Going to California

Stephanie and I are currently in the planning stages of honeymoon. At first, we decided a trip to Napa & Sonoma would be nice, so we went to our local bookstore and bought a couple of books on traveling in the region. After reading the books and conducting some exhaustive Internet research, we decided that the region might be a little stuffy for our tastes, so we looked south on the map, down the California coastline and decided on Santa Barbara, a region that appears to offer a little more than fine wine and gourmet food. Yesterday, we purchased a couple of travel books on Santa Barbara and I couldn’t help but to notice a common theme throughout these books and the ones I purchased on Napa/Sonoma–California is fragile.

Electrical shortages, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, tar on the beaches and the overwhelming fear that one more molecule of carbon dioxide may forever destroy their eco-system were all discussed in detail in the books I read. It reminded me of the first time I heard the term “eco-anxiety,” anxiety brought on by the fear that one is bringing on the end of the world by their lifestyle.  Indeed, buried within the words in these books was the admission by the author that they played some role (and the allegation that we the reader played a role) in causing all of these problems plaguing California, including the earthquakes.

The real anxiety is the anxiety created in the mind of the reader by the authors. If I get a rental car that is not a hybrid, will the locals try to drag us through the city streets and place us in the stocks for the rest of the natives to throw rotten (organic) vegetables at us. If I take a 10 minute shower, will a gestapo like agent show up our hotel door demanding to know why our water usage is twice that of the average California resident. If we choose to use the air conditioner, instead of opening our windows, will we be verbally assaulted? If we use more than one square of toilet paper, will Sheryl Crow and Laurie David show up to protest?

I am looking forward to our trip out West. Santa Barbara seems like a wonderful place to visit and I know it will make a great honeymoon location; however, I don’t think there could be a place in the continental United States more drastically different than my native Texas than coastal California.

Texans love their land as well, but we don’t fear it and we don’t let it control our lives. While residents of Santa Barbara continue to fight oil companies drilling off their coast line, Texans understand the positive impact drilling can have on an economy and understand the minimal impact it has on the local environment. Indeed, drilling continues to this day on Caddo Lake, one of the most biologically diverse wetlands in the United States.

Texans learn to live with the whims of Mother Nature as well. While earthquakes are uncommon (legend holds Caddo Lake was formed by an earthquake), we live in the middle of “tornado alley” and face nature’s wrecking ball every spring. We accept it as part of living in this part of the country and we don’t blame the personal habits of other people for these natural disasters. Before the threat of power outages became a reality in Texas, we began addressing the problem and discussing our options. We managed all of this and still have one of the best state economies in the United States.

When we invite tourists to our great state, we remind them to be good stewards and “don’t mess with Texas,” but we do so without fear or intimidation. Perhaps authors writing about California travel should adopt the same philosophy.

Top 5 Podcasts

Since getting my first iPod as a gift some four years ago, I’ve downloaded countless gigs of all forms of media. One of my favorite things to download is podcasts. Over the last few years, I’ve tried out hundreds of different podcasts, but have now narrowed it down to 15 or 20 that I listen to on a regular basis. I thought I would share with you my top 5 podcasts:

1.) Slate Culture Gabfest – This is a must listen if you want to stay current on all things related to culture. The shows regular panel consists of Dana Stevens, Julia Turner and Stephen Metcalf, though they are frequently joined by other members of the Slate.Com staff. The content leans towards the “high brow” and much of it involves material published in Northeast publications (i.e. New York Times, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, etc.), but it provides an inside look at what intellectual elitists all over the nation are talking about.  The most recent episode included a review of the controversial new Lee Daniels’ movie Precious, a review of the Ian McEwan novel Black Dogs to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Jim Windolf’s recent Vanity Fair article on “cuteness.”

2.)  Slate Political Gabfest – Functions in pretty much the same fashion as the Culture Gabfest–three person panel discusses three issues–only involving politics instead of cultural issues. The normal panel consists of John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon and Slate managing editor, David Plotz. Be warned, the panel leans Left–far Left, but it’s entertaining and informative all the same.

3.) Anything You Ever Wanted to Know – This show is produced by KERA, Dallas’ local public radio station. The show airs each Friday afternoon, but I always listen to it via podcast. The show provides an open forum for listeners to submit questions, either on the phone or through e-mail, to be answered by other members of the listening audience and is moderated by Jeff Whittington. Over the past three years, I’ve learned some fascinating things from the show.

4.) The Writer’s Almanac Podcast – Hosted by Garrison Keillor, the show serves as a “this day in literary history” for lovers of words.  Normally, Keillor lists off several key events for each day and then will focus heavily on one birthday or event before reading a selected “poem of the day.” More than anything else, the show has introduced me to some great new poetry.

