Chamblee54

Bill Moyers gave a speech recently to a facility in Boston. In the first paragraph he quotes George Bernard Shaw as saying “journalists are seemingly unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.” A visit to google did not turn up the context of the quote. It did turn up some good quotes about Journalism.
Meanwhile, dangerousminds (spell check suggestions:endangerment,Dangerfield) has an interview with Brian Eno. (spell check suggestion:Ono) He is promoting some product. In the course of the chat, Mr. Eno begins to discuss copyright law. No, he doesn’t discuss, he quotes chapter and verse for over a minute. It seems like a 13yo was downloading product, and the lawyers wanted to sue. Mr. Eno chose to have his roadies smash the kid’s bike, while he was still on it.
To hear some whiners, to cheat an artist out of royalties is the collapse of civilization. The answer in this case was a bicycle accident.
The interview is fun for a couple of more reasons. The interrogator is a man using the name “Dick Flash”. Mr. Flash seems to be a man of a certain age, hiding the onslaught of time with hair chemicals(or a rug). Mr. Eno, on the other hand, seems comfortable with going bald. He is the master of synthetics and studio trickery for music, but in real life a proud chrome dome.
Eno is part of a three letter combination that is incredibly anagram friendly. Eno, Eon, Neo, Noe, One, Oen. Only the last is not a name or word, and there is no doubt an organization with those intitials.






The search for context about George Bernard Shaw and Journalism did not yield a source for the quote. ( PG, who does have a life, did not go past page two of Google) It did yield a multitude of quotes about Journalism. While preparing the list of quotes for publication, PG was aware of the rule of quotes. When one is compiling a list of quotes, you need at least one Mark Twain and one Oscar Wilde. After a few minutes of copy paste, the Oscar Wilde appeared, and below that was the quote by George Bernard Shaw that started this ordeal. The source for the GBS quote is “Ingelhart, Louis E. (1998). Press and speech freedoms in the world, from antiquity until 1998: a chronology. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. pp. p. 183.” Journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones Dead” to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.— G. K. Chesterton, The Wisdom of Father Brown//It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.— Tom Brokaw//Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.— Frank Zappa, in Linda Botts, Loose Talk// Journalism is literature in a hurry.— Matthew Arnold//Knowing what goes on in the world by reading a newspaper is like telling time using the second hand of a watch.– Unknown //Journalism consists in buying white paper at two cents a pound and selling it at ten cents a pound.— Charles Anderson Dana// Writing for a newspaper is like running a revolutionary war; you go into battle not when you are ready but when action offers itself.— Norman Mailer, The Presidential Papers//War correspondents … see a great deal of the world. Our obligation is to pass it on to others.— Margaret Bourke-White//Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.— John Hersey//Life is bad fiction — Unknown// A journalist is stimulated by a deadline; he writes worse when he has time.— Karl Kraus//News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read. And it’s only news until he’s read it. After that it’s dead. — Evelyn Waugh, 1938//When journalese was at its rifest the Ministry of Health was established – possibly a coincidence. — John Galsworthy, 1924// Never forget that if you don’t hit a newspaper reader between the eyes with your first sentence, there is no need of writing a second one. — Arthur Brisbane, c. 1900//A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There’s nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I’ve done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom – it’s gone. — Edward R. Murrow, December 31, 1955// Journalists say a thing that they know isn’t true, in the hope that if they keep saying it long enough it will be true. — Arnold Bennett, 1918//A newspaper is known by the columnists it keeps. — Irvin S. Cobb//In the real world, the right thing never happens at the right place and at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to make it appear that it has. — Mark Twain// Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art, for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way if giving interest to what they write. Herein they are like little dogs, if anything stirs, they immediately set up a shrill bark.