From the book “Death of the Liberal Class,” by Chris Hedges.

In a traditional democracy, the liberal class functions as a safety
valve. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. It offers hope for change and proposes gradual steps toward greater equality. It endows the state and the mechanisms of power with virtue. It also serves as an attack dog that discredits radical social movements, making the liberal class a useful component within the power elite.

But the assault by the corporate state on the democratic state has claimed the liberal class as one of its victims. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And reducing the liberal class to courtiers or mandarins, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, shuts off this safety valve and forces discontent to find other outlets that often end in violence.

The inability of the liberal class to acknowledge that corporations have wrested power from the hands of citizens, that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal liberty have become irrelevant, and that the phrase consent of the governed is meaningless, has left it speaking and acting in ways that no longer correspond to reality. It has lent its voice to hollow acts of political theater, and the pretense that democratic debate and choice continue to exist.

The liberal class refuses to recognize the obvious because it does not want to lose its comfortable and often well-paid perch. Churches and universities—in elite schools such as Princeton, professors can earn $180,000 a year—enjoy tax-exempt status as long as they refrain from overt political critiques. Labor leaders make lavish salaries and are considered junior partners within corporate capitalism as long as they do not speak in the language of class struggle. Politicians, like generals, are loyal to the demands of the corporate state in power and retire to become millionaires as lobbyists or corporate managers. Artists who use their talents to foster the myths and illusions that
bombard our society live comfortably in the Hollywood Hills.

The media, the church, the university, the Democratic Party, the arts, and labor unions—the pillars of the liberal class—have been bought off with corporate money and promises of scraps tossed to them by the narrow circles of power. Journalists, who prize access to the powerful more than they prize truth, report lies and propaganda to propel us into a war in Iraq. Many of these same journalists assured us it was prudent to entrust our life savings to a financial system run by speculators and thieves. Those life savings were gutted. The media, catering to corporate advertisers and sponsors, at the same time renders invisible
whole sections of the population whose misery, poverty, and grievances should be the principal focus of journalism. …more

By Paul Taylor

There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say. (Hannah Arendt – The Crisis in Culture)

As likely to talk about Homer’s Springfield as Ithaca, Žižek offers a fascinating new take on Arendt’s open question. Embodying “the Heineken effect”, he refreshes the parts other thinkers cannot reach at a time when increasingly anaemic universities have begun to act as uncritical subsidiaries of their governmental and corporate sponsors.

The motivation to write Žižek and the Media came from a desire to express exactly why he stands out so forcefully from the conventional commentariat as well as wanting to tackle head-on two frequently voiced objections to his work – the obscene humour and his refusal to provide ready-made solutions for the problems he so readily identifies.

Both po-faced distaste and an instrumentally-minded yearning for immediate answers miss two fundamental points – his jokes are philosophically important and, despite the über-pragmatic nature of our times (or perhaps more so now than ever before), the over-riding purpose of philosophy remains the asking of questions rather than the providing of answers – as Heidegger put it: “questioning is the piety of thought”.

In ancient Greece, the philosopher Diogenes (aka ‘the dog’) shocked the Athenian agora with public acts of defecation and masturbation. Although (so far) Žižek has limited himself to only talking about such acts, he can be viewed as a Diogenes for our online times. The following joke is not one that Žižek has used, but it nevertheless vividly encapsulates the paradoxically serious end of his frequently comic means.

In the middle of a vibrant middle-class dinner party, the host’s old flatulent dog staggers into the dining room, flops down, and promptly begins to enthusiastically and noisily lick its scrotum in full view of the now suddenly quiet guests. To ease the unbearable sense of embarrassment that descends upon the party, a male guest says, ‘I wish I could do that.’ This produces a round of cathartic tittering … that becomes heavy laughter when the hostess adds tartly, ‘If you give him a biscuit, you can.’ …more

DateWednesday, October 6, 2010 at 12:35PM
by Tom Hayden

Anyone interested in domestic spying on peace and justice activists should study carefully the September 2010 report of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, blandly titled “A Review of the FBI’s Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups.”

The 200-page report, while generally sedating in tone, includes important analyses of spying in 2002 on the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburg, the 2003 Miami protests against the Free Trade Zone of the Americas [FTAA], Catholic Worker protests at recruitment offices and military bases, Greenpeace civil disobedience, and animal rights protest activities.

