A City Washed Away

I post this video because it better displays the power and devastation Japan was up against than any other video of the disaster I have seen. It just makes you want to help. I assume the person taking the video is on top of a building. I am amazed it doesn't collapse. The building across the parking lot remains standing. Also incredible. But everything else is washed away. The power is jaw dropping. The consequences are heartbreaking.

What I'm Reading - Sunday NY Times

A couple good reads from last week's Sunday NY Times. First, The Ahab Parallax, by Randy Kennedy, compares our quest for oil, and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf, through the increasingly prescient Moby Dick to the hunt for whales many years ago. Money quote:

One of the great underlying themes of "Moby Dick," Mr. Delbanco observed, "is that people ashore don't want to know about the ugly things that go on at sea.

"We want our comforts but we don't want to know too much about where they come from or what makes them possible." He added: "The oil spill in the gulf is a horror, but how many Americans are ready to pay more for oil or for making the public investment required to develop alternative energy? I suspect it's a question that Melville would be asking us now."

And second, the Thomas Friedman column, "This Time Is Different," which is also about the impacts of the oil spill and the guilty party, us. This is worth a read.

BP Boycott Ineffective

Let me preface, I don't regularly visit any BP stations in Oak Creek or the Milwaukee area. I am not a regular BP customer who is now boycotting the company. I am a one-in-fifty-fill-ups-at-BP customer.

That said...

I did a little more research about a BP boycott and I found a lot of articles like this one, which essentially say, a BP boycott would be ineffective and it would only hurt the station's owners and not affect BP all that much. Which is to say, a boycott would be detrimental to BP's bottom line, but you are going to have collateral damage. That damage in this case would be station owners and employees. It makes me feel bad about wanting to boycott BP and I start feeling like I am contributing to a station shutting down possibly and people losing their jobs. But do I have an obligation to give a gas station, which is in contract with BP, any of my business? The name of BP and their logo will always be associated with the spill in the gulf and I am not going to pull into a station which is in contract with them, even one time out of fifty.

Bachelor Party Backpacking Pics

Seven of us hiked up the Greyrock trail on Wednesday, May 26, 2010. We spent the night under the stars/clouds. The weather held after a rainy morning. It was a beautiful start to a long weekend of celebration leading up to Erik and Brianne's wedding. Above: Chris, Erik and Ryan during a water break on the way up.

The man of the hour/day/week, Erik Haagenson with beard, before he would, quote, "GQ it up a bit" before the wedding.

A lookout on the way up.

After we arrived at the campsite, we needed to find firewood. We set off to gather some up by any means possible. Hands, feet, medium-sized boulders, leverage and Kyle's hatchet. This hatchet probably wasn't the hatchet Gary Paulsen had in mind, nor were we the handlers of the hatchet that Paulsen likely imagined. We are large, fit, barrel-chested men, not scrawny, stranded boys. This hatchet could only last so long. Fittingly, Erik was the man using the hatchet when it broke, but it could have been any of us. Above: Matt uses the pathetic head of the hatchet to unsuccessfully split some firewood. Stem of broken hatchet seen in foreground. Broken. Useless. And, I think, plastic. That could have been the problem.

I probably got the best shot of all the group of Fort Collins, pictured above, just beyond the lowly, sunlit foothill. I did have the most powerful camera and the biggest lens. The guys were impressed when I turned my camera off and the lens automatically retracted into the body of the camera. It was a very powerful moment.

Erik and co-best man, Chris, pose near the eastern summit.

I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but I do. Above: Chris and Erik stare contemplatively at the horizon, making for a damn fine picture. When I look at this, I see their adventurous spirit, I feel our bond and I think of their history of climbing, camping and mountaineering together and the reverence they have for God's majestic creation. There isn't much else to capture.

Erik and I, trying to gameface.

Our campsite, just at the top of this pond, was picture perfect, flat, with pre-formed fire pit and accessible water. Chris can be seen climbing down from the rock outcropping in the lower-right corner of the shot.

Nearing sunset, taken from the eastern summit. This is my desktop background right now and it is destined to be blown up and on a wall soon.

Collecting firewood. Chris and Erik with a prized catch, a piece of wood which probably burnt up in five minutes later that evening.

The aforementioned hatchet buried in wood after throwing many a small to medium-sized boulder at it. No one will free this hatchet.

