Peak Oil

Our guest Blogger this week is my good friend Hugh Jones who is a consultant to the water treatment industry and has spent considerable time in power plants worldwide, especially in the Petroleum producing countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela and Indonesia.

I thought I would open his blog with a song borrowed from Ray Charles. It is now called “Bye Bye Oil”.

Chorus:

Bye Bye Oil

Bye Bye happiness, hello loneliness

I think I’m gonna cry-y

Bye bye oil, bye bye automobile

There goes my lawn mower.

I feel like I could di-ie

Bye Bye Oil goddby-eye


Refrain:


Its gonna be tough. I sure am blue.

Oil was my life, now what’ll I do?

Goodbye to Mercedes that might have been.

Goodbye fishing boat. Hello oars.



And now here is the Peak Oil Story:


Although rarely discussed, in just a couple of years, Peak Oil may be the greatest challenge and threat to life as we know it. My definition of Peak Oil is the point at which conventional oil production reaches a maximum. As of December 2007, oil production has already plateaued and in a few years, we will have peaked. Following the peak, the estimated decline in production is estimated at 2 1/2 % per year. Peak oil will have dire consequences for every person on the planet.

Globalization has been possible only because relatively cheap oil allows goods (food, raw materials, and manufactured goods) to be transported inexpensively from low wage countries to wealthy, high consuming countries half a world away. In the United States, the motor transport system which has allowed for massive population shifts to occur, uses 70% of the petroleum in this country and allows one 200 lb individual in a 3000 lb vehicle to travel hundreds of miles a week to and from home to places of employment. Cheap petroleum allows millions of people to live in desert climates and remain comfortably cool and well fed. The United States with 4% of the world’s population consumes 25% of the world’s petroleum. When this cheap petroleum becomes far more expensive or worse, unavailable at any price, you can imagine the consequences.

The US Congress is currently considering legislation that would require US auto manufactures to increase fuel efficiency standards to 35 m.p.g. by 2020. This is far too little and far too late. European autos currently run 35-40 m.p.g on average and Japanese autos run about 45 m.p.g. Current gasoline prices per gallon are $8 in Norway, $7-8 in UK and Germany; $4 in Canada, and $3.25 in US. Using basic economics 101, as demand increases for a product if supply cannot increase to meet demand, the price of that product must increase. Then demand will drop to balance supply. If oil production is at or near peak and demand worldwide continues to increase at 2% per year (demand in US and Europe is generally flat with developing countries like China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela increasing demand at 4%), then certainly demand outstrips supply in the very near future.

It is not unlikely that we see $4/gallon gas in the next year or two, $6/gallon gas by 2012, $8-9/gallon gas by 2016 and something north of $12 /gallon by 2020. If US auto manufactures are not producing cars that get 50 m.p.g. by 2020 then, I believe, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler will be out of business. I expect oil shortages to occur long before 2020 and $12/gallon gas. As of December 2007, the countries that export the most oil to the US are in descending order, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela (Hugo Chavez), Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Algeria and Russia. Mexico has already announced that, within five years, it will become an oil importing country. Nigeria is a politically unstable basket case and Russia’s population is becoming more affluent and therefore a larger consumer of oil leaving less for export. China, India and Japan have large resources of US dollars so they will be able to afford to pay for an increase in petroleum.consumption. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates have growing populations that consume more oil domestically each year. The good news is that the US is currently so wasteful and inefficient in our use of petroleum that, in the short term, we could use drastic conservation measures to offset large increases in price and declining availability. However unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be either the will or the leadership to make this happen.

Many people believe/hope that alternative energy sources (ethanol, biofuel, hydrogen or coal to liquid) will offset the coming petroleum shortage but none of these can replace more than a few percent of current petroleum consumption. In addition to the high cost of production and the lack of a delivery infrastructure, there are also significant environmental and economic impacts from these alternate fuels.



For those interested in additional information on the topic of Peak Oil, I recommend these websites: A.S.P.O – Association for Study of Peak Oil.com; Energy Bulletin; Die Off.org. Books are: Twilight in the Desert by Richard Simmons; The Long Emergency by James Kunstler; Beyond Oil by Kenneth Deffayes, Power Down and The Party’s Over by Richard Heinberg.



Thank you Kate. N.H.W.Y.

Coming Attraction

I have been working with my friend Hugh Jones on a very big “Oil Story.” If you think we had a bad situation with the “Housing Bubble” wait to you see what happens when the “Oil Bubble” springs not a leak but a dry up. A leak is easy to fix while a dry-up, well that’s another question and a very very big one. Note the 2 very’s. (When my son Fred was about 6-7 he and his friend Kenny had a series of very’s that determined their friendship.)