The report poses a dramatic question of “whether the FBI has expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to people who engage in mainstream political activity, including nonviolent protest and civil disobedience.”[1]

The technical classification involves any investigation of a criminal act by an individual “who seeks to further political and/or social goals wholly or in part through activities that involve the use of force or violence and violate federal law.”

Any conspiracy to throw rocks, spray paint an armed forces recruitment center, or trespass on a US military base, could classify as a domestic terrorist offence.

Anyone classified as a “domestic terrorist” is placed on a Terrorist Watch List, for example, in the Violent Gang and Terrorist Offender File [VGTOF], a database used by local police in the course of traffic stops.

The report also notes critically the expanding definitions that automatically trigger pre-emptive action by the FBI against local protests. The FBI’s Manual of Investigative Operations & Guidelines [MIOG, part 1, 300-1[2] defines such a “special event” as one “which, by virtue of its profile and/or status, represents an attractive target for terrorist attack.” Under this rationale, the FBI can open files on individuals “associated with groups known to have previously protested at similar events.”[2]

The FBI mentality seems to have changed little since the Manichean days of Cold War anti-communism. For example, one FBI email, entitled “To report results of Pittsburg anti-war activity,” which was illegal on the face of it, went on to describe the Thomas Merton Center as “a left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacificism [sic].” For the FBI Pittsburg office, this was suspicious stuff. …more

A Permanent Economic Emergency
By SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

During this year’s protests against the Eurozone’s austerity measures—in Greece and, on a smaller scale, Ireland, Italy and Spain—two stories have imposed themselves. The predominant, establishment story proposes a de-politicized naturalization of the crisis: the regulatory measures are presented not as decisions grounded in political choices, but as the imperatives of a neutral financial logic—if we want our economies to stabilize, we simply have to swallow the bitter pill. The other story, that of the protesting workers, students and pensioners, would see the austerity measures as yet another attempt by international financial capital to dismantle the last remainders of the welfare state. The imf thus appears from one perspective as a neutral agent of discipline and order, and from the other as the oppressive agent of global capital.

There is a moment of truth in both perspectives. One cannot miss the superego dimension in the way the imf treats its client states—while scolding and punishing them for unpaid debts, it simultaneously offers them new loans, which everyone knows they will not be able to return, thus drawing them deeper into the vicious cycle of debt generating more debt. On the other hand, the reason this superego strategy works is that the borrowing state, fully aware that it will never really have to repay the full amount of the debt, hopes to profit from it in the last instance.

Yet while each story contains a grain of truth, both are fundamentally false. The European establishment’s story obfuscates the fact that the huge deficits have been run up as a result of massive financial sector bail-outs, as well as by falling government revenues during the recession; the big loan to Athens will be used to repay Greek debt to the great French and German banks. The true aim of the eu guarantees is to help private banks since, if any of the Eurozone states goes bankrupt, they will be heavily hit. On the other hand, the protesters’ story bears witness yet again to the misery of today’s left: there is no positive programmatic content to its demands, just a generalized refusal to compromise the existing welfare state. The utopia here is not a radical change of the system, but the idea that one can maintain a welfare state within the system. Here, again, one should not miss the grain of truth in the countervailing argument: if we remain within the confines of the global capitalist system, then measures to wring further sums from workers, students and pensioners are, effectively, necessary.

One often hears that the true message of the Eurozone crisis is that not only the Euro, but the project of the united Europe itself is dead. But before endorsing this general statement, one should add a Leninist twist to it: Europe is dead—ok, but which Europe? The answer is: the post-political Europe of accommodation to the world market, the Europe which was repeatedly rejected at referendums, the Brussels technocratic-expert Europe. The Europe that presents itself as standing for cold European reason against Greek passion and corruption, for mathematics against pathetics. But, utopian as it may appear, the space is still open for another Europe: a re-politicized Europe, founded on a shared emancipatory project; the Europe that gave birth to ancient Greek democracy, to the French and October Revolutions. This is why one should avoid the temptation to react to the ongoing financial crisis with a retreat to fully sovereign nation-states, easy prey for free-floating international capital, which can play one state against the other. More than ever, the reply to every crisis should be more internationalist and universalist than the universality of global capital. …more

…somewhere, somehow, I keep hoping the suffering and the angst will bring it all around… …in the meantime the planet is burning down and humanity seems bent on stoking the flames. I keep up the good fight though it makes me feel trapped at times. Rage on, rage on toward the good fight. Peace compels me, rage don’t let me rest.