— Arthur Schopenhauer// Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed. — Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary of Epigrams (1914)//For most of the history of American journalism, the independence and high quality of the American press have been tied … to the commercial spirit and the need to offer his money’s worth to a purchaser in the open market. — Daniel J. Boorstin// So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here—not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms. — Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72// Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816//In Czechoslovakia there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In the United States there is no such thing as freedom from the press. — Martina Navratilova//The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. — George Mason, principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)// Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, – very momentous to us in these times. — Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History (1859)//There is simply no telling in advance which of us will stumble upon true news and valuable thought. The dirty secret of our business is that we are not, after all, journalists, only scavengers. — The New York Times, Editorial (1981)// If somebody came from Mars to America and went around for months or years, and then you asked them who has the best jobs, they would say the journalists, because the journalists get to make momentary entries into people’s lives when they are interesting, and get out when they cease to be interesting. — Bob Woodward, 2003//In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.— Oscar Wilde// Journalists are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization. — George Bernard Shaw//Provided I do not write about the government, religion, politics, morals, people in power, official institutions, the Opera, the other theatres, or about anybody attached to anything, I am free to print anything, subject to the inspection of two or three censors. — Pierre Beaumarchais// They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers. — James G. Watt//I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as President. — Jimmy Carter//To tell the truth you have to write fiction. — Unknown //Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them. — Adlai Stevenson III// If a newspaper prints a sex crime, it’s smut, but when the New York Times prints it, it’s a sociological study. — Adolph S. Ochs//If Christ came back to earth now he would not attack the high priests, but the low journalists. — Søren Kierkegaard//I don’t so much mind that newspapers are dying — it’s watching them commit suicide that pisses me off. — Molly Ivins//In the spider-web of facts, many a truth is strangled. — Paul Eldridge// This entertainment needs another section to come out as a six stripe rainbow. Before the widespread use of color, newspapers were black and white and read all over. Yellow journalism, written for the almighty green, has made many a man blue. Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

PG has read The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews. The 419 page story is tons of fun. Some of the plot elements are a touch contrived. That should not get in the way of a good time.
Dempsey Killebrew worked for a Washington lobby firm. Her boss got caught, and tried to pin the blame on Dempsey. Soon, she was in South Florida with her father, trying to think of a plan.
It seems like daddy has just inherited a house, in a small Georgia town called Guthrie. Dempsey agrees to move to the fictitious Guthrie, ( 45 minutes away from Macon), fix up the house, and split the profits when they flip it. It seems so easy.
Before long, Dempsey finds out what a wreck the house is, and about a non paying tenant. Miss Ella Kate is staying in “Birdsong”, and is as friendly as a rattlesnake. Dempsey gets to work on the house, with the help of a pair of lawyers, a drunken real estate agent, and a black handyman. She is beginning to make progress on the place when the FBI comes looking for her.
It looks bad for Dempsey, until she finds a bit of evidence in the corruption case. ( This is the plot element that has authenticity nit pickers shaking their heads.) When the FBI agents move in for the kill, Dempsey plays the only card she has, and does well. Once again, you need to suspend disbelief a time or two. ( The female FBI player was named Cam Allgood. That name intrigues PG.)
The story ends with a few stings untied, which leads some to believe a sequel is on the way. As with all stories by Miss Andrews, the pages turn themselves, and the reader begins to think he is really in Guthrie. The characters are people you want to hear about, which makes a sequel sound like fun.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

There was a poem , of unknown origin, found in a Baltimore church in 1692. It was revived by a Lawyer,who lived in Terre Haute, IN. He liked to read it his friends, and his lips were moving. The attorney , Max Ehrmann, copyrighted this poem in 1927. Another persistent rumor has it that the manuscript was in an ambulance Mr. Ehrmann was following. How the accident victim came to possess this document is a mystery.
Mr. Ehrmann ( the poet laureate of Terre Haute ) wrote in his diary “I should like, if I could, to leave a humble gift — a bit of chaste prose that had caught up some noble moods”. The poem is ” Desiderata “, and is a favorite of gift shops the world over.