We are looking at the basic economics of SUPPLY AND DEMAND that are basically going out of joint. Hang in there. Coming soon RS

Aldo & Luigi

I first met my two friends about 11 years ago. We were returning home from New York City where I had back surgury. After a week in the hospital Kate and I started what was thought to be an uneventful 75 mile quiet drive to our home in Long Island. It was evening when we arrived and Kate suggested I get myself in the house while she brings in the luggage. As I am walking to the house, behind me I hear this high pitch “mew, mew, mew, mew”. Low and behold there are two tiny little guys running behind me up the five stairs to the deck and right with me into the house, as though they had lived here forever.





Not far behind is Kate, who if you must know is a very devoted lover of life. Well we are standing there looking at one another wondering what to do. Kate says, “The first thing we have to do is find these guys something to eat and drink and then we will see.” Since I almost drowned in Lake George some 50 years ago and was saved by a man who assured me he was sent by some sprit, I am far less judgmental about things that are not easily explained. We decide that Kate’s parents, who had recently died, had sent our two messengers to cheer us up in our hours of need. And indeed they did.


We live on the water next to a park. Cool weather brings field mice looking for the warm indoors. I am laid out on the couch. As the two new members of our family are fed and made comfortable, the entertainment begins. The kittens are listening to scrapes and scratches and are chasing each other literally up the walls across the counters and yes up on top of our kitchen cabinets as perches in our “great-room”.


We named our little tigers Aldo & Luigi. I am not sure why. It just popped into our heads. Watching them from my abode on the couch I began to understand the meaning of their play. Much of it is simply practicing what they will have to do to survive in the wild. And yet I watch as that practice becomes a fun game. Slowly but surely they become part of our household. They entertain us, but they also teach us about another world of living creatures.






We never decided to let them become outdoor critters. It’s Luigi (he’s the bigger and far more determined one) who discovers an open window minus its screen and out he goes to explore the world about. I am convinced that Luigi is at least Tutankhamen reincarnated. Most if not all these cats descended from early Africans who lived in the Egyptian palaces and earned their status by keeping the palace free of rodents. The Egyptians did indeed believe in an after life. Luigi has all the imperious characteristics of an Egyptian palace statue. In contrast Aldo, who is now referred to as “Little Aldo” because he is a very needy fellow,will rise to the occasion when a dog of most any size needs to be shown where the boundary line is for our property. (We are not that far away from these guys for us to be able to see some of ourselves in them, and that’s a humbling experience.)


It’s now 11 years later and here we all are on an overcast fall afternoon clearing away some of the summer overgrowth. Aldo and Luigi come tearing across the garden in sheer delight that all of us are together in nature. I envy their joy of running through the grass and am reminded of the importance of doing things for the sheer joy of it. And I am reminded to take inventory of my own store of things that are pure joy. What a gift that is.






As the evening takes over from the day, all of us are back in our great-room with a warm fire burning. Luigi and Aldo now teach us how to put the energy of joy away for a time of deep slumber. There is such sweet contentment in their coiling up, each in a place that either Kate or I have been as they know us more by our odor than by our name. I find myself watching them to see if somehow I might find that same place in myself to let go of all those chipmunks that run around in my head, reminding me of all those trivial things I think I need to do. No, I will be like my two friends here and be with them as they teach me to be in a state of “mindlessness”. Yes, of course that’s what I heard some meditation Guru tell me I needed to do. But it was Aldo and Luigi who actually showed me how to do it.


So you can see how indebted I am to these two guys for all they have taught me. As a nonagenarian, it is most important to tend to my garden of joys. I must never lose my connection to my Cathedral of nature and all its wonders. For if I do, a big part of what my life has been will be lost. They have taught me about the love that comes from loyalty and caring, as they speak to us in their language and we struggle to understand. (Kate can really have a full fledged conversation with them, and what a delight it is to listen. That is gift to me.) They are a constant reminder that we are not the only living creatures inhabiting this planet and of what we owe to them to try to pass it on to future Aldos, Luigis, and the rest of us.


In this our 11th year together I just wanted to share with you another part of our family. I do hope the pictures helped you to know who I was talking about. Thanks also to Robert, our grandson, for the pictures and endless tech support. You can learn more about him at The Vegas Year.

And a very special thanks to Kate as N.H.W.Y
Love Roberto

The Drug Question. What again?

A few days ago a headline in the New York Times caught my eye. We the US of A is proposing to aerial spray the Afgan farmers’ poppy fields to eradicate their opium production. Wonder why we are hated in places like Afghanistan? We are pissed because we’ve got to many cocaine addicts in the US. So what do we do? We punish the Afghan farmer. Am I cuckoo or what? Why don’t we spray the users who create this market instead of the suppliers who are just good capitalist businessmen?

As a nonagenarian (thats what I am), I have tried to calculate how much money we have spent in our “war against drugs”? I have run out of the billions, so that means I am in the trillions. And what have we to show for all that? Obviously not much as it appears that every year we seem to start over again, like now with the Afghanistan problem. Before that it was Columbia. And before that it was the Asian crescent. And before that China, and on and on. Some smart economist observed, “it’s far more lucrative to grow poppies for opium than, for instance, avocados or cantaloupes.” No kidding.