I’m frequently admonished by good friends who occasionally seem to think I’m ready to jump the cliff or that I am bordering on depression driven delusion, when it comes to the planets ecology, economies and wars around the globe. I’ve even been given instruction that would have me find news to share about things that are “good” in the world as a means to right my seemingly dark musings. I’m need to “balance” my perspective I’m told. I’m just a die hard activist and fascinated observer of the world, who watches and studies matters of state security, analyzes legislation before governments, follows movement toward peace and justice and any effort to save the environment and all the conflict that ensues. All of this so I can help, in some small way, shape government and participate in community groups with other friends and activists do the same.

I’m a happy person. I try to be a realist not an alarmist, but in these times it might be hard to discern the difference. I don’t depress easily. I like to think I have the courage to confront the truth about myself and events or situations in the world, even though they might be bothersome and uncomfortable. I believe it is important to get news and opinion out to friends and colleagues that lies beyond the coverage of Main Stream Media. Which is complicit with oppressive governments and corporations that rape and kill to preserve their wealth. So what comes next is scary stuff but I think people should be made aware of things that are not being said about the daily disaster in the gulf.

There has been a lot of ominous talk about “worst case scenarios” as a result of the oil spill. The extent of the disaster, while important, really makes little difference at this point. We have a catastrophic event on our hands that will kill a significant part our planet. some of it immediately and some of it over and extended period of time. We are living the worst case scenario, aside from the need for planning there is little value in entertaining the “worse of the worst case scenarios” unless you want to bum yourself out even further. We have already crossed a threshold of disaster from which recovery is impossible. The scale and dimensions of this catastrophe are unknown and may never be fully known in our life time or even in generations to come. Next to Global Climate Change this is probably one of the greatest catastrophes of human time and the catastrophe grows with each passing hour.

It is raining oil and dispersant, toxic rain, in the gulf coast region (see video here). It was expected. This rainfall comes with non-hurricane conditions and there will be hurricanes before the DH (Deep Horizon) spill is stopped or cleaned up. The oil and dispersant will carry in the atmosphere through-out the eastern part of the US and likely to travel as far North as Canada. This will occur over and again until the leak is stopped and oil is cleaned up as much as possible. The micro and macro habitats, from farm crops, livestock and flora and fauna, even the microbes in the soil will be effected. Crop and livestock kill and total environmental destruction will happen. In some places it won’t kill everything, but the various levels of contamination of crops and the soil and fresh water supplies will also occur. There is and will continue to be destruction throughout the entire food chain and micro and macro habitats for a very long time.

Safe food with respect to atmospheric petroleum contamination is largely undefined since no one has every had this problem before. What is not sorted out is the “allowable” level of petroleum based carcinogens that will now enter the food chain. There will be new epidemics of cancers, birth defects and other disease related to petroleum contamination and there will be outright death, there already is… Watch closely as big oil and big agriculture and our government try to change, protect or prevent the establishment of allowable levels of toxins in the soil and food.

The oil is moving closer by the hour to the gulf stream and the Atlantic fisheries. Between the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream the pollution will kill more than half of all the sea food produced in the USA. Some predict arrival of oil in the gulf stream (Atlantic) by late summer or early fall. BP and our Congress are all responsible for this disaster, through their greed, slothfulness and betrayal of the trust of the American people. They are both to blame.

The disaster was not caused by you and I because we consume petroleum products as some mentally ill people suggest. It was caused by the greed of the wealthy and irresponsible governance. We had an expectation that our government and corporations were in a position to keep this kind of thing from happening and they were legally and morally obliged to do so. The disaster is an act of negligence by BP and the USG.

BP can’t see financial ruin. It is too big to fail. At this point the US and UK will do what is necessary to keep BP “healthy”. BP is the world fourth largest Corporation. The top five World Corporations are: Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon, Wal-mart, BP and Chevron. So it is plain to see that an oil disaster has significant National Security and economic ramifications. The global economics are so fragile that the BP disaster maybe be all it takes to collapse the entire Western Economic base. Indeed it maybe impossible to prevent further economic collapse and it is likely the reason President Obama has not declared a National Emergency. Our economy hangs on a thread and declaration of a Nation Emergency might further ruin the wealth of the wealthiest, those who brought you this disaster.

The impact to fisheries and estuaries are already cataclysmic and will get much worse as th oil moves up the Atlantic and into the fisheries of the East Coast. Some projections have impacts felt in Scotland and Ireland, even world wide. Many of the most optimistic projections do not show the situation being stabilized before next spring. The Russian Interior Ministry reports sever impacts to North America, even massive uninhabitable dead zones. (see report here). This disaster make the Russia’s Chernobyl disaster (see Chernobyl) a minor catastrophe in comparison.

As the situation continues, regional power generation and supply chains that depend on the Mississippi are in jeopardy. Water that is used to cool nuclear reactors that produce electricity may cause the reactors be shutdown periodically as the oil migrates up the Mississippi. Fuel off-loading depots that supply half of the regions fuel are under threat. Fresh water supplies are being trashed and will be trashed in an ever widening death zone.

This is one of the greatest disasters in human history and President Obama seems a “deer caught in the headlights”. He has not declared a National Emergency and has not taken charge of the situation. Rather he has opted to appear as a BP poster child, eating seafood on a cleaned up beach. Sheer fucking madness. Obama has done little to inform the people of the United States of the breath of the disaster and it’s remedies. In fact the USG seem complicit with BP at confusing people about the truth of the disaster. The cost of the disaster will ultimately be paid for by the consumers and tax payers at a cost so great that it will probably never be known. The misdirection is a ruse to protect a global economy already hanging by a thread.

There will be international claims as nations in the gulf are affected by BP’s and the USG’s negligence. Political hostilities and opportunism will increase toward the US as the oil spill effect those states. The environmental crisis created by the oil spill will exacerbate the continued financial crisis and will cause domestic uprising.

This event is a life changer for everyone one in the United States and beyond. Those hardest hit will be the gulf states and those on the east coast where oil and dispersant come ashore. People should be prepared for impacts through out the US including population displacement, food shortages, supply chain interruption and power and fuel shortages. Now is the time to make plans to help those you know in the gulf region.
Save yourself don’t count of the USG or BP to do a fucking thing.

gulf morning
sunrise silent sheen
moves upon the open shore
death’s deliverance
unfathomable reach
above and below
ever widening swath
fruit of our greed.

estuaries stolen in the twilight
life’s birth place soon long forgotten
lost on a consumptive binge
life’s negation
unbridled wealth.

creatures of life’s origin
choke on shame we do not feel
our labor lost
a simple consequence
traded on un-reckoned tragedy
feast upon it’s gifts.

salvation’s new estuary
gives birth in the depths
beneath the ocean floor
hand that feeds the mouth
kills our spirit with the new tide
high-tide of empire’s state.

currency all around
today we drink
we will live life’s desperation
no harm intended
rejoice in the pennies
a salute to our decline
celebrate our lost soul.

today we weep
lament the generations lost
once life giving sanctuary
ghost now of yesterday
it will never be okay
just forgotten
in whispers
that sometimes pain.

In light of the recent racist action disguised as action on immigration please consider boycotting US Airways and Southwest Air. Both Airlines operate out of the Phoenix, Sky Harbor Airport. Additionally I encourage anyone traveling by air on any airline to plan their flights so they do not stop over in Arizona.

All of you sports fans might consider boycotting sporting events at all levels by turning the TV to another program or by not attending an event.

An Open Letter from Scientists in the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Errors Contained in the Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007

[Note: Over 250 scientists have already signed this open letter and signatures are still being collected. For a full list of signers please visit this page. On March 13, 2010, the letter was sent to federal agencies. The vast majority of the signers are climate change scientists who work at leading U.S. universities and institutions. They include both IPCC and non-IPCC authors. Additional signers include professionals from related disciplines, including physical, biological and social scientists. If you are a scientist wishing to sign the letter, please fill out the form on the this page. If you have any questions, please contact the letter’s authors, contact information is below.]

***********************************************

Many in the popular press and other media, as well as some in the halls of Congress, are seizing on a few errors that have been found in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in an attempt to discredit the entire report. None of the handful of mis-statements (out of hundreds and hundreds of unchallenged statements) remotely undermines the conclusion that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Despite its excellent performance for accurately reporting the state-of-the-science, we certainly acknowledge that the IPCC should become more forthcoming in openly acknowledging errors in a timely fashion, and continuing to improve its assessment procedures to further lower the already very low rate of error. ….more

Emergency Conference on the Social Crisis & War
The Fight for a Socialist Alternative
23 February 2010

The World Socialist Web Site, Socialist Equality Party and International Students for Social Equality are holding an emergency national conference on the social crisis and war, to be held April 17-18 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We urge all of our readers and supporters to register and make plans to attend today.

A year and a half after the onset of the world economic crisis, any prospect for a peaceful restoration of capitalist equilibrium has been shattered.

The world economy and all official political institutions are dominated by a tiny layer of the population, determined to resolve the crisis in a way that guarantees its interests. The measures taken by the capitalist class, however, have only created new sources of crisis while intensifying class antagonisms in every country. …more

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Barack Obama and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate were swept into office on a promise they would deliver affordable and accessible health care for all Americans. But the corporate media journalism limits the national health care conversation to what insurance companies, drug companies, for-profit health care professionals, their executives, lobbyists and politicians of both parties and other hirelings have to say. So it isn’t as easy as it ought to be to tell what the politicians are doing about accomplishing health care for everybody. Hence we offer these ten points. This is how you can tell whether your president and his party are fighting for the health care you deserve. more…

The US Press is pretending to go “bonkers” over the Bush mid-east/cuba torture machine, yet again… What bugs the hell out of me are the disingenuous liberals, who maintain the pretense that the Bush administration has done something new and surprising with torture. Perhaps the only new thing Bush did was the “in your face”, overt, arrogant, blatant and stupid disregard for the law. Previous administrations have usually tried to keep their blemishes and misconduct in such matters well out of sight. Liberals do not seem to mind when this shit goes down on their watch, as long as it’s kept in the dark or is directed by CIA trained hands of a third party.
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On 11-Sep.2001 the US government identified the nineteen people on-board the planes used to fell the World Trade Towers and destroy a section of the pentagon. In the days and weeks to follow, with great precision, the US government had identified and frozen assets and made arrests around the globe of people involved in the finance of “terror” and since that date they have methodically pursued finance and communication networks used by would be foes of the USA. Prison Camps and Extraordinary Rendition are being used as a key component in battling these threats to national security.
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The Domestic Automotive Industry wants a bail-out loan to the tune of $34 billion dollars and this will likely be the begining of the hand-out.  Congress voted a $700 billion bail-out package, not a loan, including many billions of “sweeteners” used to leverage it’s successful passing through the Congress while thier constituents said “hell no”!. The Federal Reserve has already given away that much in other aid to the financial industry and there is no end in sight. I opposed the bail-out and continue to oppose it. It will go down as one of the great looting of America. 
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The looting will not stop until the Citizens of the United States lay siege to our own Government, which has been hijacked by the Corporations and Corrupt Elected Officials. 

Aside from President George W. Bush here are some the top conspirators in the looting of the US Treasury using the “bail-out” as a front.   The bribes paid to them are in the form of Campaign Contributions shown below.   

Obama Sen. D-IL 2007-2008 Contributions $16,369,460
Top 5 Single Largest Contributors
Goldman Sachs $748,880
University of California $625,911
JPMorgan Chase & Co $493,469
Harvard University $473,669
Citigroup Inc $467,849

Overall, Securities & Investment was Obama’s 3rd Largest Contributor

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Here we go again running headlong into disaster.   The Bush administration’s Modus Operandi  has become predictable and obvious when it comes to fabricating a disaster to rally the idiots in Congress and their clueless Lemming Constituents.   How is it that just as we approach election day a crisis that has been brewing for years pops up on the screen as being the worst financial crisis in the USA since the Great Depression and requires immediate attention.    A crisis in which we are being warned that  “we must act now or there might be disastrous consequences for the economy”.   Sound familiar, “we must act now to stop weapons of mass destruction”.  History may well prove the greatest Weapon of Mass Destruction ever unleashed on the world was the Bush Administration. [Read more →]

Many of us have been anxiously watching as domestic and global Investment Banking Systems melt down faster than Ice Sheets in the Arctic. Over past year and recent days, I have listened to experts, analysts and opinion makers, predict and scale this monumental disaster.  Sad to say I know little more than I did before the banks choked on the bad debt they created by conspiring with borrowers who thought they cold get something for nothing.   There is never and never will be something for nothing. 

The borrowers are not victims of predatory lending, that’s bullshit, they are co-conspirators in theft from the rest of us.  The victims are those who trusted in a flawed and hopelessly corrupt system of lending, in which they are innocent of greedy choices the bankers and borrowers have made.   [Read more →]

The Republican rise to media dominance following the announcement of Governor Palin as their pick for VP, has been frustrating as hell and I’m a bit concerned about Obama’s losses according to the Polls.  It seems there is a seriously deranged segment of the population that would rather identify with a Vice Presidential Candidate and “Good Mom-Religious Whack Case”, than an articulate Presidential Candidate and modestly accomplished “Black Activist-Senator”.  

I suspect those who bounced the polls are basically the “Women for Hillary”.     I do think there is a deep rooted fear of black people amongst a large number of White Women Voters in this country. Former VP Candidate Clinton did a through job of exploiting this sentiment through the Reverend Wright episodes.    [Read more →]

(Excerpt from Chapter II, The Art of War – written 298 BC)

1. Sun Tzu said:  In the operations of war,
    where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots,
    as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand
    mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them
    a thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front,
    including entertainment of guests, small items such as
    glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor,
    will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day.
    Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.

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God Damn America indeed! Obviously “Americans”, or at least those who are afraid of black people, don’t know how to listen to a cross-cultural distress call. The vast majority of the American people are too ignorant, by choice, too blind, too deaf and too politically correct to listen to what the Honorable Reverend Wright was saying in his inflammatory pulpit rave. The US federal prisons  from 1995 to 2003, had a 49% growth in inmates for drug offenses.  A justice department report from 2006 shows that males incarcerated in the 25-29 age group were, 8.1 percent Black men – about one in 13 – compared with 2.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.1 percent of White men. Black women were more than twice as likely as Hispanic women and more than three times as likely as White women to be in prison at the end of 2005.

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On 15-Mar.08 I planned to paddle from “the beach” at Lake Carlsbad NM to “the flume”.  The lake was drained in January to allow city workers and residents to repair their docking facilities.   I arrived about 10:45am with winds out of the southwest at 3-4 mph.  The river was refilled as promised and the water was cold but would probably not cold enough to cause “shock”.  [Read more →]

To, The PGA Leadership, PGA Sponsors and Mr. John Henry Isenhours Sponsors,

The December killing of a Red-shouldered Hawk in Florida by John Henry Isenhour III is a deplorable and senseless act and must not be passively tolerated by the PGA or it’s Sponsors. I am a tour fan, golfer and at times a political activist. I have spent much of my life in a volunteer capacity working for the protection and recovery of injured Birds of Prey.

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After a break from Kayaking over the coldest part of the season I decide to go paddle at the Carlsbad Municipal Lake.  Upon arrival it was obvious that they didn’t make their March 1st commitment to refill the lake.  The lake was drained in January to allow the city and residents who live on the banks of the lake to maintain docks, retaining walls and other infrastructure.  The lake should be full on 08-Mar.

Lake Carlsbad is about 128 Acres and spans nearly three miles from the Upper Tansil Dam (South) and  the Flume (North).  It’s fed by fresh water springs which originate near the Flume and the Pecos River.   The lake has blue gill, bass, carp, catfish and is stocked with trout in the colder parts of the year.  There is a no wake lake that spans about 1.5 miles from Upper Tansil Dam (North) and Lower Tansil Dam (South). 

Since the water was low in Carlsbad Lake I decided to paddle the Lower Tansil Lake instead.  Though it was not quite as long as Carlsbad Lake it is still a great paddle.  There were a lot of people fishing from the banks on on this 70 degree day in early March.   The usual Coots, domestic geese, gulls and mallards and one yet to be identified red crested duck of some type, perhaps a merganser but I will have to verify this next time I’m on the lake.  There were dozens of snapping trutles sunning on the bottom of the Upper Tansil Damn which usually has water on it from the overflow from Lake Carlsbad.  The fishing was good for trout.  Apparently the Game and Fish also stock large catfish in the Lower Tansil Lake. 

Great day for paddling….