The Atlantic Magazine
'The Conversation' Dept. September 2015 issue [page 10Debating the death penalty
The solution to problems with government execution by injection is very simple. The use of heroin to kill convicted prisoners is neither cruel nor unusual, and the drug is readily available in all 50 states. A secondary benefit of using heroin for executions is that the drug's deadly nature will become apparent to everyone. Heroin kills – on Skid Row and on fraternity row – and it will work just fine on Death Row.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 30 July 2015
Opinion Section / First Person (guest columnist) [page 4A]
Civilization has begun to implode
The mammalian species that have gone extinct in the last ten years already outnumber the plant and animal species that died off during the Fifth Extinction, which took place some 66 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs; the rate of die-off is also faster.
You may live to witness and be impacted by the Sixth Extinction. My guess is that homo sapiens will be replaced by cetaceans (dolphins, whales) as the dominant species. Maybe. In a few millennia.
The Fifth Extinction was caused by a 6-mile diameter meteor landing off the coast of Yucatan, darkening the sky with dust and dropping the temperature of the biosphere for decades. The coming Sixth Extinction is caused by humans burning fossil fuels in combination with over-population.
The battle against global warming is over. We lost. And there is no turning back or recovery possible. Meteorologists in Great Britain are recording all-time high temperatures across the country. The Arctic Ocean was largely ice-free this spring, the first-ever such condition, and Alaska has been warmer than the U.S. East Coast. Russia and Canada are building naval and coast guard bases along their northern coasts, expecting to need to monitor an influx of oil tankers and tourist ships.
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G.E. Nordell |
The El Niño phenomenon in the South Pacific Ocean is medium strength so far this year, and yet is already seen as cause for warm and wet jet stream clouds moving northward to Alaska and Canada. So the water needed to support California agriculture is not arriving and the crops will not be growing – first the heavily-irrigated crops like almonds and rice and alfalfa, followed by drier crops like corn and cotton.
Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are produced in California. Oops, no water, no food. The glaciers in the Andes Mountains are mostly melted away, so no water for their crops, and no imported food either. We are already seeing spot shortages in the fresh and packaged food sections in our local grocery stores. Prices will skyrocket and the rest of the economy will disappear.
McDonald’s is the largest owner of meat and dairy cattle in the U.S.A. (plus herds down in Argentina and Brasil); as their herds shrink further there won’t be any Big Macs – no beef, no food, no jobs.
The CEOs of Wall Street are still raping and pillaging the economy. The Wall Street pirates
take money out of the system and ignore the economics of Main Street. Money is quite like rain water: the less that circulates the harder it is to keep the system going. The Middle Class is shrinking in silence – under-reported, with little protest to the government, which doesn’t listen anyway. The solution is Keynesian economics, which is feared by the fascist Republicans (because it works); we also need to institute Reason-Based Taxation, which barely has a toehold among politicians.
Eco-activist Bill McKibben founded a group called 350.org back in 2007. The number was chosen because it signifies the parts-per-million (ppm) for CO2 that the atmosphere can healthily recycle – burn carbon fuels, plants and the oceans absorb the CO2, trees and plankton produce oxygen thru photosynthesis.
Recent news reports detail the several official scientific weather research facilities that have recorded CO2 levels at 400 ppm. Increased global warming is now inevitable and unstoppable.
The first six months of 2015 are the warmest on record (i.e. since 1880) all around the planet, with the second half of 2015 expected to continue to set high-temperature records.
The South Pacific Ocean contains a floating garbage pile the size of the State of Texas. That mostly-plastic garbage absorbs heat. As the warmer ocean waters there and around the world absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, the water is turned several pH levels toward the acidic. The acidity is already dissolving the shells of tiny animals at the bottom of the oceanic food chain, destroying sustenance for larger creatures.
The krill (swarms of tiny shellfish) near the Antarctic are decimated and near extinction. The melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers prevents penguins from swimming out to where the krill used to be. The melting in the Arctic prevents polar bears from swimming out to their seal herd food source, so the polar bears have started to learn how to kill elk and deer. (No reports yet of polar bears forming packs to attack Inuit/Eskimo settlements.)
The Republican Party blocked solving the ecological problems in the biosphere and now the problems have grown so dire that solutions no longer exist.
As you witness your children and grandchildren and neighbors starving to death over the next decade or so, be sure to thank a Republican.
(Philosopher and author G.E. Nordell left California because there was nowhere to park; he has lived atop the East Mesa in Rio Communities since 2005.)
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 18 June 2015
Opinion Section [page 4A]Texas pride and politics
Del Gabaldon, of Texas, "get’s a kick" from reading my letters (per his letter printed April 9). I used to actually be funny, even wrote comedy material for Los Angeles disk jockey Gary Owens, but that was before my three visits to Southeast Asia in 1967-68.
Nowadays, I collect salient quotations and post them on my weblog – www.DatelineChamesa.com – and write other things, my agenda being to save the planet from destruction by mankind.
One recent find is “Politics is a lot like driving a car: if you want to move backward, select R; if you want to move forward, select D.”
Señor Gabaldon displays his pride in Texas and Texas politics.
But isn’t Texas the state whose Board of Education removed Thomas Jefferson from the high school curriculum because he was too progressive? (In 2012)
Isn’t Texas the state where it is easier to buy an automatic rifle than it is to register to vote? And your membership card in the National Rifle Association is valid ID at the polling place but not your student ID?
And isn’t Texas the home base for numbskulls like Rick Perry and Ted Cruz and Phil Gramm?
