Ken SchreinerGay Sheep, Divine Strake, Bad Air and Todd Rundgren
Unlocking the secrets of the Zeitgeist is hazardous for the untrained humanist. But this one was easy. The controversial experiment on “gay sheep” is a firestorm that, of course, was started by bloggers and was eventually picked up by corporate media. As NYT discovered, the reality of the story is less interesting than what it says about human perceptions of reality, and how our prejudices prevent us from knowing real truth and taking corrective action. Similarly, the outrage over Divine Strake and lack of outrage over our air crisis is indicative of how our biases prevent us from learning and improving. Governor Huntsman and hundreds of others spoke out Wednesday at a special hearing on the proposed Divine Strake explosives test in Nevada. Their concerns are legitimate: loved ones dying of radiation-related illnesses, military and government officials lying, and the prospect of escalating tests up to and including nuclear weapons. But should we be more worried about Divine Strake than our air problem? How come hundreds of people don’t get together to talk and take action against conditions arguably more likely to kill us and ruin our loved ones’ lives? Because WE ARE ALL PART OF THE AIR PROBLEM but EXPECT OTHERS TO CONTROL THEMSELVES while we are UNWILLING TO CONTROL OURSELVES. Why? Because of our bias and prejudice toward ourselves and our perception that what “I” want individually is more important than anything: our families, our community, our planet- and ironically, even our own health. That’s why we’re getting fatter, sicker and stupider: we eat everything we want, expect someone else to heal us and can’t find the time to learn how to save ourselves. As long as Utahns- rugged, classic American individualists that we are- continue to drive without conscience and restraint, and refuse to take positive, immediate, personal action to curb our air problem, we lack the moral authority to tell or expect anyone else, including the military, oil and power companies, to do the same. Todd Rundgren asked “How can I change the world if I can’t change myself?” Given the lack of resolution of this moral dilemma, Divine Strake should not only be allowed to proceed. Perhaps it should be relocated to clear ground for the new Real Stadium in Sandy or the new landfill they’ll need to service Daybreak. At least we’d have the perception we’re getting something out if it.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Cuz everyone is driving, or burnin wood, and they might have to have a moment of introspection.
I have posted on this blog that is you want clean air you have to be upwind, or near the cleansing effect of the oceans. Don’t expect Americans to change. The average auto in SLC is a SUV, minimum 6 cylinder, and if it is a 4, it a is some high performance yupster mobile, that sucks gas in exchange for performance. They all weigh minimum 3000 lbs, for safety, so when a 6000 lbs truck hits you, you might live. It is more important that their overfed selves be safe to continue the behavior, even if it means risking other peoples lives on the road, or in the middle east to achieve it.
I agree whole heartedly with you Ken, Utah should become Americas’ DUMP!
Rugged classic individualism? One of the lowest median incomes(though rising) and the peculiar consistency of living off Federal funds as a no load State. Let’s make Utah earn its welfare. Welfare to work, what better than a dump, chemical dump, nuke dump, illegal alien human garbage dump, those to be exploited by the rugged classic utah individual.
Why should most in Utah care? Are not they advised by their savior to forsake this life for the kingdom come? Is what happens here not relevant as long as one retains faith that God can make all things new again?
Ken you are from U Mass? You are just going to love Utah. Get a helmet, banging your head against the wall gets tiresome without it. It is beautiful, but beneath the veneer is something else. What do we say in Vermont? Can’t eat the scenery.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I’m going to address the lack of outrage over bad air in Utah.
Here’s my personal, highly subjective measure of air quality. When carbon monoxide (CO) levels get bad, I always get a persistent headache that feels like it’s in the back of my head. I haven’t had it yet this year. Going to the data at the Utah Air Monitoring Center, the CO trend from 1993-2005 has been good for those of us breathing the air along the Wasatch Front.
According to the Utah Division of Air Quality, “In 1990, Davis, Salt Lake and Utah Counties failed to attain the federal health standards for ozone, particles, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide. However, no standards have been violated anywhere in Utah since 1993.”
True, the federal standards aren’t yet good enough to keep me from getting my carbon monoxide headache (I have testified in favor of stricter standards at a couple of air quality hearings). And not having a splitting headache doesn’t mean the air is good, either. But I have can contain my outrage because the air has gotten better in the Salt Lake Valley since I’ve been living here. Of course, with another week of high pressure my head might explode– and then you can ask me again.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:18 am
I missed the gay sheep brohaha. Very amusing. No one mentioned that penning up sheep, and protecting them from natural predators, giving them veterinarian chemicals just might have some implications in how domesticated sheep evolve.
