Some of the CAFO’s have already built anaerobic digesters through a combination of their own funds and government grants and loans. Others are on board to proceed if this project goes through. While the digesters can be built to generate electricity on site to power the dairy operations, and can feed power back into the grid, the electric company does not pay enough, nor accept enough, to make this a profitable or even break even operation. The county would become a Power Authority with the ability to broker electricity and gas to commercial clients.
Planners claim this project is needed to protect the environment from the pollution to air, streams and wells by manure. As a matter of fact the same farmers who for years have been denying the impacts of manure lagoons cited this problem repeatedly during the meeting and in the printed material that was distributed to attendees. One forthright farm family spoke of how they turned to a digester because when they went from 100 cows to 1000 cows, the manure stench created problems for themselves and for their neighbors.
The spokesman for the Marketing group repeatedly claimed to speak for Southern Cayuga Dairies.

Ana wonders if they speak for all dairies,

or just the ten or so industrial dairies who can hope to be part of this project?

Ana is also concerned at how dependent the county would be on the CAFO’s. If the CAFO’s choose to keep their power on site, choose to switch to a different technology, find they can’t afford the upkeep on the technology, or stop raising livestock, will the county be left holding the bills for its part of the project, with no energy source flowing into the pipeline? How much power does that give to the CAFO’s? Local politicians are already influenced through campaign contributions from these entitites.
In response to a citizen’s question it was learned that the BION Corporation (the lead player in the 72K cow project in a neighboring county) has been part of the discussion, though it is not currently signed on.
Other citizen questions had to do with: the use of emminent domain in laying the pipeline; whether lagoons to hold manure and food waste would be lined; would we end up in a bidding war with other interested parties on food waste; would Marcellus Shale development reduce the price of natural gas to the detriment of the price that could be charged for biogas; what is the county’s responsibility for disposal of contaminants from scrubbing biogas; who would own the carbon credits; could the trench for the pipeline be leased to other utilities as well to recapture some of the cost?
All good questions. Some had tentative answers, others will be looked into.
This project has been in the idea/planning stages for five years or more, yet this was the first meeting to present it to the public. I know that is the way that boards and committees work, but it would seem to me that an earlier discussion with the public may have determined whether or not their constituencies would even want them to proceed with the idea before so much time and $(?) was used up.
One attendee, a resident of the south end of the county, stated that at their towns planning meetings folks have indicated they don’t want this type of agriculture to continue to spread. Now the county is entering a deal that will push it on them.

Another resident asked, “why should the tax payer pay to clean up a mess made by private industry”?
Why indeed?

Wrong.

The point: your point, was that the Civil War had “absolutely nothing to do with slavery until that (insert disparaging remark here) Emancipation Proclamation.” I gently brought up the fact that previous to Lincoln’s signing there may have been debates, discussions and arguments regarding slavery, which you agreed to.

I didn’t bring up the attempt to make sure slavery didn’t expand out west and how much many in the South fought that: elections fought over it…

…or that Jeff Davis himself said if not for slavery there would have been no Civil War…

…or the economic situation that made slavery so crucial to the South…

…or John Brown…

…or the caning of an anti-slavery senator by another, pro-slavery, senator… pre proclamation…

…or the compromise we made regarding slavery in our own Constitution and experts who said we would have to settle the issue sooner or later…

Well I could keep going, but point made.

The odd thing here is if you had compromised ever so slightly and said it had little to do, or not much to do with it, I might have backed off from my extremely mild challenge to one self made King of answering all controversies. But I have had one too many racist southerners where I have lived since 78 make this same claim, punctuating it frequently with “nigger,” not to understand where it usually comes from, and what it often means. They still do it, they have just dropped the less than pc “n”-word.

Then when I told you couldn’t quite claim had “absolutely nothing” to do with it if they argued, debated and discussed slavery previous to the Proclamation, you called me an idiot. Oh, I know, you might claim you were quoting Glen Beck, Rachael Maddow or Bart Simpson, but we both know that’s not how it was meant, even if you claim you were.