I must admit I am a beneficiary of poppy growth. I have an ongoing back pain problem for which I take Oxycodone or Oxycontin, both opiates derived from Opium. So how come they can make and sell these drugs for the benefit of a lot of people who suffer all kinds of physical pain? Ah, the dirty little secret. These poppies are legally grown in Turkey and sold to American pharmaceutical companies to be manufactured into pain relievers. They are taxed and legally marketed. So what have we learned from that? Nothing.

There was a piece on 60 Minutes about the “Medical Marijuana” experience in California. It turns out that doctors have been very casual in writing prescriptions for “pot.” Now of course the Feds are moving in to put a stop to this egregious behavior. It would be a lot more intelligent to take an overall look at what has been the effect on the general population as a result of this loose use of marijuana. We might learn that smoking pot does not necessarily lead to “Refer Madness.” Which brings me to my experience as a young child during Prohibition.

I was supposed to be delivering “olive oil”, but of course it wasn’t. I first figured that out by the large tips I was given for delivery to a lot of fancy addresses on the upper east side of Manhattan. I was actually delivering either Gin or Whiskey or both. Then came repeal and the song “Happy Days Are Here Again.” And they were happy because now people who enjoyed a drink before dinner could have one that wasn’t made in somebody's bath tub, from which people often died. Once it was legal, it was taxed and created substantial income for the various levels of government.

Why haven’t we learned from the Prohibition experience? I believe there is simply to much money being made in the illegal drug market--from the growers to the wholesalers to the street peddlers--for them to easily give it up to legalization. Talk about a powerful lobby. I learned about the “street sale” at Mobilization for Youth, the Lower East Side New York program to get delinquents into the job market. The kids in the program would often tell me, “Mr. Schrank, in one night I can make more money on the street than I can make in a month in that fuckin’ mattress factory you want me to work in.”

We could do in Afghanistan what was done in Turkey--legalize it, tax it and control it. That’s what is done with my Oxycodone. But the Warlords in Afghanistan would have no part of that. And all those who profit from it here at home will support the Warlords. One final observation. Since we live in a market economy, haven’t we learned that as long as there is a demand there will be a supply? Obviously we haven’t, for if we had we would be arresting more of the demanders right here in the good old USA instead of being the world’s jailer of narcotics dealers from Columbia, Mexico, Panama and anywhere else we can catch a dealer.

PS - How much did it cost the US taxpayer to keep Noriega in jail for umpteenth years? Why not bill Panama? That’s where he was dealing?


Thank you Kate. N.H.W.Y.

Remember the Locked Box?

The more I listen to the, you should excuse me for what are called “debates”, the more I feel like Alice in Wonderland. There seem to be two important strategies. One is to say nothing that might expose the fact that the candidate has a core group of beliefs. The other is to go after the front runner so maybe I can become the one.

A good example of this behavior is the Dems on Social Security. For Gods sake, first take a stand by simply saying, “Heah, the Social Security Trust Fund has been raided by the Federal Government. To make it viable, PLEASE PAY BACK TO THE INSURANCE FUND WHAT WAS TAKEN OUT OF IT.” Just that simple act of paying back what was taken out of the Social Security Fund would make the system viable for the next ten years, Yes, after that we need to make some adjustments, BUT we have time to do that. We are not in the state of melt down as some have suggested. Does anybody remember the presidential debates back in 2000 between Gore and Bush? They proclaimed it to the heavens,”THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND IS A LOCKED BOX.” Talk about “humbug”! That’s what my German born father would said. I like the professor at Princeton who calls it “Bullshit.”

Dems, wake up and stop wringing your hands because we get the distinct impression that you really are not ready to LEAD, and what we need most at this time is LEADERSHIP.


Thank you Kate N.H.W.Y.

Homer Jacobson

Now that I am now officially a nonagenarian I find all kinds of stuff showing up in various media that gives a jolt to my memory bank. The NY Times on October 25, 2007 ran an article about how the creationism crowd were trying to hijack one of my favorite college professor’s, Dr.Homer Jacobson. I was in my forties attending Brooklyn College at night. It was in a physics course that I had the great fortune of meeting up with Dr. Jacobson.

He was a short, very energetic man who literally was having a love affair with his subject matter. The same quality overflowed to the class of almost all adult students. After our first exam he asked if I would stay after class. He held a copy of my test paper in his hand. He looked at it and then at me and said, “checked your admission records and found you never went to high school.” He seemed confused and I hastily explained that I had taken all the college entrance exams and had done fairly well. “Yes,” he said, “I am not suggesting you shouldn’t be here, but your lack of high school algebra is doing you in. You seem to know exactly which formula to apply to a given problem. Your trouble is with the arithmetic. You add where you should divide and multiply when you should subtract and so on.” I was obviously troubled by all this as I was terribly insecure about being in college in the first place.