In 1956, Rev. Frederick Kates became the rector of Old St. Paul’s Church in Baltimore, MD. He had found a copy of “Desiderata”, without the copyright notice. He printed a handout for his congregation on church stationary. At the top of the page was the notation “Old St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore A.C. 1692”. As the sixties devolved, the poem became famous.
“Desiderata” was the text of a recording made by Les Crane, who found the poem on a poster. He thought the text was in the public domain, when in fact it is copyrighted. Mr. Crane was taken to court, and forced to pay the owners of the copyright . The matter has been in court on other occasions. It seems that Mr. Ehrmann used “Desiderata” in a Christmas greeting, without citing the copyright. Later,during World War II, Ehrmann allowed a friend – Army psychiatrist Dr. Merrill Moore – to hand out more than 1,000 copies of the poem to his soldier-patients, without  the copyright.
PG admits to confusion on this issue. Don’t copyrights expire, get renewed, and then expire again? If a work was written in 1927, doesn’t it go into the public domain 83 years later. The wikipedia article about copyrights is long and confusing. Remember, we are dealing with a legal concept as it relates to a poem written by a lawyer.
A site called fleurdelis says the matter depends on your point of view and place of residence. ( Shcredo says flatly that “Desiderata” is public domain.) ( Robinsweb tells of being forced to remove “Desiderata” from her site because of a complaint by the copyright owner.) If you want to be inspired, click on the videos embedded in this post.
In 1972, the National Lampoon produced a new translation, Deteriorata.

The theme of the nanowrimo cashcowbook is “no plot, no problem”. The majority of the books that PG reads do have plots. If he is going to imitate a role model, this poses problems. Or maybe issues, which is the new word for problem. Once, PG told a project manager in the office “ John, people don’t have problems anymore, they have issues” “ PG , I have an old fashioned job. I’ve got problems”.
This reminds PG of a story. It is about politics, elections, and people who just don’t get it. In 1992, PG was working in an architects office in downtown Atlanta. This is the same office mentioned above. Downtown was full of neat events, and a few not so neat ones.
During the 92 election, the Vice Presidential debate was held in Atlanta. There was a fundraiser starring Dan Quayle that afternoon at the Commerce Club, which was near the “fabulous” Healy Building, where the office was. When the Q man came in, there were some Tech kids imported to cheer him, along with snide comments about how Bill Clinton “didn’t inhale”. So, DQ and his people were ushered in, and PG went back about his business.
About an hour later, PG slipped out of the office to go get a bag of Fritos. A little newsstand, run by a friendly Korean, was the destination. As he crossed Walton Street , he saw the bulletproof limousine going north on Broad Street. PG waved at the potatoe man. He only used one finger.
The pictures for tonight’s entertainment are from The Library of Congress.

The following feature presentation is a repost. Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
Obviously,there is something to be said for wanting to speak up, but not having anything to say. To prove that, I am going to talk about a word…esoteric. According to Wiktionary , esoteric is :”1. Having to do with concepts that are highly theoretical and without obvious practical application.//2. Understood only by a chosen few or an inner circle.//3. Confidential; private.”
The “E word” plays a role in a story from 10th grade English. We were discussing a story, “The Rocking Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence. The story was , well, boring and obscure, just like most of what I have seen my Mr. Lawrence.
The summer after 10th grade I worked in a movie theater. The ushers wore ghastly yellow uniforms, and saw the movies over and over. When I started, the Lenox Square 2 theater was showing “Women in Love”, based on a novel my D.H. Lawrence. Glenda Jackson copped an oscar for her portrayal of Gudren, and young Larry Kramer was one of the screenwriters. It did not improve my opinion of D.H.Lawrence. If the censors had not touched “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” he would be forgotten today.
.Back to 10th grade english. We were discussing this wretched story, and a girl raised her hand. Why would any author would write something so esoteric. The teacher had never heard of this word before, and was amazed to hear it.
The Lenox Square 2 theater was a long, slender thing with a small screen. This was in 1970, when the concept of the multiplex had not evolved yet. LS2 was under a grocery store, and when the automatic door openers performed their duty, you could hear the motors in the theater below. The movies the rest of the summer were Fellini Satyricon, The Christine Jorgenson Story, and The Landlord.