Facing west from the summit of Greyrock.

Wes facing westward.

Ryan and Chris with his significantly weaker camera.

Ryan, taking in the view, and Erik, thinking about being a runaway groom.

Ryan, still taking in the view, and Erik, with a reversal of mood, deciding to now go through with it and seeing the beauty in it all.

Chris proudly exhibiting his fascination with man, especially hairy-chested, New Belgium Ranger IPA-drinking man.

The morning after. I was first to wake. I felt very old and thus sat by the burned out campfire thinking about the other times I have felt much older than this group of friends while they slept on.

Sarge. He joined us for the trip. He's awesome, massive and a great hiker.

Our last stop before heading down to Fort Collins was our traditional cliff-jumping spot. Only three people jumped. Above: Erik jumps and begins his rotation for the gainer that he successfully and safely completed before plunging into the snowmelt.

Matt takes a leap into the frigid Poudre River, ending the festivities in the mountains.

Endorsing Alterra

Every once in a while the Burnside Writers will endorse something on their blog. You can check out their blog here. I always liked the idea. Endorsing something is to say you like something, but it sounds so formal and gives a false sense of influence to the blogger. I need that. So, I'll be endorsing something today. 

Six Hours on Sunday endorses Alterra Coffee Roasters. Alterra is a local coffee shop with several locations throughout Milwaukee and the suburbs. It started in 1993 and is native to the Milwaukee area. Their focus: strong coffee. But strong takes on several meanings at Alterra. Of course their product is strong, all beans roasted in Milwaukee (on site, depending on what cafe you go to), but the coffee is also strong environmentally and within the Milwaukee community. 

Alterra, just like a favorite brewer back home, is wind-powered. They also use corn-based plastics for utensils and cups that can dissolve in as little as 45 days in a landfill. I haven't been to all Alterra locations, but as far as I know they have not built their own, stand alone building like a Starbucks or McDonalds. They move into existing locations, some of them old, and renovate with an intention of using recycled materials from the original use of the building. 

Kate and I were sitting at an Alterra yesterday when I thought of New Belgium Brewing. If Alterra was in Fort Collins, if New Belgium was in Milwaukee, the companies would complement each other perfectly. Beer drinkers need coffee in the morning. Coffee drinkers like a good beer in the evening. It would be quite a match, but for now, one that only exists in an imaginary city that has within it all my favorite companies, ideas and people. 

I am in the process of defining that city with this new series. More endorsements to come.

A Greener Apple

I finally upgraded my phone a couple of weeks ago and like many of you, I can't throw my phone in the trash. It takes eons to decompose and is built of some toxic materials. It will probably be shipped to Africa and burned in huge piles of electronic waste. Click here for an article on that. That's not cool, so, what do you do? Well, regardless of what kind of phone you have, Apple will recycle it for you. For free. Go to this website. Fill out the form. Print the postage. Tape or glue it to the envelope or box you are shipping your phone in. Drop it off at the post office. Done. What's that? You have a bin of old cell phones and iPods. No worries. You can ship a whole box of them at once.

There Will Be Blood

Out of all the Oscar nominated films I hadn’t seen by Oscar night, I wanted to see There Will Be Blood the most. I remembered scenes from the movie for days just because I had seen the movie trailer. Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance was also a point of curiosity for me. On every channel that did a story on the movie, or during any awards show, you could see a clip of Day-Lewis’ yelling “I’ve abandoned my child. I’ve abandoned my child.” I needed to know the story behind that intense scene so I took my only friend in Milwaukee to see the movie. Thanks, Kate.

From the first moments of the film when Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) is dangerously working by himself digging for oil, to the last words of There Will Be Blood—I’m finished—the film is a sinister and foreboding look into the greed of men, specifically one man, Plainview. For him, there is only money and what he has to do to acquire that money—anything. There are no friends, no boundaries, and, ultimately, no loyalties. The filmmakers establish this ominous mood right away with an eerily screeching soundtrack. Making those in the audience wait over twenty minutes for the first word of dialogue drills the point home that Plainview, and his brethren, don’t waste words.

