Where are they now ... (aka the Peter Principle lives)

"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job!!" is one of the saddest catch phrases to come out of the Bush administration. You know why. "Brownie" was sacked and dismissed from government work, but his chief of staff, Patrick Rhode had a different fate. Rhode was the guy who, while New Orleans was drowning, emailed his boss, "Brownie", to say that he was having his hair moussed for a tv appearance rather than coordinating relief for the victims of Katrina. Needless to say he was canned along with his boss and dismissed from government work, right, .... right...???

Wrong. In Jan. 2007 he was hired as a senior advisor to the office of the administrator for NASA. His qualifications: he was an event planner for the Bush campaign in 2000 and prior to that he was a tv reporter. Hopefully he just draws his salary and surfs the internet for hair care products, 'cause I'd hate to think that he's getting paid with our tax dollars and screwing up NASA.

But wait, there's more. The name Hans A. von Spakovsky is not easy to say (or type), but he was counsel to the asst. Attorney General for civil rights from 2003-2005. In that job his speciality was suppressing minority voting rights, and he led efforts to purge voter roles of poor and minority voters. It should come as no real surprise then that he worked for the Bush campaign on the Florida recount in 2000. While he wasn't entirely successful in his efforts to purge voters, fifty percent of the career employees in his section quit on his watch. After his rather nefarious stint in the AG's office he was naturally appointed to the Federal Elections Commission. Fair elections? Impartial monitoring of elections? Expanding democracy by involving more voters in the process? HA!!, ... and HA!! again.

The disdain the Bush administration shows for our country's government and the citizens it is supposed to work for is just unspeakably galling.

The above is taken from the current issue of Mother Jones and therein are more examples similar to the two included here. The author of the Mother Jones article is Joshua Kurlantzick.

Thanks for reading.
Mike

To live in an industrial wasteland

or not. That is the question facing Person County, my home. We already have two large coal fired power plants in place in the northern part of the county; the Hyco lake plant is one of the most polluting power generating facilities in the country. We have a midsized commercial landfill in the southeast corner of the county that handles our trash and some trash from adjacent counties. We also have a Georgia-Pacific paper operation and a few lesser industries already in place.
But changes are coming and the future doesn't look good. Two new asphalt plants will be setting up shop in the county, possibly a quarry (explosions and big trucks on our roads) and the company that runs the land fill wants to triple the daily tonnage going into the landfill. Trucks already run every couple of minutes into the landfill, carrying the 650 tons that get dumped everyday. Recently our county commissioners voted to procede with the landfill expansion process (it's not a done deal ... yet) in spite of long and loud public opposition. The quality of life for those people living in that corner of the county has already diminished greatly due to odors, trash along the roads, noise from the trucks and worry over contaminated water sources. I cannot imagine what their lives will be like if the expansion becomes a reality.
Person County is on the verge of becoming an industrial wasteland, with polluted air and water poisoning our citizens. Children will be especially susceptible to the toxins these corporate operations will pump into our environment; toxins that will persist for decades. According to the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Person County is already one of the most polluted counties in the nation. We have a higher thasn normal cancer rate. Could the two facts be related? Probably.
What sensible company (i.e. non-polluting) would want to bring their employees and their families to Person County with our stinking air, questionable water quality and the constant cacaphony of explosions and heavy trucks assaulting the ear?
This madness must end if Person County is to have any kind of positive future. We cannot continue down this road any further else the coming generations will flee as fast as they can, for the grass will be greener just about anywhere else.

Thanks for reading.