It is true in Texas and elsewhere [that] if the Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter, they would not need to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 12 March 2015
Opinion Section [page 4A]Justice is being taken away
Bosque Farms resident Sharon Eastman took the trouble to share her beliefs (printed here Oct. 30) and has followed up with a short remark printed in [January 8]’s Opinion section.
Her original letter was a pile of mis-information, mis-direction and outright falsehood. She has addressed none of the corrective points made by me.
Meanwhile, for sentient readers of the Valencia County News-Bulletin, here is my promised conclusion to replace Eastman’s false premise that “the two-party system is what makes this the best country in the world”. (Refresher: The Declaration of Independence was in 1776, the U.S. Constitution was adopted and signed in 1787, and the two-party system came into existence 38 years later in 1825.)
I say that what the Founding Fathers were about was the achievement of justice for the residents of the American colonies.
“No taxation without representation” was at the forefront. And there was no way to attain representation under the authoritarian King George III. (Such was impossible in the practical sense as well: imagine trying to deal with votes in Britain’s Parliament from across the Atlantic Ocean, a voyage that then took more than a month each way.)
The United States was built on the notion of the existence of the individual, for whom the local and national governing bodies should provide a just environment. And that also meant justice for all, although it took a long while for such benefits to include slaves, females and minorities – even in theory. Theoretical justice for minorities is being rolled back. Rights gained by the oppressed in hard-fought battles over the last 200 years are being cancelled.
There is no justice in working a full-time job of any kind and being unable to feed one’s family.
There is no justice in my personal vote having to battle with the multiple millions of dollars available to each member of the oligarchy, the 1 percent.
There is no justice in the Republican Party’s attempt to eliminate the member-funded Social Security program, and to destroy life-saving Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare.
As I say, the concept of justice was central to the Founding Fathers, and the great extent to which that abstract value has been removed from the public conversation is why the United States is faltering in its role as leader of the free world. (Rather tough to lead when you are moving backwards, eh?)
The ideal of justice is why many of our ancestors came to America and why many in other lands are still hoping to get here somehow.
But the reality is that justice is being taken away while the ignorant, the violent, the misinformed, and the weak have let the fascists take over the country and now Congress.
The citizens of America want to fix our broken infrastructure, to clean up the environment, to educate our children, to boost the economy by creating jobs, to enable health and well-being for all, and to bring back the once-thriving middle class.
The extant Civil War in America is being fought over the issue of justice. Which side are you on?
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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response to my Letter of March 12 above
Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 9 April 2015
Opinion / Letters [page 4A]
Too much wind in his words
I get a kick out of reading Mr. G.E. Nordell’s letters. With all the wind he blows, he could provide electricity for a Belen home for a year.
The stuff he writes about comes straight out of D.N.C. hand book. I currently live in Texas and we have one of the best economies in the world. Of course, most nation’s governors are talking about us and a lot of people are moving here seeking work or better jobs for a better life. That is due to the right-to-work law and the oil business and how we managed it without liberalism.
I also belong to one of the largest TEA Party groups in the nation and we never discuss topics that rolls around in Mr. Nordell’s figment of imagination. If we followed Mr. Nordell’s political agenda, we would be like Detroit, Mich. Incidentally, Michigan just passed the right-to-work law in 2013. They found out the old way (union controlled) doesn’t work anymore.
Although, I appreciate Mr. Nordell’s opinion on how to run a country, thank God he is retired.
Del Gabaldon
Grapevine, Texas
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 5 February 2015
Opinion Section [page 4A]P.N.M. rate hike is wrong
The P.N.M. Resources website shows quarterly earnings paid to stockholders of more than $50 million. There are 762,000 households in New Mexico, so that shows up (ball-park) as $65 profit paid out per household per quarter. And yet, P.N.M. sees the need to request an increase to electric rates of 12 percent.
I just received the annual year-end letter from Social Security telling me that the increase this year is 1.7 percent. So I think that the commission should approve a 1.7 percent increase for P.N.M..
P.N.M.’s plan for an unjustified rate increase is not about good accounting or fiscal planning, it is about obeying the fascist agenda of the Koch Brothers who tried to keep their funding of American Legislative Exchange Council secret. A.L.E.C. works hard to bribe federal and state and local politicians to pass laws that suppress the vote, defund schools, bring back Jim Crow laws, block renewable energy technologies, loosen restrictions on pollution, and promote vigilantism (stand your ground).
The other part of P.N.M.’s proposal is creating a monthly fee for small solar producers like myself. Last month, my solar equipment produced just 20 cents more than the electric power that I used (lots of cloudy days). P.N.M. cites the standard A.L.E.C. whine that small solar producers do not pay for the infrastructure that delivers power at night.
P.N.M. invested all that money and, boo hoo, the solar producers are getting a free ride. Well, wait. The solar hardware in my backyard cost me $18,000. That’s my investment. So that figures out to taking 7,500 years to get my money back (minus the electricity that I use that is produced by me).
P.N.M.’s hardware was amortized years ago. The fact that they make millions in profit each quarter does not justify a rate increase. In fact, should Reason-Based Taxation ever be enacted in New Mexico, then P.N.M. and other utilities will be required to lower their rates. (Reason-Based Taxation allows a profit of 10 percent, anything higher is taxed at 50 percent.)
The executives at P.N.M. should apologize to the people of New Mexico for proposing their Koch-A.L.E.C. rip-off, and P.N.M. executives should apologize to the people of New Mexico and to the rate commission for assuming that we are dumb enough to agree to their scam.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 29 January 2015
Opinion Section [page 4A]Silliness in Valencia County
After living here for nine years, somebody finally explained to me the secret behind much of the silly happenings here in Valencia County.