Back to esoteric…or did I ever go away? Before you can understand esoteric, you must plumb the depths of pedantic …”1. Like a pedant, overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning.// 2. Being showy of one’s knowledge, often in a boring manner.//3. Often used to describe a person who emphasizes his/her knowledge through the use of vocabulary; ostentatious in one’s learning.//4. Being finicky or picky with language.” Pedantic is an adjective that describes itself.

Part of the fun on election day is the constitutional amendments. Georgia always seems to toss in a few. Never mind that the US Constitution has been amended 17 times after the Bill of Rights.
A lot of people, PG included, don’t give a lot of thought to these amendments. After slogging through the elected offices, a voter is confronted with a list of amendments. These tend to be written in obscure language, hoping the confused voter will say yes.
The helpful State of Georgia has published a document, “PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS AND STATE-WIDE REFERENDUM QUESTION GENERAL ELECTION NOVEMBER 2, 2010” Maybe we should look at the referendum question first. House Bill No. 482 S h a l l t h e A c t b e a p p r o v e d w h i c h grants an exemption from state ad valorem taxation for inventory of a business?” PG doesn’t understand this, and sees a broke state trying to give away money it doesn’t have. NO.
Amendment 1 allows legislation to permit something to do with competitive bidding for state contracts. PG cannot make heads or tails of this one, and suspects crookedness. NO
Amendment 2 allows for a $10 per vehicle tag tax to go to funding trauma care centers in the state. This seems like a good idea, especially if you fall under a bus in Unadilla. The fact that something this important needs this much effort to get passed tells you a lot about the sorry state of governance in these tea party times. YES
Amendment 3 deals with multi year contracts for transportation projects. There is a lot of mumbo jumbo here, and the smell of pork rising from the oven. NO
Amendment 4 allows the state to enact multi year contracts to improve energy efficiency. There is pork and mumbo jumbo here, but energy efficiency is a good thing. YES
Amendment 5 deals with Industrial area zoning in Chatham County and Jeff Davis County. Good Grief. Will this affect The Lady Chablis? YES.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. HT to the blogfordemocracy.

The story of Jill Chambers and Elena Parent keeps stumbling on. The two ladies are running for the Georgia House of Representatives, from the 81st district. Mrs. Chambers is the Republican incumbent, while Miss Parent is the Democratic challenger. This blog has reported part one and part two already. There have been a few developments since then.
A few weeks ago, Mrs. Chambers filed for bankruptcy . This is not surprising, in light of her first campaign mailout. What was interesting was the fact that her campaign is not incorporated, and that creditors covet her war chest. These funds have been frozen , which makes it tough to compete.
Meanwhile, Elena Parent keeps rolling on. Her oh-so-slick mailouts denounce Mrs. Chambers for raising taxes. The fact that the state is broke, and will need some form of revenue, is not mentioned. If Miss Parent is elected, she will probably vote for a tax increase.
If you go to Miss Parent’s website , you will see the video she has on auto start. ( Auto start is a horrible invention. Any politician using auto start needs to lose.) Miss Parent shows off her infant son, and says that schools need more money. She does not say where this money is going to come from, without a tax increase. She also does not say who is caring for her son while mommy is running for the Legislature. ( Miss Parent is an attorney. Her lips were moving in this video.)
The mailouts about Jill Chambers may have gone too far. The latest mailout has the same visual style of the previous ads from Miss Parent, but does not mention her name. ( They were paid for by “Georgia Leaders”. The return address is “Democratic Party of Georgia, 1100 Spring St. NW, Atlanta GA 30309”) These two mailers discuss some tax issues of Mrs. Chambers. .
The problem lies in the use of the last four digits of a social security number. A tax document is shown, and the last four digits of Mrs. Chambers social are shown. The Democratic Party is being sued.