For the record last time I checked sheep can’t clone themselves, so what is nature to imply by bearing us a gay domesticated sheep? In the natural world it could mean that such an animal is useless as a genetic copy, and many other better, perhaps, virile males exist to propagate the species, so nature is winnowing those sheep form the gene pool by making them gay. They can be members of the heard, for the term of their life, but they have no shlegacy. It is an unnatural situation anyway being bred for wool and meat, a fact that has implications as to the why perhaps of the increase of “metrosexuals”.
So being gay can be cured by hormones. Who doubted that after seeing shemales, and men that have sex change operations? Or Mantina, hormone pumper. You have to want to change your orientation to take hormones, and that I believe, is a matter of choice so far.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I love this stuff. Thanks for the comments!
Gunther, I’m not a UMass grad. I was named to their list of “Media Giraffes” by the journalism department. I’m originally from suburban Chicago, lived in (in order) Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, Massachusetts, Utah.
Richard: I lived in Denver in the 1980s when the air was so bad your eyes would water. I visited friends in LA in the 1990s who had developed smokers’ coughs (they didn’t smoke) and laugh lines from squinting. We all know the government lies about the impact of air pollution because as masters of propaganda, they understand the value of public perceptions and prejudices. The government says it’s OK, so it must be. Right?
Glenn: In a word- exactly. The application/absurdity of the experiment aside, the absurdity of the arguments over it are even funnier.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I wan’t to respectfully disagree with Glenn and any others who would have Utah become a DUMP or again become downwind from a surge in Nuke or other tests.
First; These temperature inversions are a natural phenominon, and if one occurs on, say a Sunday morning, there’s nothing like it. A clean, dense, wonderful FOG, of the natural sort, that truly resembles old Lake Bonneville from the foothills, complete with lapping waves and currents at the canyon mouths. It is the addition of all our effluence that spoils it. So, if and when the OIL runs out or we evolve past the overuse thereof, these clean, natural, beautiful inversions will again be there for our stunning enjoyment. That is, if we do evolve in this way AND, if we can deter the entrance of greater and greater quantities of waste and fallout to our environs. Damaging even the longer term
Sure blame the people who can’t pull thier heads out, but don’t suggest that we all be punished. It’s only been something like one hundred years that this shit’s been doing on. I think we can turn it around or at least die trying.
NO DUMP, NO DIVINE STRAKE (or nuke take-offs), and CLEAN-UP-OUR ACT
January 25th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
On TV and other corporate media, the villain for the bad air is always the “inversion,” in other words, Nature not us. This is part lazy journalism, part Cartesian dualism-Christian dominionism. Nature has been demonized to the point of near extinction and it will take a major shift in human thinking (read Bill McKibben) to get us to face up to our responsibilities for our problems. We’re not doing it with the environment. And if we keep supporting stupid wars, we’re going to keep getting Divine Strakes. We have to make choices. We can’t have it all.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Regarding Times article linked above about gay rams, the statement, “8 percent of rams seek sex exclusively with other rams instead of ewes”, misses a greater point by omission.
The other 92% of rams aren’t strictly heterosexual, but as observation shows, “go both ways.”
The point being, sexuality across the animal kingdom is as diverse as diverse can be. (btw: Homo Sapiens included)
This fun, readable article is the best I have ever seen on the subject.
January 25th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Better get some more political power, the garbage can has to be somewhere,… are you an advocate of sending our nations waste to a hapless 3rd world nation after we pay off some dictator? I’m speaking hyperbolically Caveat, but the question remains WHERE?
The first place considered was the existing storage facility at Hanford, Washington. 20 miles from the Columbia River on sedimentary substrate. Geologically a stupid place. The Tri cities area is very Federal with many military families. The choice was made for political expediency by the people that had waste to store. I worked for Washpirg and collected money from Seattleites, they opened their checkbooks big, it was a commission job, and it worked out well. We stopped the expansion.
Next target, Nevada. The people ponied the money, got involved, stopped it dead in its tracks. Money stopped it, bad for tourism.
Now on to Utah. What is to stop it?, Nice and dry out in the Sevier desert, nobody around, nobody has any money, and the education level is lower in general. The political, geological, and money conditions are all well met in Utah. You are the logical target. Small population helps, no state with big numbers is a possible political choice.
There is also the service to country element that is strong in Utah. If I had waste to store, I would exploit this. If we can get Utahans to send their kids overseas on fuzzy logic and lies to be blown up, we can certainly build a massive gigantica dump in Utah also, under the same premises. Utah also has the problem of being a no load state. Money stops things, just check out the rich lady that bought the lift up the Moab Rim, and then disassembled it, forever.
Next topic.
Sexuality in Darwinian terms is irrelevant if you are not a breeding animal, we can imagine that those not allowed to breed have to find something to do with sexual energy. They may not be gay, but just confused and horny. If you mess with females in a harem that isn ‘t yours, you are likely going to get your butt kicked, until you can kick the kings butt. For some this is never a possibility. The head male isn’t going to care if you bugger the other male drones hanging around, in fact, it might be of amusement for him.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
It’s easier to stop something like Divine Strake when you are only fighting one entity — it’s a lot harder to fight hundreds of thousands of people about driving.
