June 2009 archive

I thank the members here for asking me to post my science essays here as a primary site. I hope to make many new friends here. The next one has to do with acetaminophen, a very dangerous drug. If I am not welcome to post it here as my new primary site, please let me know. Warmest regards, Doc

I must start this essay with a flashback to another another essay of mine, “Our Government is No Longer Viable“:

So, yes, if you are like me, then you see that our government is no longer viable.  That our Two-Party system has now utterly failed.  Our founding fathers feared this day and warned us of it — the day when two or more of the branches of government band together against the third.  To be fair, that day arrived long ago, but, our government still seemed to function somehow.  Today, it isn’t even functioning.

So, what happens when even the Judicial Branch of our government is totally co-opted against the citizen?  We got a hint of it from the Supreme Court:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court ruled Monday that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias.

By a 5-4 vote in a case from West Virginia, the court said that a judge who remained involved in a lawsuit filed against the company of the most generous supporter of his election deprived the other side of the constitutional right to a fair trial.

It is in times like this that we must see the end-game that is being played out before our very eyes…

It is with broken heart that I report the death of one of this nation’s most important and innovative environmental attorneys.

Luke Cole graduated with honors from Stanford, and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He could have done anything. He could have gone to work for any law firm in the country, and made a fortune. Instead, he moved to San Francisco and co-founded the non-profit Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. As described on their website:

The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment is an environmental justice litigation organization dedicated to helping grassroots groups across the United States attack head on the disproportionate burden of pollution borne by poor people and people of color. We provide organizing, technical and legal assistance to help community groups stop immediate environmental threats. In the 16 years that CRPE has been helping the poor and people of color resist toxic intrusions and protect their environmental health, among our many victories we have beaten toxic waste incinerators, forced oil refineries to use cleaner technology, beaten a 55,000-cow mega-dairy, stopped numerous tire burning proposals, helped bring safe drinking water to various rural communities, stopped a garbage dump on the Los Coyotes reservation in southern California, and empowered hundreds of local residents along the way.

His recent work included a groundbreaking case that is succinctly explained by his law school classmate, Ann Carlson:

Cole was well-known for his work on numerous leading environmental justice cases, including as counsel for the Native Village of Kivalina in its pathbreaking case seeking damages from large greenhouse gas emitters from the melting away of their Alaskan village.

If that sounds like he was tilting at windmills, you didn’t know Luke. He wouldn’t have pursued such a case if he hadn’t believed he could win it. His successful pioneering work, taking on the California dairy industry, made him the cover boy of the February, 2002 issue of California Law Magazine, in an article titled: Got Manure? How Environmental Lawyer Luke Cole Brought Dairy Construction in the San Joaquin Valley to a Standstill.

Running down around the towns along the shore,

When I was sixteen and on my own.

No, I couldn’t tell you what the hell those brakes were for,

I was just trying to hear my song . . .

Now I’m sitting by the highway,

Down by that highway side.

Everybody’s going somewhere,

Just as fast as they can ride.

I guess they’ve got a lot to do,

Before they can rest assured.

Their lives are justified.

I’ve been up and down that highway,

But no matter what I see,

I can’t help feeling,

We’ll never get where we want to be.

A friend said, close your eyes, and try a few of these,

I thought I was flying like a bird,

So far above my sorrow,

But when I looked down,

I was on my knees.

RePugs said close your eyes, America . . .

And try a few of these tax cuts for the rich, the wealth will trickle down.  And America believed them.