To Dr. Jacobson’s everlasting credit he quickly recognized my insecurity and spent the next five minutes assuring me that indeed I can do the work and need not be overly concerned. He said, “Here is what I am going to do. You will take the exams with everyone else, but you will just plug in the formula that you think applies to the solution and leave it at that. The really important thing is to know what formula goes with the problem. The arithmetic you can get out of any text book.” And that’s what I did for the rest of a very satisfactory semester.

On another occasion Dr. Jacobson asked if someone would review Boyles Law on the inverse relationship between pressure and volume of gases. This had been discussed in a previous session. Without thinking about it I raised my hand and he said, “Okay Mr Schrank tell us about it.” And off I went into what I thought was a beautiful exposition of Boyles Law. I finished thinking I had done a great job when Homer Jacobson said, “That was very well presented with your usual certainty, but I must tell you, you were absolutely wrong.” Well the whole class roared with laughter and so did I. I learned that certainty might be required characteristic of leadership, but has nothing whatsoever to do with being right.

My next encounter with Homer Jacobson had a life long effect on the many many times I was dealing with programs designed to help disadvantaged kids, whether at Mobilization For Youth, the Job Corps, New York City Youth Training and Employment or the Ford Foundation. We are now back at Brooklyn College and to the best of my recollection Dr. Jacobson was teaching a class on the history of science. I remember so clearly how he was able to dramatize all the great scientific breakthroughs which he said were “built on the shoulders of the giants who went before.” It was in a discussion of the race between Leibniz and Newton for the invention of calculus that he decided to demonstrate how calculus was used. The classroom had blackboards on three sides. He began on the front blackboard to write formulas and explain their significance. He had gotten somewhere on the side near the back when he turned to the class and asked, “Does anyone in this room know what the teacher is doing?” There was silence, but an overwhelming number of heads shaking very quietly indicated a very loud NO. He thought for a moment and said, “Why don’t the students go to the cafeteria have a nice cup of coffee and a Danish while the professor figures out how to teach this course.”

I have never forgotten that lesson. It was what one of my Public School teachers called an “electric light moment.” I had so often heard from teachers from kindergarten through college about “dumb kids who just weren’t ready to learn.” After Dr. Jacobson’s example, I could never accept that excuse. There were no dumb kids. There were only teachers who hadn’t yet figured out how to teach the people sitting in front of them in their respective classrooms.

Can you see why I have never forgotten this great teacher? Homer Jacobson’s example has stayed with me all these years. I thank him from the bottom of my heart.

And of course thank you Kate. N.H.W.Y.

PS. Have you had teachers in your life who were memorable or had a real influence on you? In what way? Please tell us about it by clicking on the "Comments" link below.

Upon Becoming 90

Look, this has been my 90th birthday week and I am reeling from the outpouring of love and affection from dear dear friends from Washington, Florida, Brooklyn, Metropolitan Opera and others. So here is a poem I recently wrote on a napkin in a restaurant at the Shinnecock Canal. This is a Long Island South Shore commercial fisherman's wharf. The boats are all rocking on the slightest wave action. As I gaze out at the scene this is what I wrote.


THE GULLS

Kenny Mock

The dock builder

Pounded old phone poles

Into the sandy bay bottom.

He thinks he built docks

For the fishing fleet to nest.

Little does he know

He has created places

For seagulls to sit and wait.

Something the gulls know

To wait patiently

For the Mary Anne or Primedancer

Their dinner bring.

I worry are they

Stranded on their poles

As the Easter Island lookouts?

They wait and wait and wait

When the last of us has departed

What happens then?


About 50 years ago in another time of change there was another period of poetry writing.


SUMMERTIME HEAT

I walked on winters path

Now in summertime heat

Has it been so long?

For the tall grass

I could not see

The sun go home.

It's Time to Use the "L" Word

We have another guest on our blog, Basil J Whiting. Basil is a major consultant to foundations. For over 40 years Basil has been working on social problems, with his primary concern being workplace issues. He brings us an interesting perspective on the "L" word. As you probably know, the Republicans have demonized it. You will get a kick out of Basil's unique use of the letter "L".

 
IT'S TIME TO USE THE 'L' WORD

With health care on the national agenda for the foreseeable future, the Republican responses thus far to the S-CHIP expansion and the proposals of Democratic Presidential hopefulls clearly indicate that it is time to use the "L" word.
 
When the President says he opposes S-CHIP expansion in part because it is a step toward "government controlled" medicine, he is LYING.  When Republican candidates say Democratic health insurance proposals are "socialized medicine," they are LYING. 
 
"Government funded" health care is not "government controlled" health care.  S-CHIP and most health care proposals are for full, or some degree of, government funding, not government control.  My wife and I have been on Medicare for the last five years and we use any doctor or facility we want.  And, Medicare's administrative costs are 3%, not the 20% of private insurers.
 