Both Belén and Los Lunas were built atop a giant lode of Belenium ore. The effect varies based on where you are and how deep the Belenium vein is at that location.
It’s sorta like kryptonite, the green stuff from Superman’s home planet that messes with him in various ways.
Attempts have been made here to mine Belenium, but nobody wants the stuff.
See, Belenium explains why people in Valencia County have such difficulty parking between the lines.
It explains why Valencia County has no hospital, even after an offer for 60 acres of free land.
It explains why drivers in Valencia County think that they are supposed to add 50 percent to the posted speed limit and they are still legal.
It explains why so many voters choose fascism and vote for Republican candidates. Which is the same thing as not voting at all.
And the fact that the biggest deposit of Belenium ore is directly underneath Belén City Hall explains lots and lots.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Albuquerque [NM] Journal
Tuesday 13 January 2015
Opinion Section / Fighting Dirty [page A6]Raise P.N.M. rate like Social Security
The P.N.M. Resources website shows quarterly earnings paid to stockholders of more than $50 million. There are 762,000 households in New Mexico, so that shows up – ball-park – as $65 profit paid out per household per quarter. And yet, P.N.M. sees the need to request an increase to electric rates of 12 percent.
I recently received the annual year-end letter from Social Security telling me that the increase this year is 1.7 percent. That's true across the country, for every recipient of Social Security payments.
So I think that the commission should approve a 1.7% increase for P.N.M.
GARY E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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"The Bulletin" Magazine of American Mensa, Ltd.
January 2015
Brainwaves (Letters) [page 12]
Taxonomy
The names of groups of animals – gaggle of geese, parliament of owls – have been floating around lately, but they do not include a name for a group of Mensans. I suggest the word 'flub', as in 'a flub of Mensans'. It just sounds right.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, NM
NOTE: This was the featured letter of the month, in big and bold typeface and in a column by itself.
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follow-up to my Letter of January above
March 2015
Brainwaves (Letters) [page 11]
Group of Mensans
A writer in the January 'Brainwaves' stated that there is no name for a group of Mensans. Not so. There are traditional names for animals that form groups such as a flock of sheep and a herd of cattle. Recently people – wordsmiths and wits – have tried to give names to every living thing. Owls are solitary birds; there is no such thing as a group of owls. Wombats are solitary animals; they do not form groups. Mensans do form groups, and we have had a name for this almost ever since Mensa was formed. Whether we are at an Annual Gathering, a Regional Gathering, or just gathering together at a local watering hole, we are A Gathering of Mensans.
Bob Cox
Mauldin, South Carolina
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more follow-up to my Letter of January above
April/May 2015
Brainwaves (Letters) [page 15]
Group of Mensans
Having read the ongoing discussion of a proper collective noun for a group of Mensans, I think I have the obvious answer. A bunch of Mensans could easily be called an Argument of Mensans. What? You don't agree with me?
Dennis Kingsley
Goodrich, Michigan
Obviously, a group of Mensans should be called a table. Monthly meetings could be called the periodic tables. Officers would be the table tops.
Phyllis Miller
Somerset, New Jersey
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 25 December 2014
Opinion Section [page 4-A]Suppressing the vote
The letter from Ms. Eastman of Bosque Farms (printed Oct. 30) indicates that she did no research whatsoever.
Opinion is valid, but carries no weight against factual reality. (This letter was written before election day in November while cognizant that it will not be printed until after that election.)
Republicans are suppressing the vote in at least 27 states. Just Google “Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program,” which published a list of nearly seven million matches that defy any examination for integrity.
For example, “David Lee” is registered in all 27 member state voter databases but there is no indication which of the dozens of David Lee humans committed the alleged crime (which never happened). The state of Virginia has falsely flagged 40,000 voters, intended to suppress voting in that state and favor Republican candidates. The force behind the Interstate Voter Crosscheck charade is the Republican Secretary of State of Kansas Kris Kobach.
I don’t mind Republicans so much as I despise fascism. The United States was declared a fascist country by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2010 with its ludicrous 'Citizens United v. FEC' decision. And since the Koch-financed programs of A.L.E.C. and the Republican Party are basically fascist in purpose, they rightfully receive my disdain in full.
First read the platform of the Republican Party approved at the convention in 2012. They intend to take away women’s right to vote, women’s right to choose, everyone’s right to unionize, and to cut the minimum wage in half. Thus, any female who votes Republican is a self-destructive fool.
There are many documents around that define fascism, so I have here extracted the topic titles from one that is online at Tennessee Tech: Exuberant Nationalism (i.e. both Patriot Acts); Enemies Identified (Muslims and other non-Xians, liberals, illegal aliens, LGBT people); Rights Disappear (N.S.A. spying, privatization by vouchers); Secrecy Demanded (N.S.A. spying); Military Glorified; Corporations Shielded (by U.S. Supreme Court); Corruption Unchecked (Wall Street amnesty); Media Controlled (you watch it, I do not); Rampant Sexism; Intellectual Bullying (climate change deniers); Militarized Police (Ferguson, Missouri as well as Albuquerque); and Elections Stolen.
The U.S. was founded on a multi-party system? Hah! The Declaration of Independence was published in 1776, the U.S. Constitution was enacted in 1789. Although elitist political parties existed before then, there was only one effective party from 1801 to 1825 when factions within the Democratic-Republican Party split up – 36 years after the U.S. Constitution was created – and became the voter-member parties that exist today.
