work force or the people who lived around their smelters, they just kept on, hoping that no one would understand or care about the research being developed, research that confirmed just how deadly asbestos really was.

Today, they are telling us that the waste left from burning the coal to make the electricity to run the smelter to refine the aluminum is safe. The stuff is full of oddball contaminants and heavy metals like beryllium and chromium and mercury and lead and selenuium. There's nothing wrong with any of that stuff, right?

Over the decades, Alcoa and TXU dumped all the fly and bottom ash they couldn't sell back into the strip mines the coal originally came from. That's how they reclaimed the acreage, and back filling was accepted land management practice for years, never mind that it merely made it more likely all those heavy metals would seep into the groundwater.

TXU acknowledges it keeps 314,400 tons of coal waste at the Sandow power plant south of Rockdale. It's a toxic brew that includes about 500 tons of heavy metals. Indeed, the Sandow power plant in Rockdale was ranked #31 of the top 100 waste producer coal plants by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2005.

Further, many researchers contend that the toxic waste from the typical coal-fired power plant is more radioactive than a typical nuclear plant because the toxins are so heavily concentrated and the waste is regarded as simple "solid waste" by regulatory agencies.

So, unlike the poor folks in Tennessee, those of us here in Milam County are not likely to experience rupturing holding ponds that might spew hundreds of thousands of gallons of stuff all over the country side. It's already in our groundwater!

But, no ... it's all perfectly safe. No reason to worry, no reason for more oversight, right?

Distance to dictatorship

The other night, my cousin and I talked about Tehran and Tiananmen and other instances of somewhat spontaneous displays of mass democratic thought. We talked about the governmental response.

Jon praised the Chinese for its patience ... I countered that one wishes the Chinese government had used water canon rather than the more destructive automatic weapons to put down the students ... he retorted that our government did the same thing, in Chicago, at Kent State ...

This morning, while sitting on my front porch, I read in the Week in Review section of my Sunday NYT this chilling composite....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/weekinreview/28savage.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=nixon%20tapes&st=cse

Nixon was a famous paranoid. Might he have been closer to suspending the Constitution than we ever suspected? How close to it might his protege, Dick Chenney, have come had our anti-Iraqi-war movement been more effective?

Letter to the Editor

Our local daily paper published a letter to the editor in reaction to the outcome of a trial of a child molester.

The piece was a screed against defense attorneys, basically consigning the profession to Dante's 9th Circle (well, assuming the author understands the allusion). I had to respond ...

Our court system is designed to find justice. That search depends on the prosecution adhering to rules of evidence to make sure that the guilty are punished and the innocent are freed. It's the duty of the defense lawyer to make sure the prosecution -- the government -- follows the rules.

We don't live in some third-world country where summary judgment is delivered at the end of a noose simply because someone is accused of a heinous crime. Nor is this the dark ages when a despot ruler could imprison or execute someone for no reason. We live in a country of laws. Under our system of justice, everyone is entitled to a vigorous and competent defense. Everyone. How else can justice be served?

By all accounts, Mr. Jacobsen's defense attorney did exactly what he was supposed to do ... and Mr. Jacobsen got exactly what he deserved.

Medicare for all. Everybody in. Nobody out.

New Star Trek rocks

Okay, I gotta say this. Just for the record.

The new Star Trek film rocks. Absolutely.

I say this as a true fan. Fanboy. What. Ever. I'm such a true fan I spent the better part of the summer of 1970 with my ears taped into points. My daughter is even more of a Star Trek nerd than I am (if that's even possible), so much that she's maintained a crush on Jean Luc Picard for more than 20 years and still thinks he's the sexiest man alive.

We saw the new film together so as not to overwhelm our loved ones with our nitpicking.

Yes, Abrams & Co. took extreme liberties with canon, but so did the former caretakers. At least Abrams was reverential. Those other guys screwed it up simply because they could and for no other apparent reason.

Are there problems? Well, from a truefan's perspective, sure. It's not perfect. Plenty of nits to pick, if you've a mind to. However, it was the first time in a long, long time I've gone to a Star Trek film and didn't flinch several times throughout.

In fact, I haven't had so much fun watching a Star Trek film since "Wrath of Khan." Really.