It's going to be a long, hard fight for national health insurance, and there are enough real issues to resolve without these old canards, too.  But we know they have power and that the Republicans and their allies will trot them out.  So, it's time to stop using weasel words about what they're doing and start calling LIES, LIES.
 
Basil J. Whiting

Burning Man

Imagine, 47,000 people inhabiting a dried up lake bed in the middle of the Nevada desert. No power, water, or amenities. The occupants bring everything in; a large city is built in one week. This is the phenomenon know as ‘Burning Man’. The rules are simple: you’re not allowed to advertise or sell anything, free expression is encouraged to make the overall experience exciting, and most importantly, you must leave no trace.

Burning Man started in San Francisco in the mid eighties. An artist by the name of Larry Harvey had just broken up with a girlfriend and he was in need of some sort of release. He built a sculpture of a man and went down to Baker Beach and torched it. Realizing the cathartic effect of this ritual, it became an annual event attracting more people every year. In the late eighties, the event grew too big for the city and they moved it out to the current site of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

Two hours north of Reno and just north of the speck-on-the-map town of Gerlach lies the Black Rock Desert. Surrounded by mountains, the vast dried up lakebed is flat, creating a perfect horizontal canvas. Completely devoid of animals & vegetation, the line of sight is about three miles on a clear day. The weather is extreme, hot days, cold nights, and major wind and dust storms that can create instant whiteout conditions with little to no visibility. The lakebed contains a fine, powdery dust that seems to cling to everything.

The Burning Man site is referred to as ‘Black Rock City’, complete with a post office, radio station and medical staff. The city is laid out in a huge semicircle, with the large open area in the middle called the ‘Playa’. The Esplanade surrounds the Playa and twelve more parallel streets radiate outward. It’s in these concentric streets where the 47,000 ‘Burners’ live for the week. The open ‘Playa’ area is where the large art exhibits stand as well as the ‘Man’, which is directly in the middle of the semicircle. No cars are allowed on the Playa unless they’re decorated ‘Art Cars’. Bicycles are the preferred form of transportation, and many are decorated, resembling animals and breathing fire.

Each year, Burning Man has a different theme, which loosely dictates the focus of the art and theme camps. This year, the theme was ‘The Green Man’, which asked the question, ‘What is man’s connection to nature’. I can’t say all of the art focused on the theme, but it was a topic of discussion. The very nature of Burning Man isn’t very ‘Green’. 47,000 people driving in from all over the country in trucks, RV’s, and bringing in everything from huge diesel generators to trampolines. I think the ‘Green Man’ was an interesting concept, but I can’t say I noticed a decrease in consumption or burning of fossil fuels at the event in comparison to last year. In fact, this year saw the largest fireball in Burning Man history when the ‘Crude Awakening’ oil derrick was blown up right after the man was burned on Saturday night.

Due to the extreme heat during the day, most activities occur at night. Days are spent either sleeping or relaxing in the shade, and at the night, the entire place comes alive. Some of the events include fire twirling, trapeze performances, and all night dance parties. A typical night consists of illuminating ones body and bicycle with L-Wire blinky lights and heading out on the Playa with a loose plan. The options range from huge dance parties with massive sound systems, to a silent play resembling a previous time in history. Various art cars rove the flat desert floor creating mobile parties and the large art installations stand like landmarks in the temporary city. The colors and sounds cannot truly be described. Imagine thousands of people out and about with colorful blinking lights and the sound of fire being shot into in the sky. Throw in the elaborately decorated art cars and theme camps on the Esplanade and you have one heck of a party.

What I enjoyed the most about Burning Man is the fact that thousands of people leave their normal lives for a week and gather to express themselves. It’s an open environment where you can truly be yourself, free of social barriers. Everyone is self sufficient, so it’s a gifting culture where you’re encouraged to share with the other participants. In this day and age, it’s so refreshing to be in an environment that’s free of advertising of any sort. Nothing is for sale, so people just give everything away. I’m amazed that this sort of event can even exist in this age of fear and paranoia.

Burning Man is pretty difficult to describe. If you’re curious, you should just check it out. The elements can be very harsh, but the rewards far outweigh the challenges. It took me a couple weeks to recover due mostly to lack of sleep. I’m thinking I may take next year off, but when the time draws near to go back out to the Playa, I’ll probably start packing up all the dusty camping gear and get ready to ‘Burn’.

Hampton Classic ?

It is now Hampton Classic time out here on Long Island and I had another memory jolt. It was not exactly the Hampton Classic, but I was reminded of an early Sunday morning in Mexico City. I was at the stables of the Presidential Palace for an early breakfast. You are wondering, “What on earth was he doing there?” I was too.

It was probably 1965. I was in charge of Youth Employment programs for the City of New York. John Lindsey, the Mayor, asked if I would be willing to go to Mexico to evaluate a youth employment training program called “Instituto Nacional La Juventud”, National Institute of Youth. It was wintertime and I could not be more delighted to leave the City for whatever reason. Mayor Lindsey sometimes referred to my job as, “keeping the city from burning.” (We did that by employing as many as 50,000 kids in summer jobs.)