Several people have stated variations of “you have a right to your personal opinion, but not a right to your own facts.”
If the Republican Party does have anything to offer the American and New Mexico voter, why do they not present their ideas to us? Instead, their dark money PACs present bald-faced lies about Democratic candidates, and not one Republican political candidate in any federal or state race has stated publicly that these falsehoods were unethical.
The Republican Party advocates fascist principles, reversal of hard-fought-for human rights, elimination of health care and job safety, elimination of environmental regulations (safe air and water and food and medicine), free corporate pollutor access to the Commons (oil and gas, mining, grazing rights), and don’t forget monitoring private speech and actions inside your domicile.
Since Ms. Eastman’s notion that “the two-party system is what makes this the best country in the world” is without basis (either historically or in present practice), I shall have to ponder the matter and determine an answer for that now-open question. Maybe it is not just one attribute. Stay tuned.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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lame response to my Letter of December 25 above
Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 8 January 2015
Opinion / Letters [page 4A]
Laugh with morning coffee
Thank you, Mr. Nordell, for your 'factual reality' letter of Dec. 25. It gave me a great laugh with my morning coffee.
Sharon Eastman
Bosque Farms, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 16 October 2014
Opinion Section [page 4A]Go out and vote
Being an old guy, when I fell at home last week and cracked a couple ribs, I was not terribly surprised. Drove myself to the emergency room at the VA (since Valencia County still has no hospital); nothing broken, there is just pain – and new federal rules for pain pills that do not allow refills.
So just deal with it. Cowboy up, and all that. Well, no: Screw it. I’m hiding out at home until the pain is gone.
Except for voting. I will exercise my right and duty to vote if I have to crawl on hands and knees to the senior center. (Actually, I plan to vote early.)
The voter turnout in Valencia County is about 40 percent. That means that 60 percent of adults in Valencia County already surrendered to the enemy; these are the sheeple, who are always with us. Mean-while, each and every vote in America – and that means yours – is so important that the [elided: fascist] Republican Party is spending millions of dollars to suppress that vote.
Republicans suppress the vote because the smaller the turnout, the better their chances. So Gov. Susana Martinez and her coconspirator Secretary of State Dianna Duran flagged thousands of voters in 2012, and more this year, in order to reduce turnout. (However, some New Mexico legislator was unusually smart, and any flagged voter record where the voter casts a vote in any election in the following two years is un-flagged. Ha!)
Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity has twice this year sent out thousands of mailers with false voting information to mislead legitimate voters and to suppress the vote in West Virginia and North Carolina. The North Carolina State Board of Elections is expected to prosecute the individuals responsible for the crime, a Class I felony.
Republican Party dirty tricks returned to New Mexico in August, with a fake mailing from “NM Dems,” delivered on Saturday the 9th telling voters that political events on Sunday the 10th were cancelled.
And then of the minority who actually vote in America and New Mexico, half will continue to vote for the Republicans and their fascist platform. (If the Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.)
The sheeple abound in Valencia County, and even though the News-Bulletin is widely distributed and full of very interesting information, most folks in Valencia County do not read it. Not even the sports pages.
So here is my challenge. The November 2014 election is the most important election in your lifetime. (Same for the election in 2016, but the latter election could very well not even take place if the 2014 election goes wrong.)
If the voter turnout in Valencia County is anywhere below 85 percent (that’s right, I said 85 percent) then everyone who did not vote is guilty of a crime. And that crime is the moral equivalent of killing your grandchildren. Not voting in the 2014 or 2016 elections will kill their future.
I also mean this in the practical sense: If the fascists gain control of Congress or the White House or New Mexico’s government, then your grandchildren will have to live with polluted water, G.M.O. foods, no jobs, sky-high prices for scarce commodities, no health care, no education, no Social Security or Medicare – and no elections to vote in.
And I seriously mean YOU, oblivious reader.
Eighty-five percent voter turnout in Valencia County or your grandchildren will have legitimate reason to hate you for the rest of their lives.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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response to my Letter of October 16 above
Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 30 October 2014
Opinion / Letters [page 4A]
In America, we are all voters
Last week, I read the letter from G.E.Nordell, of Rio Communities, which was published in the News-Bulletin.
I agree with him 100 percent concerning the fact that most people don’t exercise their right to vote. Other countries risk their lives to vote, and we casually let it slide by.
However, the News-Bulletin policy states “Political candidate endorsements or attacks will not be published.” Mr. Nordell’s letter pretty much falls into that category by calling people 'sheeple', asserting that Republicans are spending money “to suppress the vote”, and the Koch brothers are mailing “false voting information” and Gov. Martinez has a “co-conspirator” in Secretary of State Dianna Duran.
He also alleges the Republican Party has a fascist platform and must “lie, cheat and steal” to win an election. Obviously, Mr. Nordell doesn’t like Republicans much.
I believe the United States was founded on a two-party system (or more parties) and that is what makes this the best country in the world.
I am glad there are Democrats and Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Greens and Tea Partiers. We do not have to agree, but we should not call names and denigrate those who hold differing opinions.
Possibly Mr. Nordell cracked more than a couple of ribs when he fell a couple of weeks ago!
Sharon M. Eastman
Bosque Farms, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 11 Sept 2014
Opinion Section [page 4A]‘Church people’ need to practice what they preach
It is always good to have someone to blame. Someone else, that is.