To claim otherwise would, simply put, be lying.

Therefore confirming within far less than 5 minutes my previous suspicion that having an actual adult discussion regarding such things under these conditions was impossible. And since there is no reason I have to put up with such outright abusive behavior, I won’t.

I have been told you don’t remember all this. I find that hard to believe, but let’s say that’s true. I don’t find it any more comforting that someone who can be verbally abusive forgets it so quickly and easily: no matter what the reason. And let’s not forget my wife says she was told that you would, according to your wife, absolutely be apologizing. The quandary here is that, although that would have been the adult thing to do, I wouldn’t have believed it for a moment.. I’ve been around you long enough to know you’d be right back at it sooner rather than later. Just like you smile and shake a visitor’s hand on the way in and either avoid them, or lecture them about how everything should be, only minutes later?

I’ve also been told part of this behavior is due to a stroke. But a stroke should never be a mere excuse for, and a reason one must put up with, rudeness and abuse. I’m afraid, in this case, that’s mostly what this is. And a stroke wouldn’t account for you pushing and pushing these things: using every possible excuse to do so.

I can’t promise what we both want, that I never come back: not for weddings, funerals: nothing. For instance, if I find your being abusive to my other relatives that live with you I might have to. That’s not a threat. It’s what any sane person might have to do to protect those he cares for from someone whose idea of showing love apparently includes being abusive.

You do realize that folks smarter than us have been arguing these issues and not resolved them long before we were born, right?

Previous to our last visit I have been mostly silent about all this, but over the months since last Thanksgiving I have described my objections to your behavior, Sir, to friends, very few family members and a few business associates. I didn’t mention your name, just like I decided not to mention it here. I think I need to tell you what one said describing you and your behavior, once again, leaving out who. But I can’t just repeat it because I have been trying to keep this somewhat civil. But I will tell you the last word sometimes keeps company with “flaming,” and the second word starts with an “a.”

That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say anything like that. If he were to continue in that manner, lecturing all, I might eventually define that as “rude” too, and tell him so. But no where near as rude as aiming one’s poisonous, partisan, name calling vitriol towards guests or family.

-30-

Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

© Copyright 2010
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved

BION claims the plant will be able to produce several thousand gallons of ethanol per year.

Several?

Is that a lot?

The animals will be producing around 450 TONS of raw manure per year. What kind of holding facilities will be needed at what capacities? How will that be transported? By truck? What is left over after taking out the cellulose? How will that be handled? Who will shoulder the responsibility for the safe handling of that waste stream?

And while we’re at it. What is the anticipated mortality rate for these beef cattle? How will the animals who don’t make it to slaughter be disposed of? Who takes the financial hit for animals that succumb to the pressures of high intensity livestock handling?

Who will own and run the slaughterhouses? Will these be safe and well paying jobs? Or will these be like the horror stories we hear of in other states where migrants labor long hours for low pay in atrocious conditions with high rates of injury and sometimes death? How will the slaughterhouse waste be handled and whose responsibility will it be? Is this the type of slaughterhouses we need in NYS?

BION is pursuing the project. They have the idea and stand to gain from royalties on their intellectual property and patents. It seems BION will not be running or managing the different operations.

BION claims this project will bring 600 jobs paying $20.3 million per year. Is that 600 jobs paying $34K a year? (not bad but well below the US median wage) Or will their be a few managers earning $100K each and the rest getting maybe $20K a year for jobs that entail long, hard, dirty work?

That’s what we call the working poor.

Is anyone asking about the amounts of water these operations will require? What about the waste water? What will it be contaminated with and how will it be treated? BION says that some liquids will be managed by a “reconstructed wetland”.

Does that mean they are going to build a swamp?

Where? What exactly will be going onto it? Will it smell? Don’t swamps usually smell?

Ana thinks what we really need is 1000 farmers raising 72 head per year of primarily grass fed beef, raised on pasture as nature intended, with the manure being returned to fertilize crops and pasture.

Instead of one slaughterhouse closed to outside animals, we need several small slaughterhouses that provide facilities for local livestock producers and hunters.

