Official google.org Blog: Official data underestimate global water and sanitation crisis, showing need for improved monitoring

Official google.org Blog: Official data underestimate global water and sanitation crisis, showing need for improved monitoring

the price of free speech...

 

I grew up around public opinion
it was a strange and mottled thing
all the colors and stripes of life,
a blend of all voices upon its timid tongue.
It has been fed to grow and while naturally shy
yet so much attention each second and fourth year
It seems to shine like the greatest of fascinations.

It was the anchor that dragged an awful war
until the ship-of-conflict ran aground
public opinion stood like the stand at New Orleans
when young America found a stone walled  will.

But in recent times it has been battered
abused and terribly despoiled; when her dim eyed guardians
failed; she became the victim of a false crusade
so many bombs bursting in meaningless airs
and New Orleans fell beneath the sea...

Treated so shabbily, even by those once so adoring
now they put on skirts to mock it , and paint it
in colors that frighten and warn, but none so much
as those it holds most dear.

Poor public opinion and now those that
worship at the altar of a vengeful,frigid love
have given her over to those who speak
from the fattened  land of profits, while many suffer
they grow great, deciding the fates of pieces of the world.

Oh, poor public opinion, where to rest our weary frame
when the mountains that make war come to take you?
Where will you go...the back alleys, ahh, yes
will be safer than Main Street,  and the ballot boxes
will frighten you...they will look like the boxes you once knew
covered with flags, one by one come home...
to your tearful refuge.

Now, you will sink beneath waves of tainted green
here when truth comes to auction
Public Opinion, you can do nothing more,
if you cannot pay the price of freedom...

I last saw public opinion on a rooftop howling at the moon
it was a dream, I am sure, but the lonesome desolate sound...

made me weep.

A sugar feast...

at the end of Ramadan, Eid ul-Fitr; the beginning of the new year Rosh Hashanah, and in America 9/11 is a day of remembrance a day of national unity. It seems 9/11 so quickly passed a period of solemn grief, to become cause for a re-election war, a bonanza for the war industry; has fallen further now: into the clutches of a new wave of political opportunity- politicians who want to feast on social division and fear, unholy crusaders who worship their personal hatreds, political parties who hide financial gains for friends and allies behind a veil of pretended patriotism, and of course the omnipresent American War Machine- reborn like an evil Phoenix from still warm ashes, moving towards the next Trillion dollar bloodbath.

In the midst of these booming thunder rolls, is a blip on the screen.. a misguided man who wants to burn the Moslem Holy Book to hallow the memory of 9/11. Te vultures from the right and their media have swarmed the occasion, one oddball who wishes to provoke a nation here to rise up against people who believe in a certain form of God... to blame all those for the terror strikes. Well he is going to need a bigger fire... the terrorists that have struck and killed Americans include Christians too, Americans of many stripes have committed terror attacks here...one need think no further that the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. There is no shortage of extremism and the will to violence among every Faith... my mind notes an exception perhaps for the followers of Dalai Lama. But the teachings of Christ have been used as a pretext for millions of murders, some called war, crusades, or even defense of the holy land, or self defense---as in the case of the invasion of Iraq ( no joke, the American President- a man named Bush convinced his country they would be attacked by a broken down Iraq government under a Dictator named Saddam)

That the Holy Book burning would do little here, except reinforce bigotry, and do potentially deadly harm around the world- many deaths and assassinations would be expected, was not a factor--the press eagerly covered the planned book burning, and geared up to cover the retaliations too. Somehow lost in all of this is the idea of 9/11...how we can honor sacrifice and move to greater world peace, better understanding. We will not advance the state of the world by retaliation, in word or deed. We will not improve the world by feeding the futures of our children to the War machine.

It is difficult to answer violence with understanding-- the highest ideals of Christianity and Muslim teachings call for this: to live in peace and abundance. I t requires something badly lacking in the world-- moral leadership focused on world peace, greater understanding, and most of all - rejection of violence.

There might be a sugar feast for all of the world, days to rejoice in peace and the victory of faith over the urge to conquer. The attainment of a higher purpose in life than feeding the greed of the war business, an abundance of life... the sweetness of life.

A Republican Apology...

Oh to the Big Business that they so dearly love, 

a moment we all can treasure;  APOLOGIA

the spirit of a political party  on display.  

Just like the rupture in the belly of the Gulf of Mexico, the true nature of a thing is revealed in the most dramatic terms. YES, the Republican Party values its corporate sponsors greater than this country, greater than the value placed on human life.  As if to them, life is unfortunately common, billionaire donors are unfortunately rare.  Well, let's see...if a man dumped 500 million barrels of oil on Joe Barton's lawn, he would apologize to the man if we demanded he pay for the clean up, or for the neighbors properties that then become toxic, cancer causing hazards...right Congressman, an APOLOGY TO THE MAN WHO POISONED THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT. 