Julian Romero’s letter printed on Aug. 21 says nothing new in that regard. He blames liberals for replacing absolutes of “right and wrong” and of “good and evil” with abstractions, which is why the world is such a terrible place.
The U.S. Constitution is an abstraction, and it has been much abused by right wing (fascist) media, since their clever propaganda avoids current reality and the reality of the document’s meaning and intentions. And the sheeple nod their heads and the fascists get away with it – the sheeple now know who to blame.
Separation of church and state was a founding principle of this country. The primary founding fathers – Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Morris, Washington and Wilson – were theistic rationalists, and generally opposed all organized religion. (The 55 delegates of 1787 included 49 Protestants, four deists, and two Roman Catholics.)
While Romero complains about abstractions replacing absolute (black and white) concepts, he does exactly that in his letter. Separation of church and state means separation of church and state.
Any actual lack of morality or ethics in Valencia County was not caused by liberals or Democrats, nor even by Republicans. God was not evicted from our culture; the issue was just put where it belongs, in the private sphere. Any 'godlessness' in Valencia County arises because local churches and their leaders and members are not living by their Christian or Catholic preachings.
The beatings of wives and children in Valencia County, and the killings by guns and automobiles, the pregnant teenagers, the molestations and psychological abuse, the drugs and underage drinking that gets partial reportage in this newspaper – some newspapers print redacted police logs – are in no way caused by liberals, and certainly not by anyone in faraway Santa Fe or Washington, DC.
These tragedies and travesties are caused by the failure of local individuals and groups to walk their talk.
When professed church people get Valencia County families actually practicing their chosen Christian or Protestant or Catholic or other ideal, then and only then will they have any right to offer advice to others. If church people are unable to practice what they preach, the rest of us do not need to hear about it. After church people demonstrate their ideal, they will be listened to accordingly.
Crime and violence in Valencia County are not caused by outsiders. Such local behavior is completely local, and Valencia County families and other participating residents have only themselves to blame for their soap opera lives.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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"The Bulletin" Magazine of American Mensa, Ltd.
August 2014
Letters [page 6]
Frack-tured
The combination of the two articles on fracking in the June Bulletin was very well done. It shows how the oil industry will make billions of dollars by pillaging the commons, and yet they have no budget for prevention or repair of the resulting pollution.
Hydraulic fracturing is pollution until scientifically proven otherwise. We have a saying around here: "Zero tolerance for pollution in New Mexico", which is not yet official policy. Such a policy must be made law in all 50 states and at the federal level.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, NM
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After three botched executions in Arizona, I sent a version of the 'Execution Solution' letter to fifteen Arizona newspapers; the letter was then published at only one:
Letter: The advantages of death by heroin
Kingman [AZ] Daily Miner Monday 28 July 2014
There is a safe and humane execution method for jurisdictions that have laws authorizing application of capital punishment.
The Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett in April was officially aborted, but then Lockett died of a heart attack. Cruel, certainly, but not that unusual.
Three recent executions in Arizona had serious problems; in the last one, convicted murderer Joseph Wood gasped and struggled for almost two hours.
The www.deathpenaltyinfo.org [website] provides an incomplete listing of over 40 botched executions since 1982. Ten are by electrocution, mostly because the first jolt did not do the job; the second jolt often produced the smell of burning flesh.
The executions by injection included problems finding suitable veins, equipment failures, and violent reactions to the drugs.
The solution is execution by heroin.
First, the drug is readily available and in common use, so no surprises.
Second, heroin produces pleasure, which is why it is so addictive. Drug overdoses usually occur because the "junkie" wants a really good time this time. The use of heroin for execution eliminates the hurdle of the "cruel and unusual" clause in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Third, the reporting on TV and other media about "execution by heroin injection" will counter the belief of many that heroin is no big deal. Street people, high school kids, business execs, and movie stars all figure that they 'can handle it' - and as news reports remind us, that is often not the case.
The message from using heroin for executions is that "Heroin Kills."
Good solution? Heroin for executions is simple, effective, legal, fast-working – and deadly.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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After publication of my 'Execution Solution' essay on Op Ed News on 15 May 2014,
I sent a letter to the Governor of Oklahoma and then submitted a version as 'Letters To The Editor' to six Oklahoma newspapers; the letter was then published at only one:
Use heroin as new execution method
Stillwater [OK] News Press Tuesday 27 May 2014
There is a safe and humane execution method for jurisdictions that have laws authorizing application of capital punishment.
The Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett in April was officially aborted, but then Lockett died of a heart attack. Cruel, certainly, but not that unusual.
The www.deathpenaltyinfo.org [website] provides an incomplete listing of over 40 botched executions since 1982. Ten are by electrocution, mostly because the first jolt did not do the job; the second jolt often produced the smell of burning flesh.
The executions by injection included problems finding suitable veins, equipment failures, and violent reactions to the drugs.
The solution is execution by heroin.
First, the drug is readily available and in common use, so no surprises.
Second, heroin produces pleasure, which is why it is so addictive. Drug overdoses usually occur because the “junkie” wants a really good time this time. The use of heroin for execution eliminates the hurdle of the “cruel and unusual” clause in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Third, the reporting on TV and other media about “execution by heroin injection” will counter the belief of many that heroin is no big deal. Street people, high school kids, business execs, and movie stars all figure that they 'can handle it' – and as news reports remind us, that is often not the case.
The message from using heroin for executions is that “Heroin Kills.”