This is something that has been bothering me for sometime.
Here’s the dilemma for me, as a greenie — I walk to work at least once and sometimes twice per week. When the air gets this bad, I worry about breathing in all the crap, and as we know people are especially warned from exercising in this bad air. So I walk far less when the inversion gets this bad in an attempt to prevent health problems. I also want to spend a lot less time outside with my kids because the risks are so much greater for them.
I have contemplated buying and wearing a face mask on bad days as much as to save myself from health problems as to make a political statement about the problem which I haven’t done yet. Maybe we could organize a feace mask campaign — but I’m a bit cynical that all the Hummer and mega-SUV drivers in this valley are too selfish to give a rat’s ass . . . still, it’s worth a try — want to try to organize something?
Don’t know if you saw the Opinion sectin of the Trib this past Sunday, but there was an interesting piece by an anesthesiologist about the health toll our bad is taking on EVERYONE, but especially children. It’s estimated that all of us lose three years off our lifespans by our bad air the SL Valley.
I remember back in the early 90s, like 1990, ‘91, ‘92 how in the winter while I waited at the bus stop I’d get a funny taste in my mouth which tasted similar to the chemically taste I’d get in my mouth when I’d print up photos in a dark room (back in ancient times) I don’t get that so much any more, might be due to MagCorp aka US Magnesium cleaning up their operations . . .
January 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
In regards to the Dumping on Utah, it may be inevitable for all the reasons you note. I believe that it should not go down without a fight however. All the radioactive waste should be linked to activity at the test site, to the war and our bogus need for the oil, to global warming and to the potential that so many who would gladly bend thier energies toward growing an economy where there was less waste, fewer arms and wmd, more international cooperation and simpler lives all around.
Face it, so much of what we think is essential is fluff, sold to us by profit hungry people. That’s all that needs to change. Link everything, big and small, far and near. See if there isn’t a recipe somewhere for a whole rewrite of our ‘culture’ of greed and corruption.
January 25th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Maybe you can fill in the copper mine with waste, it’s wrecked and toxic anyway. Too close to town…huh? Sevier desert, out Hwy 50 direction. It all has to go somewhere, even if we stop making more, there are piles waiting to be dumped all over the country.
Our situation is like triage now, the messes so large, they have a life of their own, we must choose, it is one big experiment, with no premises, and no projected outcomes.
Intelligent life, that’d be nice.
January 25th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Just left a Commondreams article from Huffington Post. Called ‘Vegetarianizm, the new Prius’, by Kathy Freston. In it she indicates that the factory farms, and meat production cause greater harm than auto addiction. There’s a start, Go Veggie.
That reminds me, Glenn, of a question I had for you, if you don’t mind. Seems, that back three weeks or so you comented on some addition you had made to the engine of your car. Something to do with the mileage if IRC. I want to know more, What can you tell us? Thanks in advance. C.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Yup Caveat, being veggie is the right way to go which is one of the reasons I’ve been veggie for 12 years now. Now how to get the mainstream to see it’s not a freaky fringe thing . . .
January 26th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Changing air intakes and filtration to free flow, 1st. Pro models are for sale, I made my own. Taller skinnier tires that will accept 60 psi(these are 8 plys), makes a for a hard ride, less drag, drops low end torque, changes the top end end ratio at any rpm. A tall wheels single rotation from the trans, covers more ground than a smaller one. Not so good for city driving , but good for long distances.
Using 91 octane, in my camry after dozens of tests, I get better mileage, and the price difference in premium comes out a wash, but I burn less fuel. I have tried magnetics on fuel and intakes, can’t say they work. What does work is driving 55, and waiting to get there. More pedal, more pay.
I am currently experimenting with adding acetone to my gas. 4 ounces for 10 gallons. Theory, acetone is a vibrating molecule, it’s presence in gas, dramatically reduces surface tension and adhesion characteristics of gasoline, so when it is introduced into combustion, droplets can’t remain micro droplets, increases burn efficiency and lowers emissions. Makes gasoline more like the ultimate fuel for an ICE, Propane, already gaseous.
I got 51 mpg on the highway a few weeks ago, with all these mods in effect, at 55 mph. The car is 20 years old this year, with 235k. That said multi valved fuel injection engines, electronically controlled are the only things worth doing this with.
As a car burns oil I have used a product called restore, 5 bucks a can. It is a suspension of ionized copper, and other softer metals that when poured into oil fills the micro scratches that forms in the cylinders, evening compression, and reducing oil burn, a source of nasty emission. I was skeptical but tried it, it is guaranteed, and it works. Raised compression in a old engine will directly result in fuel savings. More power for the fuel you are burning.
Practice on a beater.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Thanks.