5.) NPR Playback – While the other podcasts I listed are released on a weekly or daily basies, the NPR Playback podcast is released on a monthly basis and features audio clips from the archives from 20 years prior. For example, the November podcast features audio from NPR segments from November 1984. I love being transported back to the 80′s and this podcast does just that.

Libby, Montana

I just finished watching an extremely low-budget, but extremely fascinating documentary called Libby, Montana. It’s intriguing to me because for the past 8 or 9 years, I’ve worked in absestos litigation and in the world of asbestos litigation there is no place like Libby, Montana.  The documentary attempts to capture the story of the the vermiculite mine in the town run by W.R. Grace from the 1960′s through the 1990′s.  The film makes a compelling argument that Grace knowingly covered up the fact that mine workers, and residents of Libby, were exposed to tremolite asbestos.

Anyone who works in the field of asbestos litigation, whether on the plaintiff side or defense, needs to watch this film. Sure, the film has an agenda and is biased against the corporations, but I think it puts a human face on our business. I don’t know how compelling this film would be for someone not involved in asbestos litigation or environmental issues. It tends to be a bit slow at times, the audio is horrible and a lot of the basics of asbestos exposure and asbestos related pleural disease is skipped over.

All things considered, I give the film, Libby, Montana, 3 out of 5 stars.

Question for the Weather People

We hear words like “climate change” and “global warming” thrown around a lot these days. While I wouldn’t describe myself as an “warming” denier, I am very skeptical of the agenda fronted by many of the Leftist environmental organizations out there. 

It seems that these radicals begin with that assumption that emissions of “green house” gases lead to a general warming of the Earth. While they may not discount it, they never really explain the effect of emissions on the pressure gradients.

As a Texan, I’ve suffered through some pretty hot and miserable summers. I’ve noticed that periods of extremely hot weather–days with highs 100+ and lows that don’t get below 80–are due to high pressure ridges/systems. The brutal heat continues until a low pressure system comes along that is strong enough to overtake the high pressure system. At this point, you usually get some nice showers and storms and the temperature drops.

If we assume that man emits “green house” gases. What effect do these gases have on the pressure systems? Is there an established correlation between the two? If man emits more gases, will there be more, stronger, longer lasting high pressure systems?

Ash Grove Cement and the city of Dallas

In the past, I have been relatively hard on the environmental lobby as a whole, attacking both eco-terrorism and environmental extremism. However, today I find myself in their corner. 

Ash Grove Cement operates a cement plat in Midlothian, Texas, a town known locally as the “cement capital of the world.”  This particular Ash Grove cement plant uses only wet process kilns, as opposed to dry process kilns, which produce less emissions. Since the dry process kilns produce so called, “green cement,” many environmentally conscious municipalities, including Dallas and several other North Texas cities, have initiated policies favoring, but not necessarily requiring, all municipal cement to be produced by dry process kilns, as part of wider environmentally friendly measures. With that said, Ash Grove Cement filed a law suit in U.S. District Court in Dallas last Wednesday, alleging that the measures adopted by Dallas and other North Texas cities violates fair contracting practices. 

 The Ash Grove case raises several questions. 

First, does a city government have the right to impose guidelines for doing business with companies? Sure, every city in the United States has established guidelines on how they choose whom to do business with, be it for coffee in the city manager’s office or construction contracts. 

Has the city of Dallas specifically required something of Ash Grove Cement that they haven’t from other cement companies? Based on the information in the Dallas Morning News’ article, no! Again, based on the article, the city of Dallas simply looks more favorably on a company who uses dry process kilns. Nothing in the article suggests that the city of Dallas requires the dry kiln process. Even if the city of Dallas did, this would not be unfair since it would apply to all prospective contractors and not just Ash Grove Cement. 

Does anything about the city of Dallas’ policy go against the principles of free market capitalism? Again, based on the information reported in this article, no. One of the most basic elements of free market capitalism is “let the market take care of itself.” If the city of Dallas issued a mandate that all cement factories operating within the city limits of Dallas must use dry process kilns, they would border on violating this tenant and attempt to control the market themselves.

However, Dallas’ policy does not in anyway seek to control how Ash Grove Cement controls their business, nor does it attempt to control the “cement market.” Dallas simply makes a choice as any consumer would, based on certain pre-determined criteria. It’s really no different than you or I deciding not do with business with a company whose practices or associations we may disagree with or oppose.

In fact, Ash Grove Cement’s stance represents a far greater blow to free market capitalism than anything else contained in the article. Ash Grove seeks to control the market by requiring the consumer (Dallas) to consider their product, even if the product they manufacture doesn’t meet the consumer’s standards. Perhaps if Ash Grove Cement devoted the time and effort to make a better, cleaner product, Dallas and other North Texas cities would desire their product. Until then, Ash Grove and their corporate reps. should stop their bitching and live with the fact that they make an inferior product.