Good solution? Heroin for executions is simple, effective, legal, fast-working – and deadly.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 5 June 2014
Opinion Section [page 4A] {requires signin}
Obama did attend event
It is difficult to determine whether Valencia County resident Gary Gibson (in his letter on May 29) is uninformed or just willfully misinformed, but he failed to fact check his anti-Obama screed.
The least bit of research would have found that George W. Bush attended one D-Day ceremony in Normandy, France, in 2004 and that President Obama attended a similar ceremony in Normandy, France, in 2009.
Sorry, facts trump opinion, especially propaganda repeated verbatim.
And while we’re at it, somebody should inform Mr. Gibson that his city of residence has been Rio Communities since July 2013.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
The punchline? President Obama attended D-Day memorial ceremonies in June 2014,
so he participated in twice as many as George Dubya.
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"The Bulletin" Magazine of American Mensa, Ltd.
June 2014
Question of The Month [pages 26+]
Assuming evolution is factual, what do you think is the next step in our evolutionary process?
The next evolutionary phase for mankind is extinction. The current direction of the Culture Structure has been pointing to self-destruction for more than ten years now, and I predict that we have maybe 30 years of diminishing existence left unless somebody or something intervenes. What will happen after that is that humans who survive the cataclysm – like penicillin-resistant bacteria – will constitute a new species. The 10 percent of humans that survive the extinction of homo sapiens might be made up of Mensans, possibly Indigo Children or ADHD types, or just as Darwin posited, those best able to adapt to change. No kidding, 30 years left.
G.E. NORDELL
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 20 February 2014
Opinion Section [page 4A] {requires signin}
Are you scared yet?
Fellow Valencian Donna Crawford is scared, not because of 'the greenies' but because she listens to and/or watches right-wing propaganda.
Her letter is replete with the many fascist talking points that are intended to scare, and to lay blame for the ills of America on everyone who proposes a progressive solution, i.e. actions that do not engender feudalism.
I will not rebut each lie with facts, because it has already been done repeatedly in these pages by myself and others. The lemmings of Valencia County do not listen and they do not learn, so such effort is both redundant and without effect.
But here are some climate change and energy factoids for any readers who are interested in reality:
1. Half of all non-agricultural water use in America goes to cool nuclear- and coal-fired electric power plants. This is one of the reasons for both water and electric charges being high; energy rates will be reduced as sustainable energy production comes on line.
2. Hydraulic fracking is pollution until proven safe for the environment. There has not been one actual legitimate scientific test because the polluting oil and gas industry people refuse to reveal even one ingredient of the fracking chemical soup, citing 'national security' and 'it’s a secret' as their magic excuse. They just stonewall and continue to pollute the aquifers.
3. Since the installation of the solar panels in my backyard five years ago, the technology has improved by two generations. The same monetary expenditure today will produce three to five times the electrical output as my hardware, for which PNM is required to pay retail rates to the producer.
4. In September, the first-ever bulk cargo ship passed through the Arctic Ocean from Vancouver, B.C., to Finland. The vessel carried 25 percent more tonnage because it was not restricted by the depth of the hundred-year-old Panama Canal, and also arrived four days faster.
The world weather is temporarily cooler (but still stormier and vastly relocated) because the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica melted. (For Republicans: Global warming melted the glacier ice, the ice water cooled the atmosphere and sea water.)
So the Russian and Canadian governments are expanding their equivalent of the U.S. Coast Guard for security patrol and search-and-rescue work due to the expected increase in shipping and tourist traffic up there in the Northwest Passage. (A seeming positive benefit of global warming? Not if you are an Eskimo or a polar bear or a penguin.)
5. There is an industry called ‘re-insurance,’ that insures insurance companies against catastrophe. They have decided that climate change is very real and that current political policies such as climate change denial are rapidly making the situation worse.
The re-insurance folks say that there has already been a 17 percent increase in incidents costing over $1 billion dollars, and they have adjusted their rates accordingly.
Are you scared yet?
If the Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter, they would not need to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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"The Bulletin" Magazine of American Mensa, Ltd.
January 2014
Question of The Month [pages 21+]
What do you do to keep your mind sharp?
Crossword puzzles. I do them because I like them, but there is some science
that suggests regular crossword puzzle activity prevents Alzheimer's.
G.E. NORDELL
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Op Ed News postings for 2014
Execution Solution [15 May 2014]
click here to read
Koch Industries versus The B.L.M. [7 May 2014]
click here to read
Farmer Bundy Is A Traitor [29 April 2014]
click here to read
Warren Buffett Is Now A Bad Guy [5 April 2014]
click here to read
Kansas Goes Jim Crow [17 February 2014]
click here to read
www.GENordell.com
author / philosopher / revolutionary G.E. Nordell lives & works in rural New Mexico
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Albuquerque [NM] Journal
Tuesday 5 November 2013
Opinion Section / Talk of The Town [page A7] {requires signin}Churches can help to end gang issues
THERE IS A solution to the rampant gang problem, but leaders do not have the guts to implement any such plan.
All that is needed is for the Catholic Church, from the bishops down to the parish priests, to decree at Sunday services that swearing allegiance to gangs violates the First Commandment – to have no other god superior to the Judeo-Christian God. Anyone who seeks the sacrament of communion will be required to swear [that] they have no allegiance to a gang, nor does anyone in their immediate family.
Very simple choice: Gangs and damnation, or church and possible salvation.
Do this also inside the prison system.
This is not religious or racial bigotry. It is just accurate that the recent surge in gang-banger activity in the South Valley involves Hispanics. There are few Afro-Americans in New Mexico; the principle should be implemented by pastors of A.M.E. churches and others in the ghettos of South Central Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia – anywhere applicable. Asian gangs also exist, and religious leaders in San Francisco and Seattle, etc., should do the same.