One of my favorites is the true story of Dad’s donuts. In 88, after my father’s memorial service when we held that thing no one dares call a party I was asked to go get a dozen of Dad’s favorite donuts. There’s a little shop in Eagle Bay, NY that boils up donuts to a delicious deep golden brown where you can practically taste the word “crunch.” We used to buy them as kids on the way to and from Twitchell Lake where we lived.

One of the two sources… “to drool all over yourself… yum,” in the little hamlet known as Eagle Bay… the other being The Chicken Hut that served up buckets of broasted chicken pieces the size of dinosaurs. I exaggerate… just a little. No wonder they’re extinct. If they tasted that good no asteroid kacked them. They were definitely eaten by aliens, since we weren’t around yet.

Well, The Hut was either just an empty parking lot by the time of Dad’s memorial service, or close to, but to this day you can still buy those donuts. So in 1988 I put my new 88 Mazda pickup in gear and drove just a few miles north to the Bay. Pulled into walked up…

“Oh, I remember your father. He used to buy donuts for his dog.”

Dad had diabetes. Donuts and diet should have been antonyms. And knowing my father he probably actually believed the dog ate them not too long after he scarfed them down. Of the few things we fought about usually we fought about me wanting to talk about whatever actually happened and him not wanting to talk about anything else but that. I always thought it was odd, but these days I have begin to wonder if maybe I’m the odd one. The collective memory of folks seems seconds short, at best, and the amount of delusion about as prevalent as bait on a fishing hook, or in trap.

Barack Obama has spent a lot trying to dig us out of our economic mess. Adding to the deficit is by all means a concern and, if possible, we should figure out how to pay for what we spend. But even amongst close family sometimes I seem to be the unheard voice as they rant about this. Not once during Iraq-aganistan, and unpaid for tax cuts mostly for the rich, did I hear these same folks moan and kvetch about this. When Dick Cheney told us over and over that “deficits don’t matter” the silence was… well, silent.

Selective hearing?

Selective kvetching?

Selective hate?

Maybe all of the above with far more than “a pinch” of self delusion?

Did the dog eat their donuts?

“The professional left.” Give me a friggin break. After how many years of the AM band being pretty much an exclusive kingdom: Limbaugh Radio… including more than a few clones… now we’re moaning and kvetching about “the professional… left?” While ieAmerica and Air America struggled to stay afloat, while Rupert Murdoch and the dishonorable Reverend Moon willingly, eagerly, lost billions of dollars making sure people the professional right pretty much owned the national stage, did I hear these same folks who chuckle while also bitching about the professional… right?

No… and hell no.

Probably to busy feeding “donuts to the dog.”

Does the Democrat in the White House who much of the right calls a socialist actually have active advocates for the professional right working for them? Did he forget that bad mouthing your base while ignoring the over abundance of those “professionals” who wouldn’t give you the time of day is a terrible tactic just a couple months before the first election that tells the world what America thinks of you so far?

Do they know nothing of this?

Or did they “feed the donuts to the dog?”

So many things this applies to. When I hear my generation of grandparents and oldsters minus children rant about kids, did they forget their parents doing the same? Or that an actual tablet has been found with the same claims and how they’d be the end of everything?

Why do we collectively scarf down fried delights while screaming, “You ate my donuts!!! Bad dog!!!”

People’s ability to lie to themselves, convince themselves of sometimes insane things, seems bottomless.

Today, as I type this, I drive back through Eagle Bay, on the way home. A couple of weeks ago I stopped on my way out… going back on tour… and bought a donut. I am borderline hypoglycemic and, yes, I do know some medical professionals claim that isn’t possible… another story I  promise I will tell.  I shouldn’t be buying a donut: just like I shouldn’t tell my mostly left of center readers I used to be a William F. Buckley Conservative, and still respect that dying breed: traditional Conservatives.  Just like I shouldn’t tell you many other things. But I do and I did.

Unlike my father, and apparently many others, I admit that I not only bought the donut….

…but also that the dog definitely did not eat it.