Once in Mexico City I was treated like royalty with chauffeured car and airplane at my disposal to be able to visit any one of dozens of cities and towns that had Youth Training Programs. I would visit the programs, spend a day or two observing, and make notes. Getting back to the Horse Show.

On Friday evening my host Sergio Alvarez, Director of the Instituto, announced, “Sunday morning we ride with Mexico’s National Equestrian Team at the Presidential Palace in a practice jumping session.” You have to understand that Sergio, a small highly energetic man, spoke in proclamations that came out as major facts that simply could not be denied. Yet I valiantly tried saying, “Segio, I know how to ride a horse but for God sake I would not think for a moment I could ride with Mexico’s best riders. Besides, I know absolutely nothing about jumping a horse over a hurdle and I have no riding clothes.” That last was a desperate attempt to get out of this impending disaster. To Sergio it mattered not. “Roberto,” he announced, “we have all your sizes and your clothes and boots will be waiting for you at the arena.” And so I gave up to Sergio’s determination that this was going to happen.

Early Sunday morning there was Sergio all decked out in boots, jodhpurs, tailored riding jacket, and helmet, assuring me that the very same outfit awaited me at the stable. We arrived at this great hall where dozens of men where already at a breakfast of evueltos con jamon (eggs rancheros). There was no silverware and I noticed people were using there rolls as a way of scooping up the peppers and eggs.

I was greeted as a dignitary from Ustatos Unitos who will honor us by riding in our Le Pista. I was still hoping that the riding outfit wouldn’t fit and that would be my way out. At this point Sergio was insisting that it would be a real insult if I were to withdraw. “Roberto,” he exclaimed,”do you want to insult us by being disdainful of our riding ability? No Roberto, for the sake of the relations between our two great countries you must ride.” Sergio was what some Mexican friends described as a “declamador” who declaimed as though he was addressing the multitudes. Nothing to do but put on the outfit (it fit amazingly well) and make the best of it.

We proceeded to the riding hall and again it was announced that Roberto Schranko from Ustados Unidos would be riding with the equestrian team. As I watched these fabulous riders and their horses go over the hurdles from a foot off the ground to what appeared like six feet, I was in awe of their grace and the ease with which they managed the ride. I did not have a clue regarding how they were being judged. It was getting to be late morning and I thought, “oh well, they probably forgot about me,” when Sergio came to remind me it was time to “mount up.” Back to the stable. There was a beautiful horse held in check by a groom who very graciously with a movement of his hand toward the horse suggested I mount, which I did. Once up in the saddle it seemed to me this was the tallest horse I had ever been on.

Adding to my overwhelming anxiety and prayer that this horse would know what to do, since I didn’t, was the fact that I was sitting on an English saddle instead of a nice Western with that great knob up front you could hold on to when things got hairy. Everything from here on out was now in the hands of the Gods or the horse or both.

The groom led us into the Le Pista and sort of sent me and the horse off to the very first hurdle. I gave the reigns a little lift, which is what I thought was a signal to the horse to jump. Past that first hurdle there was a round of applause from the audience. I thought, “well heck that wasn’t so bad.” Then came the next and the next and the next, and after each one a loud applause. As I approached that final six footer I thought, “man just hang on here or for sure you will be dumped.” But this dear sweet horse just took it his stride and over we went. Now there was thunderous applause. Sergio came forward to congratulate me on my great spirit in making the Mexican’s feel good by knocking down every single pole from the first to the last. “Roberto, you are a great friend of Mehico and we will never forget what you did here today.”

As the trophies were handed out I was given a silver belt buckle with a Road Runner bird on it. I thought that was a perfect portrayal of me at the “Hampton Classic” in Mexico City. This was yet another case of “never look back” for if I had I would have realized how absurd this whole episode was. I did thank the horse for getting me though without a single refusal to jump.

A Letter to the President

Since the beginning of the Iraq war you have been receiving the advice from an assortment of generals. You have made repeated visits to the Pentagon, as well as secret sojourns to Iraq for advice from the General Staff. I am sure when you were flown out to the deck of the Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln some years back you were told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that our “mission” in Iraq “was accomplished”.

Mr. President, are you at all aware of the fact that an incredible number of people who are well informed and very knowledgeable about the Middle East have suggested that our problem in Iraq is not military but political? That as long as the various tribal and religious groups cannot come to some agreement as to what their country should look like, we can win military victories till the cows come home and it won’t make a hill of beans difference to the ongoing war between these groups?

Now Mr. President, with all due respect, you have been traveling in the wrong direction to get yourself some help with the Iraq problem. I suggest you visit some folks on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC who have had it right about the situation in Iraq from the beginning. Very early on in the war Jessica Matthews, the President of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, was being interviewed on television about the Iraq war. She firmly suggested back then that the war was a very bad idea. She explained that the long standing hatred and bitterness between the religious and nationalist factions, some of which go back for centuries, will not be resolved by any military intervention. When asked what we should do, she said to get out because our presence will just make things worse. When you think about it, it becomes crystal clear that this lady knew what she was talking about. She understood the social and political complexity of the situation. Wouldn’t she be an interesting advisor in our present dilemma?