The first half-hour of the movie tested Kate’s patience. She was ready to leave me in the theater and slip into the new McConaughey/Hudson joint, Fool’s Gold, but I told her to be patient and “hold out a little longer. I think you’ll like this one.” She had to hold out for 2 hours and 38 minutes, but she did warm to the movie and left the theater comparing its goodness to that of No Country For Old Men.

It is a funny thing about the scene where Daniel Plainview yells “I’ve abandoned my child.” All the previews and clips of that scene made it look like the most serious and dramatic moment. Actually, that scene was full of irony and humor. It drew more than a few laughs from the audience. In this scene, Plainview is being baptized by a young, charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (played by Paul Dano). Sunday makes him confess his sins in front of the congregation. Hesitant at first, Plainview really gets into the baptism and starts yelling, breathing hard, and shaking his head. For Plainview, the baptism is a rite of passage he must endure in order to be allowed to build an oil pipeline across a church member’s land. Plainview is, for once, subjecting himself to something he doesn’t like and doesn’t believe in, in order to make millions of dollars from his pipeline to the coast of California. Day-Lewis does an amazing job of being enthusiastic about the baptism. His fervor patronizes the audience, but they embrace him as a brother and a new member of the church after Plainview rises because they believe Plainview’s confession is genuine.

There Will Be Blood does not lift one’s spirits. Much like No Country, this film ends on a down note and resignation. If Plainview’s destructive path through life doesn’t make you mourn for him or everyone in his way, then you have only to think about the oil industry today. I think this is where There Will Be Blood is most applicable to the times. Although I don’t think there are such crazy people as Plainview in the modern oil industry (there could be, you never know), the oil and the promise of wealth are still there and it is troubling to know that oil executives are consumed by, much to the same degree, the greed that consumes Plainview. Like Plainview, I don’t suspect any oil company to relinquish their drive for wealth until every last drop of oil is drilled. In doing so, the companies will push their interests in all other forms of politics and economic development in order to suffocate renewable energy research, alternative sources of energy, and environmental concern. They will do this because they only care about maximizing profits and building up walls of security and lavish wealth. Sort of on the flip side of all this, I couldn't help thinking about how I am making these people richer and richer when I get into my car to use $105-a-barrel oil.

Plainview got his profits, built his mansion, and showed off his wealth, but is a drunk and lonely man when the movie ends. To the bitter end he stamps out everyone in his life that seeks to change him, leaving the last victim bloodied on a bowling alley. Because real life often isn’t a storybook ending, this movie is worth seeing because it is no fairy tale.

An Inconvenient Truth

I ended up liking the movie, but Al Gore’s voice and humor ran a little long for me. He thinks he is a comedian at times, but I didn't know if he would bust jokes during this movie besides the now infamous, “I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States.”

The jokes do continue, at least into the seventh minute. There are some jokes after that, they just aren't good.

I believe in global warming. It is tragic. There is no doubt about that. I appreciate what Al Gore is doing. His presentation is, surprisingly, somewhat entertaining and only at times all about Al.

His presentation on the increasing strength of hurricanes is essential, but his focus on Hurricane Katrina is a bit lopsided. The reason Katrina was so destructive, at least to New Orleans, was due to the Big Easy’s spectacularly crappy hurricane defenses. Katrina was not nearly as strong as Hurricane Dean. In August of 2005, when Katrina came ashore, New Orleans didn’t even have protection against a 100-year storm, protection which is now being built, but it won’t come close to Amsterdam’s protection against a 10,000-year-storm. True story. That’s impressive.

Gore’s bit of the slideshow when he talks about an ice shelf in Antarctica and ice in Greenland that if melted would raise the sea level by twenty feet is frightening.

An Inconvenient Truth isn’t the “sudden jolt” Gore talks about us needing before we commit whole heartedly to saving the environment. I wish it was, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. Unfortunately, Hollywood has raised most of the country. We only seem to be awakened to action by catastrophes. The catastrophe of global warming doesn’t move fast enough to scare a huge portion of the population into action. It should. It hasn't yet, and that is what scares me the most.

Gore leaves it at this: there is hope. We have the capacity to reduce our carbon emissions; it is the political will of the United States that needs to change. He points out that when that will has changed in the past the United States has done some awesome things. He hopes that the change happens before it is too late. I can agree with that.

Watch the movie. Check the site. Turn your computer off at night. Do something.

www.climatecrisis.net