-30-

Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

©Copyright 2010
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved

Achievers vs Stayers. Achievers are the ones who most succeed at school and not surprisingly are most often from the higher income families. An interesting finding is how these students seem to have been cherry picked by teachers, parents and other community members to be mentored and coddled into getting out of town and into University. State College or State University are only mildly acceptable. To really achieve it is best to go to the coast.
My argument is in contrasting them with “Stayers”, because of course, as these authors present it, the only way to “achieve” is to leave. What about if we labeled them “Leavers” vs “Stayers”? That might have been a fairer designation. Apparently folks who stay in their home town to build John Deere tractors, care for the elderly in nursing homes, or raise a family have not “achieved” anything in their lives. Success and achievement can only be measured by bottom line, urban standards. I guess Mother Theresa was a complete loser.

The authors also seem to think that “Stayers” stay because they want to live in a place where everyone is and thinks the same. Or to put it in their terms – because they can’t handle diversity. I think the authors better get to know their neighbors a little better. Yeah the population is overwhelmingly Christian and White, but look closer and there are lots of differences in that crowd. There is a whole gamut of political, social and religious beliefs. LGBT is not limited to the big city, though sadly it is often less well received in rural areas, but that is changing. One of my favorite things about small towns are the odd balls who are loved and even celebrated. When everyone knows each other and are often related, the edge is taken off the differences. Uncle Ernie might be a racist and Aunt Jane might be a flaming Liberal and Cousin Joe might be a kook, but when you love and depend on each other, those traits are overlooked and attention is more likely placed on where you agree.

This book is well written and brings some good points to light. If you too can’t understand why anyone would choose to live in a small town, you might be able to finish the book without throwing it across the room. If you do – let me know how it ended. And if you work for the MacArthur Foundation or some other organization that wants to do research on small town America – next time include a small town man or woman in as part of the team.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ana Grarian

I started writing this edition before news broke that the judge in the court trying Omar Khadr, a prisoner at Gitmo who was captured at 15, has said that his confession to a murder will stand… even though Khadr was threatened with being raped to death unless he did confess: threatened over and over again.

This is “justice?” Not. Indeed, guilty as hell or innocent,  it is the opposite of “justice.”

I would claim to be surprised; but I’m not. Our justice system: or lack thereof, has been being stripped of  even the most common and decent vestiges of actual justice for a long time. And what we have been doing with, and to, those captured in our supposed “war on terrorism” is simply a precursor to what any “red blooded American” will be faced with in the future.

Luckily, since their blood is green, Vulcans will be safe. Wait. They’re aliens. Let’s gut them and serving them on our dinner tables simply for being aliens. Anyone see an actual Vulcan around here? “Just fiction?”  Maybe Leonard Nimoy will volunteer for a somewhat different “roast” than they so often do for Hollywood types?

A few observations…

1. Once we arrest anyone, or try them in Charlie’s case, the concern should be guilt or innocence. Period.

2. Plea bargaining for a lesser sentence is, essentially, subverting the system. People in prison already shouldn’t be given deals to testify against others: by definition they are unreliable and highly motivated to say anything.

3. Trying anyone as an adult when they are a child because society considers what they did heinous is a perversion of justice, at best. If you want harder time change the laws for specific crimes when it comes to juvenile justice.

4. Killing another via drunk driving is not “murder,” unless you can improve intent: intent not just to drive drunk but to kill someone. Once again: beef up your other homicide-related laws if you want harsher penalties for something without intent.

5. Trying someone in civil court after criminal court for anything related to the crime they were found innocent of should be considered double jeopardy because… it is. Period.

6. Trying people in the press or by punditry is the opposite of “justice.” It’s attempting to raise a mob. It’s an attempt to encourage a lynching.

All this, and more, lets the incredibly guilty off easy and forces the innocent into wrongful incarceration. Why do we do it then? Because it greases the wheels and makes lawyers, pols and judges look good.

That’s not justice.

We are referring to very basic concepts of justice here.

But wait, wait, wait… what does any of this have to do with Charlie Rangel?