Now Mr. President, there’s somebody who had it right from the gitgo. Would it not be prudent and wise to listen to people who have a deep understanding of the political, religious and tribal conflicts, instead of Generals who know about making traditional war but don’t appear to know beans about the long history of tribal animosities? The Carnegie Endowment has a large staff of knowledgeable people who just might be able to help us figure out how to get out of there by doing the least amount of harm. Besides all that, a trip over to Massachusetts Avenue would save the taxpayers a lot of money compared to whisking you over to Iraq in the middle of the night with all that Secret Service paraphernalia that has to accompany you. Please do think about it, Mr. President. It just might save the lives of a few more of our dear young men.

As always “thanks Kate”. NHWY. Love, Roberto

Katrina

My wife Kate and I were watching the second anniversary of Katrina and all that didn’t happen. By now the constant showing of the Gulf Coast destruction and the failure to do anything about the 9th Ward or the Hospital in New Orleans, formally one of our “Great Cities”, created in Kate a marked irritability not common in folks born and raised in Minnesota.

After additional reports of the increased murder rates in New Orleans, well above pre-Katrina rates, there was the revelation that the New Orleans Police Dept. does not even have a functioning copying machine. Kate thought maybe they could borrow one from the Iraqi’s. Then she exclaimed, ”How can we expect anyone on planet earth to take us seriously when they see our incompetence and neglect to fix New Orleans? Do we really think we can build a democratic nation out of the wreckage of Iraq when we are unable to fix just one city in our own country?”

I do believe, instead of the world’s great fixers, we have become the world’s laughing stock. Maybe we should send the Army Corps of Three Stooges to straighten out the infrastructure in Iraq. -- “Good By and Good Luck.”

On Becoming a Blogger

This is week two in my new world of Blog. Some friends have wanted to know, “How does a 90 year old geezer become a blogger?” Ah, a good question. I have been hollering and swearing at the computer for some years now, mostly writing books like “Ten Thousand Working Days” and “Wasn’t That a Time - Growing up Radical & Red in America”, both published by MIT Press. That led me to the e-mailing world of communication. I began to send comments on the news of the day to people I knew.

There are serious changes taking place that have made me think increasingly about the growing role of the Internet as a primary news source. Being a compulsive NY Times reader, I have noticed how the paper is shrinking not only in its physical size but in its news coverage There is also a noticeable disappearance of advertising, its basic source of revenue. I have come to believe we are seeing the end of newspapers, at least as I have known them in my long life. That would leave me with the computer becoming my primary news source. But hold on there. A few weeks ago I had an epiphany that opened my eyes to the wonders that this new medium can perform. Old computer hackers will certainly yawn as they read this. But anyway.

I attended a play on Broadway called “Eurydice” that is based on Greek mythology. In the world of the Greek Gods, Orpheus is known as the divine Lyre player. It was said that he played so beautifully that he made the rocks sing and the trees followed his music as he walked in the forest.

Orpheus and the beautiful Eurydice get married. While walking through the grass at their wedding a poison serpent bites her foot and she dies. She is in the Greek Underworld, which is sort of comparable to Christian Purgatory. Orpheus goes down to the Underworld to reclaim her and the headmaster says, “Okay, you can have her back on the condition that you do not look at her until you are back on earth”. Orpheus is delighted. Off the two of them go with Orpheus leading the way and Eurydice behind him. As they come near the end of the voyage home Orpheus, unable any longer to resist seeing his beautiful bride, turns and looks at her. Zippo, she is gone forever into the Underworld.

As a child I had been told that story by my father while listening to Offenbach’s Overture to “Orpheus in The Underworld”. Then, and now, I was never able to understand why he looked back at her, broke his pledge and lost her forever? I was sitting at my computer, so I thought, “Oh what the heck, why don’t I ask Google?” A long list of citations and explanations of what happened on the way out of the Underworld came up. “Orpheus got the sun in his eyes.” Thinking he was already out of the Underworld, which he was not, he turned and looked at Eurydice. And with that she was gone. Like in the Willie Nelson song “Tougher than Leather” where he sings, “Never shoot when you are facing the sun.” Too bad Orpheus never heard of Willie Nelson.

Another “don’t look back” admonition was uttered by a famous Black baseball pitcher, Satchel Paige. Long before Jackie Robinson made it into the major leagues, Paige was pitching in what was then called “The Negro Leagues.” In exhibition games Paige was striking out the major leagues greatest hitters, including Ruth and Gehrig. Paige’s quote, “Never look back he might be gaining on you”, was often used as an admonition to just go forward. Though I never heard Paige explain it, I assumed the “he” referred to was none other than the Grim Reaper. Unlike Paige, I think looking back is essential if we are to learn from our earlier mistakes. Eighty-three of my 90 years was lived in the Twentieth Century. I intend to spend a lot of time there learning its lessons.