Religious leaders in New Mexico and across America do not have the integrity to implement this solution to the gang problem.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
FOLLOWUP 21 June 2014: While visiting the Calabria region of Italy, Pope Francis spoke out against the local Mafia: "Those who in their lives have taken this evil road, this road of evil, such as the mafiosi, they are not in communion with God – they are excommunicated!"
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 1 August 2013
Opinion Section [page 4A] {requires signin}The well has run dry
The battle to halt global warming, aka “climate change”, is over. We lost.
The Republitard fascists and the One Percent (the Oligarchy) have and continue to work hard to ensure that the trajectory of civilization is pointed toward the extinction of homo sapiens in 30 years or so. This is essentially species suicide through intentional inaction.
New Mexico is experiencing severe drought in 90 percent of the state, extreme drought in 50 percent, and exceptional drought in 4.3 percent, which makes us the eighth-worst state.
The Great Drought is obvious everywhere you look. Elephant Butte Reservoir is at its lowest level since the dam was completed in 1916. The site is built to hold two million-acre feet of water; the content at present is 223,000 acre feet, or 11 percent of capacity.
So no water is leaving Elephant Butte southward.
The farmers in Hatch Valley realize the situation, and most are planning to plant no famous Hatch chile crop this year. (Well, maybe a few with deep wells will give it a try.) And I heard that farmers in Valencia County will plant only two alfalfa crops this year, instead of three.
The available water in the Rio Grande River is far below New Mexico’s long-ago negotiated allotment, so no water is leaving New Mexico across the state line to Texas, either. Texas has already filed suit with the U.S. Supreme Court, but that is simple lawyerly due diligence (“We tried!”) if they win the case, where is any water coming from?
What is going to happen here in New Mexico?
First, Albuquerque and other towns and cities will outlaw watering of gardens and lawns and filling of swimming pools, even wading pools. I am surprised that restaurants have not already stopped serving water except by request; it will eventually happen, and they may even begin charging for water like any other beverage.
Next will probably be shutdown of car washes.
As water becomes scarcer, prices will go up, either at the grocery or convenience store or on your monthly water bill. And you better have a large bag of quarters on hand if you wash clothes at the laundromat (or apartment building equivalent).
Water is a finite resource and a commodity, and the price of each form of water could very well double in the next two years.
Need a job? Ask a Republican why they refuse to even work on the situation.
Well gone dry? Ask a Republican why they continue to prevent every solution to overcome climate change.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 4 July 2013
Opinion Section [page 4-A] {requires signin}
Less vacation time taken
“The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual.”
The lies perpetrated by the Republican Party have no end, it seems. But the citizens and residents of Valencia County deserve the facts.
The recent accusations that President Barack Obama takes too much vacation time is baseless. Barack Obama took 131 days vacation in his first term of office; double that for two terms, the rate is 260 days in eight years.
President George “Dubya” Bush took 1,020 days of vacation time in his two terms, which factors out at four times the rate of President Obama.
President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush also exceeded the Obama vacation rate.
“If the fascist Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.”
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Thursday 30 May 2013
Opinion Section [page 4-A] {requires signin}
Zero tolerance is way to go
The article in your sister publication, the Albuquerque Journal on Tuesday March 19, about potential development in the Mancos Shale formation in northwest New Mexico mentioned production and technology and resource recovery and exploitation. The word 'pollution' was not mentioned once.
Bureaucrats in America exercise zero tolerance policies against children wielding sandwiches shaped like a handgun, but the gross polluters of the oil and gas monopoly have a free hand in making record profits from chemical contamination of aquifers and streams and beaches across America, such as that resulting from hydraulic fracking, rusty oil pipelines, mountaintop mining, and other anti-environment practices.
The only sane policy for a non-toxic future in New Mexico is zero tolerance of any type of pollution, and cleanup of the parts of New Mexico already contaminated. New Mexico’s natural resources should not be opened to exploitation until the state devises strict pollution regulations with strict enforcement mechanisms, and penalties that make polluters very, very careful.
New Mexico bureaucrats tolerate all kinds of pollution, which will last forever. And Pete Domenici licks the boots of the polluters and their money-wielding lobbyists – how much was he paid for his speech? And Steve Pearce happily carries on that boot-licking tradition.
The choice is NOT between jobs and profits versus no jobs. The choice in New Mexico is between pollution-free industry and corporations that wantonly pollute.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Albuquerque [NM] Journal
Tuesday 2 April 2013
Opinion Section / Talk of The Town [page A7] {requires signin}
Polluters given a free hand to profit
The article in the Journal on March 19 about potential development in the Mancos Shale formation in northwest New Mexico mentioned production and technology, and resource recovery and exploitation. The word pollution was not mentioned once.
Bureaucrats in America exercise zero tolerance policies against children wielding sandwiches shaped like a handgun, but the gross polluters of the oil and gas monopoly have a free hand in making record profits from chemical contamination of aquifers and streams and beaches across America, such as that resulting from hydraulic fracking, rusty oil pipelines, mountaintop mining and other anti-environment practices.
The only sane policy for a non-toxic future in New Mexico is zero tolerance of any type of pollution, and cleanup of the parts of New Mexico already contaminated. New Mexico’s natural resources should not be opened to exploitation until the state devises strict pollution regulations with strict enforcement mecha-nisms and penalties that make polluters very, very careful.