(Provide your own amusing attempt at mirth here by adding a trademarked Charlie  “grate” to your voice. Don’t forget his Mel Brookish accent!)

We are rapidly moving towards a system of governance where once accused you are guilty by accusation, and Charlie has already been convicted if you listen to Dems, talking heads and pundits.  President Obama has as much said Charlie should resign to leave his record and pride intact. Wouldn’t resigning do the exact opposite: smear his name forever? Of course no matter what he does that’s been achieved mostly  by accusation. Hence the necessity of this edition of Inspection.

I don’t know how guilty he is, or innocent. I’m claiming neither. I do know we all deserve to face off our accusers and have guilt or innocence decided by an honest system, not by the media, or those we work with/serve with before the actual trial is done, as in Charlie’s case.

Do you see the connection? They often don’t even want to go though all the mess and bother of holding a complete trial, or proving guilty honestly. Why do that when “Charlie should just resign for the good of…” fill in the blank. Why do it when all you have do is convince a kid he’ll be raped to death if he doesn’t confess? Why change the law when we can simply say we’ll not follow the law in special cases?

We should not be using law like disposable toilet paper: as if it’s something to wipe society supposedly clean. Why? Because we have to use it in other cases you or I  might wish to actually follow the letter of the law for. If you do you simply spread the filth and poison society by mangling a justice system that you yourself may need one day.

If you want kids to suffer the same consequences in some cases then change laws that relate to them.

If you want rape as a method of getting confessions then proudly advocate for that.

If you want any member just to resign whenever accused then don’t even bother having a damn democracy. Let’s have a dictator.

Yes, there are some horrible criminal acts out there. And some very corrupt public figures. Maybe Charlie is one. Maybe Omar is the other. But, even if they are, we get no where any sane person would want to go good by shredding our justice system through special exceptions, or not letting justice take its course.

I understand there are differences here: protocol in our political system, military justice vs. civilian, the abyss we have created so that we can treat anyone as less than human who someone might think might have the slightest connection to terrorism, or knowledge about it.  But the differences here really just underline my point. All this, over the years, has been created, in part, because it is a way to circumvent the ideals we claim to live by: have more prosecution or defense lenient courts… or just lynch someone with little to no trial for being inconvenient.

One of the odd things going on in the war against terrorism is that many have been relying on the Taliban to decide their cases the past few years. In a Taliban court there’s no plea bargaining, or chopping off a head instead of a finger because some in society think one person’s crime of the same kind is worse than another. The people go to the Taliban because the results a predictable: you’re either guilty… or not. The punishment is what it is.

Can you imagine the following?

“Wait a minute Achmed, we’re not in the right Taliban court. If we judged him in the new court of Uncivil Justice we can cut off his genitals and then his head!”

Sure. I can imagine that too. But that’s not what the Taliban does. I deplore what they do to those found guilty. It’s barbaric. But process wise? They are more fair and civilized than we are.

So as Charlie resists “off with his head” suggestions, and Omar has been railroaded into having confessed through threats of rape, I begin to wonder. Why is it the brutal Taliban can have better system of justice in this sense than we? And exactly what kind of justice system do we have when being inconvenient can mean no trial, no justice, being tortured, resigning instead of being allowed to have a case completely heard, being punished in a manner a crime usually doesn’t call for legally? And why must we, as wrongly charged individuals, tolerate a moving, quicksand-like, legal system where you never know when you might start sinking into legal Hell because you are an inconvenience. While at the same time serving as an convenient vehicle for grandstanding pols, and lawyers sometimes seeking to be pols?

Trust me. Be charged with something you didn’t do and you’ll see how our system has fallen into that tar baby from Hell: guilt by mere accusation, the desire to exact revenge on someone: anyone, bribes to “make a case go away” or “keep it off your record.” At the same time the legally insane demand to get something: anything, that slightly resembles a guilty plea… no matter whether the person is really guilty or not.

What kind of “justice” system do we have?

Maybe a justice system by mob rule?

-30-

Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

©Copyright 2010
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved