August 2009 Archives

I started watching the Animal Planet TV series, Whale Wars, last season.  The idea of a bunch of people, on a boat in the Antarctic Ocean, defending whales from the Japanese whaling fleet, seemed intriguing.  I don't think that I saw every episode from last season, and I certainly didn't see all of them this season, but I think I have an idea what they are about, nonetheless.

The activists on the ship 'Steve Irwin' represent a group called the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and they go to the Antarctic to keep the Japanese whaling fleet from killing, and harvest whales.  Sea Shepherd contends that the Japanese whaling fleet is harvesting whales commercially, for meat, in treaty violation, and the Japanese whaling fleet contends that they are doing legal scientific work, harvesting whales to study them.  The captain of the 'Steve Irwin' is Paul Watson, who also founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society after he was kicked out of Greenpeace for being too radical.

Apparently when whaling was banned a few decades ago, a huge loophole was put in the treaty's language allowing countries to harvest so many whales for scientific purposes.  I don't know the exact number of whales allowed to be harvested by the treaty, but they have quoted the number on the show, and it is in the hundreds.  This number seems excessive to me.  If you were indeed only analyzing stomach contents as the whalers contend, then it doesn't seem as though you should need to kill hundreds of whales.  This combined with the fact that whale meat is apparently sold in Japan leads me to believe that the Japanese are not just examining stomach contents, and that the treaty prohibiting commercial whaling has done nothing at all to stop it.

Why create a treaty prohibiting commercial whaling if you are going to include a loophole big enough through which you could drive a Panzer division?

Sea Shepherd contends that their goal is to stop whaling, and that they use non-violent means to bring about this end.  In the first season, they would approach the various Japanese whaling vessels and throw bottles of Butyric Acid, which is a harmless, but really smelly substance, onto the Japanese vessels.  In their efforts not to harm anyone they attempt to throw the bottles of Butyric Acid onto parts of the Whaling vessels that aren't crewed by people.  Sea Shepherd's goal with this tactic is to make the deck of the Japanese ships unworkable, unusable for processing whales, and just to make it generally unpleasant for the crew.  Both sides from this "war" also use the media to help spread their message.  Often after an offensive action from the 'Steve Irwin' both sides would issue press releases to various media outlets in an attempt to get their message out.  It should come as no surprise to you that the press releases from each side, describing the same event, often sound very different.

In the second season, the crew of the 'Steve Irwin' used essentially the same tactics as in the first season.  They also continued to use the long nylon ropes which they would release in front of the Japanese ships, in the hopes that it would get twisted up in the propellers of the ship, and "foul" the prop.  However, in the second season, the "prop foulers" that were employed were much thicker, and allegedly much stronger.

The Sea Shepherds might not have changed their tactics much between seasons, but the Japanese fleet did.  They learned much and started equipping their ships with LRADs, which are non-lethal sonic devices which can be very debilitating.  They also did things as simple as hanging netting down the sides of their ships to keep the Sea Shepherds from being able to throw the bottles of Butyric Acid onto the decks, and putting powerful water canons on the ships to keep the Sea Shepherds at a distance.

In addition to those measures, the Japanese ships also started throwing heavy objects at the Sea Shepherds.  Things like large metal bolts, which can clearly be very dangerous.  In the first season Paul Watson also alleged that the Japanese shot at him with a gun.  The bullet did not harm him, but like in all bad western movies, miraculously managed to hit a large metal coin/object on his person, both denting the object and keeping him from harm.  It is still not clear whether this event actually happened as alleged.

At the end of the second season, when the 'Steve Irwin' sailed into port in Australia, they were met by Federal Australian Authorities, and had to surrender any and all logs and video footage relevant to an event that happened toward the end of their campaign.  For the first time, the Japanese fleet chose to kill and harvest a whale in front of the Sea Shepherds, and this was not well-received by the crew of the 'Steve Irwin' at all.  They were determined to keep the dead whale from being transferred to the larger processing ship, and in their efforts to do so, came in contact with one of the Japanese vessels, slightly damaging their own ship.  The Japanese authorities asked that this event be investigated, which is why they were met in port by the Australian authorities, and I believe at the time of this writing, the incident is still under investigation.

One thing that is clear after watching this show, is that the crew of the 'Steve Irwin' is very passionate, and is willing to do anything, including putting themselves in harm's way, to defend the lives of the whales.  After watching two seasons of the show, it is still not clear to me exactly how effective they are at keeping the Japanese fleet from harvesting whales.  Nor is it clear to me exactly who has the law on their side, but despite that, I am in favor of their efforts as long as they do nothing to endanger the lives of others.  One thing that has been missing for the last twenty years or so, is activists who are willing to go out there and put their bodies in harm's way to defend, or stop, immoral or illegal activities.  There once was a day when protesting was common, and I think we need to return to those days to effect change, whatever it might be.  Hopefully the show and the efforts of those on the show will shine some much needed light on this topic, and help facilitate the changes necessary to keep people from killing whales.

The Sea Shepherds vow to return to the Antarctic to defend the whales again, next season.  One thing is certain, and that is that I will be watching.

As one might expect, the Health-Care debate rages on, and since my last post about it, I have been involved in many more online debates.  In that time, I still have yet to hear a single convincing argument against some sort of public option.  I have heard lots of sloganeering and flag waving, but nothing substantive.  I also hear lots of Libertarians using words that I'm not entirely convinced of which they know the meaning.  Words like "Liberty."  I hear that word a lot; it was used by the founders of this nation, and I am still not entirely sure what it means.  As best I can tell, liberty means freedom.  And if so, why not just use the word freedom?  Perhaps liberty is just a word that has gone out of vogue.  Many words get old, become stale, and exit the lexicon of usage, but perhaps much like horn-rimmed glasses, they are using them again to be seen as edgy.

In any case, Libertarians think that a Public Option will reduce the amount of liberty that they have, but none can tell me why.  Libertarians are very passionate about lost liberties, but I rarely see them talk about gained liberties.

For example, they will argue passionately when they feel something is being taken away from them, but with regards to this health-care debate, they don't feel that they are gaining any liberty.  Well I disagree.

If I can go into an emergency room and have an emergency procedure performed, without having to pay an obscenely high medical bill, then that is clearly a freedom gained.  Why is it that Libertarians can not see something so obvious?

Regardless of our system, someone is going to be paying the hospital bills.  Either you yourself, a private insurer, or the government.  So beyond that, it seems clear that the rest is all largely a paperwork issue, and I don't trust the government any less than a corporation to maintain that billing database.  Neither has demonstrated the ability to secure their computers any more than the other.

In one debate, a man was angrily arguing that he didn't want the government intruding into the most private part of his life.  I responded by telling him that he needn't worry, because it won't be his Congressperson performing the rectal, it will be a licensed physician.

What's with all of the paranoia?  Why do people think that the world will come to an end if the government offers us a public health care option?  Why, when we consider ourselves an enlightened western nation, do we oppose such a system when our European cousins have all adopted, and prospered, under something similar?  Could someone please explain that to me in words that make sense?  Further, why is it OK for the private sector to amass huge databases of data about us, but not the government?  Corporations have shown no evidence of being more benign than governments.  Also, what makes these people think that the private sector isn't already sharing this data with the government, particularly after 9/11?

During one debate that I had with a Libertarian, my opponent finally yielded and said, "You are correct, enacting a public option in and of itself does not impinge on one's freedom. It is everything else that comes along with it."  But he wouldn't explain what his vague terminology "every thing that comes along with it," actually means.

Look, I hate government intrusion into our private lives as much as any Libertarian, but I have some bad news for these people.  That cat is already out of the bag.  That Pandora's box was opened decades ago, and likely isn't going away.  Does that mean that we shouldn't fight for our freedoms?  Of course we should.  Vigilantly.  But health care in the form of a public option isn't the enemy here.  We should not oppose a public option, just because the government can listen to our phone calls.

When people express fears, but can not adequately explain them, they are really talking about the BOGEYMAN.  Yes, that elusive, imaginary monster from our childhood that lurks in closets, and hides under beds.  But aren't we supposed to be rid of him by the time we're eighteen??

From where does our food come?

Most people I suspect, think it comes from farms in pastoral settings with men wearing overalls, smoking corn-cob pipes, while driving tractors.  Sadly, the majority of the food that most people eat today, comes from huge factory farms, run by gigantic multi-national corporations, and like most corporate-run enterprises, production efficiency, unsafe working conditions, low wages, and little concern for the environment and the consumer, rule the day.

The story of this film is told by a few farmers, both mass-production, and low-production organic, as well as by Michael Pollan (Author: The Omnivore's Dilemma), Eric Schlosser (Author: Fast Food Nation), and the story they tell will shock you.

As a Vegetarian, I have always been a little confused by the people arguing that the meat industry doesn't treat its animals humanely.  I am confused because if the animal is only going to be killed, what does it matter?  For me there is no humanity in the process regardless of how they treat the animals, and in my mind, there certainly is no humane way to slaughter an animal.  But in these inhumane conditions that the animals endure before slaughter, lie many unintended, potentially life-threatening consequences.

I'm sure that most people probably aren't aware that in these mass-production facilities, beef cattle wade through ponds of their own feces, and are often covered in it.  Feeding the animals corn, while inexpensive, is not the food that cattle have evolved eating, so this affects their digestion, and allows for Ecoli buildup in the animal's gut.  This is how the meat eventually gets tainted with Ecoli, and leads to those horrific stories we hear about where people get sick, and sometimes die, from tainted meat.

The horror story isn't limited only to meat production.  Massive pesticide use, genetically modified crops, and manure runoff are some of the issues surrounding produce production as well.

I became a vegetarian for health reasons, and in time, and after reading books written by the above authors, came to know about these facts.  This solidified my belief in eating whole, organic foods whenever possible, for the good of me, and the planet.

This film is a good starting place for those people who want to know more about what they are eating and I highly recommend it.  The film also did something that I have never before seen done.  Often when people have seen a documentary, they leave the theatre asking, "What can I do?  How can I help?"  Well this film solves that problem for you.  Before the credits roll, the filmmakers make several great recommendations of things that you can do to effect change.

For those wanting to know more, please see this film.  If you see the film and that isn't enough, I recommend reading the books mentioned above.  It could save your life and will certainly benefit mankind and our planet.

    The Official Food, Inc. Home Page

    Food, Inc. at the Internet Movie Database

I've been watching the debate on health care reform of late with subdued interest.  It's not that I don't care, because I care immensely.  It's just that I feel so powerless.  I am currently unemployed, and having some sort of "Public Option" would benefit me greatly, because if I get injured and need some sort of real procedure done, it will certainly bankrupt me or put me in debt for the rest of my life.  You're probably wondering, then, why my interest isn't more than "subdued."  Well as of last night, I got fired up.

Last night I was watching Larry King Live, and his guests were Ron Paul, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Dr. Paul Song, and it was the first time that I've seen where these ridiculous claims being made by the conservatives, were being properly addressed, and crushed, as they should be.  Ron Paul was making the classic Libertarian/Conservative argument that any health care reform measure should include "more freedom."  What the hell does that mean?  Right now half of the people in the US have no health care coverage of any kind, and they currently have the freedom to get sick and die.  Is that the kind of freedom that Ron Paul advocates?  In watching that program, I learned that Ron Paul is a physician, and I am shocked that anyone who took the Hippocratic Oath could be against well-intentioned health-care reform like a Public Option, or single-payer system.  I've said this before in various debates, and on my (former) podcast, but I believe that health care carried out for profit, is against the Hippocratic Oath.  That is not to say that Doctors don't have the right to make a living, indeed they do, but so does everyone else in the country.  No one should be faulted for wanting to make a good living, but for me, much of the obscenity of the system lies within the insurance industry, and the politician lap dogs to which they pay legal bribes (campaign contributions) to do their bidding.

The reason I got fired up last night was because for every canned argument/talking point that Ron Paul regurgitated, Paul Song, and Sanjay Gupta had FACTS that showed that the arguments currently being used against the Public Option are hyperbolic fiction. Song and Gupta systematically dismantled Ron Paul's "arguments" and reduced them to the pile of smoldering nonsense that they were.  I love a good debate with well reasoned arguments, and for the first time that I've seen (I don't watch a lot of TV) we had a debate where the subject was actually discussed thoroughly, without a lot of theatre, and addressed properly so that the people at home could actually make a reasoned decision based on what they had witnessed.

The transcript to that Larry King Live Debate can be found here.  Scroll down about half way.

Another recent Town Hall Meeting had an angry woman asking Senator Arlin Spector, why we were moving to a Socialist system, which she argued, was a slippery slope, and the next thing you know we would be like Soviet Russia.  Whether or not Soviet Russia was truly Socialist or Marxist, is a debate for another time, but I have a question for this woman.  Does she really believe that just because Canada and most European countries have some sort of single-payer health care system, that they actually resemble Soviet Russia?  Are the people who are making these arguments truly that deluded?  Do they think that if we adopt some sort of single-payer system, that Stalin will suddenly rise from the dead and banish us all to the Gulag??  Sadly the clip that I saw of this particular town hall meeting ended before I got to see Senator Spector's reply.  I would be interested to know what he said.

A friend just posted this link of Barney Frank addressing a woman at a Town Hall Meeting who was calling the Public Option a Nazi health care plan, and carrying a photo of President Obama defaced to make him look like Hitler.  Mr. Frank gave this woman and her claims the EXACT kind of response and consideration that they required, and I hope that all people who speak up with such nonsense at these meetings are treated exactly the same way.

What confuses me the most about these fake-grass-roots-protesters-paid-off-by-the-insurance-industry-to-disrupt-meetings-and-spread-rumours, is that their arguments are not even on point and consistent.  One day they're saying Obama's plan is Socialist, and one day they're saying Obama's plan is Fascist.  For those who don't know, those two things are on polar opposite ends of the economic spectrum so they both certainly can not be true.  I understand that these people are there just to create chaos and use propaganda to evoke emotional memories of Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia, to keep the status quo and to keep insurance industry profits high, but they should be ashamed of themselves.  Ultimately they are arguing against their own better interests because with the state of the current economy and where it's potentially heading, they might need a Public Option themselves.

All of these Astro-Turfing protesters remind me of a time many years ago, when a friend of mine and I were driving past the local Planned Parenthood clinic, and my friend looked at all of the abortion protesters and yelled, "GET A LIFE!"  To this day I am still not sure if his words were seen as positive or negative by the protesters that day, but to the crazed protesters whose job is to do nothing more than to disrupt and interrupt the current health care debate, I say, "GET A LIFE!" because you don't know what tomorrow will bring, and it just might be you who needs access to urgent health care.

Well folks, as promised, here is the interview that the folks over at the Open Source Musician Podcast did with me.  And if I might add, those are the most detailed show notes I have EVER seen!

Open Source Musician Podcast #21 with Rich Wielgosz

When I started playing guitar years ago, I always dreamt of the day when I would finally be able to own a Gibson Les Paul guitar.  I loved the look, and the symmetry of the design, long before I had ever even plugged one in and heard their amazing tone.  Then after I had been playing for only a few years, a fortuitous thing happened.  A friend who needed money badly to pay his rent, offered to sell me his Les Paul.  He had done some customizing work to it, and really, had messed it up a bit, but I offered him all of the money I had been saving for the day when I would finally be able to buy a Les Paul, and he accepted.  Three hundred dollars later I was the proud owner of a 1977 Gibson Les Paul Standard (pictured), and I started the difficult task of trying to undo the work he had done, and bring it back as close to stock as possible.  I had a friend who was a Gibson dealer, and he sold me the needed hardware at cost, and after a short period of time, I had it the way I wanted it, and own the guitar to this very day.