Anyone who thinks that the film is unwatchable, for whatever reason, needs to get a life. Hell, Nimoy even blessed the thing ... what more do you want?!

Go boldly, my friend. Go boldly.

The decline of Chrysler and the GOP

My Dad drove a Chrysler whenever he could. He was also a Republican — and damned proud of it — back when it wasn't cool to be a Republican in Texas.

Those two character traits have left me with a certain cognitive dissonance. How would he have reacted to what's going on right now? Two of his life's most important — possibly even iconic — brands are on the brink of oblivion.

Dad didn't always drive a Chrysler product, and he wasn't a straight-ticket Republican, either. But he learned about Chryslers and Republicans at his parent's kitchen table. Chrysler New Yorkers and Pylmouth Furys (and, in later years, even the occasional Colt, Neon, or, in Dad's case, Sebrings) dominated the driveways of our family gatherings.

That's not to say there wasn't the occasional Ford or Chevy around — I drove Volkswagens of various stripes throughout most of my formative years — but, in my family, there was always something magical and desirable about Chryslers.

Maybe it was the pushbutton transmission, or the futuristic look, imbued with the promise of finned rocket ships and personal jet packs and blasters, only a 1950s Chrysler could attain.

If we thought about it at all (I can't speak for my cousins but, truthfully, my brothers and I didn't think about it, not very often) we all thought Chryslers were cool and all those other cars were what you drove if you couldn't drive a Chrysler.

No, Mr. Buick, we'd really rather drive a Chrysler, thank you very much.

Politically, well, Dad felt betrayed by Richard Nixon. He supported the man to the bitter end. I don't know how his brothers regarded Nixon but it would not surprise me if they were solid Nixon Republicans because, in 1969 — which is where my brain goes when I consider my Dad's politics — everyone over 30 supported Nixon, right? Right?

To be fair, I'm not precisely sure my Uncle David completely supported Nixon. His son, Jon, is decidedly left-of-center — you might even call him militantly liberal — and they say the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. But the rest of the family ... well, they were, and still are, pretty conservative.

In fact, Dad's oldest brother's family attained the Bush campaign rank of Pioneer — or was it Ranger? Jon's sisters — two of 'em, anyway — tend to hold right-of-center opinions and my younger brother remains a proud ditto-head to this day. Staunchly conservative, all of 'em.

Dad was proud to be a Republican. He was as proud to represent Republicans from Bell County to the state convention, back when there were maybe 125 Republicans in Texas, as he was of his 1969 Plymouth Fury III powered by the fabled 457 Police Interceptor, the one my Mom called an old lady car because it was metallic blue and only old ladies drove cars that color.

Still, Ronald Reagan knocked the luster of the Republican shine for Dad when Reagan co-opted social conservatives in order to assure the defeat of Jimmy Carter. For the first time in his life, Dad broke with the Party. He couldn't bring himself to vote for a Democrat, despite the fact that he sorta liked Carter, a fellow preacher, so he voted for John Anderson.

Further, Dad was anything but sold on Bush II's so-called compassionate conservatism and preemptive war, though you will find few who hurt more for the victims of 9/11 or who was more of a patriot. Still, as a scholar of the Establishment Clause, Dad was quite disturbed when everyone sang patriotic songs in church the Sunday following 9/11. And he was the preacher; he selected those hymns.

That, combined with his up-close-and-personal experience with America's medical care delivery system, soured him on Republicans and prompted him to look hard at nationalized health care. In fact, before he died, Dad said if he had to be pigeon-holed, he would say he was a Conservative Socialist, whatever that is.

Today, only 21 percent of Americans describe themselves as Republicans and the venerable Chrysler Motor Company hangs by a slender, frayed thread. The car company might not last the summer and, unless some prophetic leader emerges soon to lead it from the wilderness, the GOP may disappear, at least as a national party, by the next presidential election.

I can't help but think that Dad would be very put out with the Republican's purge of political purity and profoundly disappointed with the implosion of a once-proud US manufacturer.

And, even though I never cared for Chryslers (ironically, I drive a Buick) and seldom ever vote Republican, I, too, am saddened.

(Cross-posted at http://open.salon.com/blog/richard2456)