The issue that PG likes to bring up is water. Atlanta has an undependable water supply. Any long term solution is going to be expensive. Neither candidate has addressed this issue. Miss Parent has not said how we will build a pipeline to the Tennessee River without raising taxes.
Jill Chambers has angered many during her time in the legislature. She opposed establishing the City of Dunwoody, which earned the animosity of Dick Williams. A former writer for the fishwrapper, the bowtie wearing Williams has spewed vile hate speech against gay people.If Dick Williams hates Jill Chambers, then maybe she is not so bad. And Elena Parent does not seem to be much better.

PG saw an FB comment about “which Rocky Horror Show Character are you”. Uncle Google had a variety of tests for this purpose. The youthink quiz has 13 multiple choice questions. It said that PG was Columbia, a groupie. The liveliest question was number 8. PG lives in a neighborhood with a lot of ethnic eateries, which may have influenced his choice. “Which of these are you most likely to do?Catch the bouquet at a wedding//Run out of the room, after realizing that tonights dinner, was the remains of your lover//Build a man, with blonde hair and a tan….who`s good for realieving your….tension//Act like a low-down punk//Shoot your master with a laser.”
The next step was quizilla , which advertises Domino’s pizza. You are given the chance to buy 4 tickets to a hockey match, along with 4 chick fil a value paks, for $85. They told PG he was Brad Majors. This is the character the crowds scream ASSHOLE at every time he speaks. 147 people were classed as old BM, which is 4% of the total.
Do you really want to go on with this? Quizfarm has Lactose free milk to sell, and another quiz to take. QF uses the tried and true method of making statements, and asking if you agree or disagree, strongly or mildly. One of these statements is “9. Has someone said something hurtful about your vagina?” Number nine, number nine. There are 100 statements to go through here, which is too many. The result here is that PG is Janet Weiss…”You’re Janet Weiss A Heroine, a Slut You wanna be dirty”.
OK Cupid is the next star to walk on the red carpet. It is back to multiple choice, with no references to the soundtrack. Once again, PG is Columbia. “You are Columbia. You are free with your affection and adoration and you’re probably the most romantic and old fashioned of your friends. You may be hurt easily because of your willingness to put all your “emotional eggs” in one basket. Then along comes someone who takes advantage of your selfless and humble nature, Also, you have a high awareness of “right and wrong” with strong beliefs. Parents probably love you.”
Quibblo has an ad from the Publisher’s Clearing House. Above the ad for Bloomberg Business, there is a bonus question…”We’re sending one lucky member to see Lady Gaga LIVE in Los Angeles. Should we send YOU?” This facility says that PG is Rocky…”You are a quiet strong slave.”
Gotoquiz is the purple stripe of this rainbow. Question seven gets into the spirit… How do you dance? I tap!//I sort of run around and look scary//Swing baby!//Strut my stuff!//Fluid but meaningful movements//Kick my legs from my wheelchair. On this parade, PG is compared to Frank-N-Furter. “Blast off! You’re a super sexual, monster building, cherry popping, cannibalistic bastard! Woot!” Pictures for this entertainment are from The Library of Congress

The following is a comment, left earlier today at a blog where PG is banned from commenting. There were 66 comments ahead of it, and the idea of being comment 66.6 was too much temptation to resist. It was deleted within an hour.
Pyromaniacs is a Jesus Worship blog. The post in question is about problems with the church today, and what can be done to fix these problems. The last two sentences of the post are “If you will do that rather than sort of huffily object to this movie, you will suddenly be doing something more important than apologetics: you will be preaching the Gospel to all living things, and making disciples of them.That would be something new to try for all of us. I wonder if you’re up to it?”
PG lives in the Jesus happy United States of America. Officially we have religious freedom. However, the culture is dominated by Jesus. PG has heard the Jesus facilitated scheme for life after death at least a thousand times. He does not agree with it. Hearing it a thousand and one times, from someone who shouts at you and insults you, is not going to make him change his mind.