New Mexico bureaucrats tolerate all kinds of pollution which will last forever. And Pete Domenici licks the boots of the polluters and their money-wielding lobbyists – how much was he paid for his speech? – and Steve Pearce happily carries on that boot-licking tradition.
The choice is NOT between jobs and profits versus no jobs. The choice in New Mexico is between pollution-free industry and corporations that wantonly pollute.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Saturday 23 February 2013
Opinion Section [page 4-A] {requires signin}
Reasons why Paris would be good name
Here are 10 more reasons why we should rename Rio Communities to Paris, New Mexico:
1. The Great Seal of the city of Paris, N.M., has an already-defined motto: Audrey Hepburn’s statement that “Paris is always a good idea”.
2. The new city council can outlaw wearing cowboy hats except by people who actually own a horse or cow. Other people who feel the need to wear a hat can buy a beret.
3. The schools can teach the kids how to sing “America The Beautiful” and “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Home On The Range” in French.
4. An annual auto road race, that starts at the River Bridge, runs out the Manzano Expressway to UNM-VC, west to N.M. 47, south to U.S. 60, west to N.M. 304, and back. What will make the race exciting are the many potholes and the course being a figure eight. It would be called “The 24 Hours of Le Manzano”.
5. The restaurant at the golf course can add new items to the menu: French roast coffee and café au lait, of course, plus beignets, croque-monsieur and crepes suzette.
6. Wine sales will go up.
7. Instead of asking “Fries with that?”, fast-food workers will get to ask “Avec pommes frites?”
8. We can celebrate Bastille Day on July 14.
9. The senior center can show movies with English subtitles.
10. The new Municipal Judge can sentence anyone convicted of D.W.I. to the guillotine.
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Saturday 26 January 2013
Opinion Section [page 4A] {requires signin}
Paris, New Mexico, is a great name
During all the discussion for and against cityhood over here in Rio Communities (which passed 63 percent to 37 percent), I was surprised to discover that the actual name of our new city is farther down the line in the cityhood process.
So I have two points on the matter:
First point is that we should be thinking outside the box or outside the nine dots (whichever metaphor works for you).
Rio Communities is too long, perhaps, and East Belén will never happen.
The best place to deliver your suggestions is at the R.C.A. monthly meetings (see website www.riocommunities.org).
My second point is my own suggestion. Now I have always wanted to live in Paris, France, but that is probably not going to happen.
Second best is to take the opportunity here and rename this new city across the river from Belén as Paris, New Mexico!
No kidding, this could be great for our image. We can do sister cities with Paris, France, and the 10 other cities named Paris in the United States.
Maybe get an endorsement from Paris Hilton.
Build a 40-foot Eiffel Tower where N.M. 304 meets N.M. 47.
So, please, Valencia County News-Bulletin readers, let’s use our creative talents and submit many suggestions, though topping my own suggestion will indeed be difficult.
For as Audrey Hepburn said, “Paris is always a good idea.”
G.E. NORDELL
Rio Communities, New Mexico
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Valencia County News-Bulletin
Saturday 5 January 2013
Opinion Section [page 4A-5A] {requires signin}
Republican party is not good for Americans
The recent New Mexico coyote hunt got lots of national press, which may not be a good thing.
The weekend-long shooting spree killed only 39 coyotes, less than expected.
1. With only 39 coyote pelts collected, maybe the perceived coyote problem is not actually real.
2. Alternate observation: Maybe part of the perceived coyote problem is that the coyotes are smarter than the hunters.
3. It is very unfortunate that nobody has the cojones (and/or the money) to offer a reward for a Republican hunt. The perceived Republican problem is very real.
A big reward for the indictment and conviction of criminal Republicans starts with traitor Karl Rove, who now has added election fraud to his many other crimes.
The cyber patriot team called Anonymous will eventually release the evidence showing that the firewall that they hacked into Rove’s O.R.C.A. election data system prevented his intention to flip the votes in three important counties in Ohio (as was done in 2004).
Knowing what took place in cyberspace that Election Day makes the YouTube footage of Rove’s election night meltdown on the Fox News Channel really hilarious. (But of course, finding an official in Ohio who will actually prosecute is another matter.)
Next on the list are traitor and war profiteer Dick Cheney and lobbyist Grover Norquist. George Dubya will likely never be prosecuted for his treasonous action in approving the release of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame’s identity (proven in court) nor for his many war crimes.
Add to the list all the Republicans who directly participated in the above-cited crimes and you already have a long list. And then there are even more local and national Republican miscreants, maybe too many.
Good thing that Halliburton designed all those concentration camps to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – boy, I hope there’s enough room.
The Japanese are an honorable people; they surrendered after World War II and they have kept their word.
The Republican Party has no honor. They continue to lie and cheat and steal in order to win elections, and to subvert the U.S. Constitution. The Republicans and the Oligarchs who own them hold themselves beyond and above the law and they have no intention of surrendering.
Do your homework: Wikipedia has reliable details on the following:
A. the Powell Memorandum of 1971
B. Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santas Theory”
C) P.N.A.C. (Project For A New American Century)
D) The Federalist Society
E) the Citizens United v. F.E.C. court case
4. Calling Republicans coyotes defames canis latrans. All Republicans are fascists and ideologues; a majority of their leaders have committed treason and war crimes and election fraud, not to mention publicly lying to the American people, without guilt or remorse or apology.
If the fascist Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.
G.E. NORDELL
Belén, New Mexico
This letter/essay was also published on the Dateline Chamesa weblog on 25 November 2012.
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