Why am I talking about my silly guitar, you ask?  Well, it's because on Thursday, August 13th, Les Paul died at the age of 94 years.

Many of you might not realize this, but Les Paul is responsible for so many of the things that musicians take for granted on a daily basis.  He gave us the first solid body electric guitar.  Before that, the guitars that people played on stage were likely likely to be hollow with arched tops, and if they had a pickup, and were plugged in, they were much more likely to feed back.  Solid body guitars have a completely different sound, but allow you to play with your amp set really loudly, and they won't feed back.

Les also gave us multi-track recording.  The idea that an instrument can have its own separate track which gives you ultimate control over how that instrument/track sounds, and how it sits in the final mix.

Les also pioneered the technique of close-miking sound sources.  Prior to Les, microphones would typically be placed far away from the sound source that they were recording, which would result in a more distant, less present sound.  Les decided that it might be cool to put the microphone more like six inches away from the singer, or instrument, which resulted in a more present sound, and to this day is the way most things are recorded.

The guy was also one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived.

Quite a legacy, eh?

So the next time you pick up your solid body electric guitar, stick a microphone in front of your amp, and record it to its own track on some sort of multi-track recording device, think of Les.

I'm another year older. Whoopee!   :-)

Last night I went out to a wine bar with my good friend Matt, who was in town from DC, and we had a nice three-hour chat.  It was cool to to just sit around BS'ing, and laughing.

I had forgotten that I had been given an open invitation to podcast with some new friends, and that they would be doing it last night.  When I got in the door I looked at my trusty Mini 9 and saw that my friends Steve and Dan were just about to start recording, and that it wasn't too late to get in on the action.  So I ran upstairs into my studio with the Mini and set up my gear really quickly, fired up Skype, and had some fun chatting with those guys for more than an hour.

The podcast is called The Open Source Musician Podcast, and the show will be released soon.  I'll update you the moment the show is released. 

We talked about mixing, recording, and more.  I hope to do some more podcasting with them in the future.  I didn't realize just how much I had missed podcasting with John on BV, until last night.

I have been sad for a few days now, and here's why:

I have been following @lancearmstrong on Twitter from the day I signed up for my Twitter account.  Lance is always Tweeting about things in his life, and showing his followers cool photos, and more.  Well one day a few weeks ago, he Tweeted about a guy with a blog that he thought others might like to read.  The blog is called fatcyclist.com.

From what I've read on his site, fatcyclist.com was originally put up by a guy named Elden Nelson to blog about cycling, and his efforts using cycling to lose weight.  At some point, his wife Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the mission of the blog then became telling his, and his wife's cancer story, and helping to raise money for Susan's medical expenses, and for Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation.  He told their story with great passion, stoicism, and yes.... humour.  Occasionally he even found time to go for a bike ride, and talk about that, as well.

By the time I had discovered the site, Susan's cancer was very advanced, and on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009, Susan died.  I didn't know these people at all, but because I have a great passion for cycling as well, and through reading many of Elden's blog posts, I feel like I have come to know them a little.  I can also relate because a few people near and dear to me have had to fight cancer.  I'm sure that's something we can ALL relate to.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out Elden's blog, and encourage you to read some of his posts, and if so moved, to consider donating to his children's education fund, and to his Livestrong Fund Raising Team.

I've been trying to write at least once a week, and even though it's been more than a week since my last entry, I think my average is OK if you measure it from the day I posted the message saying that I would post at least once a week.   :-)

I have not been inspired to write anything at all, because I've been a little down of late.  The summer on the whole has been a bit of a bummer since it has rained so much, and I have not been able to get on the bike as often as I would have liked.

Looks like we might have a few days in a row of decent weather, so I'll have to take advantage of that.

Still looking for (meaningful) work.   :-)