” Preaching the Gospel to all living things” is what the man says. All living things include pine trees, copperheads, and pigeons. Screaming at PG about going to hell is likely to have the same effect on pond scum, which is also a living thing.
So, PG saw 66 comments in the thread, and decided to make 66.6. A few more things followed.
Comment sixty six point six.
If you want to tell people about Jesus, then do so in a way they will understand.
You should earn his trust before you start to talk. (Both Jesus and the man you preach to.)
You should understand that things that motivate you might not motivate him.
You should try to create good will, both for Jesus and yourself.
Think of Jesus as your product. Sell yourself first, your company second, and your product third.
Not everyone agrees with you that the Bible is the word of G-d. Nor does everyone agree with your other ideas about G-d. Not everyone agrees with your ideas about Life after death. Not everyone is as excited about Life after death as you are.
What you say does not become more true just because you say it louder. Nor are people more inclined to listen to your message when you insult them.

PG saw a couple of facebook listings for something called an Autism Spectrum Quotient. When something is shown on FB, the best thing to do is google it, and look for a version that is not FB connected. When ASQ tests were googled, there was a listing for something called an empathy quotient. This led to a page with four tests offered…Systemizing quotient test, Empathy quotient test,Autism Spectrum quotient test, Mind in the eyes test. To a person in the mood to take online tests, this counts as hitting the jackpot.
The page is called “Male vs female brains”, and is part of the digital funhouse run by Glenn Rowe . There is an explanation: “Simon Baron-Cohen’s recent book The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain proposes that “The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.”
The book contains a couple of tests that calculate your “empathy quotient” and your “systemizing quotient”. There is also a test that measures your “autism quotient”, and a fascinating test that measures how good you are at discerning someone’s mood from their eyes…Don’t take these tests too seriously – Baron-Cohen himself says in his book that the ‘typical’ results are only averages, and many men and women differ in their scores.
The first test on the agenda is the systemizing quotient. The test is 60 statements, with four options for each…Definitely agree, Slightly agree,Slightly disagree, Definitely disagree. PG scored 14, which is considered low. Two statements were: “I find it difficult to understand instruction manuals for putting appliances together.//When I look at an animal, I like to know the precise species it belongs to.”
The second test is empathy quotient, which apparently is a female counterpart for the systemizing quotient. The test is formatted like the systemizing test. Two of the statements are “I find it easy to put myself in somebody else’s shoes// I think that good manners are the most important thing a parent can teach their child. ” Once again, PG got 14, which is low.
The autism spectrum test had only 50 statements. Two of them were ” I find it hard to make new friends. //. I notice patterns in things all the time.” PG got a 38, which is high.
The last test, reading the mind in the eyes, was a bit different. There were 36 questions. Each had a photograph of two eyes, and a choice between four descriptions, like “playful, comforting, irritated, bored”. PG got 21 correct, which is just a bit below average.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Juan Cole came up with a bit of “food for thought” the other day. “A report by the World Wide Fund-UK examined the length of time it takes for nature to replenish renewable resources (trees, fish, soil, etc.) that all humans remove in a year. So long as those resources are restocked in a year or less, that situation should be sustainable indefinitely. The report concluded that it takes 1.3 years to replace what humans exploit in a year, and that deficit has been going on since the 1980s. In other words, rather than living on the biological interest, we are drawing down on our basic natural capital.”
David Suzuki, The Legacy
A commenter named “Travis Bickle” countered this assertion. “This reminds me of “peak oil”, but that would be wrong: more oil can be discovered and there new technologies will emerge for economical extraction as its price rises. To some degree this is true of food, but at the depletion rates he cites we might also end up having to talk about Soyent Green at some point.
It will bear reading Suzuki’s book, but somehow I’m reminded of the Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrlich back in the late sixties, which had similar alarming conclusions. Looking out 20-40 years with straight line projections is at best tedious and simplistic. We now see a bunch of languishing Ethiopian fisherman adapting to bigger fish, and you never know what may happen if Obama gets cornered by domestic political gridlock into rolling the dice on something dramatic with Iran.To anyone who wants to get into specific long range forecasting, say past next week, Good Luck!”