Getting back to the Internet, I have been overwhelmed by the information that can be retrieved there. I spent hours looking up all kinds of esoteric questions. I thought, imagine if this had been available when I was in my late forties and going to college at night. All those hours digging in the stacks, I could have been having a beer at a local gin mill. It’s almost too easy. Now I wonder, can one really learn if it is made too easy? Is there any relationship between what is learned and how difficult it is to learn it? Another question for another day.

For some time now I have been sending out “missal’s” to my friends as a way of sharing my thoughts and getting discussion going. Recently three of my grandchildren in their thirties were visiting from the west coast. “Grandpa, you should do a blog. Whether what you have to say is current or from the early Twentieth Century, you can always connect it to the contemporary. We’ll help you set it up.” And so here I am.

As always “thanks Kate”. N H W Y. Love Roberto

The German Question Again

The Consequences of Fear
The German Question Again

For those who have read “Wasn’t That a Time” I am sure you will recall my childhood growing up in the world of German Socialists. With the emergence of the Nazi fascist movement in the twenties and thirties my “Papa’ became an active anti fascist who was predicting the eventual catastrophe that would befall Germany. What made it so painful for Papa was his powerful belief in the Germany of Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Mozart et al. And so I grew up watching my dear father’s most precious world turn into the darkest era in the history of western civilization.

All my life I have struggled to understand how the Germans could become the inventors of the Holocaust? I never really forget what happened in the Nazis years, but periodically there will come along another book or movie that causes me to start all over again trying to untie this knot of horrors by understanding how this could have happened? I am also in pursuit of any lessons to be learned that can be applied to our own politics here at home.

Rudolph Adorno did a study of the Authoritarian Personality following WWII that tried to identify the personality that totally accepts authority. This typology strongly fit the average German. “I was ordered to do it.” “I just go along.” etc. Remember the sixties and the bumper sticker, “Question Authority” That was a derivation from the Adorno study. (You can test yourself on the F scale. Go to Google and put in Adorno. The F stands for fascism.)

Two recent movies, “The Lives of Others” and “The Black Book” reminded me again of my dear Papa’s nightmare. In the latter the victim is added to the blacklist, thrown out of his job and is unable to find another. Everyone is in a state of extreme fear. “The Black Book” is particularly troubling as it explores the complexity of how people living under a Nazis occupation in Holland respond. This is a little closer to what happened here in the US in the fifties.

I have a personal history that demonstrates how fear creates conformity. In my FBI file there is a memo from J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI pinning a number on my name saying that “in case of a National Emergency Robert Schrank is to be incarcerated in a detention camp.” The summoning of citizens like the Hollywood Ten before the House Un-American Activities Committee was all part of the fear campaign. And boy did it work. It was part of the fear that McCarthy had unleashed and supported by a powerful part of the press that caused ordinary people to withdraw from any possibility that they might be tagged as “subversive”. Some went off to live in Mexico, Canada or Paris; others became apolitical, withdrew, or just “went along.” The latter is the objective of the fear.
It became clear that the first element of a fascist takeover is fear. The fear needed to be directed to a target. For a variety of historical reasons the Jews were chosen as the ideal target for releasing pent up energy of fear. What the Nazis added to the phenomena of fear was a unique kind of terror, as exemplified by Krystalnacht when the Nazi’s went on a rampage of destruction of every Jewish owned business in the country. That was the terror. For the average German that simply meant CONFORM to our anti semitism OR ELSE.

In the movie “The Black Book” the hated Nazi occupiers are clearly the “bad guys”, but even they are shown with some human qualities, like falling in love with a Jewish woman who is working for the underground resistance. And I am reminded how very ordinary Germans could tend the ovens.

The terror against those who did not conform brought the fear to levels of turning friend against friend, Christians against Jews, all against homosexuals, communists, and Gypsy’s. A whole nation living in terror and fear.

As I wander in this nightmare I am reminded of the McCarthy era and how a cloud of fear and foreboding seemed to cover the land. I knew at least some of the victims of that era. What comes back to me is the all-pervasive fear of “who would be the next.”

The present situation here at home has at least one of the symptoms of the fascist disease. That is the use of fear as a way to control the electorate. Having said that, I hasten to add that in contrast to Germany there is something in our anti authoritarian democratic tradition that permits the emergence of enough people willing to speak out in spite of fear. This gives me hope for the future. Yet, I believe the present wave of fear has had a profound underneath influence on the countries collective psyche.

So it is good to constantly be on guard against those in power who sow fear by accusing anyone who doesn’t go along as being unpatriotic or not supporting the troops or subversive. Just keep questioning authority, especially when they start lying and repeat the lies over and over until the average soul ends up believing it, like “the weapons of mass destruction.”