It is important to remember, the oil companies do not own the oil, the oil belongs to everyone, it was made by the Sun and stored in Nature's vast undersea storage facility, the energy of the Sun... the oil companies simply get it and sell it back to us for enormous profits.  So it is not too much to ask that they do it carefully and prudently, and--if they make a mess, have a plan, resources for fixing it.

A bailout, a shakedown, ohh... the agony of making a rich donor pay a small price for an unfixable damage to the world.  So revealing this is, the true nature of the bungling oil industry, how willing they are to risk the assets we all need for survival; and how utterly contemptuous the Republican Party has become of the intelligence of the American People.

Republicans in the business world...

many of the major corporations and the military leadership have a common thread of Republican affiliation, it is in the cultures and  runs deeply, McCain over Obama deeply--and that is like Grand Canyon Deep, yes?
But consider the Republican's Supreme Court and its incredible bias towards giant corporations over the little people of the country- and by that I include the children, working families--people not living off the equity of the country; and consider the impacts of business on our lives--

shipping of our jobs and careers away for the country
moving whole industries away from the US
making a global preference for foreign workers
making tax laws favorable to global business and 
tax incentives for moving businesses out of the US
massive layoffs
massive bailouts
massive profits from military adventures 
and politically inspired wars such as the invasion of Iraq

The point is A Republican strategy to make things better or worse in the country would be an easy thing to accomplish, perhaps as simple as raising gasoline prices because of the Gulf Spill, or deciding it is a good time to cut back and trim payrolls- by the tens of thousands.  Or deciding to drop gasoline prices, deciding it is good to hire people here in the US.  We trust that these decisions are made without regard to political impact in the private sector, but after seeing the burn the earth strategy against the Health Care Reform in the Congress, a year of Senate filibusters...why in the world would we believe that!!!

Oh, and that Gulf Spill, it will have Obama's name all over it, in the fall elections---so he is doing the right thing to give it priority, so so very busy he has been cleaning up one after another Bush Era mess

a legacy for us all to endure, the badness of King George...on the humorous side, won't it be a hoot hearing Republicans talk about fixing the environment!!!!

The Gulf Oil Spill shows...

the business and greed  of people, the footprint of mankind on the environment, has the power to poison our world.  The Gulf Spill needs no exaggeration, no melt through to China story, no horror story about bumps in the night; this is the disaster that men could cause, unfolded before our disbelieveing eyes, it is already worse than we could imagine.
A school child, on the day after the explosion, said to me: " My teacher said there is an oil well in the ocean pouring oil into the sea and it could poison the whole Gulf of Mexico."  I smiled and had not even connected the explosion to the open well gushing oil. Then I thought-- the oil will stop, or the company will plug the well.  I thought about the first Gulf War when the oil wells were set on fire, how they never went out until we capped them.
Now, we are mute witnesses, because the company has so much money it does not need to listen to us.  It had no reliable plan for this event, and this event was not unlikely.  It was likely and still is.  The Bush years still haunt us, when government was like a rich man's toy.  Our chickens became diseased, and we still ate them, our government became the ministry of fear and alarm, we watched the colors of the alerts and felt afraid; New Orleans sank while the White House plotted against Democrats, we winced at the sight of destruction--although it affected me deeply, I wonder how many still feel anything.  Now the Bush policies that allow a corporation to ignore risks to the world for its profits; a Supreme Court that gives BP - a foreign corporation- the Constitutional Right to spend its billions to influence our elections, and who could blame them, if the Bush people allowed this disaster to take shape--they are worth every penny BP will will spend to get rid of Obama.

a change in the weather---man

NOAA is one of the more important agencies of government, like those that feed and heal it has a mission that is fundamental to our survival: the survival of our oceans. These wonders are part of the engine of the planet, holding sun heat, making winds, clouds and rain; feeding a majority of the world from its fish and seafood stocks.

 During the Bush years which is a little like saying the Dark Ages...it was politicized, its thought process co-opted by a ridiculous Party line...no danger to fish stocks from overfishing, the ocean dead zones might be natural and cyclical; the rise in ocean temperatures does not affect climate...and the biggie ...we must wait a few hundred years to be sure of anything.  NOAA was in the pettifog business ---big time, content to confound and confuse the big issues...the ones upon which our fates seem to depend.

Now there is NOAA the foot dragging non-presence while an incredibly bold and reckless corporation acts to damage the oceans in its world-be-damned pursuit of profits.  There are potentials for ruin of the nation's most productive ocean food supplier, irreplaceable estuaries, and a cycle of damage that we cannot yet foresee so powerful and unprecedented is the dump of crude oil into the oceans.
The Obama Administration has not been in Office long enough to have created this inert mass of political denial at NOAA that has displaced the effort--frank and open effort- needed to address the huge footprint of mankind on the oceans and climate of our little world's  eco-system, but they have been in Office long enough to see it.  Now that they have seen it, we will see if they will effect a cure.  The health of our place in the world...depends on things like this...