Juan says: October 26, 2010 at 1:38 pm – “Ehrlich’s projections were averted by the green revolution, but the style of agriculture it promoted is itself highly polluting and not sustainable. You can only kick the can down the road so long.”
Michael says: October 26, 2010 at 6:16 pm – “Indeed! One thing lurking down the road is the depletion of cheap phosphorous in about 30 years. This isn’t to say more isn’t available, but thus far a cost effective replacement has not been found. Additionally, all the polluted runoff from here in corn country is killing the Gulf of Mexico. Another as reported in “Ominvore’s Dilemma” is the fact that our corn production requires 10 calories input for each calorie of output. With rising energy prices, this is unsustainable until operations become more efficient.”
The comment about peak oil is telling. The easy to extract oil is long gone. Jed can shoot his rifle all day long without hitting oil. The Deepwater Horizon was drilling in water that is one mile deep. If anything goes wrong, they have to go through 1600 meters of salt water to fix it. Add profit happy companies that don’t worry about safety, and you have a formula for disaster.
Yes, we are feeding a larger population today, and in the rich countries some are quite comfortable. But the earth is paying a price. When you factor in the changing ph balance of the oceans ( from carbon pollution), oil spills, and aggressive fishing, you might have a situation where the oceans are great big salty sludge pits. Maybe some free market motivated scientist will come up with a solution for all this, and kick the can down the road for another hundred years.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

There were a couple of good features the other day about water. H2O is one of the four elements, and is utterly vital to life on earth. Water and fire ( or the combination of air and earth) are perhaps the two unique features of the planet, and could be considered the product of G-d ( who is sometimes considered the fifth element). Water is often in short supply, even as the majority of the planet is covered with it.
A Philosopher’s Blog has a feature, “The future of water”. (Philosopher uses the Journalist 1.3 template, the same as Chamblee54). This post is more of an overview, about the way in which civilization increases the use of water. “To be specific, as developing nations develop, they will tend to use more water per person as diets, hygiene practices, and consumer consumption changes. For example, if a person in China goes from living in a village to living in a city and starts eating more meat and buying more consumer goods, then that person’s water use (direct and indirect) will increase. After all, water consumption is not just about what we drink or flush. It also includes what is needed to grow our food, make our stuff, and so on.”
A list of related articles leads to Water is the new oil. There is more beef here. Speaking of beef, did you know that it takes 15,000 liters of water to produce a kilo of beef, compared to 1,000 liters for a kilo of wheat. ( Beef produces more carbon pollution as well. One disaster at a time.)
It seems as though Russia has the planet’s second largest supply of fresh water (after Brazil). The world’s largest lake, with 20 percent of the world’s fresh water (Baikal), is in Russia. The trouble is, Baikal is in south Siberia, near Mongolia, and a long pipeline away from the Russian population centers. ( It is a bit closer to water short North China, but there are some more politics to deal with. )
Many of the world’s poor nations are the ones with the worst water shortages. Often, the shortages are compounded by contamination issues. “Health problems which poor water quality can cause are also hard to deny, with an estimated 80 per cent of diseases in the world linked to it in some way. For instance, world’s largest mass arsenic poisoning – which is believed to have affected up to 77 million people in Bangladesh over 40 years and account for some 20 per cent of deaths in the country – was caused by contaminated water. “
The water in the oceans has salt, and is unfit for drinking or agriculture. Desalination is an expensive, energy intensive process. Steps are being made to improve the efficiency of this desalination. This will help only the coastal regions, which historically have the largest watersheds feeding into them.
As you may know, the Atlanta water supply is a ticking time bomb. The metro area draws on a tiny watershed, and has been developed without concern over future water supplies. The politicians in the elections this year are notoriously silent on this issue. They know that building a pipeline to the Tennessee River will be an expensive affair, but they are too busy promising to cut taxes.